Limitless
Limitless Public Relations

Just who do you think you’re talking to?

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

No, it’s not your mother calling! We’re speaking about the audience(s) that your business or organisation communicates with, and why it’s absolutely essential to be really clear on who you are talking to.

Your audience is made up of people or groups – stakeholders, customers, clients, service users, and consumers. They can be split down into groups through their behaviours and certain demographics (such as age and education).

So who or what exactly is your audience? 

Target audience

A target audience refers to a particular group of people or individuals, that can be categorised by behaviours and demographics. Audiences can range from broad categories to finely-researched and specific demographics. The more defined and specific you can be on who your desired audience is, the better.

As the father of modern marketing, Philip Kotler puts it:  

“There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.”

Working examples

Greenpeace

Greenpeace talks about its primary target audience as:

“…our members and supporters across 40 countries. Other target audiences are those that we seek to exert influence on such as governments, industries, intergovernmental organisations and the media.”

So we can see they have several audiences (publics) and will tailor their communications and messaging accordingly, likely on strong campaign and fundraising themes.

Amazon

Amazon’s target audience is described here:

“Amazon’s target market is middle and upper-class consumers (evenly split between genders) with home computers or smart devices aged between 18-44 as of 2022. Additionally, 60% of Amazon’s target market are from the United States who prefer shopping online for convenience, fast delivery, and competitive prices.”

Although Amazon is a behemoth multinational conglomerate, it’s interesting to see how they define their target market down to a neat demographic of consumers within a fairly narrow age range and evenly split gender 

Stakeholders

The term stakeholder is used to determine individuals or groups of people who have an impact or can impact a business or organisation. They are particularly important to consider when you’re operating projects, campaigns and launches. It’s important to understand, analyse and strategically reach the people who can support your endeavours, or conversely, negatively impact what you’re trying to achieve. We talk about stakeholder engagement more here.

How to find your audience(s)

Finding your audience can be done in several ways – online and offline – allowing you to extract quality information about your existing and ideal customers through research and analysis. 

Buyer personas

Buyer personas are research-based profiles – semi-fictional – that illustrates your target customer. You can use existing customer data and market research to help you with your messaging and communications, along with devising campaigns. When you’re researching a persona, you can include details like:

  • Age
  • Location
  • Average income
  • Typical job title or industry
  • Interests
  • Challenges/pain points
  • Hangouts

By creating a profile of your ideal customer, it helps you to understand your target audience better and improve your messaging and communication efforts towards that audience.

Other ways of researching and building ideal customer profiles include:

  • Google Analytics – if set up correctly, Google Analytics can provide a deep understanding of your customers and their behaviours
  • Customer research – ask your customer what they think!
  • Social listening – using keywords and hashtags, you may be able to gain key insights into your brand or business on social media 
  • Social media audit – reviewing existing channels and checking analytics for performance
  • Competitor analysis – who are your competitors and what are they currently doing? How do they position their brand? Can you learn anything from their presence?

Spending the time to research your target audience is worth the effort. Knowing, in as much depth as possible, the audience(s) you’re communicating with, will help you to formulate your messaging well and concisely. It will also inform brand awareness, strong public relations and quality marketing campaigns.

Work with Limitless?

If you’re looking for help in finding your target audience, or with campaign planning and management, please drop us a message. Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or use this contact form here.

BAKO Extends Limitless PR Brief 

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

BAKO Group has extended its brief with Limitless Public Relations to improve brand awareness and understanding with its customers across the UK.

With operational hubs in Preston, Durham and Wimbledon BAKO distribute bakery products to customers nationwide with a multi-temperature fleet of over 70 vehicles. Established over 50 years, the company provides independent bakers and caterers with a wide range of ingredients and finished products from quality suppliers, as well as its own BAKO Select branded range.

BAKO first appointed Limitless PR in July 2019 to handle media relations focussing on bakery trade and local press. It has now expanded the brief to include more holistic tactics aimed at championing the bakery industry as a whole, while also targeting new customer sectors.

Limitless Director Greg Wilson said:

“We are extremely pleased to be expanding our campaign for BAKO. As a company, they have a colossal impact and presence in the lives of independent bakers across the UK.

