CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

INTRODUCTION

UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC RELATIONS

UNIT 2. HISTORY

UNIT 3. CRISIS COMMUNICATION

REVIEW units 1-3

UNIT 4. TACTICS

UNIT 5. ETHICS

UNIT 6. PR SPIN

REVIEW units4-6

UNIT 7. «BLACK PR»

UNIT 8.PROPAGANDA

UNIT 9. BRAND MANAGEMENT

REVIEW units 7-9

UNIT 10. PROMOTION

UNIT 11. MEDIA MANIPULATION

UNIT 12. AUDIENCE TARGETING

REVIEW units 10-12

UNIT 13. HOW TO WIN OVER AND WOW A CROWD

UNIT 14. A PUBLIC RELATIONS SPECIALIST

REVIEW units13-14

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

UNIT 12. AUDIENCE TARGETING

Part A

AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION IS IMPORTANT

FOR BETTER COMMUNICATION

By Kim Harrison

Different audiences have different communication needs. And different segments of audiences have different communication needs. As PR has progressed from the days of mass communication, we have increasingly been able to target our messages to the needs of different audience segments – internally and externally.

Audience segmentation is the process of dividing an audience into smaller groups, with similar characteristics, wants and needs that are selected according to our communication objectives. Audience segmentation is based on the assumption that different groups of audience have different characteristics that influence the extent to which they pay attention to, understand and act on different messages.

We can identify audience segments, but it is not always practicable to reach them due to our limited resources. The ideal audience size is one person. Tailoring our communication to the needs of each individual is the ideal. However, it is not practicable to do this – too costly and time consuming.

The slicing and dicing of a list of people can be quite demanding, so the challenge is to find the balance between the smallest number of messages and channels required to distribute information, while at the same time forming audience-segments that are as similar as possible. In essence, this is a balance between reach and specificity. The greater the reach of a campaign, the greater the number of individuals who can be influenced, but increased reach results in a mixed audience. Messages designed to reach a broad cross-section of the audience are likely to be less effective in bringing about higher-order (eg behavioral) changes than lower-order (eg attitudinal) changes because they are less tailored to the needs of individuals.

A problem is that audience segmentation is typically conducted in an ad hoc way or is put into the «too-hard basket» because it takes time and effort to accomplish. Someone has to sit down and prepare multiple mailing lists of segmented groups, which takes time to do. And often this sort of work is left to the most junior person who may fumble the job because they don’t know enough about the target audience or just don’t care because such as task is boring.

Communicators have to determine which communication channels are likely to be the most effective in reaching the intended audience. This process, targeting, is the strategic use of communication channels to reach the audience segments, and is based on the principle that certain groups or segments of audience utilize certain types of channels and that cost-effectiveness can be maximized if the placement of campaign messages in particular channels corresponds with the use of the channels by the intended audience.

Once audiences have been exposed to campaign messages they have to be persuaded to make the ensuing behavior changes. Hence, in addition to campaign messaging and targeting, communicators need to construct messages to cater to individuals’ needs, interests, abilities and motivations. This process of crafting messages to cater for individuals’ characteristics is known as tailoring. Audience members must perceive that the issue is relevant to them. Relevance of the message is the extent to which it fulfills the desires and motivations of individuals.

A good example of the possibilities of audience segmentation is employee communication. Research consistently shows that employees are the most important audience to an organization and therefore it is vital making the effort to keep them engaged. Tailoring messages to their interests is one important way to do this. Employee interests can be measured by various instruments such as surveys, focus groups, telephone polls, and interviews of recruits and people exiting employment.

Communicators realize that audience segmentation is a goal to aim for with employee communication, but many don’t try to do this. Yet it is the logical thing to do, there is a captive audience, and email lists of employee segments can be easily collated.

Employees are commonly segmented by business division or location, but there are many other ways to segment them. They can be differentiated by:

·                   access to communication channels, eg computers or Internet access

·                   use of communication channels, eg what time of day most people access their emails

·                   job type – all the people with equivalent roles

·                   country – obvious cultural differences in different countries

·                   language – an important matter with unskilled workers

·                   working pattern, eg shift workers, home workers, field workers

·                   terms and conditions, eg contract workers

·                   age group, eg under 18, 25-34, 45-54, 55-64 etc

·                   gender – messages about maternity leave, childcare arrangements

·                   length of service, eg recognition for length of service, retirement information etc

·                   membership of social club, eg availability of facilities, coming social events

·                   participation in employee events, eg calendar of events

Therefore it pays match the internal message to the audience. Rather than trying to include newsletter content to suit most or all audience segments in a corporation, division or location (city, country or in different local plants), a more targeted approach would be to divide up communication in two ways:

A short general newsletter with themes relevant to all employees

Specific email messages and articles targeted at specific sub-groups as noted above, eg emails to all employees over 50 years of age, under 25 years of age, people doing similar jobs, in the same plant or division, people who work from home etc

In this way, people would all be aware of information relevant to them all while also receiving tailored news specific to them as a sub-group or segment.

