COVID-19 and Messaging
This is serious. I’m not making light of the issues, the sickness, deaths or economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis. However, if you look at it from a different messaging orientation, the crisis looks a lot different.
When people ask me what public relations is all about, I simply answer “messaging.” Take a look at this chart. It is different from what you’ll see on CNN or FOX. Those two networks need to generate excitement (good or bad) to acquire and keep viewers. You can report deaths all day long. Yet statista selected another data point to consider, and that is recoveries. See how it changes the narrative. Recoveries will always trail cases because many people are still sick and are in the process of recovering.
Today, public relations is so much more than press releases and press relations (still important), but messaging touches all aspects of your business, from employees to your largest customers or donors.
For those of us looking for more comforting news in these times of mixed-messages on the crisis, the top line (cases in China) is flattening.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