“During the pandemic they did great work to support the industry, talking to their customers and developing services to provide support where they needed it most, and launching a website to help independent bakers sell online.

“The expanded campaign will effectively be aimed at turning the camera round onto BAKO’s customers, giving them a voice and championing what they do, their immense passion and dedication, getting up early every morning to help feed the country.”

With offices in Preston and Blackburn, Limitless PR provides professional PR expertise, with all its people having a minimum of 10 years’ experience within any client sector they are assigned to work on, with clients including Preston City Council, Plumbs, Sundown Solutions, Winter Gardens Blackpool, Sales Geek, Northern Industrial and Santé Group.

Social media and employee advocacy 

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Social media is a great tool for business messaging and sharing content with an audience. This includes employees too, which is often forgotten about. Encouraging positive use of employees using social media to share your organisation’s content and messaging is a powerful form of advocacy, allowing business messaging to be shared in an authentic way. 

Global research by LinkedIn and Altimeter Group looked at the top 100 of the most socially-engaged companies on LinkedIn with more than 1,000 employees. The results showed that employee social engagement boosts business outcomes.  

The top-line findings were that socially-engaged companies are: 

  • 40% more likely to be perceived as competitive 
  • 57% more likely to get increased sales leads  
  • 58% more likely to attract top talent 

Advocacy 

Employee advocacy is an important part of your marketing toolkit. Your people are the authentic, grassroots of your organisation. They can help with building brand awareness, trust with clients and customers, and importantly, forming stronger connections with all employees in the organisation.  

According to research by Nielson, 84% of consumers trust in recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising, and 77% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after hearing about it from someone they know. Facilitating an authentic employee advocacy programme allows you to build strong messaging and sharing opportunities for new audiences. 

Hootsuite research shows that “employee advocacy also helps to retain and engage employees, especially Millennials who expect a digital connection with their leaders, community, and peers.” 

Understanding best practice for professional social media use is helpful in determining what your business needs and how to deploy it within your strategic communication plan. 

Which platforms? 

With Twitter being on shaky ground with the latest acquisition by Elon Musk, it’s a good time to reassess your social media for business, and audit existing platforms. For example, LinkedIn may be a key platform for your content messaging. It’s like a professional address book – recruitment, job searching and networking are all strong features. If, for instance, Twitter becomes obsolete as is rumoured, would you rely more heavily on LinkedIn, and could your employees benefit from some guidance on sharing business content? 

Key considerations 

Here are three key points to consider, to enable positive and successful social media for your business. 

  1. Have a clear and consistent social media policy – ensure your company’s social media guidelines are up-to-date and accessible to all employees. Include guidance on harassment, legal responsibilities of publishing content on public forums, and posting responsibly. Outline the official company social account handles and if staff are identifying themselves as employees of the company, do you need to encourage them to add a disclaimer to their bio, such as “All opinions are my own” for example? 
  1. Ensure staff have regular social media training – social media platforms and algorithms are continually updating and evolving. If you’re actively encouraging staff to engage and share content, providing basic support and information should be a minimum. Training on using social channels successfully will allow everyone to be supported and on the same page, keep cyber safety and security as a priority, and ensure brand messaging remains consistent.  
  1. Encourage social advocacy – consider setting up a specific programme to encourage employees to take part in social networking, content sharing and thought leadership. Could you incentivise employee advocacy through rewards and benefits? This could be anything from monetary or gift rewards, to recognition and company shoutouts. Employee advocacy programmes benefit both brand and employee: “brands enjoy increased awareness and controlled messaging while employees earn rewards and establish themselves as thought leaders in their field”. 

Hootsuite’s predictions on social media for businesses in 2023 indicate that those who employ a social-first approach towards their brand and customers, will benefit most. Maggie Lower, Hootsuite’s Chief Marketing Officer said: 

“Social media has never played a more central role to businesses. As businesses continue to look for ways to future-proof operations and connect with today’s tech-savvy customers, social media and digital marketing will inevitably play a part in nearly every business strategy. 

