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Unpacking 2020: Lessons Learned and Marketing Predictions for 2021

April 13, 2021 By ECPR Team Leave a Comment

With vaccines becoming more available by the day, and life’s return to “normal” imminent, it is easy to want to forget about the year 2020 altogether. Why dwell on the past, especially if it brought with it much difficulty and strife – right? Though this sentiment is highly relatable, it carries with it a few flaws, at least from the perspective of marketing.

As marketers, it is our job to dichotomize the year 2020 and make sense of the valuable learning elements the year brought with it. To be prudent, we deployed an end of year survey to groups of other marketers and Eberly & Collard social media followers for their input. Our survey asked participants questions that allowed us insight into the ways in which marketing, and marketing platforms, transformed in 2020. We then used the survey’s results to create a roadmap for marketing in 2021.

Now comfortably in the year 2021, we have broken down the results of our end of year survey for 2020 and created a basis of understanding for how these results will play out in the year 2021. After all, 2020 was a pacey year in terms of the growth and adoption of marketing trends, so an in-depth analysis of the trends created in 2020 is much deserved.

Below are the three most telling and informative results from our end of year survey. We are confident that the marketing trends conceived in the year 2020 will continue, and they serve as excellent reference points when constructing predictions for 2021.

Traditional media relations remained strong: According to our survey results, companies launched as many press campaigns in 2020 as they did in 2019.

Traditional media relations remained a staple due to its effectiveness in connecting brands and companies with their target audiences. In 2020, it became more important than ever to be known, and there are few better ways of doing so than being published by a magazine or website.

Many business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies “stated their case” to target audiences in 2020 by leveraging one of the most trusted gatekeepers in the marketplace: the media. Consumers and decision makers in business needed to be conservative with their budget in 2020, and they relied heavily on the media to help make decisions for them.

Our own experiences in the year 2020 supported our survey results. Due to market volatility, those with spending power in the business community wanted to make sure they were working with stable and trustworthy partners. The media of a respective industry acts as a vetting system for potential clients or customers; if you are established and trustworthy enough to be published by a trade publication or applicable magazine, it bodes well for your viability in the marketplace in the eyes of potential business partners.

As an example, in 2020, we were told by many editors across the industries in which we work that there was an influx of submitted press releases for publication. At first, this seemed hard to believe. Was there really that much news that needed released to the media in the middle of a pandemic? But, as supported by our survey results, companies truly needed media coverage in 2020 more than ever. Businesses across all sectors were required to engage with the media as a way of peeking their heads out of the door, so to speak, and saying, “we are still here and serving our clients and customers.”

These results tell us that even during tough years for traditional media, its influence remains constant. In 2021, plan to launch just as many or more campaigns as in 2020. As a company, becoming a familiar name and face in front of target audiences is extremely valuable for future success.

B2B and B2C audiences shifted their conversations to social media.

In what is arguably the least surprising result of our survey, we found that companies increased their social media posting frequency by nearly double in 2020. With a massive increase of people spending more time at home, social media became the new desired place of e-commerce and lead-development for companies in B2B and B2C market segments.

Will people continue leaning on social media as strongly as they did in 2020? Absolutely. If you are familiar with Pavlov’s Dog experiment, you understand that once someone is introduced to specific, rewarding stimuli on a consistent and scheduled basis, they become hyper-aware of when the same stimuli are absent from their daily lives.

This same ethos can be applied to a company’s social media presence. If you found yourself increasing your social media posting frequency in 2020, chances are your followers, who may be potential clients or customers, will notice if you decrease your content frequency in 2021. So, we would advise to continue posting at the same frequency in which your company or brand did in 2020. After all, in 2021, there will be much more success to post about.

In keeping with social media’s high-octane performance in 2020, we found that, through our survey results, many more companies relied on influencers to promote their brand and product than in previous years. As was overheard during a Zoom webinar attended last year, influencers were found to be “pandemic proof” in the first half as 2020. While many traditional forms of media reduced activity for a few months and went home, influencers were already at home, and they were much more used to creating content for brands out of thin air.

Brands and businesses were highly intrigued by the accessibility and relatability of influencers in the eyes of their target markets, and got to work with their influencer marketing programs. Companies learned that there were various levels of influencers geared for different tiers of their target audiences, and it showed through an increase in search terms like “How to find micro influencers”, “Nano and micro influencers” and “Micro influencer marketing.”