Online communication is rapidly overtaking the use of mass communication because it is much more targeted. Mass media can still be effective for raising awareness of an issue, but online communication is more effective for promoting behavior change. Using email to contact an audience, and subsets of the audience, means you know the email address of every individual – and can customize messages to them. At the least, you can do mail merges to those recipients to address them by name. You can also use other information to personalize the message. For instance, you can craft messages like «Dear Ms Smith, You have been such a good customer of ours for the past years, that we are making a special offer to you». etc.

Audience segmentation is a key part of marketing communication. That’s why many organizations compile email lists of customers and potential customers – email lists enable much better targeting than other types of lists. It’s also why they enlist various methods to gain the contact names of potential customers, such as names entered in coupons and in competitions. However, external audience segments are much harder to reach due to their open-ended nature compared with the internal, captive, employee audience.

Social media offer exciting new interactive ways of involving an audience, especially younger people in Generation Y. Users are just as much engaged by the capacity for interaction as by the opportunity for accessing good content. People seem keen to create their own content and control much of the interaction with an organization and other users. In this case, communicators act as facilitators as much as writers.

Social media are labor-intensive to use and their effectiveness needs to be evaluated compared with more controlled options such as emailing campaigns.

Whether an internal or external audience, there is no doubt that we communicators have a greater array of communication tools at our disposal that enable us to target audience segments much more finely than in the past. The complication is that their use makes the communication task more complex and time-consuming.

EXERCISES

1. Sum up the main ides of the text and retell it in Russian.

2. Fill in the missing words from the box into the text below.

If PR stands for public 1)________, it stands to reason that a vital part of PR is determining who your public is – that is, your target audience. PR is a targeted approach to getting your business’ messages in front of the 2)________ you want to see them, and clearly a defined target audience is a key tool for achieving this.

Your target 3)________ comes down to who you are speaking to – the people most likely to be interested in what your business offers. Understanding your 4)________ audience is about determining who might be looking for your product or service.

When you start working with a PR 5)________ or doing your own PR, it’s a good idea to specifically determine who your target audience is. That way, PR 6)________ will be able to target their efforts for 7)________ results.

In order to define your target audience, focus on these three main elements: Where they live. Geography plays a big part in PR. You wouldn’t pitch a story into a Melbourne magazine if your 8)________ was based in Brisbane.

What they read. It is critical to understand the type of media your target audience reads. This will 9)________ you powerful insight into what 10)________ to pitch your stories to. This could be online, in print, on radio or television.

Characteristics. What 11)________ traits do your target audience share? For instance, are they all working in a particular industry, are they mothers or are they interested in certain business 12)________? This information can be used to identify how and what media they consume and what messages might 13)________ with them.

Clearly defining your target audience when you begin PR activities will help you get the best results because your 14)________ will be targeted to the people who are most 15)________ to respond positively. So take the time at the beginning, and your efforts will really pay off.

3. Read the following article and make a rendering of it in English.

ЧТО НЕОБХОДИМО ЗНАТЬ, ЧТОБЫ ОХВАТИТЬ И ПРИВЛЕЧЬ ЖЕНЩИН В КАЧЕСТВЕ ПОТРЕБИТЕЛЕЙ

Женщины, как потребители, во многих аспектах отличаются от потребителей мужчин! Мужчины более прямолинейны по отношению к своей конечной цели, в то время как женщины прогуливаются и получают удовольствие от процесса. Женщины одновременно занимаются несколькими задачами и удивительным образом пытаются контролировать свою жизнь между усердной работой и множеством других вещей.

Будучи специалистом по маркетингу, вам в первую очередь необходимо понять женщин, как потребителей. Вам необходимо знать, почему в их многомерной роли в качестве потребителей, матерей, профессиональных женщин и общественных лидеров, важную роль играет состояние физического и психического здоровья. В прошлом те дни, когда женщины были матерями-домохозяйками или вели подобный образ жизни. Сегодняшние женщины заинтересованы здоровьем по нескольким причинам, которые имеют отношение к их многомерной жизни.

Познакомьтесь с моими 4-мя стратегиями того, как охватить и привлечь женщин в качестве потребителей:

Привлеките женщин к участию в разработке ваших рекламных текстов.

