5 Habit-forming Podcasts for PR Pros

Podcasts for PR pros

By Julie Wright —President
Twitter: @juliewright

If you’re a communicator today, that means you’re also an information junkie. What choice is there? If you don’t keep an eye on social media algorithm changes, newsroom shuffles and the next big thing, your next campaign could miss its mark.

Podcasts can make it a lot easier for PR professionals to keep up. While you’re driving, commuting or walking the dog, here are five fascinating podcasts for PR pros that you can queue up in your favorite podcast app to stay ahead of the curve or at least keep pace with the shifting media and digital landscape.

1. HowSound: The Backstory to Great Radio Storytelling

Why is HowSound worth a listen for PR pros? Because it’s all about great storytelling, and all great PR campaigns must start with a story worth telling and well told. HowSound digs into the stories that leave you parked in your garage waiting for their conclusion. It also shares the choices radio reporters and podcasters make to more deeply engage the listener. In short, it’s an opportunity to hone your own craft as a storyteller.

Tune in to episodes like “The Value of a Sympathetic Character,” which goes behind the scenes on the popular Heaven’s Gate podcast. Or “Don’t Write. Tell” which explains how a Planet Money reporter made a story on flood insurance memorable.

2. Social Media Marketing Podcast 

Each episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast is a deep dive into a topic related to—you guessed it—social media marketing and explored through host Michael Stelzner’s interviews with experts. The information is always up to the minute and insightful. As a podcast for PR pros, it will help you make the most of the social and digital tools available for your storytelling.  Stelzner, of Social Media Examiner, and his guests are generous with their knowledge. I really enjoyed listening to Sue B. Zimmerman’s interview last month on “Instagram Stories: How Business Can Make the Most of Stories.”

3. How I Communicated That from PRSA

I’ve only listened to the first two episodes of this podcast for PR pros that launched on the PRSA Member app in February, but I have high hopes for it. Its public debut on the PRSA website is expected in April. The first episode featured career advancement insights from a recruiter and the March episode featured a communications leader from the prestigious Cleveland Clinic on the changing role and expectations of her department. April’s episode features a Chipotle executive speaking on reputation management. How I Communicated That promises listeners “real world experiences that help communications professionals hone their skills amidst a rapidly changing environment.”

4. 2Bobs: Conversations on the Art of Creative Entrepreneurship

David C. Baker and Blair Enns are the only voices you’ll hear in the 2Bobs podcast, but for PR and other creative agency principals, CAUTION! 2Bobs can become habit forming. Baker and Enns mine their experiences as agency consultants and conduct incredibly open, frank conversations about the agency business. Take, for instance, this episode titled “How to Drive Your Employees Bat Sh*t Crazy.” (I, of course, have never done that to any of my employees, at least never more than one a week.)

5. Honorable Mentions

I’ve got so many favorite podcasts that my fifth pick is a bit of a cheat because I’ve turned it into a grab bag of favorites that are loosely connected to communications, media and PR specifically. However, here’s my take: as I stated off the top, to be a communicator today means being an information junkie, and that often means a lot of information is competing for your attention in a swipe-left, 280-character world. So, these podcasts are an opportunity to immerse yourself in a topic or a story as opposed to your constant multitasking. Think of these as a meditation or the equivalent of a Sunday Times long read.

Let’s start with Criminal with host Phoebe Judge. It rarely disappoints. The recent episode, “Cold Case,” I found mildly interesting until around the 24th minute at which point I was hooked for the last 10. Check it out if you enjoy a little true crime or mystery. Phoebe’s voice is the crème brulee of podcasting. Listen and you’ll understand.

The podcast Reveal which is a co-production between PRX and the Center for Investigative Reporting is always engrossing. Their episode on Silicon Valley and diversity creatively tackled the subject of gender and race in tech company leadership ranks. They did it by assembling a choir and contrasting a chorus that proportionately represented each gender and demographic. So, you could hear the small number of female voices/CEOs counterpointed against the large male chorus/CEOs or the near solo-sounding voices of African-American singers/CEOs contrasted with growing choruses representing Asian, Hispanic and white singers/CEOs. I suppose you have to hear it to appreciate its genius.

But tune in if just to listen to corporate spokespeople trying their best to cope with uncomfortable questions about issues like diversity, pay equity among female engineers at Google or Tesla’s safety record in its plant.

Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, choices and relationships. It’s always thought-provoking and often applies to the art and science of strategic communications.

I’ll save some of my other favorites for a future blog post. But if you’re not already listening to these podcasts for PR pros, you’re missing out and quite possibly falling behind! Let me know what podcasts you think we’re missing! Shoot me a note on Twitter at @juliewright.

(W)right On Launches “The Strategist”

The Strategist Newsletter

The first quarter of 2018 was a roller-coaster ride for communicators grappling with Facebook’s big changes and PR troubles. We’ve strapped in and are waiting to see where its twists and turns take us next. But, in the meantime, Facebook gave us a timely topic for the first issue of our new publication, The Strategist newsletter.

Get our newsletter to stay in the know

(W)right On Communications launched The Strategist newsletter as a service to clients and friends last week. It’s a bite-sized serving of what’s new, now and next in communications.

Each issue, we tackle a subject of big-time interest to brands and communicators. We share our own professional experiences, links to the best articles from our industry reading and relevant content from our own writings and presentations.

So, we invite you to subscribe to the The Strategist newsletter. You’ll also find the subscription pop-up window here on our website.

Read our inaugural issue

In case you missed it, we’ve provided a link to our first issue here.

In it, we shared a roundup of recommended reading on Facebook. These include:

WOC Strategist newsletter

Our team manages multiple Facebook pages for our clients. And it has been an interesting time. Our experience has shown that Facebook’s changes are beneficial to businesses and nonprofits who have cultivated dedicated local followings. When page managers engage their followers with “throwbacks,” heartfelt content and smart boosting and targeting, Facebook is an incredibly productive platform.

We would love to hear your feedback

Please drop us a line. Let us know what kind of content you’d like to see tackled in a future issue of The Strategist.  Send your requests to editor@wrightoncomm.com. We’d love to hear from you!

What Do Facebook’s Changes Mean for Businesses in 2018

Facebook changes featured image

 

By Julie Wright —President
Twitter: @juliewright

If you’re like most communicators, you engaged in some kind of 2018 planning and goal setting. And you probably worked with your social media team on measurable objectives for each platform, including Facebook, but then, on January 11, Facebook’s changes came down with a massive thud.

The social network announced it was changing the game. And, bam! You realized you needed to change your game too.

 “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

– Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

Not that organic reach for brands on Facebook hadn’t already fallen by half over the past three to four years. Smart and strategic communicators could still find ways to continue to drive engagement and ensure that, despite falling reach and lower and lower visibility in news feeds, their content was attracting engagement and staying on the good side of Facebook’s algorithm.

But that could be changing. Here we are entering 2018 with Facebook announcing that the paltry 2 to 6% reach averaged by brands (or Publishers, as Facebook calls them) is too high and degrading the news feed experience for real people. Going forward, Zuckerberg said, brand content will be further suppressed in news feeds while posts from friends and family will be given more visibility.

Clearly, the message is that Facebook is a pay to play platform for brands not unlike traditional media outlets.

So, where do Facebook’s changes leave organic content for brands?

DOWNLOAD: 8 Smart Ways Your Brand Can Adapt to Facebook’s Changes in 2018.

Unless it’s exceptionally engaging (think animals, kids, heroes and other phenoms, kickboxing octogenarians, etc.), your content may not be seen by sufficient numbers to justify the effort it took to create that content. Worse, if your content isn’t regularly engaging people, you’ll be digging yourself a deeper hole. It’s essential in 2018 to fully commit to quality over quantity in your Facebook strategy, if you haven’t already. 

Facebook Live videos are expected to remain a powerful engagement tool. Currently, when you launch a Facebook Live video stream, Facebook alerts your followers. So, this is definitely one tactic to embrace to raise your page’s visibility and share engaging content with more followers.

If you’re a manufacturer or a B2B company, it’s going to require a lot of creativity to keep your content engaging.

Nonprofits have a better shot because typically causes are more engaging. Expect to see more cause marketing partnerships between brands and nonprofits on social media in 2018.

If you’re a resort that can produce and share incredible experiences and travel ideas for your guests, you might break through by tapping into everyone’s desire for a great get away. But how many businesses have the time and resources to consistently pull together and pull off this kind of show stopping or heart rendering content?

The first rule of good communication has always been to know your audience. This will be truer than ever in 2018. What has resonated with your audience in the past? What are they struggling with? Excited by? Interested in? Mine your Facebook data and customer research for content ideas that you know will connect with your followers.

