How to Win at Comms in 2023

Now that January has slooooowly slipped by, we’ve been thinking at Palm about how to win at Comms in 2023. How can we best work with media to hit their agendas? How can we engage influencers in new and exciting ways? And how can we ensure our clients stay front of mind and relevant in such a competitive landscape?

Here’s a few trends we know are going to be hot for this year in food, drink and hospitality PR, and how you can utilise them to win at Comms.

At Palm, we always start with the audience. Who is buying your brand or who do you want to be buying your brand? And crucially, what are they reading, which influencers do they follow and where do they get their news? Making sure you land your PR and influencer marketing in the right places and not just pushing messages out into the ether is not only a more impactful way to do comms which you’ll see results from, but it’s more cost effective. You don’t have to have endless research insights or loads of budget to investigate the audience either. Often just by examining your social audience or speaking to customers you can build up a profile of who is spot on in terms of target market. Of course, as a digital PR agency we also have a wealth of experience in consumer habits and audience types, plus loads of retailer data to mine, so we can provide some insight and expertise.

Audiences are savvier when it comes to influencers these days and, let’s face it, there’s nothing more cringeworthy than a blatant #ad with forced and scripted voiceover. Believe it or not, this type of PR and influencer marketing does still exist. But it doesn’t have to be like this. If you foster influencers who really align with the brand they can become really authentic brand ambassadors and can end up posting content again and again, often on an earned basis rather than paid. Influencers are just as proud of their channels as journalist is of their column, so it’s important to honour that and work with them on the content. As an agency operating in influencer marketing in the food industry, we do this at Palm by creating individual briefs for influencers and sharing their content on ours and clients’ channels as a thank you in return, hopefully giving them a boost too!

The pandemic changed the way we consume media forever. Media was already heading in a digital direction but now audiences spend more time on lifestyle sites reading long form, get their news from Instagram and recipes from Tik Tok. It’s important to recognise this, and whilst print coverage is still a valuable thing, it’s not necessarily going to provide the viral reach, SEO power or click throughs to ecommerce sites. It’s important to create content which lives online – thinking about the right video assets and campaigns that play to trending topics. An agile, always on press office function is perfect for supporting this.

The media have painted a dire picture of consumer spending and cost of living in recent months. Recent figures from the ONS show that shop sales fell by record numbers both in December and across the whole of last year as consumers cut spending. However even though consumers are living more frugally and looking for cost effective easy switches, there is a trend emerging for people buying fewer but spending more on quality items and more considered purchases. It will be key for even more clever food and drink PR tactics – brands to play up their sustainability credentials, unique founder story or handcrafted ingredient messaging in a bid to play for these audiences and set them apart from own label options, as consumers look for something special when buying their everyday essentials. Employing these tactics should help you to win at comms in 2023.

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