Неформальные, интерактивные исследования, способные стать трамплином для спонтанности, помогут создать более прозрачные и убедительные рекламные обращения, которые захочет выслушать и которым поверит ваша аудитория (женщины). Эта одна из самых логичных и эффективных маркетинговых стратегий в отношении потребительского рынка женщин. Помните, что женщины любят делиться идеями, спонтанными чувствами, мечтами, страхами и больше всего информацией. Женщины сегодня ищут информацию и с готовностью делятся тем, что вычитали в книгах по вопросам здоровья и практическим советам, женских журналах и в Интернете.

Чтобы создать динамичный обмен информацией и идеями и максимизировать спонтанность, организовывайте такие естественные неформальные «встречи» в такой обстановке, как например: кофейня, салоны спа, оздоровительные комплексы и рестораны. Можете даже создать мини «телевизионное ток-шоу» и раскрыть актуальные проблемы, которые позволят придать огромный стимул вашим маркетинговым мероприятиям и обеспечат рост вашего бизнеса.

Разместите ваше рекламное обращение в зоне «периферийного зрения» женщин.

Ни полная фронтальная атака, ни большая яркая дорогая реклама продукта или услуги не сможет завладеть вниманием и лояльностью женщины. Маркетинг для женщин требует тщательного изучения их ценностей и убеждений. К ним относятся:

– Определение креативных подходов к установлению взаимосвязи с социально и общественно одобряемыми инициативами, играющими важную роль для женщин;

– Выстраивание содержания вашего бренда и ключевых рекламных обращений в соответствии с этими социально и общественно значимыми инициативами;

– Укрепление роли общего здоровья и стиля жизни, вместо подхода, ориентированного на продукт или услугу.

Выделяйте женщин по «стадиям жизни», а не «по стадиям возраста».

Определите стадии жизни, на которых сегодня находятся ваши целевые потенциальные потребители-женщины. Например, ваши целевые потенциальные клиенты-женщины могут находиться в фазе хорошего физического здоровья – фаза, которая имеет место на ранних стадиях жизни женщины, когда все строится вокруг ее здорового тела. Ваши потенциальные клиентки могут находиться в «семейно-ориентированной» стадии, которая обычно длиться от 20 до 40-50 лет, когда семья в жизни женщины занимает первостепенное место: растут дети, или она может находиться в стадии поиска, когда женщина совершенствует себя и пытается выразить то, кем она является. Или ваши целевые женщины могут быть опытными женщинами, которые переживают всплеск жизненной энергии в любви и сексуальной жизни в возрасте после 50.

Подумайте о связи между матерьми и дочерями.

Между женщинами и их дочерьми и между женщинами и их матерями можно найти сильную взаимосвязь поколений. Матери и их дочери обмениваются информацией и советами, особенно такими, которые касаются вопросов поддержания здоровья. Такая информация и советы свободно передаются от одного поколения к другому. Подкрепляя эту идею, недавние исследования показали, что 64% опрошенных женщин разговаривают со своими матерьми еженедельно или ежедневно. Более 41% говорят о том, что мамы являются их лучшими друзьями.

Заключительные мысли: заводите диалог, вдохновляйте к действию и зарабатывайте на клиентах-женщинах.

Помните, что женщины недавно получили возможность самостоятельно принимать решения, делать покупки и оказывать влияние. Вы можете использовать эту возможность в свою пользу. Создание бренда, укрепление организации или репутации компании и воспитание доверия требует больше, чем просто рассылки рекламных обращений к женщинам в их многообразных ролях. Завоевание ума и сердца женщин означает построение связи с ними и источниками, которые оказывают влияние на них. Это придаст вам больше правдоподобия, видимости и вовлеченности в жизни ваших целевых потенциальных потребителей. Независимо от того, предлагаете ли вы продукты или услуги, которые помогают женщинам дома, на работе или на отдыхе, вы сможете добиться успеха в плане создания доверия и хорошо заработать на потребителях-женщинах, если воспользуетесь моими советами и построите с женщинами связь на всех уровнях.

Part B

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO INFLUENCER TARGETING

The term «influencer» is wiggling its way through the tangled web. And it’s a hard one to catch because no one knows for certain what it looks like. Personally, I think that’s where the biggest challenge lies, because an influencer is like a changeling. It has a different image for every brand and often for every campaign of a brand.

Here is my own take on what an influencer is and a guide for where to find ideal influence to promote your business.

Now that word of mouth recommendations and criticisms spread through social media faster than fire in a dry field, influencers are people who are active on social media and blogs. They also are brand advocates and niche promoters.

