What you should consider in a marcomms strategy and how we can help you
Marketing Communications (marcomms) needs to include various tactics and channels to share multiple messages that reinforce one another to your target market. Many companies feel that anyone from your team can easily play the role of a marketing communications manager.
The problem with that perspective is that most executives do not have the time, knowledge, or relationships to do the job effectively and to gain opportunities.
NRPR Group may make gaining the respect of media and coverage look easy, but there is much work that goes on behind the curtain to deliver results. Through thought leadership, award and speaking opportunities, social media, blogs, newsletters, website design, and more, NRPR Group delivers the services your company needs to increase visibility and attract potential customers.
NRPR Group knows that marketing and PR feed each other to maximize visibility. That’s why we work beyond public relations to build brands through thought leadership, award opportunities, speaking, and event support.
What Does Marcomms Mean?
Thoughtful Marketing Communications, also known as marcomms, efforts keeps NRPR clients top of mind by showcasing industry leadership, innovation, and knowledge of company executives and product teams through speaking opportunities, events, sponsorships, content marketing, award recognition, productive meetings with media at industry events, and more. As the two syllables suggest, marcomms combines elements of marketing and communication, in the strategic blending of advertising, public and media relations, and marketing tactics to grab consumer attention and build a strong brand that has positive associations and remains on the radar of a brand’s audiences.
Why is Marcomms important?
Marcomms is an important part of an organizations’ marketing strategy because your company may have a useful, innovative product or service, but if your relevant audiences do not know about it, you will not have any chance of achieving success with sales. Marcomms is targeted interaction with customers and prospects using one or more media, such as direct mail, newspapers and magazines, television, radio, and the internet. The messages associated with a company’s marcomms strategy have a consistent look and feel across all marcomms activities that align with the image you want to convey in order to build brand awareness. Your brand represents the identity and reputation you are conveying to the audiences.
What is the difference between marketing and marcomms?
According to Bizfluent, marketing refers to the broad concept of developing strategies to satisfy customers with engaging products and messages. A more general definition is to put the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time to gain attention. This definition is summarized in one of the first items taught in an introductory marketing class, namely the 4 Ps of marketing, which are product, price, place, and promotion. Marketing communications, or marcomms, is a subset of marketing that uses specific tactics to implement the overall marketing strategy and to reinforce the marketing message. Marcomms falls under promotion, which is deciding where and when and how to deliver your marketing message to your target market.
What are the different types of marketing communications?
There are many elements that can be used as part of a marcomms strategy. These include:
- Blogs
- Content marketing
- Direct marketing campaigns
- Events
- Influencer Marketing
- Interviews
- Logos
- Newsletters
- Press mentions
- Public Relations
- Sales collateral
- Social media
- Trade show attendance
- Webinars
- Website
How do you create a marcomms plan?
Creating a marcomms plan, similar to other plans, involves knowing your goals, what problem you are solving for whom, and what will constitute success. Or as Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Planning is important to keep you on track and progressing toward achievable goals. Planning also includes determining the message to be shared, through which media and to which audience. It is also important to have a predetermined budget, the amount of which will impact which opportunities you will be able to pursue.
When setting up the plan, it is important to delineate the following factors:
What are your goals?
The first step to any planning is to first know what you want to accomplish, then you need to set a plan for how you will arrive at your goal.
How will you measure success to know if you did reach said goal? Examples of goals are winning an industry award, increasing sales by 50 percent, or increasing social media followers threefold. When you know what you want to achieve, also known as your goals, you can determine what it will take to reach those goals. Goals can be long or short term and must be tied to a timeline and a measurement so that you will be able to track progress.
How will you measure success? Metrics can include:
- The number of mentions on different outlets and blogs
- Number of website visits or signups from each article
- Number of backlinks acquired
- Website visits from social media shares; and
- The number of leads or sales that can be attributed to marcomms efforts
Who is the audience for the message?
Each organization can have multiple audiences including customers, employees, investors, regulators, media, employees, and competitors.
Are your audiences more business-focused or more entertainment-focused?
What are the demographics of your audience? This may help to pinpoint the best media outlets to reach this audience. For example, the audience for Instagram is younger than the one for Facebook.
What media outlets does your audience use?
Which media outlets and journalists cover my market and product and what is the best way to reach them?
While it is somewhat easy to track coverage and who covers the product or the market segment, building relationships with media takes time and effort. NRPR Group PR pros have a network of media and know which media are right for your brand and when the right time is to reach out. We know how and when to pitch a story to editors and producers. We have built trusted relationships with media who know we will bring them information that will be of interest to their audience.
What are the key messages to be shared?