These tiers of influencers gave brands a menu of different market segments they could reach at home, and this specialized strategy of targeting B2B and B2C audiences using influencers is sure to continue in 2021.

Desktop and mobile screen time rose significantly in 2020, and it has transformed the way consumers interact with businesses.

For most people spending increased time at home, their phones and computers became all-in-one their place of work, marketplace, social gathering space, and public square. Marketers quickly took notice of this phenomenon and got to work.

Commerce primarily shifted to a digital setting to adapt to the increase in screen time. Producing digitally native content became much more of priority, simply because creating and maintaining visibility in the digital marketplace became extremely important for businesses in nearly every sector.

One of the most interesting B2B hospitality marketing developments of the year 2020 – discussed in HubSpot’s 2021 social media predictions webinar – was the phenomenon of “ghost kitchens.” This is a new kind of hospitality business that was created in direct response to increased screen time due to the pandemic. A ghost-kitchen business is a restaurant that only exists in the digital marketplace. A business owner rents out a kitchen, but the typical symbols of the restaurant’s identity – such as a serving staff, décor, etc. – do not exist. Ghost-kitchen restaurants operate exclusively through delivery services such as Doordash and Uber Eats, but they do not “exist” in the physical realm so to speak. You can’t even place an order for takeout, since there is no physical restaurant-like setting to pick up from.

Think about it – an entire hospitality sub-industry created for a mobile device-exclusive marketplace. We look forward to seeing the places these digitally native companies go in 2021.

Proper digital media management and digital media marketing was a major priority for companies in 2020. Our survey results reflected that B2B and B2C companies increased SEO spend in 2020 to meet this new demand of digital business. We’ve mentioned this before, but if a business was not visible on digital platforms in 2020, it essentially did not exist. Not to mention, our survey yielded results that businesses’ website traffic experienced a sharp increase in 2020, which can be a result of, or reason to build, a strategic SEO strategy for your business.

As far as digital marketing forecasting and an outlook on digital marketing trends for 2021 goes, this year will remain important for businesses to continue an investment into SEO. Though many physical elements of business and commerce are returning, we are not quite there yet, and it is still highly important to remain visible in the digital economy.

Starting from the Ground Up: PR’s Pivotal Role in Building a New Business

December 4, 2020 By ECPR Team Leave a Comment

So, you launched a new company. Now what? The obvious answer to this question is “sign a client,” or, “build a strong customer base.” But, getting to that point involves a framework of smart choices made within budget. And, if you ask us, one of the smartest and most cost-efficient decisions a start-up can make is adopting a public relations (PR) strategy at the onset of the company’s conception.

To clarify, we are not recommending a fully-integrated, multi-level marketing plan for a start-up or newly launched company as the very first step. Though we’ve been outspoken on the fruitful benefits a fully-integrated marketing plan offers, we understand there is a time and place for everything. And, right now, you are simply trying to launch a company without exhausting your existing, and sometimes limited, resources.

When pathways to funds are narrow, every dollar dedicated to marketing is precious and must be part of an overall plan to achieve brand awareness. Starting with a strong PR plan can be immensely valuable when limited budget is available, but it is important to note that the time to dedicate a budget towards PR for a new company is at the onset. Once a budget is determined, the steps taken to strategically position your new company using PR can be relatively simple. As you kick-off your PR strategy and baseline budget, part of your future roadmap should be preplanning to supplement campaigns and equipping your branding with an enduring budget, both of which can keep your PR efforts on track after you lay the groundwork.

What is public relations, and what makes it so valuable?

Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. For businesses with strategic and well-managed PR plans, ROI includes developing reliable trust and authentic engagement with customers, clients, sales leads, buyers, decision-makers, industry leaders, influencers, the media, and other integral contacts, connections and constituencies.

One of the most rewarding and value-driven benefits a new company can achieve from PR is the early development of trust amongst its target audiences. Earned, unpaid publicity as a result of sound PR activations, such as influencer marketing, thought-leadership events, customer and client retention programs, and more, can act as a conduit of trust in a respective industry. All of this typically more cost-effective than other methods of marketing, such as advertising.

When put head-to head with other marketing options, and judged strictly on their individual merits from the perspective of a start-up looking for the value proposition in marketing, PR emerges as the smart and strategic choice.

According to Nielsen, a global marketing research firm, PR is nearly 90% more effective than advertising. It was found that expert content marketing, which is earned, unpaid publicity achieved through PR, lifted familiarity 88 percent more than branded content, such as traditional advertisements or advertorials.

