Column centimetres to connecting content. Making a genuine connection through content that connects has always been at the heart of good public relations.
We lost sight of that in our efforts to measure and showcase the reach of our efforts. True reach is the kind that pulls at heartstrings and helps our audience see themselves in the brand or company we represent. My favourite restaurant, my favourite car, shirt, drink, or person makes me feel heard and seen, and special. That is all about connecting at a deeper level.
Content that connects is not templatised. The AIDA model that I learnt in B school stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Good communication was supposed to first grab the audience’s attention, then get them interested help generate desire, and then finally nudge the person to act.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, our attention span has shrunk and the volume of content crying out for our attention has exploded. As a result, all our effort has been channelised towards the first A. Find ways to grab attention. The saying “all publicity is good publicity” stems from this. So too does “out of sight, out of mind”. And this has led to the mindless pursuit of visibility.
How much visibility did the campaign create? Did it generate awareness? Did it help build thought leadership? And a bunch of similar objectives that are all aimed at attracting eyeballs at any cost took centre stage. In a post-pandemic world, all of that attention is no longer working or desirable.
The world went through a crisis and has emerged a different place. Something has shifted at a very fundamental level. The vanity metrics related to wide reach don’t work anymore. How many likes a post gets is unlikely to matter much unless those likes lead to action. Only content that connects at a deeper level evokes a response that goes beyond the reaction of giving it a thumbs up.
The reviews of a restaurant, a room heater, and a car all helped me make a purchase decision. Word of mouth got them onto my radar and the wisdom of the crowds helped me make a final choice. PR can and should play a significant role in managing this ecosystem. Finding ways to get happy customers to share their views and flagging and responding to the irate ones with empathy and speed are all part of PR today. In my recent search for a new car, of all the things that worked or did not work in favour of helping us arrive at our final choice, the test-drive was the deal maker and deal breaker.
In PR parlance this is about creating meaningful experiences for the audience. The way the test drive was curated and managed is in essence the content we were fed. One brand that had us so beautifully hooked with the videos, the reviews, the articles completely lost the plot when it came to the test drive. They had a car that rattled and winced and groaned as it navigated every pothole. The other brand had a nice clean well-maintained car that gave us a great experience. This is content too. PR professionals need to expand their minds and their reach when it comes to what PR can and should embrace.
When I was heading communications (many years ago) for a car company in India, one of the most significant things I did was to get the service policy of the company changed. It all began with me asking the question “Why do we not call our customers and proactively inform them when their car is due for a service?”. The VP who was heading our service division informed me that it was not possible because our service policy was based on the car completing a particular number of kilometres before it was due for its first service and we could not possibly know when each customer reached that particular number. I asked him the most logical follow up question “How do the other car companies manage to do this?”.
He explained that their service policy was different. It had a clause that said first service is due on completion of 1 month or a particular no. of kilometres. Keeping track of when a customer bought the car and then scheduling calls after a month was easy to do. To cut the long story short, it took me a year but I managed to be the catalyst that got our service policy changed to include this clause. This is also very much a part of content that helps connect with customers in meaningful ways.
Does the communication move the market? Does it move the customer into action, nudge them toward making a purchase? Does it get the regulator to make the change that enables business growth? Does it keep the employee from switching jobs? If the answer to any of these kinds of questions is yes, then the PR is doing its job. We have moved from column centimetres to content that connects. Content that helps connect the dots and galvanises audiences to act is in demand.
Are you content with the way you are delivering PR today? If not – be the author of action, connect the dots…. all it takes is your desire to be the catalyst of change.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
A trusted coaching and communications professional, Nikhil Dey is a certified life and leadership coach (International Coach Federation - ICF). Nurturing talent and helping clients achieve their goals is what makes him happy. He loves learning from students of communication, teaching courses and guest lecturing at various educational institutions. When he is not working you will find him on the tennis court or out for long walks with his family and four legged friends.
Previously he has held senior leadership positions at Weber Shandwick and Genesis BCW.
He can be reached on twitter @deydreaming
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