HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE The PR Workflow Step 3

Transcription

1 HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE The PR Workflow Step 3

2 Focus on Your Alpha Audiences and Grow From There The best PR outreach starts with knowing your audience. After all, it doesn t matter how well written your pitch or how innovative your content is if it s irrelevant to the recipient. Understanding who makes up your audience is the first step to building and growing relationships to become a go-to resource and trusted content provider. Here s a guide to help you: Identify your most valuable PR audiences. Discover opportunities to grow your audience. Cultivate relationships. Engage your audience. Build an owned audience. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 2

3 Audit your Audience Before you look for new PR audiences, explore the ones you have. Dig into your database, digital newsroom and social media channels to learn who s interested in your communication and what they do with the information once you send, post or share it. 1. Categorize by type In the past, PR professionals focused on a single audience the journalists and editors who cover their company, industry or location, and the goal was to reach their readers, viewers or listeners. Today s digital world has expanded PR opportunities to encompass non-traditional media who influence people that are just as, if not more, valuable to your company. Group your database, media subscription list and digital newsroom contacts into these three primary audience groups: Media Contacts in the media category include journalists, freelancers and assigning editors at print, digital or broadcast media. Influencers They are subject-matter experts or highly regarded sources for quality information. They act as the gatekeepers to access their sought-after audiences. They are also likely to be brand agnostic, preferring to deliver what s best for their audience, not necessarily what s most helpful for your company. Influencers might have their own blog, social channels and be quoted in other media. Brand champions They are customers, employees, investors and board members who want to communicate about your company, products, services, etc. They publish content on their social channels or blogs for friends and colleagues to see. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 3

4 2. Identify Your Alpha Audiences Evaluate the members of each audience to learn which contacts are most valuable to your PR strategy. The Content Code author Mark Schaeffer refers to this select group as the Alpha Audience. As he explains on his blog, People who share our content the most are our passionate advocates. They are our most profitable customers and drive more sales through recommendations than any other customer group. This Alpha Audience is the heartbeat of our business. Expand Schaeffer s view of a customer-focused Alpha Audience to media, influencers and brand champions. Collect data to first focus on building and nurturing relationships with the most influential members of each category. These people are more likely to lead you to the tipping point, which Malcolm Gladwell describes as that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire. To identify the most useful audience members: Document the open and click-through rates for each contact. Someone who opens your is an attractive audience member. Someone who takes action is even better. Dive into your web analytics to track the path taken by a contact who clicks on your content. Use your online monitoring results to match mentions of your company, its representatives and its products to the responsible contacts in your database. Review influencer mentions in your industrymonitoring results against the influencers in your database. See who in your database comments, shares and likes your social media posts. Identify the contacts who subscribe to your newsletter, RSS feed, etc. Review each contact s Klout Score, a calculation of their online social influence. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 4

5 3. Discover Who s Missing Review your audience audit to find opportunities to grow your audience. Use it to: Scrutinize audience members who indicate some interest in your news but haven t taken any action. Detect gaps in your audience that need to be expanded to execute your PR strategy. Whether you are focusing on your Alpha Audiences or expanding your audience, the next step is the same nurturing your relationship with the targeted audience members. Key Takeaways Categorize contacts in your existing lists and database into three groups media, influencers, prospective brand champions. Review how these individuals interact with your company to identify your Alpha Audiences. Identify individuals whose relationship with your company is weaker than you want. Think about who isn t in your audience but should be. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 5

6 Cultivate Your Audience By getting to know your audience on a deeper level and interacting with them on a regular basis, you are strengthening your relationship. Not only will your audience be aware of who you are, but they will also come to accept you as a trusted source and eventually act on your information. To learn more about individual audience members: Examine the search engine results for their name. You can also learn about them through face-to-face interactions. Invite them to meet you for coffee, host a small group event or set up a Skype call to find out more about their interests, how their work operates or what they like about interacting on social media, for example. TIP: Even though you might learn a lot about this person s professional and personal life through digital research, stay professional in your correspondence. Review their public profiles and pages on social media. Become a fan of their page and follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Subscribe to their newsletters or RSS feeds. Set up alerts for their names in your online monitoring. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 6