If you take away only one thing from this guide, please retain this crucial bit of advice from Jay Baer: «True influence drives action, not just awareness».

While someone with hundreds of thousands of social media followers certainly could expose your brand to their followers, if they are not a snug contextual fit, their post or tweet would be moot as far as driving leads and customers.

Consumers trust recommendations from a third party more often than a brand itself. And it makes sense if you think about it in a more personal context. You don’t usually trust a person at a cocktail party who comes up to you and brags about himself or herself and spouts fun facts about his or her personality to convince you to be a friend. But you often believe your mutual friend who vouches for that person. An influencer is the mutual friend connecting your brand with your target consumers.

When you align with an influencer, not only do they bring their audience, but they also bring their audience’s network as well. Because of the loyalty of their audience, an influencer has the ability to drive traffic to your site, increase your social media exposure, and flat-out sell your product through their recommendation or story about their experience.

With the fall of traditional outbound marketing, influencer marketing is becoming one of the most effective ways to attract customers and clients. Modern day consumers are blind to billboards and deaf to commercials. They are self-sufficient and want to research a brand on their own and hear about it from someone they trust.

Where do influencers step in to inbound marketing? Well, they are generating content about your brand, they are recommending your brand to their loyal following, and they are inserting themselves into conversations surrounding the niche of your brand. Thus, getting them on your side before your competitor does can make a huge difference in the success (or lack thereof) of your company.

Think about the audience. Actually, don’t just think about the audience you’re after, obsess over it. As a marketer, you already have a solid idea of the audience you should be targeting for your brand. To locate the ideal influence, you need to take it one step further and think about the types of topics, blogs, and tweeters that your audience would follow.

Since I market a blogger outreach tool for my company, the influencers that I’ve targeted are PR and marketing blogs that emphasize content and influencer marketing. Followers of these blogs usually are PR professionals and marketers who want to keep up with the latest technology and trends in their field. Thus, hopefully, they find my company relevant when a blogger they follow recommends it. However, had I gone after bloggers who write about finance, even though a particular blogger might like my software, their audience most likely wouldn’t care.

While it seems that some companies don’t want to let go of their outbound marketing practices, fashion ecommerce sites are targeting influencers like pros. Many are reaching out to reputable fashion bloggers and sending them clothing and accessory items to be reviewed. The blogger then posts photos and writes about the garments, often linking back to the site where their audience can buy the items being reviewed.

I’ve seen many fashion sites send their items to an influencer, and then the audience could enter a contest to receive it. Or sometimes they will send a credit to an active fashion social media user, magazine writer, or blogger so they can go to the site, pick out some clothing, and then review the experience as a whole.

Context: Again, an influencer differs for every brand because, first and foremost, they are a contextual fit. This is the most important characteristic when targeting the right influencers for your brand. For example, Justin Bieber is known as one of the most «influential» social media users with his 37+ million followers. But, would his tweet about your software really bring in sales? Probably not, because 12-year-old girls are not interested in software. So, defining context is the key.

Reach: Of course, after we establish someone as being a contextual fit for our brand, we do want them to have reach so they can share their awesome content or positive recommendation in a manner that actually will be heard. If your online business sold clothes for «tweens», then maybe a mention to 37 million girls from Justin Bieber wouldn’t be so bad after all…

Actionability: This is the influencer’s ability to cause action by their audience. This characteristic comes naturally when you target individuals that are in contextual alignment with your brand and have a far enough reach.

Influencers don’t force themselves upon an audience. They are an «opt-in» network. Their audience chooses to follow their blog or Twitter handle. Thus, their audience is engaged and is there to hear about the topic being discussed. Hence, the need for a contextual fit.

I want to note that there is a lot of market research coming out about mid-level influencers. These are the influencers who have a decent reach but don’t have such a large audience that they can’t nurture relationships with their audience and harness loyalty. A loyal audience soaks up recommendations like a dry sponge.

Personality type: Decide if you need an activist, an informer, an authority, etc. to best promote your campaign or product.

Genre: Pick one or two. Examples include technology, fashion, travel, marketing, etc.

Niche: This can be two or three. In order to promote my own product, I usually target marketing and PR influencers, as my genre and my niches are firms writing about blogger outreach and influencer targeting.

Topics: Pick a topic that your ideal influencer sometimes talks about on social media or their blog. You will be referencing this topic when you reach out and explain why the two of you are such a good fit.

Type of reach: Is it site traffic you are after or social media followers? Is the influencer an active blogger? Do you have a visually driven campaign and need your influencer to be on Pinterest and Instagram? Is it tweets you are after? Whatever reach you think is best for your brand, narrow down the channels and the number of followers on those channels.

