Connecting the Dots

On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Jessica Walker, owner of Jess Lifestyle Marketing.

The two delve into the foundations and execution of successful multi-channel marketing campaigns, covering the importance of understanding your audience, strategic planning using the RPIE and GOST models, the significance of consistent messaging, and the essential practice of measuring impact. 

Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.

#marketing #business #communication #strategy

Transcript

Samantha: 0:05

Hi, everyone. Welcome to 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, a podcast brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. I am Samantha Scott, APR, and today I am joined by the one and only Jess, who is my dear friend and colleague. Jessica, why don't you introduce yourself?

Jessica: 0:17

Well, thank you for having me here today, Samantha. Jess Walker, APR, CPRC, and I've been in the marketing and PR business for over 20 years. And last summer I decided to step out and try a new adventure and so I launched Jess Lifestyle Marketing, where I am able to kind of offer PR marketing skills and services to businesses and others as a consulting type basis. So it's been a lot of fun to dive into that.

Samantha: 0:42

Awesome. Well, I think you're gonna be a perfect guest to talk about our topic today, which is multi-channel campaigns and how to execute them with success. So you have a background largely in PR, but obviously have experience in marketing. Our firm serves as an outsourced CMO marketing department, but also my background is in PR too, so really melding those two worlds to create successful campaigns. So why don't we kick things off with what are the foundations of a multi-channel campaign? You know, what would you consider to be kind of the core elements?

Jessica: 1:13

Well, I definitely think understanding your audience and understanding what you're trying to put out there, you've got to really have that base there to be successful. You know, and a lot of people always want to say that marketing and PR is something that can't be measured or is more of a fluff type thing, and it's not, it can be very strategic. It can be very measurable and quantifiable, and so it's one of those things that you just have to start from the beginning with a plan and the audience and the research is really a core foundation so that you can build all of the elements around those to be successful.

Samantha: 1:47

Absolutely start with the plan. Who are you trying to reach and what are you trying to accomplish? Those sound like very simple questions, but they can be very hard to answer depending on the client or the project or the thing that you're working on. So, really glad you started there and you touched on one of the things that I am most passionate about and you know that, which is testing and measuring because everything can be tested and measured, and it is a full blown bologna lie if somebody tells you otherwise. I completely agree with that. And messaging really factors into that too, right? So like, who are you trying to talk to? What are you trying to accomplish? And then well ultimately, what are you trying to communicate to them? You know, I saw something on LinkedIn recently, that said, you know, it's not about what you're trying to sell, it's about the problem that your audience is trying to solve. And I think that's a fantastic reminder for marketers to keep in mind when you're creating these multi-channel campaigns, or even singular channel campaigns. So let's talk first about developing a cohesive strategy, because that's really the foundation. How would you recommend going about doing that?

Jessica: 2:44

Well, of course, anything with a plan and being very meticulous is going to drive you to success. And so understanding what that goal is that you're trying to achieve. You know, once you understand who your audiences are and what your situational analysis is, where you know your current situation and what you're trying to move towards, then you start building the plan behind it. You know, just like you plan a vacation or you plan any kind of a trip, you take it in steps. You don't just show up at the airport and hope that you can get somewhere. You know, you have to plan in advance and kind of go for that. And it's the same with the marketing and the PR plans. You know, you have to be strategic. There's multiple layers when you're really diving into it to make sure that you are successful and building those steps. You know, you have strategies, you have tactics, and so it's just making sure that once you know that goal, creating from the goal measurable objectives, which you can do, and people don't realize that, is making those objectives and then moving from there to say, okay, well we made this objective. What is the step, the overarching strategy to get to that? And then what's the to do list, basically under that, with the tactics. So it's really starting to put pen to paper, which I know can be a little time consuming, but it's very much worth it in the end when you can look back and see the results and see how things are coming across.

Samantha: 4:03

Or fingers to keyboard depending on your day and age and what your preferences are. But yeah, I'd like to break that down a little bit. So digging into kind of our PR background, for those of you who are familiar with this concept, it will be old news, but hear me out there is the RPIE model. So it's research, planning, implementation, and then evaluation. And Jessica, you kind of touched on all of those things because first you have to do the research. You're planning, right? It's, okay, who are we trying to talk to? What are we trying to accomplish? What does success look like at the end of this campaign? I like to ask that question a lot of my team and of our clients, but then also planning it out and then going into the implementation. Okay, now I have the roadmap, so I know where I'm going. I know what success is going to look like at the end. I can implement this now, but then it doesn't end there. We have to actually do the evaluation. So that's where the testing and measurement comes in. The other thing is the GOST model and it's not ghost like spooky Halloween. It's GOST as in goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. This is so incredibly paramount and I think people that don't have PR experience may not have the benefit of being familiar with that, but start with the goal. Where are we going? So is this a business that needs X new clientele or X more in revenue at the bottom line? What are they trying to accomplish? Because everything we do in marketing should be tied to the business's bottom line and goals. Not just oh I want more followers on social media because it's a popularity contest. How is this going to really affect the business?

