How to get the message out
We’ve talked about how to formulate your message and how to keep it consistent while still targeting it to appeal to specific audiences. Now what? How do you get your message out to the people who need to hear it? Here are a few ideas:
• Website/Blog
First of all, you should focus on your website and/or blog. This is where you can be totally in charge of your message without a filter. The goal of all the other online efforts is to drive traffic TO your website so people can see in detail who you are, what you sell, and, of course, find a way to do business with you—so utilizing your website to present the right message is paramount.
A lot of you might have gotten disenchanted with the idea of a “blog” because it seemed frivolous—so it might help to think of your blog as your NEWSROOM. If you’ve developed a new technology or you want to comment on something that’s happening in your industry, a blog post is a great place to start. You control the message, and you position yourself as a member of the thought leadership in your industry. And blog posts, because they are updates to your website content, are great for search engine optimization.
- LinkedIn/Social Media
These are also great channels for demonstrating thought leadership. Once you’ve done a blog post, you can share it on LinkedIn or your other selected social channels. (You should put some thought into which channels make sense for you—there are a ton of options depending on who you want to reach and what you want to say.) But remember that we’re basically talking about word-of-mouth. How many times have you said that word-of-mouth is your best marketing tool? Social media sharing is online word-of-mouth. People “like” you, they follow you, and they share interesting information about you.
Done right, email is still an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with your customers and employees—and people whom you want to become your customers and employees. A few quick tips about email marketing:
- Update your database to make sure you are reaching the right people.
- Don’t overdo it. If you email too much, people will unsubscribe.
- Craft your messages in the way we talked about before. Be consistent with your brand and always keep in mind what matters to THE READER.
There are resources out there that are pulling together stories about how companies are contributing during the pandemic. People need this information, and ThomasNet and CTmrg are two websites that are curating those stories. Make sure they have your information AND that the information exists on your website or your blog so they can link back to it and drive traffic for you.
- Press Releases and Industry Publications
There is opportunity right now to get your message to a broader audience than you might think. If you are making NEWS, if you are doing something different than anyone else, if you have developed a new product or are doing something in a whole new way in the face of COVID-19, people want to know about that. That deserves a press release.
There are also many, many industry vertical publications out there that might be open to publishing articles about that kind of thing. Most of them are especially interested in success stories or case studies. What is a specific thing you did that solved a specific problem? These pieces can’t be in marketing-speak, but they are needed. Publications are looking for relevant content right now. Look through some of the industry publications you get—you probably get several of them, either in physical form or electronically. What kind of stories do they contain? Do you do similar things? Look for opportunities to share stories of what you are doing well.