I don’t understand you, speak English!

There has been lots of media hype and debate recently about the lack of importance surrounding language studies in schools now that it is optional over the age of 14.

GCSE results show a massive decline in students taken foreign language options.  According to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, languages will be compulsory for 7-11 year olds from 2011, but currently only one in four primary schools offer any languages at all.

As reported in The Guardian last week, Queen’s University Belfast is completely dropping its German department after students have finished their current degrees in 2012.  So is this going to become more and more common?

Part of the reason we’ve been following this story with interest is because I personally am painfully aware of my lack of language skills, especially when travelling abroad.  I travel with a phrase book and would rather suffer the embarrassment of pronouncing something really badly, than asking for a glass of cold white wine in English.  I don’t want to be labelled under the Brits abroad tag.

The other reason is that we’re currently doing a survey for a client on holiday makers and their opinions on speaking foreign languages abroad, and our receptiveness to tourists trying to communicate with us when they visit the UK.

Paul Klee’s One Who Understands courtesy of Ben Sutherland on Flickr Creative Commons

With the Olympics not all that far away, what impression will the average Brit give to a visiting tourist trying to navigate their way, purchase good and generally get around?  VisitBritain recently released a guide on how to welcome different nationalities to Britain.  Is it enough?  As a nation, how receptive will we be to helping non-English speaking visitors?  I wonder what sort of image people will leave with – it would be great if it was a strong, positive and happy one – with people having a great desire to come back.

The impression we give of the UK and of ourselves is a massive PR effort – with people returning home and spreading word of mouth surrounding their views.

If our bid to host the 2018 World Cup is successful, hopefully the Olympics will have provided us with some good learnings.

If we want our children to be able to travel the world and get by, and help the UK to be a shining example of good tourist relations, then language studies really do need to be pretty compulsory through school, don’t they?

Paul Klee’s One Who UnderstandsPau

Enough of the fluff….dispelling some PR myths

Even if we don’t realise it, we see PR generated stories in the press every day – whether they are positive feel-good stories, or crisis management in full swing.

With the help of a few current media topics, here is a short summary of what PR is, and what PR is not.

Courtesy of ritterskamp at Flickr Creative Commons

What PR is

Building rapport. One of the most important aspects of PR is building conversations with people.  Whether it’s on a general scale, engaging with the public through the national press, or a niche group of bloggers.

Like the Disney campaign to engage with Mummy Bloggers.

Maintaining a reputation. Good PR is about upholding a professional reputation.  Sending out positive messages, reinforcing the brand, and addressing any adverse publicity in an honest and transparent way.

Relationships with the press. Alongside building relationships with consumer groups, PR is about building longterm and meaningful relationships with the press and becoming a valuable source of information.  The key to securing regular press coverage is to become a respected expert in your profession.  If you read the papers regularly you’ll see that when certain subjects are addressed, key spokespeople are regularly called upon.

Continually diversifying. Whether it’s looking for story ideas on Twitter or promoting yourself on Facebook.  It might be creating a video diary to send out to the media or finding any other new ways to generate interest a product or service.  As many have said, if you stand still, you face being left behind.  Good PR is about continually finding new and different ways to communicate.

We managed to secure a great slot in Heat magazine a while ago, by tweeting a celebrity we knew would be interested in a client’s product.

What PR is not

PR is not marketing. It’s not a form of advertising, it’s a way of spreading a message through a well told story.  It’s there to educate, inform and stimulate opinion.  It does not tell you that a product is now half price, but it does tell you that the man who invented it came up with the idea on a beach in Gozo and had to sell his house and his dog to get it to market.

Here is a good example of a story behind a product from Oxford Times In Business.

Promotions are not PR.  Although they may be in the mix of a communications strategy, a buy one get one free offer is not a story, and is therefore not PR.  You may ask if this applies to competitions, and there can be some cross over – a competition is a promotional mechanism, however it could also be a story.

Think about the huge amount of publicity achieved when Tourism Queensland advertised for a caretaker for Hamilton Island.

Schmoozy lunches are not good PR. Yes there is always a place for treating clients and contacts well; a meal out or gift at Christmas, but a good PR agency will have people at their desks, out doing research, and with their heads in the newspapers, not at the bar from midday to midnight.  In the social networking age, those squinty eyed and sozzled pictures of you trying to impress that potential client/editor are going to emerge somewhere.

A stunt in the way people imagine. The word stunt is misleading.  Stunt makes you think of something someone tries to pull off or wing.  Either that or something dangerous involving motorbikes, twenty people lying down and hoops of fire.  A well thought out PR stunt is attention grabbing, clever, witty and memorable.

Like the first edible billboard from Thornton’s.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, if you want to talk more or have views to share about PR, how it works, how it doesn’t work, what to expect and anything else in between, do get in touch.

We define PR as being…

…about starting conversations.  Generating interest and encouraging people to react to a message.

Good PR creates interaction, opinion and spreads word of mouth.