That said, all brands have promotional messages that they must distribute to show ROI on their social media investment, but just as with traditional media outlets, they’ll need to pay Facebook to deliver those messages to followers. That is the clearest impact of Facebook’s changes.

Facebook is completing its evolution from a social sharing platform to a paid advertising platform for brands and businesses. Plan to adjust your strategies in 2018 to succeed under this new reality. Tweet: Facebook is completing its evolution from a social sharing platform to a paid advertising platform for brands and businesses. Plan to adjust your strategies in 2018 to succeed under this new reality. https://ctt.ec/mwH93+

Looking back over the past six months at some of our client partners’ pages, we’ve seen a few trends worth noting. Our results will be different than yours, depending on your brand page or the variety of brand pages you manage. But this is an exercise every Facebook admin should do to get a clear handle on how their content has been performing in order to better leverage what works. Here are our findings and recommendations:

REACH

  • Our post with the greatest reach in 2017 featured a testimonial video message from a famous celebrity (i.e. an influencer). Prioritize influencer engagement on Facebook in 2018 to maintain or extend reach.
  • Other top posts by reach in 2017 were those that we tagged with other brands or real people. Connect your content to real people whether they’re employees, customers, donors, celebrities or community leaders. This will be a key strategy to ensure that your content is meaningful. It must feature real people and brand relationships and not simply be a brand billboard.
  • About half of all organic impressions were earned virally by people sharing our content. Put another way, for every 2 people that saw unpromoted content, a third person saw it on their friend’s page. In 2018, brands need  to post Facebook content that starts conversations and is worthy of sharing. Be careful not to ask for shares or comments! Facebook’s algorithm will punish posts that overtly ask “share this.”

COMMENTS

  • The posts with the greatest volume of comments were related to contests and sweepstakes. These were also boosted. Facebook’s algorithm didn’t punish our sweepstakes content but be careful. If you create contests on Facebook in 2018, be sure you comply with all rules and best practices. Create some value in the contest for true engagement (don’t ask followers to tag a friend or for one-word responses). This can be a fun way to engage with your followers and drive some of that meaningful interaction Mark Zuckerberg wants to see, if done right.
  • Other posts with a high volume of comments tended to appeal to followers’ nostalgia and encouraged them to share memories or personal details or stories. Drive conversations with your followers in 2018. Look for opportunities to start conversations. But don’t start a conversation at 5 p.m. and let comments go without a response until the next morning. The Facebook algorithm pays attention to how quickly your respond and rewards fast responses and exchanges in the comments.

PAID PROMOTION

  • Paid promotion generated quadruple the number of organic video views. If you’re going to put the time into creating videos for Facebook in 2018, plan to support them with paid promotion.
  • Paid promotion drove 40 percent more impressions than organic impressions. Continue to use boosting on Facebook in 2018 to add momentum to content that is already performing well. If you have an important message that you want your followers to get but that you don’t expect they’ll want to interact with, consider an advertisement instead. Dry and purely informational posts or announcements by brands will hurt their Facebook performance. Save those for advertisements or email campaigns.

What was your experience in 2017? And how are you preparing for Facebook’s changes in 2018? Share with us at @wrightoncomm or tag us with #WOCPR on Twitter. In addition to the ideas shared above, we’ve compiled a more detailed set of recommendations in our white paper on Facebook’s changes.

DOWNLOAD: 8 Smart Ways Your Brand Can Adapt to Facebook’s Changes in 2018.

This is a helpful tool for sharing with your team to get everyone on the same page and thinking creatively about your social media program in 2018.

When Your Passion is Contagious, it Spreads

Contagious passion

By Julie Wright —President

Twitter: @juliewright

Passion is an awesome thing. It gives you the drive needed to push past obstacles and embrace challenges. But passion alone isn’t enough.

To succeed as a strategic communicator, you need what the (W)right On Communications team calls contagious passion. Contagious passion is one of our core values. Why?

Because, if your passion for your client, pitch or charitable cause doesn’t infect others, you can’t advance it. With earned media, shared media and word of mouth driving more brand connections than paid strategies today, contagious passion is essential to your success as a communicator.

Any trending hashtag is a symptom of an outbreak of shared passion across the Twittersphere. It signifies that thousands of people are fired up about this Sunday’s game or the most recent national “holiday” celebrating chocolate eclairs or brandied fruit.