EXERCISES

1. Sum up the main ides of the text and retell it in Russian.

2. Fill in the missing words from the box into the text below.

First up, 1)_________ audiences. Each company has a different set of audiences. Start by taking a very traditional view of target audiences. For example, if work for a B2B company 2)_________ in products for electricians, you wouldn’t send direct mail to fashion designers. That same 3)_________ applies to PR and social media. Being targeted with your PR outreach will help you 4)_________ more bang for the buck and show 5)_________ bottom-line results.

If you’re a consumer product, sometimes there’s a tendency to believe «everyone» would be interested in your product. That’s just not 6)_________. And, if you think you’re trying to 7)_________ everyone, you’re going to miss the mark. Instead, be realistic about who the likely buyer is. Then, build a 8)_________ to connect with those audiences.

Once you determine who you’re 9)_________ to reach, then you have to figure out how to talk to them. When developing messages, remember that repetition is key. So, whether you’re creating content for a 10)_________ article in a magazine, or drafting blog posts or online status updates, keep your brand vocabulary and key messages in 11)_________. That doesn’t mean Twitter updates should be full of corporate-sounding messages. Instead, think about how your online conversations can underscore the messages your 12)_________ is trying to convey.

When developing messaging, don’t do it in a vacuum. I suggest clients create a 13 _________ to analyze the competition’s vocabulary. As you 14)_________ your company’s messaging, make sure you differentiate yourself from the competition. Because we live in a search-engine world, analyze SEO’s role in this process. What words and 15)_________ do you want to rank for? How should that 16)_________ your messaging strategy? Messages can’t be  pulled out of thin air. How do people currently describe your product/service? What adjectives do customer use to communicate their experience with your company?  Don’t reinvent the wheel. Just formalize and 17)_________ up what’s already floating around.

Key messages include a handful of overarching points that you want to convey. When I 18)_________ plans, this is often in bulleted format, with each message being a sentence or two. If your product or service is technical, consider creating a series of supporting messages to drive home each main point. Key messages should be easy for employees to recall and repeat during 19)_________ with current or 20)_________ clients, so avoid industry jargon and run-on sentences. If key messages are hard to remember, what do you think the odds are that the messages will actually be conveyed?

What words and phrases do you want associated with your brand? These words and phrases should align with your key 21)_________, but should also include adjectives and action phrases that can be worked into PR and social media activities, customer 22)_________ interactions, sales pitches, collateral, speaking engagements and other interactions. Again, don’t create such a 23)_________ list that it overwhelms people. Come up with a dozen or so suggestions.

3. Read the following article and make a rendering of it in English.

ПУТИ ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЯ ТОВАРА: ДАВЛЕНИЕ НА УМЫ ПОТРЕБИТЕЛЯ

Некоторые пути представлений товаров не могут должным образом впечатлить покупателя, потому как отсутствуют ключевые элементы давления на умы потребителей. Один из неправильных ходов при презентации – это информационная атака, слишком огромное количество информации. В повседневной жизни мы и так перегружены несметным количеством информации: на работе, в офисе, в транспорте, дома. «Не хватало еще нас перезагружать информацией на обертках», – могут подумать потребители.

Представьте себе, уважаемые производители, что товары с огромным количеством информации и содержательным сообщением на обертке не приносят ожидаемого результата. Людям не хочется, напрягая взгляд, опять читать. Им надо искрометное, красочное и супер-короткое сообщение, чтобы не напрягаться.

Вопрос: чего вы желаете, чтобы понимала ваша аудитория, армия потребителей при вашей презентации товара? Какой результат вы хотите получить? Сможете ли вы сформулировать свое предложение с учетом всех плюсов, потребителю в одном предложении? Если нет, то вам еще необходимо поработать над этим, ибо ваша идея презентации еще настолько сыра, что ее никто не воспримет всерьез. А если при разработке вам не удалось укротить ваше сообщение потребителю, вам потребуется не одно, а несколько представлений.

Имейте в виду: все вышесказанное уместно не только во время самого представления, но даже во время планирования, а потом и разработок. Не стоит пренебрегать опытом предыдущих презентаций, даже если они не все ваши. Например, партнеров, или даже можно конкурентов. Далее при разработке учтите красочность и привлекательность при презентации, грамотно подобранная цветовая гамма – залог успеха. При продвижении не надо забывать постоянно поддерживать саму идею в умах потребителей всеми возможными и доступными путями. При малейшей опасности и угрозе провала будьте безжалостны ко всем.