Good, creative PR is lasting and memorable.

The CIPR definition says

Public relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

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.

The case of the missed opportunity

Did you catch any of the BBC1 series Sherlock, a modern-day version of the Conan Doyle classic?  If you didn’t it might be because you dared to take a summer holiday, went to make a cup of tea, or blinked; because it was only a pilot of three episodes.

Due to its success, a second series has been confirmed, but didn’t the commissioning team for see its popularity?  Really they needed to be ready in the wings with further episodes locked and loaded, once the viewing figures came in – 6.4 million for the second episode as reported in The Guardian.

Whether you’re planning a prime time hit TV series, or your marketing strategy (from Sherlock to strategy I know, sorry) there is a lesson to be learnt here.

Some of the best marketers have secured results not because of the initial push they were making, but because of the speed at which the responded to the resulting opportunities.

If you scan the local papers in particular, you’ll see that the businesses who have commented on current news stories are those who are not only sending out regular information, but they have a finger on the pulse when it comes to related stories.  They’re ready to react – provide expert comment, stats, photographs, the lot.

With each element of your plan that you roll out, you have to be ready and waiting with the next shot.

It’s easy to get carried away with the moment, especially if you’re in launch mode; announcing a new website before the content is up to scratch, or social media channels are in place, sending out a press release without any images, or having further article ideas sketched out before sending a piece to an editor.

It all adds to the workload yes, but to plan, plan and plan some more is how you get results.

Behave like the company you want to be

For as long as the term SME has existed, the dreaded business plan has been something every start-up has to do.

As Andrew Carnegie, entrepreneur and a major philanthropist said “The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it”.

Having a plan that keeps you on that line is pretty important.  But if it’s just a plan to achieve middle of the road goals – keep things ticking over nicely, then are you missing out on the full potential of the business?

Some of the most productive and effective advice we’ve implemented into the business over the past few years has been this:

- Operate in a way that reflects the size you want the business to be in five years time.  Put the processes in place that will support that growth now.  Do the ground work and then let the elements fall into place.  I’m not suggesting it will just happen on its own, but if you lay down the foundations, you have the platform you need to build on.

Is it time for a declutter?  Can you focus on what you want to achieve?!

Courtesy of EvelynGiggles at Flickr Creative Commons

- On top of this, consider the size and value of customer that you want to be generating, and develop a professional image that will appeal to this market.

- Absolutely, and definitely pin down your USP.  It’s not enough to be flexible.  How and why are you flexible, which parts of your service differ from the competition?  What are the critical needs of your customers and how do you serve them more fully than anyone else?

- Break down targets and goals into daily steps.  Tiny bite size steps that all contribute towards your overall business strategy.  If you’re planning on spending a few hours later today on something you think will be productive, question whether it’s going to move you one more day in the right direction of your goals.  If not cross it off the list.

- Make your business plan visible and visual.  It’s worthless filed away on your hard drive on in a folder marked ‘business development’.  Convert it into a visual diagram with your top three business objectives at the centre.  Add the major projects you need to undertake to get there, whether it’s a new website, recruitment or training.  Break each of these down into further goals, and every time you work on a daily step, make sure it fits in with this diagram.

- Go back to basics.  Why are you in business?  What are your values?  Do you still honour those values?  Do your staff honour those values?  Are you getting what you want out of your business?  Remember that often your business plan needs to be a life plan and factor in family commitments – it’s not realistic to put in an 8 hour day five days a week all year round and still be a sane, functioning human being.  You may aspire to make a million in your first three years, but if it’s a million and a heart attack, do you still want it?

What business growth and planning tools do you use?  Has building your business around your future goals today helped you to move forwards?

Working from the end to the start

We’ve had some great opportunities to pitch to new clients recently and some really productive brainstorming sessions.

The end result; we’ve really identified the most productive way of setting goals, expectations and pinning down exactly what the desired outcome of a campaign is.

Have a go at this exercise and answer the following questions.

1. What experience will people have when they contact your business?

2. Are you ready for people to contact your business?  Will you make a lasting/professional first impression?

3. How do you want people to act when they see editorial coverage about you?

4. What do you want people to think / say to others about you when they see editorial coverage about you?

5. What type of press coverage do you want?  What type of publications – which regions, are they specialist publications, local newspapers, radio stations, websites, blogs?

6. Who are you trying to reach?  Where are these people?  Are they definitely your target audience?

7. What key messages do you want to get across?

8. What is your story?  What is the news angle?  Is it newsworthy?

9. What else is happening in the industry at this time?

10. How does this fit in to your overall strategy?

11. How will you measure this?

12. What is your budget?

Courtesy of ShironekoEuro on Flickr Creative Commons

So, whether you’re trying to generate sales from a new target market, increase sales within an existing market, or launch a completely new product, try and work through this process by starting at the end and imagining what the sequence of events will be when a customer comes in to contact with your business.

Let us know how you get on!