Limitless
Limitless Public Relations

Photography? Who needs that?

Posted on by Michael Gregory

Best-selling author and acclaimed photographer, Brian Lloyd Duckett, gives his views on how photography plays an important part in forming opinions.

When we see a business – whether it’s appearing on a website, in a magazine or newspaper or on social media – we form an impression. A ‘picture’ develops in our minds about that business which, once formed, is difficult to change. It’s all about first impressions.

And ‘picture’, here, is the key word. The image, or set of images you’ll be looking at, has a huge impact on how the world perceives your organisation, whether you’re a small dental practice, a regional law firm or a global consumer brand. Yes, it’s all about image.

This is where photography comes in. The good news is that you’re in control: you can decide on what images the world sees; you can shape that image to the extent that you’re leading people down a very focused path in terms of what they think of you. You’re in complete control. Or you should be . . .

The bad news is that too few organisations use photography to its full potential. Take PR photography, for example. What do you think a picture of four blokes in grey suits standing in front of a giant cheque says about your business? How do pictures like this link to your brand values or your messaging?

Photography by Brian Lloyd Duckett.

Public Relations is an interesting case in point. Photography should be at the heart of any campaign – but sadly it’s often an afterthought; it’s the ‘giant cheque’ scenario – or a z-lister cutting a ribbon, all big smiles and gleaming teeth but no substance. Any photography used to support PR (or any marketing) activity needs thinking through. Find a photographer who’s not only a good photographer but one who understands branding and communications; one who will collaborate with you to develop and shape a brief. This work up-front always pays dividends later in terms of campaign reach and cut-through but too often it gets overlooked. ‘Let’s brief a photographer’ comes late in the conversation – when it should be near the beginning.

Then there’s the portraits of your directors or employees. Do they show thought, humanity and attention to detail? Are the pictures fully on-brand and on-message? We often see forced, cheesy portraits that tell us nothing – either about the person or about the organisation they represent. But it’s such a simple thing to get right! As one candid marketing director said to me recently about photography, “Getting it wrong is easy. Getting it right is even easier – but how many of us do that?”

I’m sorry if all this sounds harsh but every week I see opportunities missed and marketing spend wasted because photography has taken second stage. It needs to be right up there at the start of the conversation – not chucked in at the end as a ‘PS’.

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Brian Lloyd Duckett is a commercial photographer with offices in Liverpool and London. He provides organisations from entrepreneurial start-ups to global brands with distinctive imagery to support their marketing and PR activity.

www.duckettphotographer.com

Tel 07948 528656

What is the PESO model? How to get your ducks in a row

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

PESO is a well-used model within the communications industry. The acronym stands for Paid Earned Shared Owned in terms of media. It relates to the channels used to communicate your campaign messages and how they can cross over with one another.

For us as public relations professionals, we often like to call it the ESOP model as we lean to the earned media channel because securing influential media coverage is our priority.

But what does it mean? Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks created the model in 2014, although others believe Ketchum’s Don Bartholomew developed it previously in 2010. Here’s the breakdown of what it means:

PAID: The channels you pay to place your campaign message on.

EARNED: Coverage secured about a cause, product or a business on an influential media site.

SHARED: Sharing of your campaign message by people through social channels.

OWNED: Editorial created by you to sit on channels controlled by you.

The diagram below, which is our version of Dietrich’s, shows channel examples so you can see how they interlink. The middle section is the area you should aim to be working towards: a positive reputation that helps you to succeed.

No individual channel is more important than the other in the PESO model. The amount to which you use them will ultimately depend on your overall communication objectives, who you want to target and, of course, your budget.

When planning your communication strategy, we always start with one single powerful question: what do you want to be known for? Once that’s clear, we work with you to determine your messaging strategy.

We then apply the PESO model, and depending on your objectives; we may use one or many elements of this model.

It sounds simple. But in all reality, the best campaigns often are.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you achieve your communication goals, drop us a line.