Jessica: 5:28

Right.

Samantha: 5:29

Then second, going into objectives, to your point, and again, another acronym here, is the SMART objectives. So strategic, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.

Jessica: 5:40

Yeah.

Samantha: 5:40

They're not all going to fit that complete model of those five points, but you try to get as close as you can because what I like to say is, if I want to generate a 20% increase in engagement on Facebook within six months, that's really measurable. Versus, well, I'd just like to get more out of Facebook. Well, that's so vague. How do you measure that? So making sure your strategic plan is in fact strategic and it has measurable objectives.

Jessica: 6:07

And that those objectives, you know, that you have a balance of output versus outcome as well. You know, people are easy to say, oh, I can make 10 posts a week, you know, for the rest of the year, and that's my goal, and look, I made my objective, but that doesn't change a behavior. So you want the outcome of what you're trying to say, just like you were saying with the percentage of engagement increase, you know, putting some figures to that.

Samantha: 6:29

Absolutely, because you're right, output versus outcome, totally different. We can be very, very busy doing all different kinds of things in the marketing or PR world, and if they don't turn out to create the actual results that we're looking for, those goals, then it's for naught. Super important. And then going into strategies versus tactics, so the S and the T in GOST. People get these things mixed up all the time. A strategy is the

Jessica: 6:53

I did too when I was learning.

Samantha: 6:55

It's the approach, it's the plan, it's the concept, it's the campaign, it's the thing we're gonna do. Tactics are how you do it, right? So first I'm gonna make the plan, then I'm gonna send this email, then I'm gonna write this copy, then I'm gonna run this social ad. Those are all the nitty gritty things, so to speak, that kind of make that happen. But you really have to do that kind of reverse pyramid of, okay, what are the goals? What are my objectives? What are the strategies and the tactics, and you can break that out any which way you would like. You know, the way I like to look at it tends to be in strategies is I might have a section in that where it's what are my email strategies versus what are my paid strategies versus what are my public relations strategies or branding, et cetera, go down the line and the tactics fall under there. I would really encourage anyone that's listening to this, go through that exercise and write down your goals, objectives, strategies and tactics, and then fill in the blanks and how they tie to each other. It's gonna make your life so much easier when it comes to executing and even easier when it comes to reporting. So if you've got somebody above you that you need to be able to go back to and say, hey, I did my job and look how well I did, this is one really easy way to help you do that.

Jessica: 7:54

Right. And in the business world too, especially with a lot of, you know, the higher level executives, they want to hear more of the numbers. They don't want to hear, you know, oh, we made this nice looking ad that's going to reach, you know, X, Y, and Z. Well, what does the ad do? Why did we do that? They might not see dollars immediately, depending on the business, but they want to see some type of results or some type of measurable thing. And it depends on the services too. I mean, you can definitely work on a PR campaign for like a retail store and see pretty quick results based on what you're doing. But if you're offering high level services such as accounting or legal fees or something like that, people are not as quick to change. And so you just want to make sure to understand too, when you're setting those objectives, that you're setting those attainable ones, like in the SMART description, is that just because you say, I'm gonna get this by X date, you got to make sure you understand the industry that you're in and what is realistic for the type of services or things you're selling.

Samantha: 8:52

Yeah, that's a really great point. Realistic on your own, and also that your higher ups are realistic too, you know? I tend to be one of those people who are like I want it yesterday. Let's get it done. We can do this, you know, and thank God I have a really reasonable team who's like, okay, slow down, calm, calm down. We need, we need a couple extra minutes to do that. But make sure that you are setting those, you know, don't make it so cushy that you can be lackadaisical about it, I think you need a little bit of pressure to get it done, but at the same time, be reasonable because my counsel's always been quality over quantity. Make sure if you're gonna do it, that you do it right. Especially when it comes to creating the strategy, make sure that you leave yourself enough time to create a solid one, but then also the time that you put in terms of timeframe to execute is reasonable as well. So that brings up to our next point, which is perfect timing and perfect segue, which is execution. So now, okay, the rubber meets the road. We have the idea, we have it documented, we've done all of our due diligence. Now it's time to really move forward. How do we do that when we're talking about a multi-channel campaign and how do we do that effectively and cohesively?

