Going Up? Why Elevator Pitches are a Brand Essential

giphyelf

Erica Schlesinger, Communications Strategist

We’ve all been there – grasping for the right words when someone says, “tell me about your business.” Worrying about sounding unique, professional, cool, innovative and established in one fell swoop can seem like a daunting task. The good news? It doesn’t have to be.

This, friends, is why we – individual professionals and brands alike – need to master the art of the elevator pitch. This statement, so named because it can ideally be uttered in the length of an average elevator ride, provides a simple and standardized way to communicate your brand’s perspective, values and accolades to networking connections, potential clients and investors… you name it.

Here at (W)right On, we have our own agency elevator pitch, which we all use quite a bit:

(W)right On Communications is a full-spectrum communications agency, with capabilities in PR, branding, design, development, content marketing and more. We work with an array of local and national client partners in industries including hospitality, healthcare, nonprofit, land development, technology, energy and professional services on projects ranging from media relations and social media to video production and Web design. As an agency, we excel at helping interesting people doing interesting things share their expertise with the world.

Of course, this isn’t a script – we each add our own flair and flavor to make it authentic. But the message remains the same. We tell our client partners, particularly those who engage with the public a lot, that having a solid elevator pitch is a key component of a solid brand.

It’s like a logo or a website – your calling card and first impression to the business world. And everyone likes to make a good first impression, right?

An elevator pitch can really follow the five Ws of journalism – who, what, when, where and why. You need to translate who you are, what you specialize in, who you work with and your core ethos or mission effectively and concisely.

WOC’s communicators are always game to drum up a new elevator pitch. However, if you’re a DIY kind of person, take a look at some pointers from other business-savvy folks via Business News Daily.

 

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5 Tips to Design for the Web

web design

By Keely Smith, Design & Multimedia Specialist

In an age of information overload, it’s vital to communicate visually and effectively. Presenting information on the Internet in a way that is easily digestible for any viewer can be a challenge, but here are five tips that will make any Web designer’s life a little bit easier:

  1. Create intuitive navigation

Navigation is a crucial element for keeping people on your site, and a viewer should be able to locate key information within the first 10 seconds.

Primary navigation is typically displayed horizontally toward the top of the page, while secondary navigation is often included in dropdown menus for subsequent pages. Pay attention to the titles – it should be clear to a visitor what they will see when navigating to another page.

  1.  De-clutter

Iorganizet’s very easy to be overloaded with images, a danger for anyone trying to communicate visually. When confronted with too many images on a website (graphics, photos, slideshows, animated gifs, bright buttons), it is overwhelming for anyone visiting.

Our brains stop processing information when presented with too many options. Simplify and consolidate your information. It will pay off!

  1. Use white space

I often come across sites that are jam-packed with information, making it difficult to navigate and find what I’m looking for.

Don’t be afraid of white space. The entire page doesn’t need to be loaded with graphics, pictures, buttons and calls-to-action. Having white space will help create hierarchy within a webpage. Allow your design to breathe! See examples here.

  1. Be intentional with color

nature paletteColor is a major player in the overall aesthetic of a website. It’s important to ask what colors are appropriate, consistent and complementary to your brand. Subdued color palletes, like those often seen on corporate sites, tend to render a clean and modern appearance, while personal portfolios or small business sites allow more freedom to experiment with brighter colors.

Remember that color can attract or defer viewers from certain information, so use it intentionally. Having a hard time picking a color pallete? Use photographs of nature to sample colors in Photoshop or resources like Adobe Kuler to find inspiration or download color themes.

  1. Pay attention to detail

Although elements such as rollover functionalities should be one of the finishing touches when designing a website, they should not be forgotten. Hover effects like change in color, text, dimming and highlighting are effective ways to add some interest to the overall functionality of your site. Visitors will be prompted to click on additional pages, keeping them on your site longer.

Designing websites is a complex process that requires experience and fundamental Web knowledge. If you’re new to the practice it may be frustrating at first, yet the end product is always rewarding!

If designing for the web sounds too technical, let us know. Our graphic designers are happy to work with you to produce a site you love.

 

Take a look at our related blog posts:

5 Signs Your Brand Needs a Refresh

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The Never-Ending Question: What is PR?

PR

By Julie Wright, President

Sometimes I wish I were a doctor, police officer or bartender so that when asked what I do for a living, my answer wouldn’t produce that awkward pause followed by, “So what is PR exactly?”