When NRPR first engages with a client, we sit down and learn all we can about the client, their business, and their customers to create stories that resonate with influencers. We help clients to understand how media think and to understand the types of questions the media will ask to learn about your company and products.
Which stories will you share?
How are you helping customers to fulfill their needs?
- Do founders have interesting backgrounds or interests?
- Is the company involved in the community?
- Does the company have a rich history?
- How was the product developed?
Think about the unique selling propositions that make your company stand out from your competitors. It is important to include messaging about your USP in all content across all communication channels, whether it’s for PR, sales, or content marketing, as an ongoing theme. At the most, basic level branding is about having a consistent look and feel across all your online and offline marketing materials
Conduct a SWOT analysis
A SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Threats, Opportunities) analysis helps an organization to layout internal and external factors such as its capabilities and items to stress, areas that are lacking and need attention, openings for growth, and challenges that need to be faced and overcome.
What messages are competitors sharing?
A Google search can help to track coverage of competitors. NRPR also subscribes to monitoring and reporting services that track share of voice, tone of articles, and other metrics. We share this information with clients in easy-to-read reports so your finger remains on the pulse of competitors
What pain points are being solved?
A major component of a company’s differentiators and messages needs to cover how you help clients. Think WIIFM “what’s in it for me?” from the customer point of view.
What is brand perception to portray?
What image do you want your brand to exude, such expert, friendly, top-shelf, value-oriented, or technological expertise
Define your audience personas
Hubspot defines a persona as “fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.” To create a persona, it is important to do some research, which may include surveys and interviews of your target audience. Once a company has developed its set of personas, it can customize messages based on categories such as job title, company size or industry, and personal demographics.
How will social media fit in?
As mentioned, the social media networks you invest in need to be those that are used by your target audience. You can share company news, industry news, and posts that highlight your company culture. You can also like, comment, and share content from other organizations on social media with appropriate hashtags. If you are using social media such as Twitter for business purposes, be careful not to post or repost anything that may appear to be unprofessional.
Will you include influencers in your marketing strategy?
The right influencer is someone who can reach your target audience, build trust, and drive engagement. They will create original, engaging content that is in line with their own brand while promoting your brand. The person may be a celebrity with millions of followers or it may be more appropriate to use a blogger or someone who has influence within a certain audience segment. The right influencer has an audience that is engaged and dedicated, meaning that they comment and retweet on what is posted.
What trade shows and conferences have you already committed to attend?
Once you have your existing list of shows, your marcomms team can research and vet additional events that would be appropriate for attending and speaking. In addition to the chance to showcase your company in a booth at an expo. Trade shows are a great place to build relationships with clients and, prospects and media via in-person or face-to-face virtual interaction.
Are you interested in showcasing achievements through awards?
Winning professional awards such as Company of the Year, Product of the Year, or Executive of the Year act as external validation of your innovation and success. Awards have different criteria and levels of credibility. It is important to research and vet all award opportunities to assure that they adhere to your branding.
Do you have the resources and experts to carry out the plan?
Marcomms is a full-time job. It, along with all public relations, requires writing skills, research, media knowledge, relationship skills, follow up, and more. NOT everyone is able to reap the best outcomes, especially if they have responsibilities related to another position.
Include thought leadership in your marcomms plan
Thought leadership enables your top executives to share their knowledge and experience to help other professionals. It provides value to the audience in order to gain their trust so that they will look at you and your company as a leader, who can solve their specific problem, and then be interested in doing business with you. Thought leadership includes speaking engagements and bylined articles.
Shows with conferences also provide opportunities to build thought leadership through participation as a panel or keynote speaker. Whether the speaking session is specific to your company or industry, it offers the chance to demonstrate executives’ expertise, likeability, and to network and make contacts.
Thought leadership can also include contributed articles. Whether writing for a personal blog, a company blog, or media publication, contributing thought leadership pieces is one of the most important things you can do to contribute to your industry and demonstrate that you are knowledgeable and intelligent and understands market trends.
Your content should be original, informative, entertaining and help the audience to understand and solve a problem. The author can be an executive, product manager, engineer or other subject matter expert at the company. The content also needs to be geared for the appropriate audience of that outlet. Thought leadership is not promotional; it is about providing value to customers by discussing topics that are of interest to them.
What makes for the best marcomms company?
The best marcomms company has a team that is skilled in all areas of Marketing Communications. NRPR develops thoughtful plans for utilizing award, speaking, and event opportunities in client industries to showcase why your brand is different and why people need to know your name.
WHAT WE DO
- Strategic Messaging Development
- Positioning Strategy
- Speaking Engagements & Awards
- Thought Leadership