Similarly, a long string of comments on a Facebook post will raise a post’s visibility on the platform. In a way, the Facebook algorithm is fueled by contagious passion. But to achieve that kind of engagement you’ve got to develop content that contains an idea, concept or image people can connect to emotionally. Without that shared feeling, there’s no reason to care and without a reason to care, there’s no motivation to act. Which means failure.

I have a friend who has a contagious passion for slowing climate change. When she tells me about a book she encountered that examines the top 100 solutions for reversing global warming and what it taught her, it’s not long before I’m downloading my own copy of Project Drawdown and telling others about it. In a matter of 24 hours, I’ve infected three other people with this book’s intriguing research and ideas.

I’ve been thinking about our agency culture and the importance of our values, like contagious passion, because we added a new team member a few months ago. During the interview process and since joining the team, she has made it clear that she has a passion for communications, for her clients and for the work we do at (W)right On Communications.

Her client partners have quickly taken to her because they can see, and more importantly feel, that she cares about their organizations and achieving results for them. Her fast start has been remarkable but no accident. She brought the passion and infected others with it.

Think about the last time you were in a meeting where someone renewed your enthusiasm for a project or won you over to their vision or idea. I guarantee you that their contagious enthusiasm played a big part, and you probably applied yourself to the task with more gusto because you were inspired by it.

You can fake passion, but it’s hard to fake a contagious passion. If your words don’t align with your body language—animated gestures, leaning forward, maintaining eye contact—people won’t pick up on what you’re putting out. If your heart isn’t in it, then your passion won’t feel authentic to others or move them. Most importantly, it won’t fulfill you.

And that’s important. You should love what you do, care deeply about what you’re communicating and be invested in the success of your idea, client or team.

That passion motivates you to excel, to learn all that you can about your client or craft and to challenge yourself to grow and reach mastery.

We all encounter wet blankets in our work life. People who are genetic anomalies and immune to passion. They’re a bummer to work with or for, of course, and probably don’t understand why no one listens to their ideas or wants to go to lunch with them. Think Eeyore.

Those people are probably just in the wrong job or career. Or they’ve given up and lost their mojo.

For others who love what they do but struggle to muster a contagious passion, the cause can often be their own fear and insecurities. They’ve put a wall around their passion because they’re afraid to be wrong, to fail or to show that they don’t know something they should.

For your passion to be contagious, you need to get in touch with it. What excites you? What’s worth sticking your neck out for?

If you have a contagious passion for a hobby or a sports team, invest the same zeal into your client’s business or your employer’s industry to find the joy. It’s possible. Often, the more you invest yourself in a topic, the more exciting it becomes. It’s the difference between the college courses you had to take in your first year and those you chose to take in your senior year.

In the same way that smiling can make you feel better, choosing to find the joy can make you feel the passion. The cart doesn’t always have to follow the horse. The main point is to find it, feel it and spread it to others.

We spend a lot of time blogging here about communication strategies and tactics, but communication success starts with passion and the ability to make others care. What goes around comes around, and contagious passion is no exception. I hope you’ve felt mine and that this post leaves you a little more stoked to make the most of your work whatever it may be!

 

Influencing the C-Suite: 3 Tips for B2B Influencer Marketing

By Aisha Belagam

Twitter: @AishaBelaPR

Fashion bloggers jet setting to tropical destinations wearing the trendiest floral prints. Genetically blessed Instagram influencers promoting weight loss pills after an early morning session at Equinox. From selfies to flat-lays, these are the types of personalities and formats that typically come to mind when you hear the term ‘influencer’. But these personalities won’t do much for your B2B marketing strategy.

American Idol business jennifer lopez american idol american idol xiii GIFAs with B2C, B2B influencer marketing is about connecting with influential people in your community and leveraging them to build trust and credibility, driving your message. In this digital age, where social media is becoming a regular part of everyone’s lives, influencer marketing is becoming a vital part of the communications strategy. And yes, you can and should use it for B2B companies. The C-Suite is engaged on social media and 84% of CEOs and VPs say they use social media to help make purchasing decisions. Here are three tips to consider when developing your B2B influencer marketing strategy:

1. Where are they and who do they look to?

Who and what influences your target audience? Don’t get deflected by focusing on who has the most followers. A million followers do not necessarily equate to a huge influence on your target audience. This isn’t a popularity contest. Plus, upcoming thought leaders are more likely to have the capacity to pay attention to your brand. Focus on influencers who receive a large amount of engagement on topics relevant to your vertical. These are the thought leaders you’re looking for. The analysts, industry experts, authors, speakers, and media folk who are actively involved in industry discussions, leading the way with their expert insight and educated opinions. You’ll find most of them on LinkedIn and Twitter.

