The struggling UK economy was identified as the greatest challenge facing businesses by the majority of survey responders. This July unemployment in the UK was at 2.51 million and in August retail sales growth was down 1.2% from the previous August, reported the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The consumer price index inflation also rose to 4.5% in August this year, up from 4.4% the previous month, according to the ONS.

Other identified problems included the struggling global economy (15.7%), a slowdown in consumer spending (12.4%%), increasing competition (9%), lack of available talent (7.9%), the struggling Eurozone economy (7.9%) and shifting economic power from West to East (5.6%). 

 

The survey also showed that budgets have gone down since last year while the number of people dealing with PR stayed the same. The majority of responders also said they were content with their budget allocation for comms, but also reported budget, followed by time, as the main barrier to improving their business’ comms output.

 

Responders also reported that budgets, as well as the number of people, are expected to stay the same this year but many (39%) felt they had to deliver more with these general budget limitations. Other challenges included demonstrating the value of marketing/comms internally (20.7%), keeping on top of changing media trends (17.1%), harnessing social media effectively (14.6%) and integrating PR more closely with other marketing disciplines (8.5%). 

 

Throughout this, the survey revealed that PR/comms professionals face an average of one to two problems each week. Time and budget were mentioned as the greatest obstacles when problems solving for their organisation, lack of insight and lack of internal co-operation were also mentioned.

 

 

Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the like have become an integral form of communication within the past five years so it should be no surprise social and digital media are playing an increasingly central role in the PR/comms world.

 

Following suit, responders admitted that social media was the most used method for identifying potential brand reputation problems (66.7%) with traditional media a close second (64.3%). Working closely with customer services teams (44%) and regular customer research and focus groups (35.7%) were also mentioned as methods for identifying potential problems before they arise.

 

When it comes to solving their communications problems, clients are looking for understanding, insight and creativity from their agencies, as Eddie May, co-founder of Threepipe points out. “We work with our clients to identify the key communications challenges that they need to overcome in order to be more successful.

 

Once these key problems are defined, we go through a five stage process to find the right solution involving thorough analysis of the brand, the market, competitors and audiences. We then develop a full strategic plan before creating the big ideas that we believe will capture the attention of the audience. Finally, and crucially, we work extremely hard to deliver the right results and evaluate the outcomes,” said May.

 

The three greatest frustrations that businesses mentioned having with PR/comms agencies are lack of understanding of their client’s business/market, being too focused on tactics to come up with “big” ideas and an inability to demonstrate return on investment (ROI), the survey results showed.

 

It is now easier to track the success of a modern-day campaign than in the past via re-Tweets, website hits, etc. versus a traditional press release that may generate a few newspaper mentions with no indicator of how many people read the article in question.

 

Threepipe recently developed Sherlock, a bespoke evaluation system, to help demonstrate ROI. Key objectives for each campaign are set into Sherlock, which then tracks the generated results. This makes producing reports on audience reach, message delivery and cost per impact easier while helping clients to compare their investment with other parts of the marketing mix. With social media, Threepipe sets targets around audience reach, levels of engagement and sentiment across the main social platforms. 

 

Sherlock allows clients to track and evaluate the outputs of each campaign, but the agency is also keen to establish clear commercial goals with each client. Metrics such as sales growth, market share, brand awareness and perception allow agency and client to establish the real impact of each campaign.

 Communication

When it comes to communicating with their most important audience, the majority of responders reported that general brand clutter was the most prevalent communication problem, followed by media fragmentation, lack of trust in brands/organisations, marketing-savvy consumers and a lack of trust in media.

When it comes to communication, May says, “Ultimately, we’re here to help our clients solve their business problems by helping them to communicate in a clear, consistent and engaging way with their key stakeholders, whether media, customers, consumers or staff. In the social media age, organisations generally need to be as open and communicative as possible.”