In recent years, the VH-1 cable show made an industry of shows such as “I Love the 80s” and then “Best Week Ever.” Buried in the bright, cheesy recent nostalgia of those shows was a kernel of truth: All of us want to be the best at what we do.
So we asked the WordWrite team: What advice would you give organizations interested in making 2015 the best year ever for their communications and marketing, from media relations to inbound and social media? Want to have your best year ever in sharing your story with everyone who needs to see, hear or experience it? Then read on! 
Paul
Start with what really matters to your business or organization. All too often, because we work in a creative field, it’s easy to get caught up in the bells and whistles, whether that’s a front-page Wall Street Journal article or a funny social media video, and forget why you’re doing all this in the first place. Make sure every communications or marketing strategy you implement this year ties back directly to overall objectives for the organization. It doesn’t matter whether that is connected to growing sales, members or donors. What does matter is that you are investing your resources — time, money and people — on communications and marketing activities that will make a real, measurable difference to your business or organization.
Hollie
Have a little fun. Sometimes it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the work ahead of us that we over-think every assignment or even push some tasks aside like over-cooked broccoli. Relax, and try to make your marketing and communications projects fun. Material riddled with too much technical business jargon is not effective. Try writing in a more natural, fluid way to get more engagement. By doing so, you’ll likely find that you won’t need to pour over every word trying to sound sophisticated or business-like. You might even consider adding in some humor.
Life is full of negative news and drama — develop your marketing/communications materials so they stand out in peoples’ minds as something great and memorable. Be natural, have fun and add humor when you can. You’ll find people appreciate it and view you as much more authentic than those trying to over-complicate their messages.
Jeremy
When clients hire us for media relations, they want to know what the ROI will be. That’s fair. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, some clients attempt to peg our work to a single metric: number of media placements.
The cause-effect relationship between earned media and business growth depends upon so much more than the frequency with which your organization’s name appears in the news.
Once you establish that earned media placement is in fact a goal, the path to get there must first be paved with quality content creation driven by your industry expertise. But that’s just the start. Where you share that content within the rapidly changing media landscape trumps frequency of content development alone. Like real estate, effective media relations is all about location, location, location.
Frequency of mentions doesn’t take into account tone or whether key messages are being conveyed that might influence someone to purchase services from a company. The “where” needs to trump the “how much” in an earned media plan for companies focused on B2B audiences.
Christy
Are you on social media? Are you implementing inbound marketing in your 2015 strategy? If not, you’re missing out! We believe there’s little value to being on social media unless you’re incorporating it in a greater inbound marketing strategy.
Not to mention the ability to demonstrate ROI in your inbound marketing efforts, as 69 percent of companies saw an increase in revenue within one year of using HubSpot’s marketing software. Since reporting ROI has always been a challenge and a primary focus for marketing departments across the board, there’s no better time than now to consider implementing inbound marketing.
Rachel
Take a look at the content you are producing and distributing to all of your audiences, whether it’s in the form of media relations, blogging, social media, web site copy or your newsletters. Does your content add value, tell your story fluidly and demonstrate thought leadership? If it doesn’t, it’s time to reevaluate. Empty promotional tactics are tired, but organizations with compelling content use data to back up their story and position themselves as experts in their industry.
Jess
Show what makes your company creative and special. Show your team in a meeting brainstorming new ideas or even just being silly in the office. When you send out these types of messages to your audience on social media or a blog, they will be more responsive and interactive with you.
Have you set up your marketing goals for 2015 yet? It’s not too late! Our friends at HubSpot created this marketing planning template to help you align your marketing efforts with SMART goals. Download it below!
{{cta(‘c308af52-036b-406e-b452-dac04ac3df00’)}}
