This morning I worked with 18 young marketing and BD assistants on a PM Forum course on “Practical and Professional skills”. We covered a lot of ground. But there was a series of group workshops where they demonstrated just how much they knew by identifying 10 top tips in a variety of promotional and communication areas. Here’s what they produced:
Internal marketing and communications
- Consider different approaches using digital channels (e.g. Yammer)
- Make sure people understand how to use social media and the policies
- Consider how to communicate both good and bad news – achieve a balance
- Celebrate wins and successes
- Lots of face to face communication with focus groups and at team meetings
- Use brochures to help everyone understand the range of clients and services
- Look at processes for managing mergers and collaboration between teams
- Look at the best practice in different teams and share ideas
- Help everyone to become a brilliant brand ambassador for the firm
- Consider how to modify communications to best reach different groups within the firm – partners, seniors, trainees, support staff etc
Media relations and publicity
- Develop relationships with broadcast, print and digital journalists
- Know your market and what they read/listen to
- Develop copy writing skills for the media
- Use sponsorship and profile raising at events
- Promote your experts and their opinions
- Either develop the skills in-house or use an external PR agency
- Get external advocates (such as clients) to say good things about your firm
- Promote mentions in directories and awards
- Ensure people know about policies and procedures for mentioning the firm
- Ensure there are reputation monitoring systems in place
Direct, digital and social marketing
- Hone search engine optimisation to attract traffic to your web site
- Monitor web analytics to know what works best
- Ensure targets are aligned to overall marketing objectives
- Choose the best mode of delivery – emails, social media, telephone etc
- Chose the right channel that supports brand awareness and positioning
- Maintain good data – check it is addressed to the right person
- Consider the quality vs the quantity of the material
- Make sure that the use of digital is appropriate to the target audience (e.g. smart phone use, app development technology etc)
- Make sure messages are “on brand” and clear
- Consider your call to action (CTA) and two way communications and how the sales process will follow up
Contact marketing – Seminars, events and hospitality
- Use expert/reputable speakers who are engaging, interactive and convincing
- Focus seminars on hot topics (from the audience’s point of view)
- Invite decision makers or be clear about what you want to achieve with other groups
- Consider the timing and location of the event to maximise appeal
- Consider the appropriateness of the event (especially with the Bribery Act)
- Plan the desired mix of people – clients and referrers and prospects and staff
- Target attendance at the right sort of third party events and exhibitions
- Differentiate of the event – don’t just repeat what everyone else does
- Think about the call to action, the materials and merchandise available
- Be obsessive about the organisation – badges, front of house, what to do if it rains/transport problems, takeaways, mailing and attendee lists, catering, equipment, follow ups etc
