Between a shortened attention span and content overwhelm, it's harder than ever to get your message across to your audience. How do you cut through all of the noise? There's a way to increase your conversion rate, to make your brand more beloved, to deliver information and more..all in this episode.
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Hello and welcome to Connections, Coffee & Confidence with me, Janice. Did you know that the human attention span now lasts about 8 seconds? Maybe you’ve heard that stat and, because I’m me, I researched it and found that the actual research behind it is well, not exactly there. I linked the BBC report on that in the shownotes but I don’t disagree with the sentiment. I do believe in content shock - which is where a person is faced with so much content that it overwhelms them and they can’t focus on any of it.
So in this world of content overwhelm, how do we break through and get our target audience’s attention? One answer is the topic of today’s episode.
INTRO
Public relations is the art of establishing and managing a reputation, creating and maintaining relationships with various audiences important to continue business, whatever that business may be. In order to do that effectively, we need to communicate with those audiences, we need to know our messaging and then we need to get that messaging out to our audience. When we look at the most basic communications model there is a sender, message and receiver. In this instance, you’re the sender and you know your message. And if you don’t, check out my resource on creating your strategic messaging on janicefogarty.com - I’ll link to it in the shownotes but in short it's a few pages of me walking you through how to create messaging so that you can use your marketing to reach your goals more efficiently - imagine less time worrying over what you want to write in your posts and emails. So go ahead with the download and we’ll carry on safe in the knowledge that you know your message.
Okay, our sender and message are taken care of. Which leaves us with the recipient.
The recipient who, as we have already sort of established, has a short attention span and is overwhelmed already by the amount of information being shoved at them, either directly or indirectly.
Let me ask you this: Without the other party receiving your message, how do you reach your business goals? How do you increase your reputation, establish your network, increase awareness of your offerings? How do you make your sales? You need to do everything you can to make sure your messages are received, completing that communications cycle.
(I apologize for the geeky language, talking about communications cycles just doesn’t sound fun outside of my head but PR isn’t fluff, there is a certain amount of theory grounded in research and modelling that provides the basis of what most just feel their way through with a wing and a prayer. I feel like if you understand the theory behind what we do as people who own businesses, trying to change the world, make sales and pay our bills, you’ll have a better appreciation for the amazing things you did do to get the sales you have made.)
The solution I’m going to suggest is slightly ironic when you think that I’m on an audible media and there is research showing that podcasts are more likely to hold someone’s attention all the way through to the end, but that’s another day’s topic. Today’s answer is visual PR.
Logos, typeface, infographics, pictures, video, the colours you use...these are all ways to visually represent your brand, to portray your business, to get your message across.
I won’t lie, I’m not one for the visual. I’m not particularly a visual learner, I have trouble making sense of complex graphics and I think my photography instructor passed me in university because he didn’t want to be subjected to my poor projects ever again. I’m a words person. But there is a strong case to be made for placing a concentrated effort on your visual PR - after all, what have I been doing but trying to create reels to grow my audience. Visual. Outside of my comfort zone but important, so I try.
One reason I leave my annoyingly imperfect reels up is that pictures can be personal, they are a way to display your personality. People buy from people and you need to humanize your brand to entice people in; pictures are one way to do that. Pictures work to soften dry facts, they are the feelings of a story. They are a way to connect directly with another person, to explain who you are and to say you are just like them, that you know them, you know who they are and how they feel because you are them or work with them so much you them inside out. That is, if that’s what you want the pictures to say. When you have your strategic messaging decided and mapped out, that messaging will direct your images, making your life easier.
And what if your messaging is technical? What if you have a difficult concept for your audience to grasp or a lot of information to give but you don’t want to contribute to that overwhelm? Or what if you’re super visual and don’t have the words to clearly provide the information and deliver the messaging? That’s where something like an infographic comes in. A well done infographic will do the work for you; as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and that applies especially to infographics.
And if you really want to have your bases covered, you provide the words with the visuals. The Wharton School of Business did a study on persuasion and I’ve linked my source article from the Public Relations Society of America in the shownotes. This study showed that 50% of people in the study audience had been convinced by a purely verbal presentation. And that 67% were convinced by a verbal presentation with visuals. Imagine if 67% of your asks resulted in an actual sale, wouldn’t that be nice?
An audience of customers or clients isn’t the only one more likely to be swayed by a visual. When we look at those who hold the keys to our getting our messages out through the media, the journalists, they’re another overwhelmed audience of ours. And just like everyone else, if you do your best to make their lives easier they will be grateful. If you take your story and deliver it to them complete with ready-to-go visuals, well to someone who needs to pump out up ten or more stories a day, that actually is a gift. I’m not saying your story about your new office is going to get picked up just because you have a picture of you at your new desk, looking very happy, included with the media release; I’m saying if you have a good story and a picture to match, your odds of getting coverage will be greatly increased. In fact, a study by PWR New Media showed that 77% of journalists are more likely to publish a story with visuals. I’ll link to those results in the shownotes but with these two extra points: first, if you ever wanted an example of how infographics can help you further your point with impact, go check out how PWR New Media delivered the results of their study. Second, that study was done in 2011, before the internet had blown up with social media the way we have today; and journalists were crushed then. Imagine how stressed they are now and imagine how much an easier story to run would mean to them in their busy day? Visuals.
With all of this evidence about how important adding visuals to your strategic communications is, I’d like to add one point. It’s easy. If the evidence points to adding a visual to be a win for you, and it does, and if you have the technology in your hand to do so, why wouldn’t you? Odds are you have a phone capable of taking a picture or two. You have a laptop or tablet that has a camera built in and all of those technology bits can run software such as Canva or whatever that can help you make graphics if you aren’t yet comfortable with pictures of yourself. And if you’re worried about perfection or looking foolish, I remind you to go check out my reels. I have no idea what happened to my captions, they were there when I previewed the reels but hit publish and suddenly they’re scrunched up or off screen or otherwise illegible. Gah. But I can’t let that inner desire for perfection stop me from moving forward and neither can you.
So focus on your messaging, on your strategy. Grab my resource on strategic messaging - Don’t Waste Your Breath - linked in the shownotes, and let your messaging guide you to the pictures and infographics that will help you tell your story. Let your story and visuals combine to sway your target audiences - including the media - to your point of view. And enjoy the process, don’t make it hard on yourself if you aren’t a visual person. Keep in mind the prize of reaching new audiences and your current audiences more effectively and go for it.
Until next week, my friend.
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