Jessica: 9:54

It's a lot. I mean, and it really, you have to look back to, as you've been building that plan, at your audiences and where they're at. Different audiences are going to be in different spheres of influence, whether it's on social, whether it's on television, whether it's, you know, at events. You have to understand who you're trying to reach, and if you're trying to reach a multi-generation, that you're gonna have to expand that plan and do different things for different groups.

Samantha: 10:18

Absolutely.

Jessica: 10:18

So you just have to make sure that you're looking back at that. I mean, we have, in today's world, it's a blessing and a curse that we have so many things right here at our fingertips that we can use to get the messaging out. But it also gets a lot of that lost in, in all of the chaos and all of the sound too. So that's another reason to be very strategic. And so it's understanding if you're a business that relies heavily on a social media presence, making sure that you're targeting that audience in that area and that you are building up posts and planning ahead and reading the room too. Because as you start to implement your plan, things in the world change, as we've seen, you know, a lot in the last few years.

Samantha: 10:59

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Jessica: 11:01

No, I mean, it's just been so calm for like, the last five years. But understanding that, you know, when you do implement a plan, always keeping aware of your surroundings because you never know when you're gonna have to switch gears. You don't want to put out this fluffy post if there's a pandemic going on, and people are not ready for that. So you, have to understand it for sure, and build it from there. But it, it really comes down to seeing where your audience is so that you can implement those steps, whether it's on social media, whether it's sponsoring events, advertising, being at events, there's so many ways to do it.

Samantha: 11:37

Yeah, and so you're touching on a few of the kind of tactics there on how we go about executing. So if we have our goals, we have our objectives, we've got our strategies in place, now we start executing and really need to be thinking about this in two ways, the 30,000 foot view of what are we trying to accomplish and what's the big picture across the board that needs to remain consistent in terms of messaging and brand positioning, but then secondly is how do I now implement that through PR? So this could be news releases, editorial calendar opportunities, working with influencers, different collaborations, community engagement. Then we can move into digital. So we've got organic social, paid social, maybe we're doing pay per click, SEO, but there's also the other influencers in that space as well. Email too, and then your website, but then also advertising, which you touched on. So, you know, thinking about where the budget allocation is, how do you adjust that by audience, but also seasonality, if that's applicable. And just making sure that we're looking at this from an earned and owned perspective, and that it's all consistent. Our team does what's called a biannual review of marketing strategies where we lay everything out. If we're working for a client, we look at everything across the board, all in one place, news releases, social posts, emails, graphic design, everything in one spot. And we're looking at it for the last six months and saying, does this measure up to the expectations? How has this moved the needle? What's the performance year to date? But then also saying, does this look consistent from a brand perspective? Because there is a risk when you have people working in silos where I think I'm doing the right thing and I'm running down this road, but hey, this might be like slightly off compared to what this person has going on. So making sure that we're consistent across the board, but still working in our areas of expertise.

Jessica: 13:17

Absolutely. Consistent voice is a big thing and making sure that everybody's understanding and on the same page because the messaging has to be consistent, you know, no matter who's telling it, whether it's on social, whether it's on email, whether it's, you know, at events. You just have to make sure that you are definitely doing that. And another one that is pretty popular when I mentioned like sponsorships is, you know, ads are expensive and you really are putting a lot of investment in that and hoping that a large group sees it. When it comes to magazines, when it comes to television, you have a select audience because there are so many options nowadays when it comes to streaming and publications and reading online. But one of the other things I suggest too, is like sponsoring events for nonprofits and supporting groups locally, just because you're taking the dollars that you'd spend on an ad in some cases and putting it towards a group that it will help them. But you're also if it's your target audience, if the people attending events or supporting that nonprofit are the type of people that would benefit your business or benefit your organization, then you're already networking with them. So there's so many ways and it all ties together as you know, because doing one thing isn't going to move that needle, like you mentioned, organic and paid. You have to do multiple, and I know it's very exhausting for people when I tell them that, but I'm like, you can send out press releases all day long, but if nobody knows who you are and nobody knows about it from other angles, they're not going to pay attention. And so it's important. And you also touched on with your biannual thing I love, because that's one thing I always tell people, yes, your objectives, you set an end goal. But I always tell people, I call them almost like stop gap goals or evaluations so that you don't wait until you get to the end of the year to see if you made that goal. Check it like three or four times in process to say, I should be at this by this point. Am I here? If not, what could I change? If I am, great. If I'm doing way better, then let's keep doing that and just really blow the objective goal out of the water there.