7 Use this newly acquired research to form a more personalized relationship with your audience. Communicate with your audience members as people, not a behemoth media outlet or social platform. Consider: Adding a short personalized note to a massdistribution release. Sending a tailored pitch to indicate you understand what they write about and how they do it. Offering exclusive or embargoed news to high-priority media contacts. Asking influencers for their insight on a topic to incorporate into a blog post. when you want them to do something that benefits your brand. Promote and share their content even when it s not about your company on your blog or social media channels. Your curation and sharing efforts will go far in developing your relationship, and it makes good marketing sense. (Some experts suggest brands should be curating or sharing others content 70 percent of the time and only using their content 30 percent of the time.) TIP: Respect the ethical guidelines your audience operates under. For example, most media decline free products or services to avoid the pay-to-play perception. Many brand champions and influencers disclose their relationship with you to promote full transparency in their content. Key Takeaways Learn more about individual audience members by searching online, reviewing social media profiles, subscribing to their content, etc. Create personal, custom communication to individuals, such as tailored pitches for media contacts, requests for influencer insight for your blog or an invitation-only offer for brand champions. Invite your brand champions to sample a new product and discuss their experiences on social. One caveat don t always interact with your PR audiences HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 7

8 Engage Your Audience While relationship building requires a personal touch, it also requires engaging content. Create content that resonates with audiences by addressing common interests, experiences, pain points, etc. Craft content that appeals to their emotions. Ask these questions before sending or sharing any content: Why would the audience care? What s in it for them? Will it make the audience feel mad, sad or glad? If you can t easily answer these questions, stop and craft a more relevant, attention-grabbing story. Consider one or more of these tips: Follow an effective storytelling formula (e.g. hero vs villain, conflict with a resolution). (For more details, read the How to Create and Distribute a Story Handbook.) Identify hot topics or discussions or to find an opportunity to be a trendsetter by reviewing your industry monitoring results. (To learn more about industry monitoring, check out the How to Benefit from Industry Monitoring Handbook.) Make your content interactive quizzes, polls, assessments, calculators, etc. Analyze your metrics to identify previously engaging content that could be recreated or updated. When it comes to engaging your audience, distribute your stories wherever your audience hangs out or expects to see/receive them social media platforms, inboxes, media or industry sites. TIP: Host your content on your website to drive your audiences to your website, but also to help your SEO rankings. As you cultivate and engage with fans, you are leading them down the path to make the ask to obtain their direct contact information. Key Takeaways Always ask why your audience would care about your content. Think about the emotions your content could elicit. Craft a relevant, attention-grabbing story for the target audience. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 8

9 Grow an Owned Audience Mynewsdesk research reveals the average open rate of mass PR s is 27 percent, while subscribed readers open at a 40 percent rate. The spray-and-pray approach to PR outreach works sometimes, but a direct subscriber approach works much better. As you strengthen your relationships with your PR audiences, it will be easier for them to see you as a trusted resource, and subscribe through a call to action (CTA) in your content. Owning your audience also means your PR outreach is less reliant on the whim of changing algorithms on social (shared) media platforms or the impact of renting lists that may not be up to date. While a subscription-based audience is ideal, it s not always possible. That s when you review your channel distribution plan to identify the most valuable opportunities. (For more details, read the How to Create and Distribute a Story Handbook.) Key Takeaways Focus on securing a direct relationship with your audience (i.e. subscribers) so you control what, when and how your audience sees your content. When owning the audience isn t possible, select distribution channels that offer the best opportunities to reach your target audiences. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 9

10 Make Your Audience Strategy Manageable By following the steps above, you will set up a systematic process to identify and grow your high-priority PR audiences, and to cultivate and nurture those relationships in a way that encourages them to become subscribers to your information. As you build the process, add helpful instruments to your toolbox, such as software to identify potential audience members, to facilitate distribution and to track and analyze your audience outreach. Finally, set realistic expectations of your PR audiences that further your overall PR strategy. Establish measurable goals for your most critical elements, from the number of personalized correspondence to the number of subscribers. Revisit them regularly to see how well you re executing, and identify how you should adjust your efforts to maximize your PR audience strategy. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 10

11 Case in Point Trekantområdet Denmark promotes seven municipalities in Denmark linked by a single vision to create an open, green and diverse metropolis where people and business can prosper. Malene Lemann, who handles communication for Trekantområdet, briefly shares how they address their audience strategy. How do you determine what audiences you want to communicate with? Today, people are overloaded with information. Hence, as communicators, we should be careful only to approach people with stuff relevant to them. Otherwise, your next communication is more likely to be considered spam. At Trekantområdet Denmark, we primarily communicate to the press and our different stakeholders internally and externally. Where does your audience fit into the creation process? Before writing a news story, we identify the audience we want to target. That helps us determine the angle of the story. Sometimes we do different angles for local press, national press, and our stakeholders. Given you cover a broad geographic area, how do you handle reaching your different audience? The local and regional press is of great importance to us. We cover seven different municipalities, and there are many local newspapers, each of which only covers a small area within our region. If possible, we try to find different local cases to our story to provide to the local papers making the story more relevant to them. HANDBOOK 3 - HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE MYNEWSDESK 11