DOES YOUR NEWS KEEP LANDING IN THE ROUGH?

Get into the marketing swing and practise your game by taking our 9-hole course to PR and marketing success

www.bridgepr.co.uk #OnParPR

Before you Tee Off

This summer, Bridge PR has been learning all about golf, and as we are always looking at ways to relate our social pursuits to the business of marketing and PR, we have put together this ebook that will take you through nine-holes of golf to help you hone your skills for reaching your target audiences.

In an ideal world, wouldn’t it be fantastic to get a hole in one every time you had a great campaign idea. Life is rarely that sweet, but hopefully our tips will help you to focus on some great shots, get you on the fairway, and out of the rough, and help you to putt in those final shots on the green with minimal effort.

But remember, great PR and marketing is a long game, and it is one that you can improve along the way.

Join us for a nine-hole

course on how you can

improve your marketing

game.

Before you even think about venturing onto a golf course, you first need to determine your handicap. This will calculate a net score from the number of strokes you play during a competition and allow everyone to play on equal terms.

When it comes to PR and marketing, it’s not about how long it takes you to sink the putt, it’s about why you aren’t immediately sinking it in the first place. What’s your real handicap when it comes to PR and marketing? The fundamental question is where is your company right now? Are your messages really being heard? Are they reaching the right target audiences?

Understanding where you are currently at with your marketing is as important as understanding your handicap and what it means. Do you really understand your audiences and how to reach them? Is your business lacking a USP (unique selling point)? Or perhaps you do have a USP but aren’t sure how best to communicate this to those you are trying to reach? What is important to you about how others view your business and, if you were a potential customer, what kind of information would you want to know about your business?

Before you even tee off with your marketing strategy, carry out a full business review and establish exactly where your business is now, and where you want it to be in the future. This will help you to decide what your PR and marketing strategy should be.

What’s your handicap?

It’s important to know where

you’re going by looking at

where you are now. This will put

you firmly in the driving seat.

It’s the same with PR and marketing. If you launch straight into it without any preparation, or you just take a scattergun approach, there’s a high risk of getting it wrong. What marketing channels should you use? What should your social media policy be? What audiences should you be targeting? How are you going to target them? What results do you want to achieve from your PR and marketing?

Developing a professional marketing communications strategy will help you to put all of this information down in one place and come up with an effective game plan when it comes to marketing your business. Just as you are likely to analyse and map out the golf course prior to playing, you need to create an accurate assessment of your PR and marketing position and aims before you even tee off.

Preparing to tee off

1st Hole

Teeing off is an important skill to get right in golf. It is your first chance to drive your ball into play and a successful tee shot can really help to get your game off to the best possible start. Of course, it’s also easy to get wrong. If you are found to have played this shot from outside the two tee markers, you must add two shots to your score, and if you don’t tee off particularly well then the entire hole could soon turn into a nightmare.

That’s why it is so important to get this approach shot right. Let’s be honest, if you’re serious about your game you are unlikely to enter a tournament without perfecting your tee shot. You might even hire a professional coach to help you perfect this shot and will almost certainly put in a lot of practice prior to entering any tournament.

The success of

your game will

depend on the

strategy you

take.

Getting out of the roughSo, you’ve perfected your teeing off and it’s onto the fairway for you. If you can’t avoid the rough, the trick is knowing how to handle getting out of it.

What really defines a good golfer is not necessarily someone who consistently avoids the rough but one who can successfully get out of the rough just as quickly as they fall into it. Having the right tools to hand is key. A 7-iron or a wedge is required to chip the ball out of the rough and back onto the fairway in one quick shot, minimising disruption to your game.

It’s the same philosophy in PR and marketing. It’s exciting launching a new campaign and you wait for the enquiries to come flooding in, but instead it falters and doesn’t achieve the results you anticipated. You find you are suddenly stuck in the rough. But PR, like golf, is a game of patience. Don’t expect immediate results. Work with your agency to implement a long lasting, effective game plan and the results will start coming in, steadily building over time. Golfers who panic are more likely to try and get out of the rough as quickly as possible, and end up rushing their shot. It makes more sense to remain calm, and take your time.

2nd Hole

PR is just like golf. It’s a long

game, and takes patience,

dedication and a fair wind to

succeed. Just keep your focus

and you will soon be out of the

rough.

Getting into the swingAfter a period of practising, working out your game plan and improving your handicap, you’re really getting into the swing of golf and once you reach the third hole, your shots are improving.

As far as your PR and marketing is going, you’re starting to see some movement. Your key company messages have been developed and are being put out to your audiences. Your social media profiles are looking good and you are starting to engage with prospects through e-marketing. It’s looking promising, but now it is more important than ever that you don’t take your eye of the ball.