“In 2023, businesses that take a social-first approach to their brand and customer care strategy will be the ones to reap the benefits. Stronger brand reputation, greater customer interaction, trust and loyalty – now and in the future – depends on it.” 

Maggie Lower, Hootsuite

Limitless Extends European Reach

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Limitless Public Relations has extended its reach in Europe with Germany-based PR specialist Christiane Tupac-Yupanqui joining the Blackburn and Preston-based agency as an overseas associate.

Christiane’s first project for the specialist public relations agency will be to provide PR support for client Northern Industrial, which has recently launched a new site in Germany.

With 20 years’ PR experience, Christiane specialises in the motion, drives and automation sectors. A trained translator, she provides trade PR and online media relations in Germany and a number of other non-English speaking countries around the world.

Limitless director Greg Wilson said:

“We are very pleased to have Christiane working with us in support of Northern Industrial and look forward to working with her on further accounts in the future.

“One of the actual upsides of the pandemic has been the increased adoption of communication technologies, largely underutilised before, which enable the swift and lean cooperation between team members based on expertise rather than geography, the latter being now largely irrelevant.

“We intend to keep expanding our active roster further across the UK and overseas to enable us to provide PR expertise at the highest level, whatever the brief, whenever and wherever it’s needed.” 

PR, communications and productivity: staying focused in the new hybrid world

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

As we approach World Productivity Day (Monday 20 June 2022), it’s worth revisiting whether our processes and procedures are effective enough. Public relations and communications professionals must be at top of their game to ensure productivity and smooth communications, especially with the world of work still in flux. 

It’s far too easy to lose track of quality communications, and we often come across businesses that are so busy, their communications – both internal and external – are negatively impacted by a lack of structure and organisation.

Changing world

Covid 19 has changed the landscape of work and communications on a grand scale. A great many businesses and organisations still have not returned to the office on a full-time basis, with some preferring to maintain a hybrid working environment for flexibility and convenience.

However, with the changing working atmosphere still emerging, we should be prudent over how we’re communicating with each other – particularly internal communications – and ensure that productivity is encouraged by using the optimum tools and techniques so that you and your team flourish, not flounder. Wellbeing will be a key action point for the workplace going forwards.

Productivity or just busyness?

A good definition of productivity in the workplace:

“Workplace productivity relates to the amount of work that your staff can produce over a certain period. In other words, it’s the measure of the total output (goods and services) versus the total input (labour and costs) … Developing a greater understanding of factors that impact workplace performance is essential for company leadership. A productive workplace often leads to more engaged employees and improved performance metric.”

Being productive shouldn’t be confused with being busy, which is often seen as a status symbol of success. Busywork – defined as “Work that keeps a person busy but has little value in itself,” – can contribute to feelings of disillusion, lack of worth and eventually, burnout.

We’re probably all guilty of busywork, with people being sucked into it without even realising. But how can we nurture quality work without losing focus?

Tools to help find the balance

There are plenty of tools and platforms out there to help you channel your focus on the important stuff, and side-line the less valuable work. 

And if you believe every tool, app and influencer, their tool is just the ticket for a magical work-life filled with perfect communications, super-duper productivity and sparkling creativity!

So which platforms are helpful for communicators in particular? A good place to start is to make a list of ‘wants’ or issues that you need help with resolving. 

Here are three platforms to try if you need to maximise productivity without the overwhelm.

Trello

Trello is a great visual project manager that allows you to communicate and collaborate with others, from small tasks to larger projects. It uses a card system to organise and helps keep team members accountable for tasks.

It’s literally a drag-and-drop to create cards, that can be used as task lists, links, and attachments, with the ability to add specific names to the cards as required.

Trello also has a Power-Up feature, with integrations for apps like Mailchimp, Twitter, Zoom, Teams and others. 

If you love visual workspaces that are simple to use, Trello is a great option to try. You can get a free trial if you’re a new user.

