Language Lessons
Industry Predictions
12.16.2008
As clients have more goals to achieve, more strategies to develop and more tools from which to choose, we must be ready for everything. The days of a single strategy, a single big idea, are over if we want to achieve the results our clients expect.
We recently launched a campaign that involves every part of Capstrat – traditional public relations, media relations, Web development, search engine optimization, social media, advertising, guerrilla marketing, digital media and internal communications.
It’s not unusual for large campaigns to incorporate all of these tools. However, this campaign has a moderate budget and focuses on one issue: encouraging people to sign up for a cause.
This type of campaign is becoming our norm. Even in a time of tighter budgets, we continue to encounter clients who have multiple communications needs, whether they know it or not. Some may use every tool, some may use three or four, but no one uses only one.
With everyone working harder, how do we have time for these language lessons? It’s simple. Have the teachers close at hand. Not every person on the team needs to be an expert, but every organization needs someone who is fluent in each of these dialects. And every team needs a leader who is conversational enough in all of the communication dialects to know when to bring in the experts.
It's our responsibility as communications profesionals to take a long, hard look at our clients' needs and pick the dialects that tell their stories, drive traffic, boost reputation and help them meet their goals. More often than not, it takes multiple strategies - multiple dialects - to achieve success. We have to conversational enough to be able to choose the right ones.
