At Rhetoric we’re one of those agencies who are do-ers and we get more leads because of it. We don’t charge clients $7k for a strategy, we spend time getting to know them but we get a move on and can get content out there within a week of onboarding them.  I say this because we learn a shit-load from just being practitioners and learning from every interaction we have with everyone we work with from digital marketers to journalists, producers to clients.

We absorb and learn…and we also listen to a lot of podcasts! So as PRs who routinely get placements for clients in Australian Women’s Weekly, Australian Financial Review, Channel 9 etc, here are some hacks for you that – if you only implement one this week – you’re going to start getting some different results:

1. Research shows that negativity – fear/disgust/etc – resonates with audiences TWICE as much. I used to have a boss (the last boss I ever had, it put me off having bosses for life!) and she didn’t like my slightly controversial, non-corporate, style of writing. “Can you make that positive?”. Yup. But it will cost you in traffic, leads and sales…and mike drop 😉
2. Mass-communication is dead. When you write a blog post, social media post or anything write with one person in mind. Then say who you’re writing it for, then boost the ad to that specific audience. 2017 is about being hyper-targeted and hyper-local. Get on it or miss out on leads.
3. Being dull is boring. Add a tonne of personality and if you’re on social add a heap more. It’s called social for a reason, stop being so corporate, no one cares.
4. We make decisions based on emotion and then rationalise that decision after the face. Think about when you’re in the shop contemplating buying the handbag that’s well out of your budget, yeah, but it’s got pockets, I’ll keep it for years so it’ll be totally worth it, my life will improve by 19 per cent once I HAVE THAT BAG! Okay, rational left side of the brain, you can pretend you decided to buy the bag but the emotional right side totally bought it!
5. Which takes me to the importance of brand. If you haven’t watched Simon Sinek’s ‘the importance of why’, do me a favour and watch it now. The emotional connection you create with your brand with your audience will get you so much more traction than selling the features.
6. Advertising is a numbers game. Yes, we have social now, but the old guys in Madmen style advertising know the truth, same rules, different channel. Putting $100 into a FB campaign and expecting your post to go viral is not gonna happen. You need a ridiculously high number of impressions, its not easy and no matter how many people try to sell you the laptop lifestyle stuff, have 6-figure months etc, you still have to work your arse off. It has been said that entrepreneurs are the only people who work 100 hours a week so they don’t have to work 40 for someone else!
7. You need a sales funnel to get leads. If you don’t know what a sales funnel is look it up. In summary you build awareness via content creation, create a ‘lead magnet’ – something free that will entice your customer, then run a webinar for example to get to decision and action stage. Simplified but a simple process all the same.
8. PR is awesome for generating leads. We doubled one client’s website’s traffic in 6 weeks. However, go back to point 6 if you’re getting the traffic but not converting as there will be something wrong with your pipeline
9. The power of the crowd shouldn’t be underestimated. Humans are social creatures, if we think everyone else is doing it we’ll probs do it too
10. Your personal story is gold, especially if you’re willing to be open about the journey you’ve been on and how you’ve got from rags to riches or show vulnerability. It’s a time honoured story telling technique but it works and is a formula film makers use over and over again. That’s why magazines and TV PAY for those stories and because most people don’t usually divulge they deets of their lives. So if you’re a recovering alcoholic or happy to discuss stuff that others might not, journalists will be keen to talk to you as these stories are the hardest to find, but often the most compelling, emotive and inspiring. We call that a human interest story
11. Leverage – we use this a lot in PR land to get leads, right up front we’re telling journos why this new entrepreneur on the scene is da bomb! We’re telling them (in as few as words as possible) that they used to work at Google or they have 100,000 followers or they have a celebrity client or anything which gives them credibility in that person’s eyes
12. Credibility can be found from doing your own PR too, as you can then name drop all the media that have featured your story or quoted you. Credibility is important as it speeds up the decision-making process in the purchase because you’re building trust with your new customer
13. Develop some personas. Don’t skip getting to know your customers intimately. As soon as you’ve created these you can start to target and talk to each of your customers much more easily and talk about the products they’ll get most value from
14. Keep your launches short! I’ve talked to two biz owners this week who had 5 month and a 2 month launch. Keep it short, people will get bored of you and you’ll get bored or hearing yourself plugging your product again! That’s the reason crowdfunding campaigns are one month long.
15. Discount your product to get leads. I ran my first ever sale in December and made $7k in a week. There are philosophies around not discounting your products. My launch was just to a couple of select audiences and only on offer as we had capacity that month. People love a bargain what can I say, don’t be scared to try new techniques out
16. Have an early-bird. This is like your first launch so you then have then two deadlines people will become aware of and deadlines sell stuff. Putting a time limit on something or telling people that there are only a certain number to buy suddenly makes our simple human brains take notice as scarcity sells.

Too easy. Which one will you pick this month to implement. Let me know via social and I’d be happy to give you some more advice on what to do next.

Cheers,