       2. Look within

Who understands your brand better than your team? No one. That’s why you should leverage the CEO, employees, and clients as part of your strategy.

Employee advocacy is a powerful thing. Encourage your employees to promote your brand, whether it’s through social posts and blogs, at speaking opportunities, or by getting involved at industry events. Empower those with the most knowledge, the ones who work on your brand daily, to become the thought leaders opining and engaging, increasing your brand’s visibility.

C-level executives are an integral way for B2B brands to make a personal connection. They are the thought leaders bringing the brand to life. Using C-level executives is a key way to build relationships with analysts and the media, increasing coverage and establishing credibility.

Share results. Success stories from your customers can be packaged into consumable case studies, infographics, and testimonials. It’s great to have your team promoting your brand, but there is an obvious bias. Your customers, on the other hand, don’t have the same stake in your company and their experiences add a layer of authenticity.

      3.  Don’t just promote your own agenda

Build a real relationship with your influencers so they are engaged before you need them. It’s a two-way street. Think about how you can help them while promoting your brand. Reference them as experts, quote them in your blog posts, give them access to your products or services, engage with their social content, and stay top of mind. When the time comes, they will be more familiar with you and more likely to go the extra mile to help your brand.Empire FOX music love happy best GIF

Influencers can help a B2B brand through numerous channels. Think about your goals and identify what your brand needs. Influencers can do everything from collaborating on social content to hosting a webinar, from being an ambassador at your tradeshow to quoting you in their latest interview.

As interest in traditional forms of advertising plummets, influencer marketing is becoming a more important part of the integrated strategy. Collaborating with influencers in the ways outlined above can help your brand become more influential in itself.

Want to learn how your brand can leverage influencer marketing? Drop us a line. With proven influencer marketing results with national brands in both the B2B and B2C sector, we can work with you to develop and implement an integrated strategy that brings your brand targeted, measurable results.

B2B PR Best Practices For 2017

By Chance Shay─ Director B2B and Infrastructure Development

Twitter: @ChanceShay

 “Why aren’t sales through the roof? We’re the best in our industry.”

If I had a dollar for every executive that’s thought this to his or herself (or said it out loud), I’d be able to retire. They eventually come to the conclusion that it’s simply because the people who should be buying their product or service just haven’t heard about them. To a great degree, they’re right. The obvious solution to this, of course, is to tell these people about their brand and everything the company does.

That’s where they’re wrong.

The solution to attracting, closing and retaining new customers isn’t to tell people about the product or service, it’s to show that the product or service solves their problem better, faster, cheaper and with less headache than anything else out there. This is even more important for B2B brands, whose customers are naturally more discerning. In fact, 60 percent of all companies choose B2B vendors after actively trying to solve a problem and researching solutions. For B2B brands, this means the more difficult question becomes: how do we show our customers that we’re the best solution for them?

Because there are so many factors to account for- the industry, competitors, market conditions, decision makers, etc.- there is no short answer to this. Truth is that audiences are more fragmented than ever. So to help decide where to stack your chips, here are five marketing pitfalls to ditch and five fresh techniques B2B brands should incorporate into their PR and marketing strategy.

Don’t: Focus exclusively on content marketing

  • One dimensional marketing hasn’t been effective since salesmen walked door to door in the 60s. Don’t get me wrong, content marketing is a great way to increase the odds of your brand being discovered by those actively looking for a solution like yours. A brand just can’t put all its eggs in one basket.

Do: Utilize a comprehensive and diversified communications strategy

  • Ever heard of the PESO Model? It’s an acronym that represents the four types of communication channels: Paid (channels you have to pay for), Earned (like media), Shared (essentially social platforms) and Owned (channels a brand controls). It’s a model that works well for B2B brands because it provides an easy to follow framework. Content marketing falls under the Owned channel, meaning that a brand only doing content marketing is missing 75% of the communication opportunity. Even as a true PR evangelist I will tell you that it’s unrealistic to think that earned media is all you need to reach your growth goals. Competing for attention is harder than ever because of where stakeholders get information (and thus how they’re influenced) is fragmented. B2B brands need to strategically integrate all of their communication channels in order to holistically cultivate prospects and beat the competition.