This data may have one asking why PR yields higher trust and more credibility than paid media. When publicity is secured with a print or online news source as a result of PR, it means an independent party has vetted and verified the information they have received through your PR efforts about your company. It also signifies that they have deemed it valuable information for their readers. With advertising alone, a company’s message is not necessarily vetted or verified through sometimes stringent editorial standards, but rather purchased.

That said, we are not against paid media by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, uniting traditional PR with advertising can be incredibly valuable. However, in order for advertising to work, there must be an engaging, memorable and repetitious strategy in place. Combining advertising with other marketing components, such as PR, can help when building brand equity; this is because implementing unified marketing disciplines has a record of producing growth and value for companies.

If a start-up company has the available budget at the onset to fund an integrated marketing plan that encapsulates both PR and advertising, we would say such a strategy is more than advisable. But, if a company finds itself with a tighter, more restrictive marketing budget and has to pick between PR and advertising based on ROI alone, we recommend the former.

In practice, how will PR help build brand awareness and establish my company’s identity in its respective industry?

PR allows a company to communicate with its desired audiences in a way that creates value and triggers engagement. If done successfully, PR can help create buzz about your company, which will, in turn, translate to new customers and clients, and build fresh relationships in a respective industry. PR can also help bring in liquidity from new investors and create interest from prospective employees.

A start-up’s first goal should be introducing its product or service to the marketplace. When using traditional methods of PR, one of the most reliable platforms to make this introduction to target audiences is earned media.

When using PR strategy to produce unpaid, earned media, a start-up needs to look inward and answer a key question: What is your company doing better or differently than your competitors that uniquely positions itself in the eyes of potential clients or customers? Once this is determined, companies can leverage this information using a consistent PR program.

If you are a business-to-consumer (B2C) or direct-to-consumer (D2C) start-up, it might be wise to consider launching influencer marketing programs, in which influencers are given complimentary product in exchange for the potential of publicity of your company. In this unpaid influencer agreement, your company could send an influencer the traditional “PR Pack,” which is essentially a sampling of your own product, in addition to some marketing materials explaining who your company is, and what it is you do.

If strategized correctly, the influencer would then post about your product or service on their social media channels; blog about your company; name-drop your product, service or company in a podcast; or simply mention your product or service to another tastemaker in your respective industry. Though the latter is more difficult to track, and you may not see the benefits of such an interaction right away, this word of mouth marketing can be highly beneficial for your start-up in the long term.

The value of reaching your publics through their preferred influencers cannot be stressed enough. Your start-up and brand is completely new to your desired target audiences; it is not uncommon for someone to react with initial skepticism when they are introduced to a brand-new product or service about which they have never heard.

Leveraging the voice of influencers not only puts your new product or service in front of your target audiences, but it allows said audiences to trust that it has been vetted by the influencer. In this scenario, PR can also be aligned with media relations, should any news source pick up a story about an influencer posting, writing or speaking about your product, service or company. These two elements (public relations and media relations) in tandem with each other can be extremely valuable for your start-up, given the double-layer of trust through earned media and influencer relations.

Like any facet of marketing, with PR, it is important to create long-term strategies. Make sure to facilitate dialogues and relationships with various influencers within your industry on more than one occasion, and throughout the duration of a year. This will build lasting trust and consistency with influencers and in turn, your target audiences.

Implementing a strong PR strategy can propel the standing of your start-up in more ways than one; positioning your company in the right place and time through PR can attract investors and talented employees.

Through consistent publicity secured through PR, potential investors can vet the viability of your company. Perhaps one of the most advantageous effects PR has on a new company is making it seem even more established in a given industry. It also enhances its trajectory in becoming a “staple” brand. After all, most investors do not like taking risks with new companies that appear volatile or ones they have never heard of. On the investment front, a solid PR game plan can potentially make a company that has existed only for a few months seem as if they have existed for a few years.

PR is also a great way to attract talent and grow a start-up’s team. Positive publicity as a result of PR strategy can be a huge boost for hiring and getting the right people to seek employment with your company. Similar to investors, the majority of prime job candidates stray away from companies that appear unestablished or are unheard of.

Getting started: Implementing public relations strategy as a new company.

It is no secret that starting up a new business venture is tough, and only the top five percent of all new companies last more than 12 months. However, start-ups with PR programs at the onset have a creative and strategic advantage to companies without the strategy and service support from PR agencies to improve their odds.

