Communication, after Covid, it will be a communication of positivity and optimism. It will be an even more important asset for companies and will focus on aspects of social responsibility and environmental skills. So he thinks Alessandro Maola, communicator, web marketer.
How are companies communicating during this pandemic? How do your clients ask you to work?
«Based on our experience, the pandemic has strengthened the role of corporate communication, transforming it even more into an essential strategic asset, a tool capable of responding to the crisis concretely through the management of the company's reputation, but not only. The communication of companies has been particularly focused on the human aspect, projects aimed at the well-being and protection of collaborators have multiplied and therefore a story has been developed that puts collaborators at the center and the safety of work environments to counteract the pandemic.
Our customers also ask us to express their need to turn the page as soon as possible, to restart and continue to live and grow and to consolidate the aspects concerning corporate social responsibility in the face of a global emergency " .
After the pandemic, how will communication change? Which channels should be privileged and which ones have had their day?
«An epochal event can only change the cards on the table. Some roads traveled during the health emergency will not disappear, on the contrary, they will consolidate: I am thinking, for example, of the mass digitization that has also reached the older sections of the population and that has forever changed the way consumers buy, o the tendency and need to focus attention on human aspects, transparency and sustainability, the latter strongly oriented towards a future that we want to imagine positive. For our part, we are offering many of our customers precisely this strong “positivity”, this optimism, both because we believe in it and because we believe that this is what consumers need. A beautiful campaign we are working on, for example, is all centered on the concept of "freedom". Specifically, that of being able to use long-term rental for your car, but more generally as a strong “value”, which recalls a widespread desire ».
Will companies develop their communication channels to communicate directly with consumers?
“Yes, this is certainly a trend that we can already observe. There is no doubt that all those channels capable of speeding up communication, to make it clear and usable, will be privileged, but companies will need even more to rely on communication experts who can create this link between companies and consumers. And I must say that many entrepreneurs seem to have understood. The Covid crisis has created a little more awareness, not only of the importance of communication and web marketing, but also of the need to find reliable partners. Food is one of the sectors that seems to have "woken up" a bit, also due to the crisis in restaurants and therefore to the destruction and production. We have launched several projects in the sector between 2020 and these first months of 2021 ».
What will be the relationship of the press offices with independent media and journalists and what will be the most effective way of dealing with them?
«The role of the press office is always by its nature in constant evolution. With the internet and digital information, relations between the different media have changed for some time. From a one-way communication we have moved on to a sharing, horizontal communication. The modalities change, but the aim is always the same: to achieve one's communication purposes, spread one's message, increase one's “good reputation”. A trend that has been clear for some time has been that of being able to offer "cross-media" content to the media, enriching the classic press release with links, videos and photos, providing more extensive materials, opportunities for in-depth analysis, precious for editorial offices with fewer and fewer journalists and which have to cope with the necessary production of large quantities of new content. In short, media relations must know how to be good allies for journalists and the growing digitization will increase both the fatigue of the editorial offices and the need for journalists for valid, professional and reliable proposals ».
Can you tell us something about your projects, your innovative communication offers?
“We don't need special effects. At the base of our work there is the passion for what we do and the experience that leads us to have only one goal: customer satisfaction. We have always focused on a direct, strong relationship with each customer, a relationship of true partnership and often of friendship. This is why we have customers who have been with us for several years. That said, we have also focused a lot on innovation, for example with the bimonthly calculation of the ROI of the campaigns and inserting a guarantee of results in all our consulting contracts. And I must say that these choices have rewarded us: in 2020 we doubled customers and turnover and it was certainly not an easy year for anyone. For the future, however, we intend to do more, through collaboration agreements with important publications such as Adn Kronos, Notizie.it, Il Sole 24 Ore, with projects aimed at innovation in media relations and public relations in collaboration with Link Campus University. . Also in 2021 we will launch some proprietary publishing initiatives, which allow our customers to increase their presence in some specific sectors. And finally, we will definitely strengthen the staff that deals with web marketing, on which we have had a strong growth in requests and various awards for the quality of our work but above all for the concrete results it brings ".
