Why Audience First...

We place the audience at the heart of everything we do.

We approach every client brief with an audience first approach.

What does this mean?

It’s widely believed that the most successful businesses are customer centric. I like this explanation of what that means and why.

With a digitalisation of the world, and the inevitable growth in data, we know more about consumers than ever and this makes it possible for brands to know more about what their customers want from them. Businesses like Amazon have quite literally built their entire offering around what customers want and need and put them first.

This is something that can turbo charge a brand’s PR and marketing. It seems pretty obvious that it is important to know your customer in order to market to them but so many brands start with thinking about their own product or story and what they want to say about it – not what the audience might want to hear.

When a brief lands on my desk my first thought is always – who is the audience for this campaign? Who do we want to engage with us, from media and influencers, to the end customer? And most importantly how do we get them to talk about it.

PR isn’t as simple as taking a product or service, writing a press release about it and sending it off to journalists. When something has been your baby for years you can be excused a bit of tunnel vision, but it’s our job as the consultancy to strip that back and draw out the essence of the story.

What we have to do is find that strand that will engage a customer on social media, the angle that journalists will love because it drives clicks and shares for their channels and ultimately clicks and shares on the client’s channels. This isn’t necessarily the angle the client comes to us with.

In order to do this we have to know a lot about consumers – and know that all consumers are not the same. It’s about tribes and cities and ages and likes. We know that the audience and the media in Liverpool is completely different from the audience and the media in London and we will tailor our approach accordingly.

We know that diners in premium restaurants expect something very different from those that frequent a QSR asian noodle bar – or that the same customer enjoys both in different ways.

We know that you can’t rely on regional media alone to target a regional, city centre living audience. Especially if you want to connect with foodies or business people.

We also know what we don’t know and how to find it out.

Since Lockdown 1 the world has seen an enormous shift in consumer behaviour, trends have moved online/ offline/ somewhere in between, back online etc. Some regions are scared of the virus, others are desperate to save their industries. We have tracked trends and attitudes with the help of research agency CGA and its BrandTrack surveys.

This has enabled us to support our clients as they have developed their offerings, both so that we can generate media coverage and social media engagement and so that they know that their products are right and will sell.

Our understanding and constant consumption of the media alongside our knowledge of UK wide trends and of what the wider industry is doing, puts us in just the right position to help clients with much more than just a press release.

We are confident that this audience first approach generates great cut through with media, more genuine relationships with consumers, better client relationships for us and most importantly means that clients meet their objectives.

Curious how it might work for you? Why not try it out for size with a Story Sprint workshop. In just a few hours we will interrogate your comms plan and draw out the angles that your audience will love. Get in touch to find out more.

New Client Win - Kays

Media Profiling & Social.

At DATS we like to talk about values and purpose. We avoid ‘PR for PR’s sake’… In other words are we committed to generating coverage that drives real change for a business.

Kays Traffic Management is really closely aligned with us in both values and purpose and for that reason makes a top client.

The family run business has a genuine heart. It is also a hugely profitable, sales focussed company with a commitment to growth. The team behind the business has an intrinsic belief that these two things are of equal importance and we love that.

We have been working with the senior team at Kays for just a few months and have been able to raise their profile hugely in a very short amount of time because they have so much going on.

Through media relations, to raise awareness of the great work the business delivers, and social media, to connect it with the communities that it supplies and supports, we have built a narrative around the 35 year old business to generate coverage in regional and national business and consumer media.

A narrative that hasn’t been constructed for PR – one that has just been kept under the radar. One that we know will attract buyers to work with Kays because they know the job will be delivered with the same commitment and authenticity.

This works because true company values are carried through every element of a business and make it what it is.

We’ve had amazing content to help us build this narrative so far – rainbows, poppies and children’s holiday clubs.

Kays is a company that trains its teams, looks after them, helps the communities that it operates in and supports those in need. Big companies call this CSR, Kays calls it being human.

This week the company has been painting poppy signs with the wording ‘Lest We Forget’ near war memorials across Bolton, or on roads where cancelled Remembrance Sunday parades would have taken place. Kays Traffic Management, offered to install the markings free of charge as a way of helping residents remember those who have died in conflicts around the globe.

Shaun Hargreaves, commercial director at Kays, said; “2020 has been a busy time for us and we felt that now was the time to engage in some serious marketing. Down at the Social has provided us with the clarity we needed to know what we want people to know about the business and now the team is doing a great job in getting the message out there. I never thought I would see our road markings in the Daily Mail but that just might be the case this weekend!”

For more information on KAYS and its current projects have a look here.