If firms are campaigning on the same topics, how can your output stand out?

Brilliant marketing campaigns are critical to how your brand is received and require inspiring concepts, meticulous planning and expert execution. Let’s walk you through the three elements that we see as key.

1. Identify the gap

Whether you have a brilliant idea, or you only know that you want to target a specific market, it’s critical to understand the noise that you will be competing against to identify the content gaps that you can exploit.
From surveying social media and web presence you can build a picture of your competition.

• What content is gaining most engagement?

• What topics are they covering, and what is their key messaging?
• Is everybody describing themselves in a similar way?
• Are they producing regular content?
• Do they have innovative products or hooks?

Don’t forget that other firms such as consultancies are your competitors. Though they have big budgets they often don’t turn big concepts into meaningful actions. You can seize an opportunity to put your fee earners centre stage as experts.

It can be tempting to format regular campaigns in the same way each time, though you will drive engagement if you embrace change. Take The Budget for example – how many updates will your audience receive over the course of 24 hours, and which one will they chose to consume? Will infographics or videos make your content more digestible, social media worthy and engaging?

2. Solve a real problem

Identify your target audience and then prioritise the emerging themes that they are struggling with. Your campaign has to be rooted in a concept that they will be hungry to buy into. You can increase your share of voice by producing content that flags risks and opportunities before your audience has spotted them.

• What market trends are occurring that you could be first to comment on?

• Are you one of the first firms to advise on cases after a specific regulatory change?

• What is so vital that it is worth a GC flagging to its company’s board?

3. Showcase expertise

A successful campaign should have a lead partner as the face of communications and committed to its success. This doesn’t mean that only their expertise and service line should be the sole inspiration for content.

Thematic and sector led campaigns offer opportunities for fee earners from different disciplines to give their perspective on events. By using case studies and generalising knowledge from client matters, the reader can gain a new perspective and you can demonstrate a holistic offering.