As is mentioned in places throughout this blog, we would also find it a wise decision to consider implementing a PR program aligned with other facets of marketing, such as media relations, social media or advertising, that comprise a robust strategy and that is vigorously executed through outreach, campaigns and more. But, of course, this is dictated by the budget allocated towards marketing.

The importance of beginning with a PR agency that offers Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat (SWOT) Analysis and strategic planning cannot be understated. These processes help clearly define goals and evaluate opportunities for success within given market(s). Learn more about our public relations services here, and contact us to get started on your plan today.

Why Inbound Marketing Will Be More Important Than Ever In 2021

October 15, 2020 By ECPR Team Leave a Comment

2020 has been filled with disruption, to say the least. In recent years, disruption in business has typically been considered a good thing. Companies, people and ideas ushering in “disruptive innovation” have been generally defined as positive conductors of growth with the potential to shake up an entire industry.

However, in the last six months alone, people have experienced enough disruption in their personal lives through the various economic, cultural and social issues at-hand. As a result, companies are rethinking the ways in which they make their initial connection with target audiences, but in ways that are not as disruptive or invasive to their daily lives.

At this moment, it is predicted people will leave 2020 feeling over-stimulated and fatigued. So, what does this mean for your 2021 content marketing plan? Tread lightly, and consider growing your organization’s inbound marketing program.

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is the practice of growing your company’s prospects, clients and customers by forming organic and lasting relationships through non-interruptive inbound content marketing. While outbound marketing involves an organization reaching target demographics through e-blasts, cold-calls and other marketing techniques that are active attempts at direct communication, inbound marketing allows potential clients or customers to find your company on their own through your company’s web-based content.

The nucleus of inbound marketing is assisting potential customers or clients find your product or service, even before they realize the need for it in some cases. Inbound marketing tools work especially well during disruptive times in business and society; this is because it allows potential clients or customers to make organic initial connections with your organization on their own terms through passive searching.

Before implementing or refreshing your inbound marketing strategy for 2021, you must first understand the three core components of inbound marketing. Understanding and executing these components are essential for connecting with your audiences in ways that bridge strong relationships and solve their problems.

1. Entice and invite the right people to your web-based content through blogs, social media, podcasts, press releases, and more.

The first and possibly most important factor of any inbound marketing is program attracting the right people, i.e. your target audience, to your organization’s website. How do you get them there? You create meaningful conversations and interest through valuable, solution-based content.

This content can come in many shapes and sizes, so to speak. If you are a financial planning firm, you could write a blog or record a podcast that includes helpful insight into how a portfolio should be successfully managed. While this solves half the equation of inbound marketing, you must also be able to strategically position this content so it can be found by the right people.

One of the best ways to position this content with effective, maximum reach is through SEO optimization. This is accomplished by creating web-based, owned content with specific keywords and phrases that are associated with your company, product, service, and industry. These keywords and phrases should be solution-based and written with your target audience in mind. Building on the previous example, if you are a financial planning firm, your target audiences will be searching for businesses like yours to solve specific issues, using keywords and phrases such as, “how to make a comprehensive financial plan,” or, “financial plan for startup example.” In application, it is recommended to build a much deeper SEO strategy than two simple search phrases, but the idea of inbound marketing is to draw in potential clients and customers with a specific problem they are hoping to have solved via search engine.

With a solution-based strategy, your organization’s content-driven SEO will position your company to organically appear in search engine results for the people searching for and in need of this information.

An overlooked device for the first component of inbound marketing is the humble, handy press release. Typically viewed as a traditional method of providing the media with important news or company updates, the press release has found itself in an interesting position during the digital age. When used as native content, and posted to your organization’s website, it can be as practical as a blog or article to build solution-driven SEO keywords and phrases that attract key demographics to your website.

Earned media placements of an SEO-based press release on publications’ websites or digital issues can also be used as a tool to passively draw desired audiences to your organization’s website. Earned media placements typically garner more trust from its readers than owned media, so make sure the press release also contains backlinks to take the reader back to your website.

A prime way to implement the first component of this strategy, using our examples, would be to start out of the gates in 2021 with a well-written, solution-driven and SEO-based press release campaign. Make sure the basis of the press release is rooted in some sort of solution your company offers.

If you are an in-house marketing director at a software company specializing in cybersecurity, for example, kick off 2021 with a press release about enhanced-security updates your company has made to the product that further solves the problems of its current and future users. Place keywords and phrases that are based on search terms your target audience would be using if they were to find your organization via search engine. Then, post the press release to your website and distribute it to various media outlets your target audience would be reading.