Don’t: Get press coverage and let that be that.

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  • That’s like qualifying for the New York City marathon but then not running another day before the race. Landing coverage in an outlet with a readership of 250,000 does not mean a quarter million people saw your article. It means there was an opportunity that 250,000 readers could read about your post. Don’t let the value from all the hard work that went into identifying, securing and coordinating the piece end once it’s published.

Do: Promote your press

  • This is where having an integrated communication plan kicks in. Anybody in sales will tell you that they make contact with prospective customers at different cycles of the sales cycle. Make their job easier by showcasing press that both differentiates and helps (soon to be) leads evaluate your product. Showcase your press on social channels, your blog, newsletters and trade show materials. You can even include it in your email signature and in presentations by (including screen shots of headlines and any awesome comments the article received).

Don’t: Only write white papers to show thought leadership

  • White papers and articles for peer reviewed journals require a lot of effort, but they’re great tools to showcase how talented a team a brand has. However, often times the paper is read by other smart people working in a similar fashion as the writer, not the target audience. Luckily, there are new ways to demonstrate to potential customers that a brand has a team of experts.

Do: Be a conversation starter

  • While white papers are great at providing information, conversations help develop relationships, build trust and can be information. If you know your audience, you know what they’re interested in, where they get information and what strikes a chord in them. Show that you know this by heading to a forum (likely LinkedIn groups) and start a conversation around topics relevant to your audience. Write a headline you think will make your audience’s eyes bulge. Pose a provocative question or offer an opinion that is against the grain. Choose a topic you know the audience will want to opine about. Remember, the goal is to first get them talking and then you can jump in with expert input. Don’t be promotional or salesy. React to and opine, not promote and push. I feel like this goes without saying but you can visit any LinkedIn group and see a number of smart people breaking this cardinal rule.

Don’t: Wait to be invited to speak

  • Every brand and person operates within their own bubble. Things that are a big deal in one bubble aren’t even noticeable in others. Some brands make the mistake of thinking they (or their leaders) are such a big deal that phones will be ringing with requests to present and speak. Even if a brand does get invites to share thoughts at certain events, they could be missing out on an opportunity to parlay that into additional exposure.

Do: Be your own biggest cheerleader

  • Sometimes doing great work is enough to get noticed, but often times you have to be like Ron Burgundy and tell people to come look at how good looking you are. Use great press coverage and presenting on past panels to secure new speaking opportunities. One idea is to use an article as the center piece of a pitch to present on a similar theme or trend. This shows that you are indeed an expert and gives you credibility. If you’ve been included as an expert on a certain topic or have a published by-lined article forecasting a trend that materialized, you’re a great pick to speak about that topic at a conference or trade-show. For people whose job is to select panelists and presenters, their goal is for attendees to say, “that presenter blew me away.” Help them help you.

Don’t: Think you have “an audience”

  • Even if you think you have a “target audience” you’re wrong. Truth is that for most brands (with the exception of the most narrowly niche companies out there) there are many segmented audiences that make up your collective stakeholders and customers. Brands must avoid the mistake of thinking the similarities between various customers is enough to consider them one group.

Do: Segment your audience

  • A very savvy PR expert named Ben Veal said, “The key to successful B2B PR is accurately identifying your audience and their drivers, and then developing tailored content that is specifically designed to engage and resonate. This content needs to be released at the right time, and in the right format, to ensure that the decision-makers you are targeting are reached and understand the message.” There are a number of ways to segment your audience- by title, industry, demographics, psychographics, geography, etc. What all these characteristics speak to is the difference in how they are influenced and make purchase decisions. For example, if your customers are retailers there could be young, hip retailers with one store in Brooklyn who love what they hear through Buzzfeed and their customers’ experience is the most important thing to them and then there could be retailers who have been in business for 40 years with franchises across the southwest U.S. that read industry magazines and are focused on keeping costs down. They’re both retailers, but what their pain points are and how you show them that your product is the best solution for that pain point can be drastically different.

Any way you slice it, there are more opportunities to communicate than there is budget to do so (I’m still searching for the unicorn that is the unlimited budget). Every brand will need to get a precise understanding of their customers and make smart decision on where to focus their efforts. The good news is that by knowing these five tips brands can be more effective executing their plan no matter what shape it takes.