When you are a business leader trying to bolster the recognition of your brand, it is a well-established practice to engage with PR specialists and journalists to publish materials that showcase your expertise and paint your company in a positive light.

For about 7 years now, I have been a content creator and editor at Drofa Comms, a #PRagency that helps promote companies in financial and fintech markets and put their names out there for the world to see. In that time, I’ve learned my share of tips and tricks on how to work with C-level executives to deliver truly attention-grabbing materials.

This article is my way of sharing some of the insights I’ve gained over the years. If you are a company leader, particularly in the finance or fintech sectors, what you read here will give you a solid basis for formulating and sending out key messages that you want to be associated with.

Tip 1: Distill complexity into clarity

One of the main challenges that come from creating finance-oriented materials is that you must be able to not only navigate the intricacies of market trends and industry jargon but also transform your thoughts into comments and opinions that would resonate with the audience you’re reaching out to.

Clarity is your best ally here: your messages must be concise, down-to-earth, and relatively easy for people to read through and process. Avoid complex turns of phrases or overly-winded sentences.

When you have your expert opinion piece before you, put yourself in the position of the reader – would you be interested in reading this text? Does it flow naturally enough to carry you from start to finish? If not, then it’s back to the drawing board. Because if the reader can’t understand what the text is trying to say, they won’t be interested in the person behind the text (read: you) either.

Reading out loud is a good method to utilize here. If you stumble over some part of the text that feels cumbersome, then it is best to edit it for greater smoothness.

Tip 2: Storytelling is a powerful tool in your bag of tricks

In our busy age, people are constantly on the move, and when they have time and inclination to sit down and read something longer than social media posts, they prefer to read live stories over dry reports.

As a consequence, when you are trying to get an opinion piece or an interview out there, take the time to make your thoughts feel alive. You have to make sure your unique tone of voice and personality come across. Imagine that you are actually talking to the audience and phrase your words accordingly.

If you have any personal stories to offer that are relevant to the topic at hand, make sure to add those as well. This would go a long way towards making the text far more engaging and make you more relatable to your readers.

Tip 3: Balance making impactful statements and maintaining corporate guidelines

As a company executive, when you start communicating with a broader audience, your goals are usually focused on communicating the key values of your business and enhancing its recognition.

It is crucial to strike a balance between crafting impactful texts and aligning them with the core messages that you want your company to be known for.

While impactful statements can certainly captivate audiences, they must also be credible, authentic, and adhere to the overarching sense of identity that you wish to convey.

This requires having a clear understanding of your target audience, long-term goals, and messaging guidelines. Make sure to convey all of these things to your PR managers. A good advice here would be to maintain regular calls with your PR team, as it helps ensure that all sides have the right understanding of how your brand identity is being formed.