When a potential client or customer is served the press release on your or a publication’s website via search engine, they are met with a much more organic, valuable initial connection with your organization, rather than being inundated by your cold-calls or e-blasts. By using this less-interruptive method, prospects feel they have discovered your organization’s solutions on their own terms.

2. How to engage with an audience acquired through SEO-based content

“I’ve attracted the right people to my organization’s website using tools such as SEO-driven, published content on my website. What now?”

Once potential new clients or customers find your organization by way of non-interruptive means, it is essential to engage with this newly acquired audience in ways that encourage long-term relationships. In keeping with our prediction for 2021, it is important to consider less-disruptive methods of introducing solutions and insights that are adjacent to prospects’ goals. This not only motivates them to become a client or customer with your company, but it helps establish yourself as a trusted consultant with whom they can engage.

There are various ways to engage your audience using inbound marketing strategies. Whichever direction you decide to take, it is important that you lead with solution-based selling rather than product-based selling. If you truly want to capitalize on the non-invasive nature of inbound marketing, you should not direct-sell yourself as a product or service, but rather a stream of valuable information and insight geared to offer solutions for a unique set of problems.

In order to sell your solution, you must first understand the “pain points” of a potential client or customer. Regardless the channel of communication, start off the dialogue asking important questions of the prospect’s business or service, and not direct selling in the first interaction.

To apply this to your 2021 marketing strategy, think about how your organization sells itself on social media channels. When someone follows your company on one or more of the social channels on which you are active, they decide that following your company provides them with some kind of value. They likely found your company’s channels on their own, and it is even possible they were served your content from Facebook or Instagram’s “Explore” algorithm; this algorithm, created by Facebook, performs in a similar manner to that of Google’s search engine algorithm.

Regardless of how they found you, a key demographic is now following your company on social media, making your organization visible to them on a daily basis. Once you are aware of this notion, it is important to understand their needs, and work solution-based selling – not product-based selling – into your daily, weekly or monthly social media content. Though the act of posting social media content lies within the “active” marketing arena, it is typically not considered to be disruptive to your followers. After all, they made the conscious decision to follow your organization.

However, in accordance with our 2021 inbound marketing outlook, you will not want to over-stimulate your followers with frequent, aggressive, hard-sell posting, in the same way you would not want to over-communicate with a lead or attracted party you’ve acquired through SEO-based content on your website.

3. Servicing new business generated through inbound marketing strategies

So, you’ve signed a new client through your inbound marketing efforts – congratulations!

Now the real work begins. In order to complete the triad that is inbound marketing, it is vitally important to continue satisfying new clients or customers through consistent non-interruptive marketing strategies. Nothing turns off a new client or customer more than realizing the company in which they have been interfacing acts in a completely different manner once a contract is signed, or a purchase is made.

Consider incorporating automated support mechanisms into your inbound marketing strategy to assist and request feedback from clients and customers. Surveys, in particular, are a great tactic to install in your company’s customer journey. By asking for feedback from your customers or clients using some kind of automated platform, you are continuing to passively sell your company’s ability to understand the needs of its customers, and react and adapt to new ideas for improvement. If, as a company, you can constantly improve your service through mechanisms such as this, you are proving your long-term value, which will in turn lead to renewed contracts or purchases in the future.

Another non-invasive way of servicing your existing clients or customers is through social media listening. Your organization’s social media followers, some of which are not even clients or customers, serve as an effective tool in feeling the pulse of your target audiences. Become familiar with your follower base, especially the followers who are clients or customers, and provide solutions via social media that demonstrate continued support for your patrons.

That said, make sure the solutions you offer directly to your social media followers are warranted; you do not want to appear “needy” or high maintenance.

As you implement these inbound marketing strategies into your marketing plan for 2021, it is important to keep in mind that the most important aspect of inbound marketing is delivering repeated value to new, existing or potential clients, even if the value is not reciprocated in some cases.

With 2020 drawing to a close, and a promising 2021 on the horizon, many in business are more fatigued than ever with tone-deaf and aggressive marketing tactics. Eberly & Collard Public Relations is a HubSpot Certified Inbound Marketing Agency, which means we guide clients in various industries through the steps outlined in this blog. Whether you decide to implement this strategy on your own or with the guidance of an agency, we hope this information acts as a valuable resource for your 2021 marketing planning.

Why Inbound Marketing Will Be More Important Than Ever In 2021

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