If you become complacent on the golf course you will lose concentration and your accuracy will suffer. Once you start getting into the swing of golf, it can become a trial of nervous strength as well as a game of technical ability. The same is true of PR and marketing. You might start experiencing great results but it’s important you don’t lose focus. Keep revisiting your marketing communications strategy, continually review your own business model as well as your target audiences, and constantly be on the lookout for new markets that you could enter. In order to stand out from the competition you need to keep reviewing and refining both your business and your PR and marketing strategy.

When you think everything is going really well, grip that club a bit more firmly and maintain your focus in order to keep performing at the top of your game.

3rd Hole

Review and refine your

marketing strategy to

stay in full swing.

Navigating the bunker

Take the Red Cross as an example. In 2011, an employee tweeted the following, accidentally, from the company account instead of their own: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…when we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd.”

Instead of panicking or trying to hide the tweet, the Red Cross responded by sending out another tweet, explaining the mistake and reassuring Twitter that the “Red Cross is sober and confiscated the keys.” What ensued was a tweet from Dogfish Beer with the hashtag #gettingslizzerd, encouraging people to donate to the Red Cross. The hashtag quickly trended and the Red Cross made the best out of a bad situation.

When you hit the bunker, make sure you respond in the right way. Communicate with your PR agency and come up with a plan of action. Don’t panic or you could find yourself in the bunker for a very long time.

4th Hole

As you work your way around the course, you will be faced with many challenges, including the dreaded bunker. If you thought getting out of the rough was tough, try chipping your shot out of the bunker. Trying to navigate the bunker has wrecked many a good golfer’s game, but just like when landing your shot in the rough, it’s how you respond that determines how much a bunker will affect your success in the game.

Think of it in business terms. Your company has just lost a major order, you’ve lost a key member of staff to a competitor, or you operate a manufacturing business and have got into trouble for unknowingly breaching health and safety legislation. These setbacks happen to many businesses, but those that respond in a calm and professional way often come out in the best light, with integrity restored and reputation untarnished.

Overcoming obstaclesGolf courses are, in truth, obstacle courses. You’ve made it to hole five and managed to successfully escape the bunker and the rough. By hole five you are not only getting into your swing, but you’re also getting into your stride. But as you walk up to tee off on the fifth hole, you realise there is a huge obstacle in the way – the water feature. They all have at least one. This is where you need nerves of steel. Getting yourself in deep water right now is not the outcome you want, not when things are starting to go so well.

In business we face obstacles every day, but occasionally a larger one might be placed in our path. A particular sector might suffer a downward trend, affecting your business supply chain, for example. This might be a good time to think about the direction in which you are targeting your ball so that you can clear the obstacle without too much disruption. On the golf course, you will probably take a bit of time to really weigh up your shot. How far do you need to hit the ball? Which club should you use? Where do you want the ball to land? For example, you might have to take a strategic shot that you know you can place, rather than losing the ball in the water.

Similarly, with your PR and marketing, you will want to consider the potential impact the obstacle might have, and then look at your options. This review process might mean taking a longer term approach rather than going for the quick wins. Or you might want to change the direction you’re going to hit your ball in by focusing on new target markets.

5th HoleOvercoming obstacles is par for the course. Regularly review your PR campaigns to keep them on track.

Lost in the woodsYou might have navigated your way past that pesky bunker and over the troublesome lake, but with golf courses being golf courses, there is always another hazard waiting around the corner to trip you up. You drive confidently off the tee but, to your horror, the ball veers off into the dense wooded area. After grumbling about the wind you finally track down your ball and you’re stood in these miserable woods with limited views of the rest of the hole.

Disaster? It doesn’t need to be. Of course you can just hit and hope, but realistically where’s that going to get you? Every business, regardless of size, has moments like this, a rough patch where it seems there’s no way out of the predicament, and you can’t see the wood for the trees.

In PR and marketing the trees are represented by the general noise generated across the different media channels. How can you get your business to stand out so that your audiences can see you. This is where a really great content calendar comes; one that is designed to get your business noticed. Consider the channels your audiences use and the type of content they want to see. Do they prefer to read case studies or the immediacy of tweets and social posts? Don’t forget to link your key messages into your campaigns when you are selecting the most appropriate channels for your content Once you have established this focus, you will no longer be lost in the woods, and your company’s voice will be heard.

6th Hole

Get your key messages to really

stand out with a great content

calendar. That way your voice

won’t be lost in all the noise.

The home straight

You’re almost there. Just two more holes to go, and you’re starting to feel a sense of accomplishment, especially as you’re coming in under par so far. Your score card is looking healthy and you’ve got the results you want. You’re well up the field when it comes to your game. You can already see that your strategy has paid off, and you are glad that you took the time to plan the game and each shot you played.