Creating powerful brand messages that matter: know your ABCs

Posted on by Michael Gregory

There are millions of ways to describe an approach to communications-thinking, but whether it’s a public health campaign or a drive to sell more of your products, your audiences need to understand your brand messages easily and quickly.

We have a simple but effective process to test brand or campaign messages in a three-stage filter:

Accuracy

It has to be accurate.  Just has to be. Your target audiences, whether in a B2C or B2B environment, want promises to match their expectations. And they have many ways to check what you say is accurate. And true.

Advice: Check, check and check again.

Brevity

Don’t overstay your welcome with a message. Make it brief. If you can’t make it succinct and reduce it to a few words, it’s likely that it’s too complex for your audience. You can expand later, but for getting attention, be brief.

Advice: Use the delete button wherever you can and don’t be too smart.

Clarity

Be clear. Use straightforward language, appropriate to the audience. If it’s red, say it’s red; not a delicious splash of vibrant crimson.

Advice: Test your message on a colleague. Is it clear first time?

Want to know how we can help develop your key messages? Feel free to drop us a line or sign up for regular informative tips and advice.

The wisdom of crowds and the power of ‘buzz’

Posted on by Michael Gregory

One thing that Greg Wilson learnt early in his career, even before he was in public relations, was that people follow the crowd…

As a graduate in the late 90s looking for my first marketing job, I naively came up with the idea that if I could get my mates’ band a record deal, it would look amazing on my CV. I dutifully got a whole load of CDs printed and developed a “promotional pack” to send out to record company A&Rs, inviting them to a “showcase gig” at a renowned A&R pub in Camden. I hammered the phones asking if my beautiful promo packs had been received, did they like the CD? Were they coming to the gig? Several said yes. But on the big day, to massive disappointment, all-round, not one record company showed.

When I called to ask why, I remember one particularly honest response. The promo pack was very nice, he said. He even really liked the CD, but he was only ever really interested in coming to see bands who already have some “buzz”. Put simply, “selling” a band to a record company doesn’t work. Not unless they’ve already heard that you’re one to watch.

When that happens, the direction of travel is reversed. Bands with “buzz” often ended up with record companies fighting to sign them up, to the utter dismay and disbelief of all the other bands who are pitching themselves so relentlessly.

This was an early lesson that the perceived “wisdom of crowds” trumps salesmanship and fantastic marketing every time, no matter how beautiful your sales pitch is.

But how exactly do you define “buzz”? Well following the music business example, it was hearing the band’s name from venue owners, promoters, sometimes rival artists – basically anybody who didn’t have a vested interest in the band’s success – before receiving the CD and gig date. It was about being seen to already have fans. A following, if you like.

After more than 20 years in the public relations profession, the same still goes. If your buyers can see evidence of your greatness, outside of what you are telling them directly, they will follow that crowd wisdom – and buy-in to all your empirical evidence that you are the right choice.

This is the lesson for sales and marketers who are unsure about the value of PR. Hone your marketing and your sales pitch all you like. But if you want to be a superstar, make sure you have the “buzz” to back it up. Be the one to watch before you try to sell, and selling will suddenly seem easy.

In fact, they may just come to you.

Limitless rebrands to support expansion plans

Posted on by Michael Gregory

Limitless has undergone rebrand of it’s visual identity to mark the start of a five-year growth plan for the agency.

The strategic public relations and brand communications agency is to expand nationally and internationally through organic growth, joint ventures and acquisitions. 

Michael Gregory, who joined Limitless alongside existing directors Greg Wilson and Richard Slater in November 2020, said: “The pandemic provided us with a chance to recalibrate the business, focus on what we do best and rebrand our identity. And that’s to help our clients be known for what they want to be known for.

“It’s a simple proposition and one that gets to the heart of the matter. It helps us to shape campaigns that achieve clients’ brand and communication objectives.

“The next five years are going to be exciting for us and all our partners. We’ve got realistic plans in place to grow the business domestically and internationally. We’re talking to like-minded partners in the UK and Europe, to collaborate or form structured partnerships that will benefit clients.

