Transcript Document

Communications on a
shoestring….
Joanna Inskip MCIPR
Community Newswire
Why do we need to communicate?
Why are you trying to reach people?
•To change opinion and behaviour
•To influence policy by reaching decision makers
•To let those in need know how you can support them
•To raise awareness amongst and attract more supporters, volunteers and funders
How do we communicate?
•Printed material (marketing)
•Online (website, e-newsletters)
•Press (media coverage)
•PR (events, conferences, partnerships)
•Social media (twitter, facebook, linkenin, you tube etc)
Who are my target audience?
•People who may need your services
•People who already use your services
•Volunteers – current and potential
•Funders – individual, government, corporate
•Decision makers – MP’s, local health authorities, local and central government etc
•Influencers – media, campaign groups, lobbyists etc
Where does your news and
information come from?
How do I reach them?
With a mix of appropriate communications!
•Website
•Newsletters and e-newsletters
•Newspapers
•Television
•Radio
•Online news sites
•Blogs
•Twitter
•Facebook
•You tube
Marketing
•Can be costly but a must to reach those not online
•No good if sit in the office – need a plan to get them out to the right people
•Need to ensure they show your messages, what you want them to do and how to contact
you clearly, but in a way that engages your target audience
•Audience appropriate – young, old, rural, city, faith, language, culture
•Focus on the benefits of your service. "What's in it for me?" Write from the their perspective
using the words "you" and "your."
White teeth not toothpaste
Online - websites
A great website can have a big impact on your organisation
Use a free blog site as a website, just switch the comments section off and use pages
instead of posts.
Or use web build platforms
Free. The content management systems mean you can add text, images, pages and
various other media to your site.
Online - websites
Images can play a huge part in the aesthetic of your site
Use clear professional images on your home page. Text heavy sites hold less attention.
Sourcing images from sites such as istockphoto is fairly cheap.
Web copy is short, clear and friendly
Keep it short, link to longer copy, not too corporate and must be interesting.
Clear signposting
How I have arrived at your homepage…where do I go now?
Know who’s visiting
Knowing how much traffic your website is getting is a great measure of who is interested in
your organisation, what they are looking at on your site in and what action they take when
in. Google Analytics offers a whole host of web traffic statistics for your site for free.
Signposting
Online – e-newsletters
Plan and be clear what you want it to do for you
•Why are you doing it? – set objectives
•Who are you sending to? – identify audiences, capture names
•What are you communicating? – your key messages and calls to action
•What are your desired outcomes? - What changed ie. More volunteers
•Set SMART targets – 10% increase in volunteers this year
•Plan your resources – content, images, links etc
Online – e-newsletters
Golden rule…. One audience and one target only
•A newsletter can't be all things to all users.
•Choose one small segment of your audience and set the specific goal
- Send to current list of donators asking for a £5 donation once a month
- Send to local university for them to send to students asking them to join in outdoor
fundraising events,
•not getting the entire general public to know, understand, and support your organisation.
Online – e-newsletters
Forget design - it's content that matters
• While the look of your e-newsletter should match your brand and website, that's as much
effort as you need to put into the design.
• Beyond this though, is the fact that people expect newsletters to be content rich - they
want information, deals, tips and tricks - because that’s where they deliver their value.
• But don’t pack your e-newsletter with text either - get straight to the point, only write what
you need to deliver that value, and then save the rest for next month.
•Use emotive language – save, enjoy, discover, for you, understand….
•ALWAYS address it to one person and use the word YOU throughout
How do I work with the media?
News is now a 24 hour multiplatform beast needing constant feeding. To provide the food,
you need to be quick, slick and news conscious.
The key to dealing with the media is learning what they need to satisfy their audiences and
seeing if you can deliver this comfortably
Each newspaper, radio programme, television news outlet has different editorial views and
different audiences so go to the media that have the same audiences as you are trying to
reach
Think like an editor
Write like a journalist
Look at it it again like a reader or viewer
Understands the news arena, journalists and how to work together.
Which of these made the news??
Please take a look at the following 6 stories. To give
you a helping hand… 3 are non-news, 1 is a possible
and two turn out to be good news stories.
Get into 2 groups and nominate a spokesperson you will have a ten minutes to decide and we will
take five minutes to discuss and feedback
What makes news?
Man bites dog – something different
Controversy – not always bad, can be just a differing view
Relevant to that audience – older people do not want to know about skateboarding
(although some might!)
Topical – what people are talking about already or linked to it
Human interest - real people adding colour to a story
Statistics – people like hard facts and comparisons
Breaks the ‘so what’ barrier – you may be interested but will enough other people?
What makes a story newsworthy?
There is a list of five factors, which are considered when deciding if a story is newsworthy.
Normally, a story should perform well in at least two areas.
1. Timing - The word news means exactly that - things which are new. If it happened today,
it's news. If it happened last week, it's no longer news.
2. Proximity - Stories which happen near to us have more relevance.
3. Significance - The number of people affected by the story is important. A plane crash in
which hundreds of people died is more significant than a crash killing a dozen.
4. Prominence - Famous people get more coverage just because they are famous. If you
break both your legs it won't make the news, but if Beckham breaks his toe it's big news.
5. Human interest – You and what you do. Journalists need a human face to the facts and
figures – it could be you.
