PR: from “one to all” to “one to one” and even “one to only one”!
France
Gone are the days when information was communicated by press release, communicated to a target of a few dozen journalists and which then generated a few dozen articles!
Like marketing, PR is gradually giving up on one to all. Not out of whim, no, but in the face of the few results obtained by this 20th century method, before the Internet and its communities.
Content is king, yes but not just any one.
Today, content king, yes, because outside of it no fallout, but we are witnessing a strong trend: the exclusive content.
Apart from communicating strong news such as a must have new product or a big fundraising campaign, brands face great difficulty to engage conversations, in providing the press with information that will gradually build their reputation. Despite an incredible acceleration in the number of version of products, a trend initiated by high tech brands, with today versions 10 or even 15 of certain software, despite the tsunami of mergers / acquisitions, breathtaking fundraising by startups, brands cannot be satisfied with communicating only this news.
So as communication experts we imagined other opportunities to communicate, and we are developing treasures of the imagination to create different content, able to attract the press outside of the big news. And we create opinion pieces, expert opinions, open forums… very sophisticated content, not just news related. And the press, whatever its format appreciates. Content was published.
Still, these contents are not as easy and quick to create as those concerning a news. A opinion piece, for example, is rarely going to be written entirely by a brand spokesperson. We are often the ones who produce it. And this production requires a strong market expertise, that acquired by our consultants. It’s an investment.
The media gladly published this content. We are seeing the development of the “Expert Opinion” sections, the “They speak to you”, and not only in the specialized press, the economic press did it too. And the read rates were not ridiculous, some forums prance at the top of the most read articles.
Is the game worth the candle?
How it is now? We notice the media are asking now for exclusivity on this content. And ask not just exclusivity over time, but total exclusivity. So is the game worth the candle? Do we have to develop specific content for each media?
We must say that we believe that yes, offering different and exclusive content, carefully developed, allows brands to differentiate themselves and to speak up with very significant added value.
So yes, the time spent and expertise are important to produce content, yes, this content may only be published by one media, but the impact it has on your customers and prospects is of a very great value. In marketing, we have gone from “one to all” to “one to one” and in PR we are now moving to “one to only one”. But the ROI is there, so … you too, invest in the content, come and invest in content!
by Gilles Lyonnet – Eliotrope.