Spring Cleaning Your Communications Toolbox

4.5.17 Spring Cleaning

Spring has sprung! Ok, truth is, it sprang exactly 18 days ago. So how do you feel? Lighter? Warmer? Fresher?

I was so excited about spring that about a month ahead, I cleared out, rearranged, refolded and slimmed down my entire closet to my boyfriend’s confusion and dismay.

Though you may be knowingly chuckling, most of you get it. There’s something simply freeing about throwing. stuff. out.

Why am I telling you about my cleaning habits? Because spring is a time for us to take a breather (literally – we can breathe now that it’s not 0 degrees out), recharge and reenergize ourselves with a fresh outlook on life… or in our case, a fresh approach to marketing.

4.5.17 Out with Old

With that theme in mind, I asked some of Padilla’s best and brightest how they think communications professionals or clients should spring clean their marketing toolkit.

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Break away from thinking that a content strategy is developing a content calendar without any thought given to what your audiences want to see, hear, read or interact with.  Scott Davila | Senior Vice President

Discontinue thinking of consumers as “consumers.” They’re people first and that is how they engage with content. Don’t sit and brainstorm how they can interact with Brand X, think about how Brand X can help them. That’s how to transition people from “follower” to “friend.” Find the intersection between what people want/need and what the brand wants to say.  Anastasia Lopez | Vice President

Quit thinking of social media as an ‘add on’ tactic.  It should be approached as a core element to driving content to various stakeholders in a holistic campaign. Greg Tarmin | Executive Vice President

Take the time to understand where your target audience gets their news. For instance, while TV still dominates, online news is the primary choice for adults under 50. Further, with more people getting their news on social media, WOM is no longer limited to opinions and reviews, but a curation of news, real or fake.  Jason Stemm | Vice President

Please stop the 400-word pitch e-mail. The chances of you selling in the story on the first e-mail are slim, so why bombard the reporter with all the minutia? Do what they do – tease them! If that takes you more than 50 words, you likely don’t have a story. Explore fresh approaches and smart tools that you can use to give the story a new look.  Brian Ellis | Executive Vice President

Stop procrastinating on the crisis front. You pray it never happens, but you know the risks are there. Every month you say you will take care of it, but it keeps getting pushed off for other projects. How about this as a start: Take five minutes to complete this Crisis IQ test to find out how prepared your company is to handle one. Brian Ellis | Executive Vice President

Abandon the concept that PR agencies are vendors who implement tactics. To gain the full benefit of your agency partner, they need to be engaged to help with strategy development that will advance your corporate, marketing, and brand objectives in order to inform the tactics. Peter Vigliarolo | Vice President

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Smart cookies, huh? These leaders, representing what I believe to be a smart, insightful and transformative company, all have a point. In my opinion, the above commentary tells us a couple of things.

  1. We need to start with strong insights to inform how we embrace and approach all aspects of the PESO model. If we don’t know our audience (their needs, wants, desires, pain points, news consumption and social media habits), how can we create a sound strategy?
  2. Those pieces of the PESO model cannot act in silos and neither should your agency partners. If you want to make an impact (whatever that may mean for your business), and I mean truly make an impact, we need to be involved early on. We also need access to the many diverse parts of your business and your blessing to work together as an extension of your brand team.

So, what do you think? What would you choose to let go of from your communications spring cleaning?

4.5.17 PESO

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