How many ways are you reaching your audience? Have you used all that are well suited to your work?
There is an amazing range of channels that you can use to manage the communications part of your business. They all come down to the written word. Even podcasts and videos have at least an outline for discussion, if not a full script. Do your communications capture your expertise and experience? Are you delivering the right message to your target audiences?
I can tell your story as content written for your specific marketing, operations and informational needs.
- Annual reports
- Articles that inform and engage your audience for digital or hard copy purposes
- Documentation of processes and policies for internal operations efficiency and accountability.
- Content for web site and social media platforms
- White Papers
- Ghostwriting
Whether you have a back of the napkin publicity strategy or a detailed company-wide communications plan I can help you with the written word, how ever you plan to use it. There are many points where you could benefit from a writing professional.
When you dream big for your business what do you see? This question is valid no matter what kind of company or industry in which you work. It is the why behind what you do and your vision for what you can offer to customers. . Customers who find your mission and work authentic are more likely to do business with you.
I can create content that will explain your “why” in a compelling way. A thoughtful use of various platforms can raise awareness of your brand, educate or share information, trigger action, describe your innovative ideas, increased market share, etc. Then, we can adjust the campaign to respond to your changing needs and objectives.
Define Your Audience.
Who buys your products or services? The more you know about your potential customer base the more powerful you can make your messaging. This goes beyond demographics. Don’t settle for gender, age and socioeconomic status. Your customers are more than that, and there are many ways we can dig more deeply. In fact, we can even use social media to listen to online chatter about your industry and competitors and work backwards to add in details about your audience and understand it better. This allows you to use the voice and style to which your audience is most likely to respond.
Find Your Audience
Where can you find your audience? These are the platforms where your audience hangs out. Remember when we talked about really understanding the people who are your market? They will have preferences for the platforms they use. Facebook is a platform that your audience uses. It seems to cut across most basic demographics. Beyond that you will find more variety among who is regularly on LinkedIn vs. Twitter vs. Instagram, and so on.
Create Content
Once we know where to find your audience we can create a content plan that sets out our strategy to reach your audience with great messages well suited to them. We want to identify each platform we will use and create content for them in the best format for each. This is the campaign we will launch..
Monitor Activity and Feedback
Are you listening to what your target market, fans and influencers are saying about your brand? Social media is a great place to find out more about your customer’s needs and whether they perceive you are meeting them. Here is where you read comments they post – both complimentary and negative. If a customer has asked a question they will remember if you heard it and responded. Plus, when you answer a question from one person, you are answering it for all of your followers or readers at once. When you let a message to you slip by without a reply then you have missed an opportunity to connect one on one with people who care enough to comment.
Monitoring is a process to look actively for mentions of your brand, products, concerns, hashtags, competitors and customers. You can be the proverbial fly on the wall that hears what others are saying. And you can bet your competitors are paying attention in the same way. If you aren’t paying attention they may even learn something they can use to differentiate themselves.
We can set up listening and monitoring tools that do most of the work for you. Don’t miss a message again!
Collect Data and Analyze
The world seems to be data-driven. For good reason, too. How else can you assess your return on investment?
The most basic data sets show how users share, view or engage with your content or profiles. These are measures of activity such as likes, comments, sharing and follows, among many possibilities. Of course, you have built your key performance indicators (KPI) into your content plan so you know what to track and analyze.
Each platform has its own analytics you can use. When you start or if you are small, collecting and assembling their data may be enough. As you grow it may be wise to consider more sophisticated tools. Either way collecting social media data should inform business decision-making on strategies to reach your goals.