By Greg Simpson of Press for Attention PR – Enterprise Nation Champion for Nottingham.
Previously, I have written about your “who” your “what” and your “where” in terms of who your customers are, what it is you want them to know about you and where they will discover your marketing messages.
I’m now going to turn to the crucial factor. The bit that makes the difference to your audience and your business…your “why?”
When constructing a press release or a PR campaign, I always use these classic questions. In a press release, your “why” might be related to investment. We raised £1m in order to expand the business. Simple.
However, in terms of your wider strategic marketing and PR campaign, your “why” might be a little more nuanced and hopefully, a lot bolder. My “why” for the last couple of years has been around making PR support more accessible to small businesses.
The majority of messages I put out are guides on how to do what I do. How to avoid scenario X. How to make the most of opportunity Y. The grand vision behind this is simple enough for me to summarise:
I want any business, regardless of their budget, to be able to tell their story.
That is what gets me out of bed every day (weekends excluded). That is my consuming passion. That is why I am an Enterprise Nation Champion. That is why I wrote a book about how to it yourself.
As such, I have to align the majority of my marketing activities with this message.
Of course, marketing is nothing without measurement. How do you know what success looks like and how will you know when you have achieved your goal?
Well, for me it is by setting a BIG public target. I want to help tell 2020 stories by the end of 2020. The campaign begins next Monday, on July 4th.
Is it big? Yes. Is it scary? Yes. Does it fit with my goals and my overall messaging? Yes.
Now, tell me, what is your “why”? What is it that will inspire you to burn the midnight oil? Discover this and you won’t really be doing a day’s “work” again. You’ll be fulfilling your vision.