Finding that news angle
•Add something new to an existing topical story or debate
•Add some human interest – real people to go with the figures issued
•Launch a campaign on ‘world women’s day’
•Send out stories to journalists during the ‘silly season’ – Christmas and summer when the
MP’s are (hopefully) not creating news
•React – to a story in your field
•Be proactive – and create a story in your field
•Statistics – create simple ‘facts’ and present them with a real life example
What’s in a news release?
Date: for release
Good headline: grab the journalists attention
The facts: Who? What ? Where? When? Why?
A quote or two from real people to bring the facts in the story to life or add opinion (a great
place to get your key message in and have more chance of it making the cut)
A ‘case study’ – for the media a real person to add the human interest readers desire
A call to action
The word ‘end’
Contact details!
Notes to editors: more info about your organisation, what you can offer a journalists ie.
Photos, interview with your CEO, case study etc
How do I reach the right media?
Take a look at… http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html
The National Readership Survey - Top Line Readership - You will find estimates of average
issue readership for the 260 or so newspapers
By All adults, men, women, 45+ and social grades.
and…
http://www.nmauk.co.uk/nma/do/live/factsAndFigures Who give you figures by publication
And for local and regional newspapers http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/
Photos, online and visuals
• 66% of people consider radio to be a reliable and accurate source for news, compared with
58% for online, 54% for TV and just 34% for newspapers.
It is the first time that news websites have overtaken television as a trusted source for
current affairs. (Ofcom research May 2010)
•Newspaper websites, Google, internet news sites are increasingly used and trusted. BBC
news website is used as a source by many journalists (NUJ).
•A photo increases the chances of a story being picked up by 30% (NUJ 2004)
•A single image can tell a powerful story…….
Picture paints a thousand words….
Community Newswire ran the story and photos from the Dorset Wildlife Trust that captured a
rare pregnant male seahorse. The picture helped to prove to environmentalists that
seahorses are breeding in British waters.
The story proved to be very popular and was used by an array of newspapers and
broadcasters, including The Times, Daily Telegraph, Radio 2, American broadcaster ABC
and local press.
Social media – just another way to communicate?
•NO. This time people can answer back!
•YES. Another channel in your communications mix and its free!
• Social Networks – Facebook - Relationships, social graph
• Video & Photo Sharing E.g. Flickr - Creative reputation, reporting
• Micro-blogging – Twitter - Updates and recommendations
• Bookmarking - Del.icio.us - Organising, recommending
Social media is…..
•People connecting with each other
•Sites that facilitate the uploading and sharing of information and content
…… getting started
•Find your audience – look on twitter, facebook etc and find ‘interest groups’ or similar
charities” and start to engage with them
•Start to ‘follow’ people and organisations with similar ethics or services to you
•Own your subject – if you work with young people, retweet or link to sites of interest to them
and others working with young people
•It’s a conversation so avoid corporate or policy speak – it’s a turn off
If you have
news, put it out
there on all your
platforms
What would you tweet?
Take a look at four first paragraphs of a story and in a group decide what would you tweet?
Remember 140 characters.
137 looks like……
Prime Minister David Cameron condemns violence in Egypt in joint statement outside
Downing Street with UN Secretary General www.bbc.co.uk
A quick word re YouTube?
You don’t need professional film to be on YouTube. 2 minutes of you and someone you
support chatting, taken on an i-phone of digital camera with video and there you go!
PR – a quick reminder…..
Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning
understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned
and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between
an organisation and its publics.
•Events, conferences, partnerships, sponsorships…..who you work with, what you say, what
you do all influence what people think about you – your reputation
•Activities need to be planned so you are prepared for anything, can make the most of an
opportunity and can be measured to see what works.
Planning the key to success!
Now we have looks at all forms of comms……we need a plan to deliver them. A
communications plan simply puts together what you want to achieve and how
you will get there.
Lets take a look at one….
Comms plan – month and year
Background
Maximum of four lines about who you are. Good way to learn to describe your organisation
and what you do concisely. Eg
Media Trust is the UKs leading communications charity, working with media organisations
and charities to enhance their communications and enable communities to find their voice
and make it heard.
And sum up what you want to achieve…
This plan sets out online and offline marketing, PR, press and social media activity to
support us in achieving our objectives including more funds, more volunteers, more people
using our service and an improvement in the lives of xxxx
Key messages (what do you want people to remember about you?)
1.
2.
3.
Goals (what changes do you want to happen? External and internal)
External
To improve the lives of xxxx through an awareness campaign
To reach xx% more people in need of our service
Internal
To raise xxxx funds
To recruit xxxxx volunteers
Objectives (how will you reach those goals?)
•National awareness campaign and campaign targeted at decision makers leading to a
change in government policy
•A localised campaign across the regions to promote services leading to a XX% increase in
users
•A campaign to support fundraising activity leading to an xx% increase
Audiences (who are you trying to reach? What groups of people?)
What communications mix will you use? (media, twitter, e-newsletter etc)
Available content (reports, stats, case studies, spokespeople, photograph, video)
Press: Key media (what do your audiences read / watch/ listen to?)
Evaluation (how will you measure the coverage and its impact? How will you know if
you have reached the right people and they have listened? Number of visits to your
website? More volunteers? Etc)
Add a timeline and who will do what and off you go!
Finally remember
You will not get every story in the media – don’t take it personally!
Community Newswire takes your stories and if newsworthy turns them into news stories.
www.mediatrust.org/newswire
[email protected]
www.mediatrust.org