“Our growth will be fuelled by doing an excellent job for clients. That’s the sure-fire way of getting to where we want to be.”

Get in touch HERE to book an initial free of charge strategy session.

Why a strong brand is crucial if you’re thinking of selling your business

Posted on by Michael Gregory

The joys about working in the public relations industry are that we often get involved with interesting projects and people. One of the projects we enjoy most is when a client is looking to sell their business.

It’s a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas. Once we know the client has reached an agreement to sell their business, we’ll undoubtedly lose them. However, we love these projects.

The work we do helps our clients increase the value of their business. A business with a strong brand, an excellent reputation and a high media profile will undoubtedly attract more buyers than a company that, while it is very good at what it does, has a low brand profile.  

Like most things, there is a flip side to this. There are very savvy investors looking for a great business with relatively low brand profile. They acquire it and then start building the brand to achieve a higher valuation when they come to sell. And nine times out of ten, they’ll succeed. The simplest way to put it, is polishing the business and making it shiny for sale.

Strong brands always have perceived value. Think of mega-brands such as Virgin, Nike, Rolls Royce or Tesla. These businesses are worth a lot of money not just because of their products but the brand and how it has been executed. However, many organisations are now realising it’s not just the preserve of those companies to have valuable brands. Smaller businesses are just as reliant on their brand, in fact, more so as they’ll want to attract new customers.

Investing in the brand from the outset is vital if you want to grow a sustainable and attractive business. If your business has a strong brand its more likely to help increase the price paid for a business.

We aren’t saying that having a decent brand is going to be the answer to generating an excellent company valuation; a strong brand comes into being if it has a brand purpose which feeds the culture of the business and is focussed on delivering a great product or service. It’s why major companies spend millions on developing their brands and building positive brand experiences.

When selling a business, there’ll always be several factors to take into consideration that will influence the value. Generally, a company is worth anywhere between one to potentially five times net profit. Fundamentally, it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

There are various of schools of thoughts on how to value a business, but it can be argued that a recognisable and valued brand will help to drive a value up. Why? Because it shows investors that they’ll be taking over a business already primed for success.

So, if you’re a business owner that’s thinking about building your brand, drop us a line to see if we can help you achieve an increase in your company’s brand value.  

For informal chat, email Michael Gregory.

Why you should create a powerful brand purpose

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

The days of telling your audiences your organisation, product or service is the best thing since sliced bread are well and truly over. In fact, that concept probably ended when Apple famously launched its ‘Think Different’ campaign in 1997. You’ll still find that campaign message on some Apple products demonstrating its power.

As consumers, we’re continually bombarded with brand messages and not all of them well thought out. Plus, we’re much savvier about who we want to engage with. We’re just not that easily won over anymore.

We want to know what a brand stands for and if it resonates with our individual values and needs. It’s vital when looking to engage with your audiences, your brand messages are authentic and born from a profound purpose.   

Brands communicating their purpose are arguably more successful in engaging with their audiences, and it’s not just the preserve of big brands. Organisations realising that defining a purpose helps cultivate a point of difference. A brand purpose has to be genuine though because consumers can see through the hasty box ticked brand message.

It’s not new thinking. If you want to know more about this, then read of Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why, which he wrote 11 years ago. In it, he says people are more likely to buy into a product, service, cause or movement when they understand the ‘why’ behind it.

It’s a powerful concept, but it doesn’t stop there. Once you’ve defined your ‘why’ , it’ll need to play a central function in shaping brand messages and what you want to be known for.  

At Limitless, we’re big on this. Before devising a brand communications strategy, we help clients define their purpose pinpointing what they want to be known for. Based on research and audience profiling, we design and deliver strategies that help clients achieve their communication objectives.  

The key is to focus on marketing tactics after you’ve defined your purpose and what you want people to know. Campaigns that have a purpose are more meaningful and have greater impact in building brand value.

 Think about it. What’s your purpose? What do you want to be known for? If you’d like to know more, contact Michael Gregory to see how we can help your organisation.