A LinkedIn poll found PR Manager to be the seventh most misunderstood position in the workforce. (Fun fact: The poll asked parents to explain what their son or daughter does for a living, and 42 percent of respondents said they couldn’t accurately describe the PR profession. I’m not sure my parents really know what I do, either).

Unexpected NumbersApparently, public relations is a tough concept for many people to grasp. In a way, it falls in the grey area of other practices, such as marketing, advertising and journalism.

Sometimes our tasks overlap and we may take care of a brand’s marketing. Many PR practitioners have writing abilities on par with the best journalists. Yet public relations has its own arena and should not be lumped together with other professions.

For the hundreds of people that are bound to ask you, “PR? What’s that?,” PRSSA developed this crowdsourced definition:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

For a more down-to-earth explanation, you might just say:

“I achieve media coverage for our client partners as well as maintain relationships for them.”

Similar to a marketing professional, we want to improve our clients’ images, yet PR has an entirely different approach. We invest our time in the relationships that make a difference and use these to best help the brand. In helping earn our clients media coverage, we create awareness and hopefully interest from potential customers, donors, investors and others. We’re able to preserve and heighten our clients’ reputations by communicating where their target audiences are.

Sometimes our goals are the same as an advertising campaign’s, but rather than paying to put our clients’ messages out, we earn people’s attention by being exciting, fresh, unique or relevant to their interests.

Sometimes our goals are the opposite of an ad campaign and we’re helping our clients manage unwanted attention. When things go wrong, contrary to popular belief and pulp fiction, we don’t cover things up, but instead attempt to explain the issue in a transparent and ethical way.

Today, we’re not just earning attention and managing reputations through media exposure and special events, but through clever, strategic social media and content creation programs.

Although PR is a very misunderstood profession, it’s an essential part of business for brands to survive and thrive.

 

Check out our related posts below:

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Best Practices for Tech Startup PR

By Molly Borchers, Sr. Communications Strategist

Since the start of 2009, venture capital firms have deployed more than $31.5 billion across 3,308 deals into Silicon Valley-based tech startups. Here in San Diego, VCs invested more than $270 million in the first quarter of 2015 alone.

Startups are innovating at a fever pitch, but with so many new companies hitting the market, getting noticed can be a challenge. It’s hard to compete with the next Uber. There’s a lot of noise out there and attention spans are short. Also, journalists are increasingly being bombarded with pitches, making it hard to sort out the substance from the fluff.

That’s exactly why tech startups need good PR.megaphone

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or genius programmer) to know that positive media coverage can introduce your company to new customers. But it also enhances your credibility, making investors more confident in the promise of your product or service.

That’s why at (W)right On, we always advise tech startups to invest in PR before anything else. But many times, especially with new, early stage tech startups, there isn’t an outlined budget for marketing. Or, the startup founders are too busy to dedicate the time and resources toward a successful PR program.

You don’t have to be as grandiose as Steve Jobs and captivate the world at MacWorld to get media coverage, but a successful launch or program does require creativity. Here are a few best practices that we’ve learned over the years for getting PR for your startup:

A splashy launch is worth its weight in gold:launch

Your product is out of beta, the bugs are worked out, and you’ve nailed your messaging, value proposition and competitive differentiation. Now it’s time to let the world know you exist! The old adage, “if you build it, they will come” no longer applies. No offense to Kevin Costner and “Field of Dreams,” but it just doesn’t work that way anymore.

We recommend that tech startups hire a PR firm to develop a killer launch strategy to get in the media and in front of customers. Yes, it is an investment, but it’s one that will pay for itself if done correctly.

Depending on the startup and their customers, we’ve done everything from influencer targeting, giveaways, press conferences (in-person and digital), launch parties, desksides (one-on-one meetings with journalists) and more.

It takes creativity to get noticed:

Say you’ve already launched. Maybe the company has been around for a year or more. Things are going well, but you could stand to get more buzz. The most important thing we tell our clients is that an old product won’t continue to get press unless the company does something creative to earn it. Tech journalists tend to cover:

  • Company launches
  • New products/product launches
  • Data/trends/statistics
  • Helpful infographics
  • Important partnerships
  • Case studies
  • News coming from top companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.

If you don’t have any “news,” case studies or product launches in the queue, then you’re going to need to get creative to get attention. Often for clients who have this dilemma, we’ll develop a thought leadership campaign where we’ll draft a series of topical articles and shop them to various magazines and blogs in the target market. Or, we’ll design an infographic, develop a creative stunt or commission a survey to earn media attention.

