In 2019, B2B PR and communications is less about direct corporate messaging and more about sharing an interesting, relevant and insightful story for audiences and remaining relevant to the client’s sector and area of expertise. The industry is continuing to grow in 2019 as companies use PR as a platform to give themselves a voice, but it’s also creating a lot of competition. As a result, it is now more important than ever to stand out from the crowd and have something important and relevant to say.
For instance, the news agenda is currently saturated with updates on Brexit and everyone is fed up of reading the same old stories. It’s therefore our job as PRs to think about how we can move the news agenda along and say something new using a news hook to discuss an angle that no one else is currently talking about. In this example, we have been ensuring our clients are relevant to Brexit by offering advice on how Brexit may impact the UK high street and other areas of commerce or the likely impact of stockpiling on businesses.
One of the biggest challenges for PRs currently is to balance both the client’s expectations and the journalist’s need for a brilliant story. PRs must consider how a client’s story can remain relevant and interesting without straying too far from the client’s topic of expertise and the messaging that they are trying to convey. However, you must also consider that the story should spark interest for a publication’s audience. Another big challenge within the world of PR can be quantifying the value that PR directly has to a business, and then, integrating the PR function with the rest of marketing and the business operations to ensure maximum gain from the PR efforts.
We tackle each of these challenges by being proactive with content creation from the start, staying on top of the news agenda and creating an effective campaign that links to our clients’ area of expertise but is also impactful on the publication’s audience. We use content in several other creative ways, such as endorsing clients’ customer success through case studies and writing thought leadership pieces. This is in addition to creating e-books and whitepapers that can be used across the company for integrated marketing campaigns and as supporting information for our clients’ sales teams. Further to this, we also ensure that results from PR can be clearly demonstrated and maximum ROI is achieved by setting clear deliverables for our clients at the start of each campaign.
Whiteoaks International works collaboratively within our teams across content, media and social media to ensure that the power of PR is maximised through each channel. For example, the core PR team will work closely with the social media and digital team when a piece of great coverage has been achieved to ensure that this is being shared with the right messaging via the client’s social channels to reach an even wider audience. By working to our 360̊ Framework, we generate interesting and relevant content for our clients and ensure we deliver on all fronts.
