Aha! Performance Content
PR REDEFINED
The market is noisy. The press is preoccupied.
“How do I get MY story out there?”
The secret is strategic and persuasive Performance Content. But not just run-of-the-mill storytelling or content marketing. The content has to work for you. It’s got to be search-friendly. It must move your audience to action. You are building your strategic digital footprint. How do you ensure your digital footprint is aligned with your corporate strategy and company purpose? You need a strong Message Architecture, thought leadership platform, and a digital presence cemented with content, key search words, and memes.
phase I: Rise above the noise
develop a thought leadership platform
It’s loud out there. Thousands of companies are vying for attention from the same audience and many of them are using the same channels to reach the masses. It’s easy to get overlooked, overshadowed, and out-communicated by your competitors.
How do you rise above the noise?
It’s not enough anymore to just tweet about product updates or to push promotional email campaigns. We have to elevate our brands by communicating an idea that goes beyond the products we sell and the services we provide. We have to connect with our target audience in a way that not only resonates with, but also influences them. A thought leadership platform can do just that.
If the idea is truly sticky and the thought leadership platform credible, meaningful, and emotional, it goes viral and the company that owns it becomes associated with a bigger idea or ideal that inspires customers, prospects, investors and influencers. The goal is to move from concept to conversation. And the bigger the better. When this happens, corporate valuations increase.
phase II: Stay there
Execute your strategy with performance content
With a thought leadership platform and Message Architecture in place, you’re ready to get your story out there. The content you create and share must speak authentically to both your corporate brand and your thought leadership concept. Not only does it need to reach your target audience and its influencers, it must also move them to action.
Performance Content is our solution to the ever increasing need to stay relevant, top of mind, and topical. It’s how you build a brand that matters. Our Performance Content Team will work with you to develop, create, and deploy a lasting communication strategy.
How to Do It
1. Expose a need, or a longing that is both emotional and requires an ecosystem—or movement—to fulfill.
2. Determine the requirements that form the basis of this need ensuring that the company’s value proposition can fulfill it.
3. Brand the thought leadership platform with a phrase (such as NoSoftware; Smarter Planet) and connect it intrinsically to the corporate essence without using the corporate name. This should not be a commercial.
4. Put forth the requirements that meet the need in a seminal communication such as a significant speech (a TED talk, for example), a white paper, or a book.
5. Proliferate the concept in every conceivable way including studies to illustrate it, PR to amplify it, advertising to increase awareness about it, talks to spread it, etc., etc.
what you’ll need
Clear articulation of the thought leadership platform concept and brand
Resolution on recommended seminal content vehicles
One-page plan articulating the objective, strategy, and implementation of the thought leadership platform
The seminal content (speech, white paper, book, etc.)
Widespread proliferation of the platform with PR, social media, blog posts, web copy, email campaigns, and targeted ads
A microsite for readers coming from links and memes in the copy
Analytics to measure engagement
The strategy will be customized to your business needs with an option to add video content production.