При создании слогана или девиза, и просто при продвижении рекламного проекта продукта не надо никогда обманывать потребителя, утаивать от него информацию. Если потребитель это заметит, то ваша репутация будет настолько сильно расшатана, что это будет сравнимо с откровенным банкротством. Аргументируйте свои идеи положительными и несравненными сторонами своего продукта. Даже если аудитория покупателей осознает позже, что их обманули, или не оправдались их надежды, то ваш следующий рекламный ход обречен на фиаско. Просто по необходимости давайте потребителю ту информацию, в которой он на данный момент нуждается, или ту, которую вы сами сочтете за нужную, естественно, после тщательного анализа.

Никогда не попадайтесь во временные ловушки. Это может произойти при рекламе посредством СМИ, к которым также относятся громкоговорители в торговых центрах. Если на ТВ или радио вам дали больше эфирного времени, чем вам требуется, то не стесняясь откажитесь от этого. Потому что каждая лишняя минута и секунда, которую вам дали требует заполнения, т.е. в конечном итоге повышается надоедливость вашей рекламы. Учтите простую закономерность человеческого бытия, давайте им ту информацию, которую они хотят, и вам не будет равных.

При анализе аудитории ученые выяснили, что людям больше всего нравится не трудно осваиваемая информация, а шуточно расставленная информация, которую легко запомнить. По возможности попытайтесь сдружиться со своими потребителями хорошей и шутливой рекламой или прикольным слоганом. Пусть люди ощущают теплоту, исходящую от вас и вселяемый вами позитив.

Если вы станете пренебрегать анализом желания потребителя, вам никогда не пробиться на верхушку, не получить огромной армии покупателей и не добиться успешных продаж. Потому как покупатели – это не только потребители и поглощатели, а это народный суд, который выносит свой вердикт безоговорочно и неоспоримо. При анализе стоит учитывать вкусы и потребности потребителя на данный отрезок времени, но если вы потерпели неудачу, не стоит унывать, просто в следующий раз постарайтесь не допускать подобных ошибок, ибо это чревато.

Part C

WHERE TO LOOK FOR YOUR IDEAL INFLUENCER

Now that you’ve given your influencer an image, it’s no longer this misty figure that we can barely see. It’s now tangible so we can understand it and recognize it when we see it.

Brand advocates are the loudest influencers your brand will have. Not only does their audience follow them because what they write aligns with your brand but they also talk loudly and actively about how much they like your company. By tuning in to your social media mentions and blog posts about your brand, you will find influencers and advocates you didn’t realize you had.

Social media monitoring also allows you to find influencers who advocate for the genre or niche you have outlined. For example, someone may post and tweet heavily about yoga gear but not mention your website as an awesome place to buy yoga gear. Well, this is someone you want to engage with and expose your brand to.

Research Hashtags: Identify the hashtags that your target influencers are using. For my company, I follow #bloggeroutreach and #influencemktg. By tuning in to the conversations surrounding these hashtags, I have not only identified active talkers in these categories, but I’ve also identified blog topics that I wrote to appeal to these influencers as well. Once you start finding influencers that seem like a good fit for your brand, I recommend putting them in a Twitter list so that you can organize and follow them most effectively. I use HootSuite to organize my Twitter channel. Here is what my hashtags look like in their platform:

Google Alerts: Set alerts for keywords pertaining to your brand to identify people who actively write about topics in your realm. You also should create alternatives for the name of your brand so that you can find posts and articles containing your mentions and identify advocates who already are in place.

Social Mention: Social Mention allows you to type in your company’s name to discover mentions on different outlets such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, just to name a few.

Bloggers arguably are the strongest spoke in the wheel of influencers. This report from Technorati shows us that 86% of influencers also operate at least one blog. One of the bonuses of targeting bloggers is that they almost always are active across many social media platforms.

When locating influential bloggers for your brand, start by searching for blogs in your genre and find the niche(s) by reading through the posts to determine if they write about relevant post topics. After making a list of the contextually relevant bloggers, then it’s time to locate their SEO stats and social media information to pinpoint the ones that equal the best reach for your brand.

Manually sorting through blogs to find all of the criteria that you outlined when you gave your influencer an image can take a long time. Luckily, there are a lot of really good blogger outreach tools out there to make this process easier. There is a tool to cover every part of the spectrum. If you are a small business wanting to do minimal blogger outreach, then I’d recommend checking out Inkybee or BlogDash. Mid to high level firms who are going to be doing a lot of influencer targeting should check out GroupHigh or Buzz Stream.

