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Guest post by: Catriona Pollard Become an Author

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Every business owner understands that developing an effective communication channel between their business and their customers is an essential element to the success of their business.

A PR program means to communicate with your target audience and it doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. You can choose from a variety of simple and inexpensive activities that will help you achieve your business objectives.

Some common features of a PR campaign can include:

The foundations
Key messages - Key messages are designed to ensure that the target audience hear and remember the most important aspects of your business. Key messages are, in essence, a description of your competitive advantage and are commonly known as elevator statements.

It is best to have no more than seven key messages. Once developed, they should be incorporated into all oral and written business communications.

Target audience - Knowing your target audience is one of the simplest ways to achieve your marketing communications goals and to save money.

When defining your audiences, really drill down to specifics. For example, rather than “all small businesses in the north shore area” it should be, “businesses employing up to 10 staff, located in the suburbs of Neutral Bay and Mosman etc, in the industry areas of marketing and business consulting etc”.

Study the various segments of your particular market and develop strategies to reach each one.

Media program
Although developing a comprehensive media plan can be difficult, you can start with a few easy steps. Think about which media outlets your target audience gets their information from. Make a list of the media outlet and journalist and start reading/watching. A well-defined target media which reflects the target market and includes realistic activities will be more likely to succeed.

Media releases
The most important element about media releases is not so much the quantity of them, but the quality of the stories and ensuring they are written for target media. Media release topics can include the work your business is doing, issues and trends in your industry, launch of new product, new office opening or a new contract win.

Contributed articles and editorials
Many publications are stretched for resources and welcome contributed articles as long as they aren’t heavily branded. They are also a very effective generation of sales leads as they position your business as an industry expert.

Customer case studies
Case studies provide ideal opportunities to leverage business successes and reinforce your business’ key messages through “story telling”. They provide audiences, including journalists, an idea of how your business products actually work through the perspective of your customers.

Sponsorships
Targeted sponsorships are an excellent way of building brand awareness in key markets. It is recommended that any sponsorship is very targeted. Two of the most effective opportunities are sponsoring industry awards and conferences.

Advertising
Advertising can be one of the most effective ways of generating sales leads and building brand awareness. It also can be the most expensive! One way of avoiding dedicating huge budgets to advertising is using vertical market publications such as industry association and trade publications. In many of these publications, it is possible to negotiate free editorial if paying for an advertisement.

These are just a few of the many ways to improve the communication channels between your business and your customers using marketing communications. They will increase sales leads, improve brand awareness and ultimately lead to business success.

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