It is an often repeated truism that technology is now mainstream: what is less frequently discussed is how this alters the range, reach and content of communications through which technology companies should engage their audiences. Technology PR used to be a distinct discipline with a specialist set of skills largely focused around the promotion of products through media channels. Now many technology and telecommunications firms, however large or small, and irrespective of whether they sell to consumers or other businesses, find they need to work to develop consistent, clear and positive reputations with a wide range of complex influencers. Defending and developing reputation in this environment needs a joined-up approach to communications that creates compelling stories that rise above products and work across channels.
In today’s world of contested communications it is important to know who you need to reach and to ensure that all audiences get a consistent (although not necessarily uniform) view of your organisation. These audiences could be as diverse as regulators and government departments, consumers, financiers, suppliers and partners, social and environmental groups, activists and single issue pressure groups. They will communicate and respond in widely different ways and through many different channels. Building the right narratives, getting the correct emotional register and using the right communications skills and channels, whilst maintaining consistency is essential if reputation is to be protected and enhanced so that it becomes an asset and not a liability.
Using communications to build a robust reputation beyond that associated with your products and services has both proactive and defensive benefits. By effectively creating platforms and points of view that resonate with prospects, partners, customers and influencers we increase your opportunities to communicate with these audiences. Championing issues that are important to your audience fills in the gaps between product news and create more consistent profile. It also helps shape thinking and perceptions at a much earlier stage in the buying cycle.
With credible opinions and insights resting on a strong reputation you can engage with senior decision makers and help them to understand how you add value to their organisation, rather than wait for them to discover that they have a problem which you can solve. Finally, reputation-building provides a wider set of reference points that ultimately shape decision making – it informs buyers of your wider corporate vision and values, your environmental credentials and even the ‘personality’ of your brand.
Defensively a strong corporate reputation, well communicated, can protect you if things do go wrong. A recent article by Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov showed how BA’s generally good reputation allowed it to quickly bounce-back from the negativity surrounding industrial action. Whether it is bad news, or an underperforming product, a good corporate reputation will help you weather the storm and come back quicker.
Few would disagree with much of the above – but achieving it is increasingly difficult. No one influencer has control over your reputation. The digital explosion and the interconnectedness of a global marketplace for technology means that reputation must be managed over a complex and ever-shifting network of influence. So the first step in any reputation campaign is to correctly identify and then research and understand those audiences that influence or could influence your reputation. As noted above, this could be anyone from a government minister to an activist blogger.
Identifying and mapping all the influencers that can impact your business requires experts on those audiences, rather than people who are expert in your sector. Our role as consultants is to advise on tone, channel and messages that will have the desired impact with each audience. Understanding what make them tick, what their immediate and ongoing concerns are and which issues they relate to is the essential first step in planning a reputation building campaign.
MHP builds multi-discipline teams because we believe that siloed approaches run the risk of confusing messages and undermining reputation. Bringing audience knowledge, advice and expertise together into a single team to collaboratively create stories and messages that are able to engage with the important audiences not only ensures consistency but informs both the challenges and the solutions from a 360-degree perspective. It also allows individual disciplines; public affairs, corporate PR, CSR and internal comms for instance, to work together and deliver campaigns that feed off one another to deliver results with real business impact.
For example, for one green tech client we are combining consumer promotion of a device through national media and blogger relations, with a trade campaign promoting the service and management of data to utilities, and a public affairs programme to engage with the government departments responsible for planning the UK’s Smart Grid. All of this is delivered by one team for one fee and with one consistent theme of changing consumer habits – rescheduling as well as reducing power usage.
Technology PR is often about sales support and of course it’s essential that organisations meet sales and profits targets – whatever sector they are in. PR is a cost effective way of making sure customers know about new products, services and enhancements. It is also excellent at demonstrating how real organisations have benefitted through the use of your products. But, we believe it should do more and work harder. By building reputation, with all relevant influencers, that goes beyond your product portfolio we can help create new opportunity, defend against detractors, and add value to all your sales and marketing efforts.