A true influencer of your brand is passionate about your product or service. And this passion shows through the bright white lines that appear on computer screens and it spreads to those who read their words, which results in many leads for your company! So your goal is to get as much content from happy customers live in cyber space as possible. Here are some ways to squeeze out consumer-generated content from the customers that you know already love your brand:

In applicable brands, ask the customers to upload photos and videos of themselves using your product. If you offer a promise to share their uploaded content, I promise that the narcissism that is social media will consume them and you will have a lot of happy compliers.

Incentivize user generated content with a product give away or discount on your service.

Ask happy customers to answer case study questions and assure them they can approve your content before you publish it. I saw better response rates when I bribed my customers with gift cards because answering these questions takes up a decent chunk of their time.

Participate in all forms of discussion forums. Google Plus communities, the comments section of your posts, and LinkedIn discussions are a great place to start. By engaging in discussions with your audience, you can use their posts or words as quotes and even blog post inspiration. You also can ask them to write a post based on their comment and publish it. I promise that when they see their words live, they’ll share it like crazy.

Send out free products or a free trial of your software without any sort of prior commitment from the influencer. If they like it, they might mention you or write about you, recommending the awesome product.

If the relevance is there, swap guest posts with them.

If someone is going to spout good things about your brand, they need to be compensated. It doesn’t have to be financially, but it can be, though. The point is you want your influencer to feel rewarded, acknowledged, loved, important, or any combination of those. Here are some ways to compensate the influencers you find for your brand:

Financially. I would proceed with caution on this one. Is a recommendation that is paid for really going to come across as sincere? However, if the passion for your brand is truly there, maybe this could be okay sometimes.

Shout outs. Sharing a post they write about you on your social media outlets will get more traffic to their site and make them feel important. Also, something as simple as a tweet that says «Thanks for the awesome shout out, you sexy influencer», (or something to that effect) will do wonders.

Product discount or giveaway. Offering a discount on your service or giving them a product from your brand will really incentivize an influencer to keep talking about you.

Commission. For influencers who are actively inserting themselves into conversations about your brand and bringing you big sales, it’s not a horrible idea to give them some sort of commission for the clients they bring your way.

Just like any other marketing trend, influencer targeting will continue to morph and evolve. Kind of like how billboards became banner ads and banner ads became content marketing. Anyway, here are some great resources and influencers who often talk about influence marketing that I recommend you follow to ensure that you are keeping up.

Brian Solis is a must-follow as he talks about influencers all the time and has fantastic insight on the topic.

Now that your idea of influencers isn’t so elusive and you know where to start looking for them, don’t let your outreach campaign slip by forgetting to use tact. With any interaction, imagine yourself at a cocktail party saying what you are emailing or tweeting. Would you run up to someone and list off all of the cool things about yourself and ask them to check out your brand? I really hope not, so don’t be abrupt in your communication with your list of targeted influencers.

Not all networks are created equal, the Wannahaves Lifestyle & Intelligence platform is specialized: Built from a great passion for all beautiful and fun things in lifestyle. Our goal is to help lifestyle fans to discover everything they need to know that fits theirs interest profile.

Wannahaves is a real social lifestyle portal where peers are connected based on their interests. A platform very suitable for brands since the lifestyle intelligence database and tracking technology helps finding the right people and their «interest» peers. Advanced profiling maximizes the ad budget.

EXERCISES

1.     Sum up the main ides of the text and retell it in Russian.

2. Fill in the missing words from the box into the text below.

In the 1)_________ of public relations, there are two ways to go: targeted or non targeted PR campaigns. A targeted public relations 2)_________ focuses on a smaller market, a group of potential buyers that might be more likely to buy your product or 3)_________. Non targeted public relations appeals to the 4)_________ as a whole, and you aren’t trying to aim your ideas at anyone in particular.

You might wonder why a targeted campaign is a better 5)_________. Coca Cola or McDonald’s, for example, are both companies that pitch their products to anyone who will 6)_________ the whole world over, right?

You might notice that different commercials for these companies are aired at different times of day. Versions of their 7)_________ are targeted at certain age groups or «targeted markets».

Smaller companies and businesses most likely 8)_________ to look for one or two specific audiences to target to, considering their budget is not nearly large enough to even try to market to the masses.

There are several ways to pick and 9)_________ how to target an audience. One of the first things to think about is the industry into which your 10)_________ or service fits. Let’s say you owned a small photo lab.

However, if you wanted to target people that just wanted better quality processing without the wait, you would want to 11)_________ not only your quality, but also your speed of service.

