Jim VandeHei, executive editor and co-founder of POLITICO, swayed a crowd of more than 3,000 public relations professionals during his keynote at the annual PRSA International Conference. Based on his experience (working at both The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post ) and nationally-known success withPOLITICO, VandeHei offers some advice to marketers across all categories, politically affiliated or not.
- Create premium content — If you want to develop a loyal following, you must produce compelling (timely and relevant) content and make it easy to obtain. Always put your content first and then find a platform to share it.
- Move quicker! — People are fickle, changing their reading habits and cell phone devices frequently (average cell phone is upgraded every six months), so if you’re not staying ahead of technology trends, by the time you get into market, you’re already too late.
- Make it clean and play to your strengths — It’s the responsibility of the marketer to cut through the clutter so your consumers don’t have to. The entire brand experience should be relevant. It’s easy to get someone to consider your brand once, but we are in the loyalty business. If your consumers have to sift through the crap, they likely won’t come back.
- Experiment! — If you’re scared to experiment, it’s likely you will be late to the game. So get out there and try something new.
Wanna see more? Here’s a brief clip from VandeHei’s live keynote presentation; or check out my behind-the-scenes interview with VandeHei just moments before he took the stage.
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For more coverage on the PRSA 2010 International Conference: Powering PRogress, visit PRSA Intelligence, follow #prsa_ic and the Conference blog.