Similarly, in PR, it is a well thought out strategy that helps you to win the game. It is at this stage that you are starting to see the results of your campaigns, and you can start to measure these and analyse them. Your PR scorecard is also looking good. More media opportunities are coming your way because of the exposure you’ve already had, and you’re enjoying more leads and business enquiries. Your team is feeling a sense of achievement. Being part of a company that is becoming well known and recognised gives everyone a buzz, and makes them feel proud to be a part of the success.

This is where you start to prepare for the final push in your campaign. Are there opportunities that you can explore further as a result of your campaigns? Do you need to spend time with your sales team actively following up on leads? Are you making sure that your databases and records are being managed effectively to capture data and market information?

7th Hole

When things are going well,

don’t rest on your laurels. Keep

up the good work and keep your

marketing machine in full flow.

On to the greenWith a great deal of perseverance, a degree of skill and experience, and a little bit of luck and a fair wind, you finally make it on to the green on hole eight. You played it well, and hit your target bang on. You chose the right direction, the right tools, and you hit a nice clean shot.

When any PR and marketing campaign succeeds you feel a great sense of achievement. Your target audiences are starting to respond to your messages and stories, and you’re delighted with the exposure your business is receiving in the media after several of your key trade magazines have published your company’s stories.

It’s important to keep this momentum going and start planning your next campaign. For PR and marketing to be successful, you need a consistent profile among your audiences. Just as there is no point getting onto the green only to end up playing shots well over par, very few will remember a business they have only come across once. In fact, it is a well known maxim that a customer will buy from you only after they have seen your messages at least twelve times. This is the time to get creative and also to reflect on what has been successful in your campaigns and what hasn’t. Build on the successes and review those aspects that faltered along the way.

8th Hole

The final puttWell done, you’ve just played your final shot. Now is the time to take stock and tot up your scorecard to see how well you did. It’s also the time to reflect on your game overall. Did you come in under par? Did your strategy work or were there things you could have improved along the way? Did you have the right tools? What obstacles did you overcome?

Similarly, after a PR and marketing campaign, you should take some time out to evaluate your success. There are lots of different ways of measuring and evaluating success in marketing, and different metrics used. This varies from company to company and even from campaign to campaign. For a press release, you might want to measure how much coverage you’ve achieved. For social media campaigns, you will probably want to measure the reach and engagement – how many mentions, likes, reposts, retweets and new followers, etc. Have an idea of what you want to measure before you start your campaign, and at the end of it, you can then measure its effectiveness more accurately. The bonus is that there are lots of digital tools you can use to help you monitor and measure marketing activity such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and Klout, to mention just a few.

9th Hole

Monitoring, measuring and evaluating your performance

is key to future success.

Well done, you’ve made itCongratulations. Now it’s time for a well-earned drink in the clubhouse. But before you go, let’s just have a quick review of your game.

Deciding your handicap: Review where your business is currently at before developing your marketing strategy and plan.

Preparing to tee off: All successful campaigns start with a good plan. Decide where your business is going and how you are going to get it there.

Getting out of the rough: Don’t lose heart if your campaign falters. Review and revise along the way to keep everything on track.

Getting into the swing: Your campaigns are starting to generate results, but it’s important at this stage to maintain a steady focus and not become complacent. Keep the momentum going.

Navigating the bunker: It’s important to have a strategy to cope with unexpected and unanticipated events that are outside your control. This way you will be able to navigate any potential PR catastrophes with your company’s reputation intact.

Overcoming obstacles : When dealing with obstacles, don’t become despondent, just review and refine your strategy.

Lost in the woods: Choose your channels wisely, and align your content with your key messages so that your business really stands out from the crowd.

The home straight: Follow up on leads with your sales team, and explore any potential opportunities while they are still warm.

On to the green: Start planning your next campaign straight away and use the energy of your success to propel you forward. Review what has worked and what hasn’t.

The final putt : Decide which metrics to use to measure your activity. And don’t forget there are free or low cost tools and apps available digitally to help with this.

Need help perfecting your game?

Bridge PR & Media Services has 20 years’ experience and technical expertise in delivering successful PR campaigns for every aspect of the supply chain: from the prototyping and design stage of engineering through to the manufacturing processes and distribution, and incorporating everything technical in between, such as IT.

We have an enthusiastic and dedicated team with a diverse range of knowledge and skills who are all passionate about the industry sectors we serve; always going the extra mile for our clients and championing their businesses. Because we bring together all aspects of the marketing mix including business and marketing strategy, journalism, media relations and distribution, training and coaching, and digital innovation, we achieve outstanding results; consistently putting our clients in the right places at the right times, in front of the right people.

If you need a PR caddy to help you to produce, develop and implement your PR and marketing strategy, then call or email us today.

www.bridgepr.co.uk 024 7652 0025 info@bridgepr.co.uk