Trello

Slack

Slack is a great communication app for teams as a group or one-to-one through DMs (direct messaging). It allows for different channels and easily helps keep track of projects and client work, even when you’re on the move. It saves a lot of faffing around in your email inbox hunting for information, as conversations can be better tracked through the app and its individual channels (threads). It integrates nicely with Google Calendar and you can set reminders for deadlines.

If you’re looking for better organisation within communications, Slack is a definite one to try. A free trial is available and a free version for smaller teams.

Slack

Notion

Notion is a clean, clever workspace where you can do everything – project manage, collaborate, journal, organise, goal setting, spreadsheets and databases, make and manage lists…endless possibilities to work within and from Notion. You can access templates to use or build your own workspace. It’s mid-level in difficulty to get to grips with and allows for different views and layouts, along with integrating a calendar. You can get a free trial of Notion and it’s free for up to five users, so an absolute bargain for small teams.

Notion
Notion

Need help?

These are just three tools of many that are great to help organise communications and productivity within your business. As always, we’re here to help. If you’d like to find out how we can work together, please drop us a message. Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or use this contact form here.

Storytelling: the power behind the PR

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Everyone loves a story. Everyone has a story. Humans have been telling and enjoying stories and tales since the dawn of time, from primitive cave etchings, to fireside whispers of myths and fables right through to high-level campaign and advertising stories.

When we talk about storytelling for business, we’ve only to look at some of the biggest brands for how they’ve cultivated such cast-iron strategies to connect and market to their customers, showcasing quality public relations. They effectively tap into the emotions of their customers, keeping it human and creating compelling stories and messages that travel the globe, seemingly without effort. 

Apple, for instance, projects a powerful, minimalist image, with a brand loyalty like no other along with a rack of desirable products. Their co-founder, Steve Jobs, was an advocate of impactful storytelling and said:  

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”

World-renowned screenwriter and director, Robert McKee, said:

“Cognitive psychologists describe how the human mind, in its attempt to understand and remember, assembles the bits and pieces of experience into a story, beginning with a personal desire, a life objective, and then portraying the struggle against the forces that block that desire. Stories are how we remember; we tend to forget lists and bullet points.”

If you’re a business or organisation and want to connect to your customers, effective storytelling with a unique perspective can help you to create trust and relay your brand in an authentic way. Clear, concise and captivating stories will perform better in customer communications than those that lack strategy or direction.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when looking at storytelling for your business and how it can impact your public relations.

  1. Is your story genuine and authentic? Storytelling contributes to a strong PR and marketing strategy, as long as it is a truthful account that your customer can relate to. People have had enough of cheap gimmicks and blatant sales pitches: they want fresh, honest and clever stories from brands they can trust, and in turn, you could gain a valued customer.
  2. Is it directed towards your niche audience? Remember – you’re not for everyone. And that’s a good thing! If you’ve correctly identified your target audience, your messaging should be precise and appealing to them. Seth Godin talks about the potency of your story, that fits perfectly with your core public: “Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. Average people are good at ignoring you. Average people have too many different points of view about life and average people are by and large satisfied. If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one. The most effective stories match the world view of a tiny audience—and then that tiny audience spreads the story.”
  3. Is it relatable? Does your story and messaging relate to your ideal customer? How so? Keeping your messaging aligned with your customer and their connection to you is a key point for any public relations. Helping them to identify with your brand forges trust and authenticity, making them more likely to become a customer. 

Seth Godin’s quote on how customers make purchases is a good example of the psychology of sales, and making your brand and product relatable: 

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.”

Now human attention spans are reported to be at an all-time low – research suggests that the human attention span loses concentration after just eight seconds – there’s never been a better time to review messaging and storytelling for your brand.

These are just a few ideas you could consider when crafting a brand story or message. As always, we’re here to help. If you’d like to find out how we can work together, please do drop us a message. Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or use this contact form here.

Ministerial visits and your business

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Building relationships between your business and relevant government departments, or constituency MPs, can be a valuable part of a business or organisation’s communications strategy. A strong public affairs strategy can be a powerful way to showcase your work and have your say on policy matters that impact your business and sector. It’s also a good opportunity to connect with, inform, and engage ministers who are responsible for policy-making.