Form relationships with media contacts:

Your PR firm has scored you a media interview. At first you think, “awesome, this is going to be great!” Then, the next thought might be, “oh sh*t, I hope I don’t screw this up.”

First, we always encourage that our tech startup spokespeople get media training if they’re not already experienced in that area. This gives said spokespeople the confidence to know they are not going to look like a complete wanker to the journalist.

Next, remember that every media interview is an opportunity to form a relationship with someone new. You’re not simply adding that journalist to your Rolodex, but potentially meeting someone who could become an advocate for your company. When you form genuine relationships with the media, they will often look to you as a source for stories (yay, more press!) and perhaps they’ll be more benevolent (within the limits of their job) if crisis strikes.

So keep in touch with the journalist. Comment on their articles. Follow and RT them on Twitter. Send them articles you think they might want to read, or email feedback about the things they write themselves. Be open and transparent (not defensive) during the interview process. Take them out to lunch or drinks with your PR rep on a quarterly basis to learn more about what they’re working on.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but we’ve seen firsthand how good PR can help tech startups standout from the competition, get in front of new customers and impress investors.

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments!

How Infographics Work and Why Your Brand Needs to Use Them More

increase in visualsBy Chance Shay, Communications Strategist

In 2015 it’s impossible to browse a news site, scroll through your social media stream or learn about an innovative product without coming across an infographic and there’s good reason for that.

Humans are consuming more information than ever before. In fact, in 2008 Americans consumed about 1.3 trillion hours of information outside of work. This works out to an average of nearly 12 hours per person per day, which means most American’s are constantly consuming information other than when they sleep.

With so much information coming at a person each day, how does a brand communicate in a way that gives itself the best chance at having its information capture the attention of current and prospective customers?

Visually.

In addition to allowing information to be consumed easier, infographics lend themselves perfectly to the modern culture of social sharing. The cool designs, fun visuals and interesting kernels of data make infographics the perfect content to share with Twitter followers, muse about on YouTube channel,s up-vote on Reddit or even write a blog about (this blog about infographics being good for blogs = blogception).

But enough words, we’ll let the visuals do the talking. The good folks at NeoMam Studios put together an awesome interactive infographic webpage (we LOVE HTML5 too!) illustrating thirteen reasons why your brain craves infographics. Some of those images are below, but visit their webpage for the full list.

And remember the golden rule: if you can communicate your message visually, do it.

visually wired

information overload

visually persuasive

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Solution-Based Web Tools For Every PR Pro

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Solution-Based Web Tools For Every PR Pro

tools

By Shae Geary, Sr. Communications Strategist

It’s always a thrill to learn about a website that can help make your job easier. So, in today’s post, we’ve decided to share three favorite sites that are great tools for anyone striving to be a savvy communicator in the digital age.

Whether you have a dedicated PR role or simply find that communications is just one part of your daily activities, these sites are worth checking out – and maybe including in your “favorites” bar too.

Web2PDF

If you strive to maintain a paperless office, you’ll love Web2PDF. This site allows users to convert web pages to PDF files that can be electronically stored for future reference. At WOC, we have found this handy for everything from documenting online media “hits” (published articles or posts) to maintaining files on industry trends.

Web2PDF also allows us some peace of mind, since there is nothing more frustrating than trying to access information via a link that has suddenly become inactive or only available to certain subscribers! Users can convert up to 30 links a month for free, and it’s as easy as copying the web link and clicking a button.

www.web2pdfconvert.com

Constant Contact

Whether creating a newsletter, invitation, press release or other e-communication, Constant Contact is a robust tool for producing visually impactful emails that can be shared with a large number of people at the same time.

The program offers hundreds of design templates that are mobile-friendly and customizable with logos, photos and even color schemes. Contact lists can be imported and segmented in the program, giving users full control over who gets the email and when.

On the back end, Constant Contact also provides a reporting feature that shares important information such as how many contacts opened the email, email address bounces and other useful statistics for follow-up, database management and future outreach.

www.constantcontact.com.

Grammar Girl

Cogrammarnfused about how many spaces to use after a colon, when to use “i.e.” versus “e.g.” or the difference between “affect” and “effect”? Grammar Girl can set you straight.

Billed as “a friendly guide to grammar, punctuation, usage and fun developments in the English language,” this site is a great resource for those pesky questions and making sure that your communications are always properly polished.

www.quickandirtytips.com/grammar-girl

 

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An Ode to AP Style

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