A Communications Consultant’s Checklist for 2018 | #5ABsolutThings
2018 is right around the corner. And as Communications Consultants, we are always looking at the new season and the new trends in store for us to plan the way forward for our brands. That's in our DNA; to plan things in advance.
While it’s impossible to predict the future, at least in the communications business considering it is so dynamic in nature, it is always good to deduce the trends and have a way forward in place. Without further context setting let’s straight away dive into a simple checklist I have prepared that could be handy for every Communications Consultant out there.
It’s time for the #5ABsolutThings series:
#1 Investing in Reach
“Nothing comes for free”. As organic reach continues to decline and become obsolete, it is crucial that we recommend brands to invest some money in reaching out to the target audience. Majority of brands are now aware of it and media budgets are a crucial piece of any brand’s way forward strategy. But what about brands that say that they don’t have the media budgets or those who outrightly reject this idea saying that they are "not too comfortable" spending "extra" money. Going to their offices with a huge media budget, because hey! that worked for some other brand, is not at all a good idea. Instead, be the consultant that you are expected to be. Sometimes, it’s all about making the client comfortable with a new thing. It’s like when you learned how to ride a bicycle. You weren’t expected to ride a sports bike on the first day. Why? Because it’s a step-by-step process. If you feel that they are not comfortable, educate them and start with a very small amount of money, help make them understand the value it brings and take it forward accordingly. They will appreciate it.
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#2 Quality over Quantity
“Money can’t get you everything” is a statement that fits really well here. Okay, so you were able to convince your client to spend money on social/digital/media. Great! But that’s just one-third the battle won.
Gone are the days when you could make a client happy with reach numbers. “OMG! 1 million reach with 2 million impressions. What a successful campaign!” Ahem. That’s not exactly a great way to judge the success or failure of a campaign. Simply put, it doesn’t matter how many "people" you were able to reach out to, what matters is if you were able to reach out to your 'target audience'. Were you able to impact the business in some way? Were you able to generate leads? Change a perception? Create strong brand recall? Something.
It’s not about quantity but what media spends can do for a brand. It’s not about reaching out an audience that 'Likes' your post, but an audience that is willing to interact and is genuinely interested in engaging with the brand.
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#3 Content is the king. Still. Always.
Visualize this. You are with your friend driving on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. You spot a Starbucks and considering you are a big coffee lover, you stop for a coffee there. The place looks great, still having that Christmas-y feel to it. The Starbucks employee is smiling, gives you one look and know that you want that big cup of Cappuccino. You’re pleasantly surprised! “Wow! How could she guess? What a day!” You get your coffee on time and take the first sip.
“Whaaaaat the hellll!!!!!”, you exclaim. That coffee was really bad. Bland. Nothing special.
Nothing matters now. Not the fact that you’re a coffee lover, not how beautiful the place is and definitely not the smile of that Starbucks employee.
You might be able to reach out to the right audience at the right time with what they were looking for but that’s exactly how your audience is going to react to your brand if the content isn’t great. A strong sound content strategy will go a long way in making sure that your audience never has a bitter taste in their mouth after consuming your content. Make that coffee the best damn coffee in the world, every time!
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#4 Visual appeal is a must
Coming back to the earlier example, let’s just say that irrespective of how big a coffee lover you are, you might not go to a place if it’s not visually appealing or feel detached if the employee catering to you seems disinterested in interacting with you.
We consume with our eyes first. And that’s why it’s very important to keep coming up with creative ways to tell a story to make our audience engage with the brand. The fact that visual content is faster and easier for the brain to process and studies show that it helps drive better business results and more eyeballs make it a must-have. The last one-third of the piece right there.
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#5 Understand your client’s business
I have been fortunate to work with some of the greatest minds in the communications industry and one of the many things that I have tried to learn from my experience working with them is to understand the business of the client. And no, I don’t mean the objective for a current campaign but really understand the business objective of the brand. What are they? Why do they exist? What is their USP? What are their competitors? Why are they doing what they are doing? And so on and so forth.
We are doing our own things in silo thinking that we are doing a great job. We might be playing the role of a media specialist, a community manager, a client servicing guy/girl but we will only be able to justify the tag – Communications Consultant – when we live and breathe the client and its business.
Put THIS on your checklist because everything else, including and beyond the four points mentioned above, will come naturally after that.
Have an awesome 2018. Cheers.
May the Force be with You.