Communications made easy

Meet our gecko on a stump

Getting to know your gecko and map your stump

Humans are story-hungry. If we hear a story we resonate with emotionally, we’ll share it.  At the same time, there’s a lot of choices of which channels to use to tell your marketing communication stories, and more noise in all of them competing for attention. Poor quality content is turning people off social media and it can be harder than ever to get your story infront of the people who’d love to see it.

If your marketing communications are exhausting and ineffective, you need the focus of the gecko, and the clarity of the stump.

Think about your marketing communications as a gecko standing on a three rooted stump.

The body of the gecko is your brand and all it stands for – your personality and values as an organisation and the products and service benefits, or good work, that defines you.

The gecko’s four legs are the four story themes you’re going to tell – this season, or this year, or for the foreseeable future.

The rings of the stump the gecko stands on represent the content substance you create – or curate – to give life to your four story themes over time. Good content can be used again and again.

The three roots of the stump represent:

• Your digital communication channels that you manage – your website, emails, social media, youtube channel, blogging platform or podcast series.
• Your physical communications such as events, stunts, hui, networking, expo stands, outdoor advertising or signage.  When we’re online so much, physical place-based communications can be more important than ever.
• Other people’s media channels. This can be traditional media such as magazines or TV, editorial or paid advertising, but also other people’s newsletters, podcasts or conferences where your story can reach new eyes and ears.

Is your brand well defined so your gecko is clear?

The story legs – the story themes – you choose for your gecko need to make sense with the body of your brand.  Each leg has to carry its own share of the storytelling weight.

The three roots in the stump communicate the four story ‘legs’ into your target audiences.

Create content once and publish it everywhere – this makes it easier to cope!

Content adds substance to all four stories.  The rings of the stump represent new content you create about your four story themes. It might be an article you write or get written about something your brand knows or cares about, a video of a delighted client, an infographic to educate your market, a photograph with text that resonates for your customers or a piece of research you commission. Content can move, content can inspire and content might, if it’s good, be shared.  Sometimes curating others’ content well can be just as effective – but always respect copyrigt and honour the creators. Linking back is good.

Your marketing communications channels – the roots of the stump

The digital marketing leg of the stool represents your website, your email campaigns, your social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram as well as other regular digital communications such as webinar series or blogs.

The physical marketing leg of the stool includes events, stunts, hui, networking, expo stands, outdoor advertising or signage.  Elements with a real word presence. The more we are online, the more connecting in person, in place can matter.  There are times when presence works better than pixels

Other peoples’ channels give your story credibility you can’t get on your own.  For PR / media relations, the opportunities have never been greater and the demand for interesting stories is strong. Not only are journalists and editors at traditional media outlets hungry for quality content but so are all the businesses and bloggers publishing their own content with followers to entertain, educate and inspire.  Having a third party share your content gives it kudos and gets it before audiences who might not otherwise discover you.

Working with GoodSense makes your communications planning fun and effective

The collaborative, proven GoodSense approach to communications planning is excellent value for money.  It makes it fun and easy build a clear strategy and get your team behind your storytelling and promotions. Getting the strategy right saves time because you have a clear framework for all the tactical decisions.

You can use content story themes that we co-create with you across your communication channels  – for instance in eNews, social media, blogs, events and PR.  It uses the powerful visual metaphor – the gecko on the stump – to build up your content themes and map how they can be deployed across your priority communication channels.  With the complex and sometimes bewildering choice of marketing channels and finite time and budget this supported approach makes your decision making easy.

In this workshop you’ll learn this creative, practical and fun approach you can use again and again, whatever your marketing objective. This fast, effective and proven approach can be applied to many situations giving you great value for your time.

The workshop will help you to:

• Understand the role of you brand in your marketing communications
• Select the storytelling legs – the themes – that will carry your brand to your audiences
• Find how to reuse content effectively
• Map our the priority digital, physical communication and third party communication channels that will connect your organisation to your priority audiences.

We’ll then write up the content and channel strategy agreed into a simple to follow plan.

The budget for us to deliver this with you is $6,595 + gst.

Here’s what some clients who used us to help plan their communications thought:

Book our good sense crew to make your communications easy. Call us on 09 973 0960 or email OurCrew@goodsense.co.nz to find out more or set a date.