DARREN HUGHES
ACTIVITY MediaConsult experienced further strong growth in 2021, driven by establishing many of our clients as sectoral experts with appropriate media throughout the Covid-19 crisis. As journalists and editors, we specialise in producing engaging copy, and our newsroom approach meant that we consistently delivered compelling multi-platform national coverage for more than 35 clients across 2021.
As buyer behaviours and lifestyle altered dramatically as a result of the pandemic, clients tended to look for as wide an audience as possible. This led to an increased requirement for national media exposure to frontend co-ordinated advertising and social media campaigns. We also saw an increase in demand for cost-effective video production across multi-platform campaigns.
PR OBJECTIVES The key elements of a communications strategy are clearly defined objectives, target audiences and outcomes. It is also important that clients understand the competitive landscape and where their brand fits within this, so that it can set itself apart. Reaching agreement on this is crucial and should inform every element of the strategy from messaging to implementation.
OUTLOOK There is a sense of optimism among clients as we emerge from the depths of the pandemic and a realisation that buyer behaviours have changed. We have seen an increase in investment across our base for 2022, with our existing clients showing confidence in our demonstrated ability to reach their target audiences and help them achieve their business objectives.
ACTIVITY 2021 was a watershed year for Legacy. With the acquisition of SMBClix, a Cork-based digital agency that specialises in search marketing, we fast-forwarded our ambition to combine our core PR services with a much wider set of digital services that would take a campaign from awareness, right through to demand.
Our clients continue to have an increased focus on digital marketing and this was only heightened in the pandemic. Content creation, paid and earned digital strategies, as well as SEO services are all on the minds of our clients. Having the ability to combine our creative communications services with the wider digital offering has seen us grow by 40% during a pandemic, something we are very proud of.
PR OBJECTIVES The ability to create a good story and deliver this to the media landscape is core to PR. However, sometimes our industry has been guilty on focusing too much on reach and not enough focus has been placed on the communications strategy and process.
Continually understanding and questioning the audience, their consumption and habits, along with the buyer persona and journey, are vital in reaching the right strategy. These insights along with good creativity result in a better foundation for a campaign.
Increasingly, data is now at the heart of a lot of our conversations with clients and central to our ideas. Unearthing data not only gives clients a unique angle for a campaign, but it also provides an opportunity to link their websites to a campaign, driving more opportunities to sell.
‘Clients continue to have an increased focus on digital marketing’