PR, Marketing & the Downsides of Authenticity, Engagement & Empowerment

In the worlds of public relations and marketing you hear quite a bit about relevance, value, authenticity connection, community, relevance, empowerment, simplicity engagement and purpose.  An impressive list and all are important words to keep in mind.  But these are all words that are being overused to the point of irrelevance.  It’s great to say you need to be authentic and connect with your audience, but simply using that verbiage is not enough.  The trick here is that you truly do need to connect, which means you have to give your marketing messages thought and view your message from the point of view of the consumer.  I recently read that for brands to be effective they need to address a number of issues including entertainment, information, utility, rewards and recognition.  These are all important but without relevance and context, you’re not going to get far.

Whether your launching a PR, social media or marketing campaign, your goal is to connect with your audience and to do so effectively you need to be creative.  But more than that you need know your audience, understand their needs and speak to your target market’s issues.  You need to address the problems that nag at them or keep them up at night.  That’s why when crafting your marketing public relations message, you want to know your market well enough to offer relevant content within the right context.

Generally there is a vast chasm between what drives marketers and consumers; each has different needs and objectives. The marketer wants to land the consumer as a client.  The consumer wants to fill a need or solve a problem.  Consumers don’t care about you as a marketer unless you give them a compelling reason to do so.  And the only way marketers can do that is to think like consumers.  Here is where the disconnect comes in; marketers generally work backwards.  Their starting point is their product or service.  They then try to fill in the dots that will lead consumers to become clients.  They should in fact start from the point of view of the client and work from there to figure out what the client needs, worries about or longs for, as well as what he or she reads, watches, and listens to.  It is only then that a business owner or marketer can develop a succinct, successful message.

Without a message that connects with your audience it won’t mater what media platforms you’re utilizing.  Your message drives your medium.  Don’t feign authenticity.  Don’t try to fool your audience into believing that what you’re selling is what they need.  Yes you want to emphasize relevance, value, authenticity, connection, community, relevance, empowerment, simplicity engagement and purpose, but (and here’s the kicker) you want to do so in an authentic relevant way.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012