Spreading the word. Bet Davies Head of Communications External Communications Stakeholder and...

Spreading the word

Bet DaviesHead of Communications

• External Communications• Stakeholder and trustee

relations• Key corporate messaging• Brand Management• Reputation management• Community engagement• Trustee of Prince’s

Regeneration Trust

What are we?

• 1,900 seat lyric theatre, the Donald Gordon

Theatre

• 250 seat theatre space, the Weston Studio

• Home to 8 other creative companies

• Function/conference rooms/restaurants/cafes

• Rehearsal Rooms, recording studios

• Concourse areas with free performance stage

• Dance House; BBC Hoddinott Hall

What are we?

• Company Limited by Guarantee

• Registered charity

• With clear charitable objectives

• Business model requires that we raise up to £1m per annum

• Trading arm

What will be covered?

• Identifying/developing your brand

• Key messaging

• Identifying/getting to know your audiences

• Communication channels

• Top Tips

THE BRAND

Brand Identity

• An organisation’s sense of self. It is formed by

history, beliefs and philosophy, technology,

ownership, its people, personality of its leaders,

ethical and cultural values, as well as its

strategies

• It is the core of an organisation’s existence

• Don’t think a brand is just a logo!

Brand Image

•It is in the eye of the receiver

•It is the reception of received messages by internal

and external audiences

•Just think of strong brands and the messages you

are receiving from them.

•e.g. Apple; Audi; Amazon; Facebook; Visa;

Innocent; Waitrose & John Lewis;

Who is representing your brand?

People who work with you People you are trying to reach

Building on your brand

AIDE MEMOIRE:

When you continue to build on your brand culture you build loyalty with your customers/ supporters

(c/f Wales Millennium Centre experience)

Top Tips

FIVE IMPORTANT TWEAKS YOU SHOULD MAKE TO BUILDING YOUR SUCCESSFUL BRAND

The what, the why, the who, the how and where

1.What is it?

2.What does it matter?

3.Who should care?

4. How can you help?

5. Where can you be reached?

Your Vision

• Integral to your brand

• Vision statements are short statements which

articulate your organisation’s DREAM

• Essential part of your communications toolkit

• A Stage for a Nation, our vision pre-construction

in 2002

Our Mission

“To bring the best of the world to Wales and to showcase the best of Wales to the world…”

Developing your Mission

• Establishing a simple clear and consistent

statement of your mission is also key to your

brand and all communications

• It should be outcome oriented

• Time spent on this will mean:

Buy-in at all levels

Clarity of purpose & organisational focus

Clear, consistent messaging understood by all

• Trustees, supporters, Community;public at large

• Politicians, local and national,

• Funders, existing and potential, public and private sector

• Key stakeholders, officials, influencers and opinion

formers

• Media, local, regional, national, online and offline

Identifying your audiences

Generic messages

• Working Together

• Preserve and Protect

• Best of the past is kept to enrich lives today

and in future

• Improve and develop for everyone

• Protect and Promote

• Fighting to save the heritage of our

communities

Storytelling

• Good communicators are storytellers

• But storytellers need good stories to engage with

their audiences

Top tips:

• Spend time developing the narrative of your story

• Identify what’s important to the ‘listener’ or reader

• Find the nuggets. Find the human interest

• Seek out your own storytellers – often found

where you least expect them

Find your online audiences

• Rapidly changing media landscape

• Need to find new audiences online

• Join them online – free and paid

• Share valuable information – avoid overload

• Share on OPP and relevant

professional/community fora

• Use all social media platforms available to you,

including You Tube, Vimeo, Twitter; blogs …..

Communicating with online audiences – top tips

• Find volunteers to help create contagious digital

content

• A picture tells 10,000 words

• National news providers have strong online

presence

• Track and evaluate what is being said. Respond

to negative comment, as well as the positive

• Use Google analytics/Twitter evaluation tools

• Engage in a personal way

• Get to know your audience to understand what they want

and need from you – don’t make assumptions

• Connect regularly – stakeholders, community, media etc.

• Don’t undervalue local/regional newspapers – often more

readers than Western Mail

• Creative events

Reaching out - person to person

• Identify five or six key messages – these should

underpin all communications, campaigns and on-going

communications, written and verbal

• Tailor the approach and use of language to your

audience, while maintaining consistency

• Media training – Top tips. The Power of three.

Tailoring/delivering the message

• Important to find synergies between your own ambitions

and national/local agendas, to spread the word

• For example Welsh Government’s Future Generations

Bill and the Wales We Want

Matching with national agendas

Sustainable Development

And finally . . . .

Any questions?