Samantha: 15:17

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we do that specifically with digital, you know, it's not a set it and forget it. That's what I like to say. And a lot of companies take that approach where it's like, okay, I set the campaign and it's just gonna run on its own. And then at the end we look at it. Well, man, you're really losing out if you take that approach, because what if you get to the end and realize that campaign was a total flop. Even though you planned it, thought it was gonna be great if I knew that a week in I could make an adjustment and then rescue the rest of that campaign and make it perform exceedingly well. So absolutely, I think that is across the board important advice, whether that's PR, digital, et cetera. There's tons of ways to measure, which is the next thing we're gonna talk about. But I want to jump back to what you said about, you know, being kind of complex and how there are so many opportunities these days. You're absolutely right. And I had that conversation with somebody recently who I have great respect for, and she's been around the business for a very long time and she was saying, man, it was so much easier when I was doing this, you know, decades ago because it was simple. We had coupons, we had easy ways, were sales going up or sales going down. It wasn't hard to measure. And I said, you know, it's a beautiful dichotomy because that is true, it was simpler, but at the same time, now, even though we have all these channels and that becomes more complex, we also have so much greater control, flexibility, measurability. It's a really incredible time to be doing marketing, but to your point, it just all goes to the point of why being strategic and making sure that you are doggedly in pursuit of consistency, brand voice, all those types of things when you're doing a multichannel campaign is so important. And my last comment in this section is related to brand voice and you talked about messaging I think is incredibly important. So that should absolutely be part of your strategy, is having a very clear message and making sure everyone on your team is singing the same song, speaking the same way. So that could be a brand voice, we call it internally, a brand voice and content creation guide. How do we want to come across, what are the words or phrases that we would use or would not use? How do we want people to feel when they communicate or hear from us. And making sure if we're writing on behalf, in this case of a company, that what we are producing would sound very much like if somebody went to that brick and mortar or went to that client's website, that it sounds the same. So consistency is absolutely very, very important.

Jessica: 17:24

It is. And the other thing too, I don't know if it, where exactly I'd throw it in this process, but probably in the beginning, I probably should have mentioned it there, but, you know, understanding the why to what you're doing as well. If your executives, you know, if you're with a big company and they see other people doing this well, it doesn't mean that we should be doing it. You know, you, you have to understand why.

Samantha: 17:43

I have the best example for that.

Jessica: 17:45

I'm sure you have plenty.

Samantha: 17:47

Anyone that has been around me for a period of time probably knows what I'm gonna say, but I'm gonna share it anyway. We worked with a gym a number of years ago, and they did that exact same thing. We were setting up social media for them, and they said, we want to be on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, and whatever, fill in the blank, right? And I said, Twitter, why? Well, that's where everyone else is. That's where my competitors are. I said, hold on, let's just survey your members and see how many of them, and granted this was many, many years ago, right? Two percent were on there, and I said, do you still want to invest your time and money on that? Oh, probably not. Okay. So I know I love testing and measurement. I'm a nerd. I will forever be on that soapbox. But to your point, it is not a one size fits all, and you do not necessarily have to do what your competitors are doing. Okay.

Jessica: 18:28

Sometimes when you do opposite of what your competitors are doing, it makes you stand out more.

Samantha: 18:32

Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so last point here that I want to talk about as it relates to planning and executing successfully on a multichannel campaign is measurement where my heart is forever and always, but really, really making sure that we're measuring impactful things, meaningful data. This is not data for the sake of data. You know, I used to do public speaking nationally, and I would ask the audience, how many of you have Google Analytics on your site? Okay, hands are up. How many of you get the reports? Okay, a few hands go down. How many of you look at those reports? Okay, more hands go down. How many of you understand what it's telling you? And there was usually like only two or three hands up. Now, I don't do that as an exercise to make people feel bad or unintelligent, things like that. But it's the point of if you're getting junk data or meaningless data, it's not going to help you. So I will forever and always be a champion of meaningful data. That you can glean actionable insights from. So I get information that then tells me this is working, this needs to be adjusted, this needs to be scratched, and then I can take that data to make better decisions going forward. We could have a whole other conversation about that. Maybe we should do another podcast just on measurement, maybe a whole season on it.

Jessica: 19:45

Absolutely.

Samantha: 19:46

But I'll pause there and ask you from your perspective, what are you looking at in terms of measurement for a successful multichannel campaign?