Location is another factor in deciding who you will market to. Recently, more and more companies have gone online, making it easier for them to sell to people in any location. However, 12)_________ companies generally have to target business closer to home.

You might also try targeting specific people within a company. There wouldn’t be much sense in trying to sell a 13)_________ product to an entire company when the 14)_________ was the only person you really had to influence, right? There are certain magazines that are written by and for people with specific job titles, CEO and Purchasing being just a few.

Affinity groups are probably one of the 15)_________ places to go to target an audience. An affinity group refers to a large group of people with a common 16)_________, such as fitness, computers, outdoor 17)_________, or music. Because this group has shown obvious interest in your product in the past, 18)_________ are they will be more likely to buy than someone that knows nothing about whatever it is you are selling.

If you can’t think of anyone 19)_________ to target, or there aren’t any 20)_________ written specifically for a group that you would like to target, perhaps targeted public relations is not for you.

3. Read the following article and make a rendering of it in English.

УБЕЖДЕНИЕ РЕКЛАМОЙ: КАК НАЙТИ СВОИХ КЛИЕНТОВ

С какой целью вы делаете презентации? Наверное, для того чтобы убедить свою публику и просто потенциальных покупателей принимать меры, т.е. покупать ваши и только ваши товары. Или пользоваться только вашими услугами. Если это так на самом деле, вы должны подобающим образом убеждать их, что именно вы предоставляете то, что им нужно. Они должны понимать, что, воспользовавшись вашей услугой или приобретя ваш товар, они смогут извлечь пользу.

Проблема, с которой вы сталкиваетесь в данном случае, очевидна. Каждая аудитория кардинальным образом отличается от другой, и это очевидно, что они не хотят одни и те же товары, им не нравится одни и те же рекламы. Перед запуском рекламной программы вам необходимо изучить вкусы, проанализировать их потребности, чтобы не попасть впросак. Вы должны будете делать нацеленную рекламу на каждую аудиторию в отдельности. Надо, изучив их. построить «профиль требования», т.е. тот минимум, который они требуют от того или иного продукта.

Начните с составления простой таблицы с указанием всех выдвинутых потребителями требований касательно того или иного товара или услуги. Это облегчит ваши труды по анализу, т.к. вы будете хоть немного ознакомлены со своей аудиторией с психологической точки зрения.

После того как вы закончите со списком, вы будете приблизительно знать, что предлагать, и какие продукты их могут раздражать. При «толкании», т.е. продвижении товара посредством рекламы, вам необходимо приводить очень веские аргументы и неоспоримые доводы, чтобы их убедить. Будьте исчерпывающи. Включите в состав рекламы все психологические рычаги, которые могли бы принести вам выгоду, т.е. помочь продать вам ваш товар.

Например, для зонтика самый веский довод, чтобы его покупали – это то, что он не пропускает влагу – дождь. Из этого прямая выгода клиенту – то, что он останется сухим. Косвенная выгода состоит в том, что они могут приходить на важные встречи, не промокнув. А укрепляющие доводы могут быть автоматические: закрывающиеся и открывающиеся, или прозрачные и т.д.

Когда вы сформируете аргументированное обращение или, проще сказать, богатую информацией рекламу, вы сможете потихоньку начинать атаку на умы потребителей, но по обстоятельствам можно предпринять и массивную атаку, это зависит от ситуации. Из вышесказанного определяется «профиль требования» каждой аудитории. Для другой аудитории вам будет необходимо уже собирать другие доводы, укрепляющие вашу позицию.

Например, вы могли бы найти клиентов для ваших зонтиков, даже в среде производителей. Предоставив им свой зонтик как носитель информации, и лучший в данном случае носитель рекламы их торгового знака и лейбла. Если это так, то например их запросы будут коренным образом отличаться от требований первой рассмотренной нами группы. Им важен цвет и яркость, т.е. привлекательность данного продукта как рекламного носителя. Для этого вам надо будет проанализировать и другие области для использования зонта, кроме как укрытия от дождя.

Для этого вам потребуется изучение ключевых аспектов не только ваших клиентов, но и относительно своего товара, с точки зрения потребителя. Что ему надо? Для чего ему надо? Проанализировав потребности, вы сможете выпускать продукцию, точно отвечающую требованиям каждой отдельно взятой аудитории и всей в целом.

Помните, без анализа рынка и изучения требований вы не сможете продвинуться ни на шаг в своем деле. Анализ и изучение – залог успеха вашего бизнеса. Зная то, что требуется клиенту или аудитории в целом, вы сможете безошибочно выбрать рекламную акцию, аргументированную самым грамотным и тщательным образом. Так что никто не сможет оспорить ваши доводы.