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Guest Post: The Map to Communication Success Involves a Look in the Rear View
Last month, I introduced you to the four-step process of PR – research, planning, implementation and evaluation – and the importance research plays in developing winning communications strategies.
Research, paid or unpaid, formal or informal, is as important to a successful PR project as Google Maps is to a cross-country journey. It provides the road map to planning and implementation.
As organizations begin to see the ROI from the no-or-low cost methods discussed in my last blog, it will become easier to sell the C-suite on building research into timelines and budgets for future projects.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for! While free and informal research can provide important highlights, some paid, formal options allow for a deeper dive and a greater level of accuracy in targeting your message to its audience.
Looking in the Rear View: A common step in strategic planning is the “communication audit,” a comprehensive evaluation of an organization’s communication efforts and materials. Taking this time to look in the rearview mirror often reveals the good, bad and the ugly. The same is true for project audits.
Evaluate the overall process used for similar past projects. The audience selected, messages developed, tactics used to communicate the message, and so on. While project and communication audits can be conducted by internal communication teams, the addition of an outside perspective can be invaluable. As they say, things often look very different from the outside in.
Narrowing the Focus: Focus groups are an excellent way to ensure the right message is matched to the most appropriate audience. They provide qualitative data needed to make decisions that will deliver more bulls-eyes and ultimately the biggest bang for the buck. While you can gain good information by buying pizza for a group of friends, those results could have bias. An independent voice will result in hearing the sometimes uncomfortable truth that can bring about positive change.
The Survey Says: Surveys are cost effective and relatively easy to implement, making them one of the most common ways to obtain quantitative data. While tools like Survey Monkey allow internal staff to conduct surveys of customers and other key audiences, the anonymity of independent surveys can increase honesty. It’s all about getting trusted results.
Whatever strategies are used, there are benefits from looking in the rear view before moving forward with new projects. Research is always worth the time and investment!
Great Audio Makes A Great Video
Emmy winning sound producer/engineer said recently on the Digital Production Buzz podcast:
“Audio with no video is radio. Video with no audio is surveillance.”
He is absolutely, completely spot on. Well, he did win an Emmy after all. But audio does get overlooked when it comes to producing video. It really shouldn’t. if it wasn’t for the audio how would you be able to pace something accordingly? Or for that matter. How would you be able to understand the message?
I don’t know who said it, but there’s the adage of if you can’t understand what a video is saying without audio than you will lose your audience. I disagree with that. The power of video is the fact that you are using more than one sense. Because of that, your retention goes up!
So, making sure you record good audio is key. There are several tools out there, but having a great microphone can really either make or break your video. There are several types to choose from whether it’s a boom, on camera shotgun, lavaliere or handheld. Then to choose whether it needs to be wireless or not! There are other tools like a digital recorder, and then syncing the sound later. if you don’t have these external tools to record sound, then make sure you get your camera or phone in a quiet area and get close to the subject. See my post here on that.
The next thing to think about is music. Your music has to fit the personality of what you are trying to convey. You can’t just arbitrarily insert random music as it has to fit the pace of the video and the subject matter. This is something we take great care in at our studio and it sometimes is the most time consuming. But we find the right track that fits. Just take a look at some of our videos and see if you feel we missed the mark.
Audio is just as important to plan for as video and having the right tools at hand will not only give you leverage when it comes to the editing process, but it goes a long way into making your clients look and sound great!
