Comms convergence

There is a trend emerging in the world of corporate communications, one that may seem confusing at first but speaks to a challenge many companies face in getting their stories out there and influencing their target audiences. Corporate communications people are starting to ask if they need to be given budgets to run paid media campaigns.

A very significant player in any broader communications strategy, the influence corporate communications people work to achieve largely falls into two buckets: influencing governments, politicians, media, and other key stakeholders by building relationships and “selling” messages and agendas, and achieving influence via earned media campaigns.

Successful communications strategies are built on cohesive and consistent messaging delivered through earned, owned and paid media campaigns, but the lines between the three areas are increasingly blurred. That blurring explains why some corporate communications people are thinking about asking for dedicated paid media budgets that they control and implement.

Earned media sits at the core of what corporate communications people do and it always will. Earned media is an incredibly powerful way to reach and influence people. However, in some areas, earned media as executed through "traditional" media channels might need some help, depending on what outcomes the business expects their communications to achieve.

The reach and impact of traditional media (including online) has been affected by the relentless rise of other media channels, including social media, podcasts and e-newsletters. People can and do get news, information and entertainment from myriad sources these days. It makes for a more complex and demanding world, but it does also create more opportunities for corporate communicators to tell their stories and influence people. The trick is that many of the “other” media channels are not, in fact, earned media.

As Dave Chambers, a partner in the London communications consulting firm Headland, wrote in a recent blog, corporate communications people increasingly need to do more to find and reach audiences.

“The problem gets worse once you realise that several of these newer options require an extra step to actually cut through,” he wrote. “Most social media platforms offer little to organisations by way of reach unless you spend money. Research suggests organic reach on LinkedIn sits at 10 per cent of followers at best. It’s a similar story for Facebook (2 to 3 per cent on average) and Instagram (9 per cent on average).”

Money talks

Don’t get me wrong: earned media must always be at the heart of a corporate communications campaign. Being able to develop the right messaging that drives the right result for the business while keeping the audience in mind is what good corporate communicators do.

The addition of a paid media component should not be seen or treated as an easy fix to cover flaws in the earned media strategy, but even perfect messaging has its limitations if the desired outcome requires channels designed for paid promotion.

Any corporate communications person or company worth their salt can deliver great results through earned media alone. But in some channels and with some campaigns or clients, it might not be enough. Ultimately, it depends what results the business needs to drive and which channels are appropriate to do so. If a LinkedIn post only reaches 10 per cent of people organically, clearly it might need to be boosted by paying for more reach. A corporate communications person is not necessarily going to be able to achieve greater reach than the trade marketers or social media people who are also often given carriage of LinkedIn, purely because they specialise in earned media.

Businesses must understand what they are asking of their corporate communicators and where earned media stops and starts. Equally, it is also the responsibility of communicators to educate, be transparent and frame realistic expectations about what they can achieve with earned media.

Numbers racket

Chambers makes the point that giving paid media budgets to corporate communications people will create some new imperatives, including the need to research where audiences are and what content they are responding to, and the need for better measurement of the impact of corporate communications campaigns, be they earned, paid or both.

One hurdle here may be gaining trust for more budget through improved accountability. Advertising agencies and media companies spend a lot of time and money measuring the effectiveness of the paid media campaigns they create and run. Measuring the results from a corporate communications campaign is not as easy, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t or can’t happen. Right now, the issue is that too many corporate communications people (and public relations people, for that matter) rely on quaint, often meaningless metrics, such as potential audience reach or crude media time and space counts. Moreover, they rarely apply analysis or insight to how these metrics may inform improved performance the next time around, and the reporting can still come at significant cost.

Traditionally, corporate advertising campaigns such as BHP’s classic “The Big Australian” or the corporate ads Telstra runs every now and then have been managed by marketing departments, working with creative and media ad agencies. That should continue. Corporate communications people don’t need to, and shouldn’t, be running big ad campaigns. But in some cases, they need to, and should, run paid media campaigns that reflect, support and amplify earned media campaigns.

If they don’t, getting their messages out there and influencing their audiences could become harder and the outcomes less effective.