Jessica: 19:56

Well, definitely we're referencing back to what your objectives are, looking back at your goal, looking back at your objectives. So as you mentioned earlier, tying everything to that and so it's making sure that the steps that you're doing and the things that you're checking to measure align with that. You know, if you're solely working on social media, and I don't think increasing followers is a goal to go after. I think it's increasing engagement. So in a situation like that, it's making sure that you're pulling the data that shows that you're getting that engagement. The times of day to post, the type of things people want to see. And it's just using the research that you've done to know what you need to be measuring. Yeah it's great to know, oh, we increased by 15 followers. Well, that's all well and good, you know, the followers don't necessarily result in your brand getting better view or a better enhancement. What pushes that is in interaction. Engagement. You know, I've always told people too, when it comes to, you know, Google Business and Google Reviews and search engine optimization, it's understanding that all of those things work together and that you can't just, as you mentioned earlier, like set it and forget it. Like if you build a website, you think, oh, the website's there, I'm done. I don't have to do anything. Well, if Google sees that you haven't uploaded a photo or changed some language or just touched the website at all in a few weeks, then it starts to imagine that you're not there. If you are just so focused in on your website and not looking at your Google Business or looking at your social media or you know, link backs from other, you know, business partners, then you know you're losing that integration because all of those parts have to work together. Unfortunately for us, it feels like Google kind of runs the world in a way. They make the call and you want to make sure they see you active in so many places. And so it's not saying, oh, you know, somebody was on my website for X amount of time. That's great. You want them to move around. You want to get some movement in there. So it's one, for sure understanding what you're measuring and how to read it, which even I sometimes will give to a web person and be like, tell me what some of this data means so I can understand what I need to change. But understanding it and pulling the right information, because Google Analytics especially has, I think Facebook and all of them do. You can really start honing down a rabbit hole and measuring so many different things that won't really make a difference.

Samantha: 22:13

Yeah. I think you can kind of summarize that as going back to what are the business's goals? What are you trying to accomplish? So measuring that back against that, you know, at a micro level, we measure monthly, and so we're looking at, okay, if we're working with a restaurant, did we increase sales? Did we increase revenue? Did we increase covers? If those are the objectives that we're working towards, we're measuring against the business's actual goals, and then also looking at the objectives specifically that you talked about. So you know, for PR, for example, it could be impressions or earned media, things like that. But then also online, what's the reach? What are the conversions? What's happening, to your point, on the website? Because ultimately, yes, we want to connect and nurture relationships and create awareness, but those things don't necessarily impact the bottom line directly until someone makes a purchase, books a reservation, et cetera. So we want to make sure that we're keeping those things in mind. And then of course, anything with paid you're measuring as well. So we're looking at what's the click-through rate, what's the open rate, what's the cost per click, you know, what is the ROI at the bottom line that we're generating from these endeavors? And if any sales rep says, we can't measure that, they are definitely telling you a lie. I would be happy to talk to you about that, but make sure that you're doing that because awareness is one thing and that's great, but that doesn't really tell the full story, which is really, really what we're trying to get at. Because to your point, we want to know what type of content is engaging the audience on what channel, what are the levers that we can move up and down to make behavior change?

Jessica: 23:39

Yep.

Samantha: 23:40

I.e. generate the sales or meet the business's objectives.

Jessica: 23:44

Behavior change, right there. You hit the nail on the head. And one thing I've used to describe to people, especially people maybe that don't have the background, understand what we're trying to drive towards with this multi-layer plan is emotions, like it's about relationships. Yes, this is a very thought out plan with a lot of steps and a lot of checkpoints, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the relationships that you have with your customers, with your clients, with anybody that you're working with. And I tell people when I'm, you know, trying to explain the process to them, I'm like, think of your favorite coffee shop. Think of your favorite grocery store. Everybody has one. Even if they don't think they do. Like, think of the places that you enjoy and why. You didn't just go there, because necessarily it is, you know, right down the street, you might drive past several other versions to get to the one you like. There's a feeling, there's an emotion tied to it, and that's what you're trying to do with the engagement and getting to your customer base, you're trying to change their behavior, but you have to tap into their behavior habits as well.

Samantha: 24:47

Create the experience. So it's both qualitative and quantitative. I think that's a bottom line as we wrap this up on how do you effectively create a multi-channel campaign keeping both sides in mind so you can really create a strategic plan, execute it well, and measure it in a meaningful way. Thank you so much, Jess, for sharing your insights. I appreciate it.

Jessica: 25:07

I appreciate being on here with you. It's always great to connect and I always love talking about PR and marketing, so...

Samantha: 25:14

Absolutely. Well, thank you everyone for watching, for tuning in and listening. This has been another episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. Feel free to leave any comments or questions below and make sure you tune into the other episodes forthcoming. Thank you. Take care.