Here are a few valuable pointers to consider as part of your communications strategy when planning a ministerial visit to your organisation.

Aims and objectives of a visit

Prepare and prepare some more. What do you hope to gain from a visit? Get clear on the key objectives. It could simply be building a positive relationship with a constituency MP, or maybe talking and sharing information about a specific section of your business in relation to a policy. Always bear in mind the hectic schedule that government ministers have, and that any time spent with your organisation should be planned and directed well to maximise the time and benefits, and moreover, make them more likely to accept your invitation.

Keep time a priority

Time constraints will always be a factor, so make sure that you work to the time that has been allocated. Liaise closely with the Minister’s office or aides, and ensure everyone has the correct contact and directions to your location. Consider how you will work around any curveballs thrown. For example, the Minister could be delayed in traffic and your visit time might be been cut short if they have a follow-on engagement. What would be the minimum key objectives you could achieve in such an altered time frame?

How will it look?

What do you want the visit time to look like? Who will be present for the meet-and-greet? What kind of experience would you like the Minister to have whilst visiting your business space? Will a full briefing be required, or just a simple overview of what the Minister should expect?

Don’t assume the Minister will have read any briefing prior to arrival either – a quick overview of what they should expect on arrival is always helpful.

Plan a programme accordingly for the time allocated, and ensure your key objectives can be met in an interesting and creative way – no death-by-Powerpoint presentations, please! Consider an interactive experience for the Minister and make it memorable. 

Media

If there’s to be any press follow-up or other communications on the visit (blog, social media etc) include any photography and quote-gathering into the schedule, as this can take time to achieve the right photos and information. Brief the photographer (if external) ahead of the visit. What kind of photos and style are you aiming for? Make sure any relevant staff are present and they also have a briefing.

These are some of the basics you’ll need to consider if you’re planning on having a Ministerial visit to your business or organisation. Proper research and planning are essential during this process, as is good communication between all parties involved.

If you’re looking to get expert help and guidance on public affairs and how to build positive relationships between your business and the government, contact us today via our website or call 0845 625 0820.

Influencer marketing: would it benefit your business?

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

What is influencer marketing?

HubSpot provides a good definition:

“Influencer marketing employs leading, niche content creators to improve brand awareness, increase traffic, and drive messages to brands’ target audiences. It’s this collaboration between brands and creators that allows businesses to expand their reach across their buyer personas.”

HubSpot

The latest figures suggest around 57.6% of the population uses social media, with that number growing all the time.

Why use influencers?

Using influencers to help PR your business can be a good way of reaching your target market. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is estimated to have been around $13.8 billion in 2021 – despite a global pandemic – seeing businesses adapting their marketing direction to the shift in sales to more online

Demographics matter. Who and where are your audience? Where do they frequent? For an example, The Digital Marketing Institute states that 70% of teenagers trust influencers more than traditional celebrities, so platforms like Instagram and TikTok would be prime channels to utilise with social media influencers. 

If your demographic is older, however, you might need to have a different plan. Statistics show that the Boomer generation (think ages between late 50s to 70s) are more interested in YouTube (so video-based content), Facebook and written long-form content like blogs.

Who can be influencers?

Traditionally, influential people tended to be well-known celebrities and public figures. Nowadays, social media allows just about anyone to influence, depending on the topic and relevance.

TikTok and Instagram in particular, are platforms where unknown people to the majority, wield power with some having a few million followers. Outside of those platforms, however, they may hold no relevance in everyday life – especially within business and organisational needs of influence. And of course, a high following does not equate to good or quality engagement with those followers.

Stephen Waddington talks about the shift of influencer marketing transitioning from high worth ‘well-knowns’ (macro) to more niche and smaller audiences (micro):

“From a PR perspective, Influencer Marketing is the shift in recognising there are new ways to reach your audience or publics. Traditionally that used to be high net worth individuals or journalists and now it can be anyone with their own network or media of their own.”

Stephen Waddington

One good example of an influencer campaign that reached out to women everywhere, because they could identify themselves with the brand, was Dove’s #ShowUs campaign. Dove focused on the everyday woman in their drive, using every shape, size and colour of model to celebrate and champion diversity and inclusion.

Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated
Dove’s #ShowUs campaign

The body positivity and strong messaging helped to reshape the message of what real beauty is, along with uniting an ocean of women. Financially, Dove sales turned profits from $2.5m to $4m in the first ten years.

Another example of influencer marketing – but back in the 80s, where TV, movies and pop culture gave boost to brands – was the adoption of Crocodile Dundee, aka Paul Hogan, for a Foster’s campaign, following the movie’s success. Foster’s moved from being an Australian beer to a global sensation, capitalising on the popularity of Hogan’s character and charisma. A big win.

A person holding a glass of beer Description automatically generated
Paul Hogan for Foster’s Lager

Social proof

At a very basic level, you’re aiming to provide social proof, where people can see that others have experienced your product or service, and by having different types of influence – whether that’s a blog, social media platform or even a well-known public figure – you can help potential customers to see the value in what your organisation is about. 

So how do you go about getting in with this influencing lark? 

Research, research, research. 

Start with knowing your target audience. Who are they? Where do they hang out? What do they like? What are their habits? Defining and refining your consumer persona is key to understanding your customers and what drives them. Demographics are also important – research your social media analytics and refine further. The more information you can garner, the better.

You’ll also need to identify your goals through influencer marketing. What do you want to achieve and why? The clearer you can get with your why will help you identify the who influencer to look for. 

Finally, when researching and deciding upon the right kind of influencers, choose wisely. As well as having the power to raise your profile and propel a brand forwards, influencers also have the ability to damage a brand (intentionally or not) and bring the wrong kind of attention your way.

Inspired?

Want to find out more about influencer marketing and whether it’s a good fit for your business? Give us a call! We can help you with working out what, who and how of influencer marketing, from the drawing board to inception and management.

Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or drop us a message via this contact form here.

Stakeholder engagement and why your business needs it

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

What is Stakeholder Engagement?

The term stakeholder is used to determine individuals or groups of people who have an impact or can impact a business or organisation.

R. Edward Freeman first used the phrase in 1984, in his text Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, when he described stakeholders as:

“…any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives.” 

Stakeholder engagement should be viewed as a positive opportunity to inform, consult, influence, learn from. To analyse information from people surrounding your business, and to help you gain the best outcome on how you share your communications.

Identifying Your Stakeholders

So how do we work out the impactful people surrounding our business or organisation? A good place to begin is with a brainstorm of all of the people who are impacted by your project or business, or who might hold influence over the outcome – good or bad. This could be co-workers, community groups, customers, shareholders, residents, regulators, politicians…the list could be varied depending on your business.

Once you have generated your list, you’ll need to work out the priority of your stakeholders, by deciding on the power and interest that they have in your work

We can do this by stakeholder mapping. Quite literally, making a map of who they are and at what level they interact with our business. Only then can we address how we can engage with the relevant people in a human, respectful and engaging way.

Aubrey Mendelow (1991) created a power-interest matrix to help identify the importance of stakeholders within and beyond an organisation. Stakeholders can be both internal and external and both groups should be considered.

Here are the four levels of power-interest and a general breakdown of meaning:

  1. High power, high interested stakeholders (ENGAGE and CONSULT) = fully engage with these people and groups, paying close attention to expectations.
  2. High power, less interested stakeholders (KEEP SATISFIED) = maintain contact and messaging without excess.
  3. Low power, highly interested stakeholders (KEEP INFORMED) = engage, inform and ensure smooth communications.
  4. Low power, less interested stakeholders (MONITOR) = monitor with low-level communications

Why You Should Have a Stakeholder Engagement Strategy

For projects, campaigns and launches, it’s crucial to analyse, understand and strategically reach the people who can support your endeavours. And conversely, who negatively impacts what you’re trying to achieve. By laying the good groundwork in identifying and engaging with all of your relevant stakeholders, you’re more likely to succeed in your project and messaging mission.

If you need help determining your stakeholder engagement strategy, Limitless can help you with a clean and clear process. Contact Michael Gregory for an informal chat on 0845 625 0820 or you can message us here.