Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Public relations professionals continually strive to achieve meaningful results for their clients. Whether it’s placing a feature story in a top publication, receiving a notable mention on a morning broadcast segment, or building strong brand awareness through well-written press releases, to achieve these results these PR efforts must be focused and strategically planned in order to arrive at the best possible outcome for the client.
But what are the building blocks behind creating successful strategic campaigns? It all starts with excellent client-facing service. Successful campaigns are built on a clear understanding of the client’s goals, objectives, challenges and expectations. In a client-facing role, it’s critical that industry professionals strive not only to achieve great results, but to also understand and integrate the client’s needs along the way.
Here are a few simple ways to ensure you’re providing your clients with the best-in-class service they desire:
Listen up. Listen carefully to your client’s initial ideas and what they want or expect out of a public relations campaign. By listening, you can assuage any fears they may have, better strategize how to achieve their goals, and nip any unreasonable expectations in the bud. Taking time to understand what their overarching plan is for the company and how you can help them best meet their business objectives is extremely important to the success of the campaign as a whole. And don’t be afraid to ask your client questions to clarify any points on which you’re not absolutely clear. It’s also wise to summarize and recap your understanding of a project to make sure you and your client are on the same page prior to any work being done.
Set expectations. Setting expectations helps minimize confusion. Give your clients clear expectations about when you will be delivering materials, how much coverage to expect from a recent pitch, and ballpark budget numbers you’ll strive to aim for every month. By setting expectations, you’re demonstrating to clients that you’re always working to provide the highest level of strategic counsel and keeping their best interests in mind. Your clients are also less likely to be disappointed when, for example, an announcement with limited story potential fails to land on the cover of BusinessWeek.
Providing deadlines about when you expect materials to be delivered is of the utmost importance. Your clients are often busy and will most likely need time to review your work. In addition, they may need to communicate with others within their own organization about when they will be receiving your materials. If for some reason you anticipate that a deadline cannot be met, don’t dodge emails until the project is complete. Instead, contact them immediately explaining that while you are working hard on the project, you may need an extra hour to provide them with the quality work they desire. Set a new deadline that is acceptable to both of you.
Chart progress. Clients want to know where their PR dollars are going. Make them feel good about the money they’re investing by providing them with regular coverage reports or clipbooks, competitor analysis, weekly budget updates, and monthly status reports. They can of course pick and choose which of these methods is best suited to their needs, but communicating results through a tangible medium allows your clients to see the value of your PR efforts.
A weekly budget update, for example, is a simple way to keep the client informed about the progress you’re making. For the prior week, provide a list of the activities you and your team focused on, activities you plan to focus on in the coming week, how many hours you spent towards achieving their goals, and a total dollar amount for your services. Budget updates also allow the client to decide if they need to ramp up or tone down their PR efforts according to the company’s specific PR budget.
Keep executives informed about crucial materials. If you are sending out a press release on behalf of a client, communicate the messaging, content of the release, potential questions that may arise from the announcement, and how you will answer those questions. Explain to the client how the release will help them to achieve their goals and how it ties in to the organization’s broader strategy. By keeping executives informed about materials you are sending out, you’re ensuring that the company image you’re delivering to the media is the image the company wants to portray.
Provide strategic counsel. Clients are paying you to be the expert and provide them with valuable counsel. While clients may already bring well planned business objectives and strategic goals to the table, it is the professional’s responsibility to counsel clients on whether or not an announcement fits into the company’s overall communications plan, which messages should be communicated to the media via press releases and other materials, and how to build and maintain relationships with key influencers and advocates. This type of guidance will keep efforts focused on the overall strategic plan and ensure that your client’s company image is consistent and clear.
These are just a few ways to benefit your clients and provide them with high-quality service. We hope you find these recommendations helpful. Do you have any service tips of your own? If so, we would love to hear them!
On August 8, one of Communiqué PR’s clients, Nintex, announced the commercial availability of Nintex Reporting 2008. To see the full announcement, click here.
Nintex Reporting 2008 allows organizations to monitor, audit and gain valuable insight from the content and activity information within Microsoft’s SharePoint technology. It allows system administrators and business owners to make more efficient business decisions by providing valuable knowledge into workplace usage, trends, behaviors, and other key information. Perhaps more importantly, Nintex Reporting addresses issues such as SharePoint compliance and governance, two hot topics surrounding SharePoint.
Nintex, a global innovator of software products which extend Microsoft technology, was preparing to commercially launch Nintex Reporting 2008. In order to spark media attention, Communiqué conducted media outreach in advance of the launch and facilitated meetings with key journalists and analysts under embargo.
Offering the news under embargo allows journalists to follow up with any questions or feedback prior to the release of the announcement and thus helps to reduce inaccuracy in the reporting of the story. It also serves as a relationship building technique and allows the journalists to get a first look at the announcement.
Results included significant coverage in top-tier outlets including PC World, Network World and ComputerWorld to name a few.
Here is what the media is saying about Nintex news;
“Nintex Reporting 2008 collects a wide array of data about how SharePoint is being used in an organization and lets IT administrators or any authorized user view a variety of usage statistics.” –Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service.
“So the folks at Nintex USA LLC in Bellevue, Wash. are releasing today Nintex Reporting 2008, which will give you the scoop on everything from the most popular spreadsheet among your finance types to the most-updated slide deck used by the field sales force as well as which Web sites are getting traffic and who’s finding forums useful.” –Mark Hall, ComputerWorld.
Additionally, please see below for a list of current coverage Communiqué has garnered for Nintex.
On Windows, August 11, 2008, “Nintex Reporting 2008 Released.”
Science Technology, August 11, 2008, “Nintex Software Helps Track SharePoint Usage.”
SkyNewswire, August 8, 2008, “Nintex Reporting 2008 Now Available.”
IDG News Service “August 8, 2008, “Software Helps Track SharePoint Usage.”
IDG News Service article Reprints
Data Recovery Strategies
InfoWorld
ITWorld
ITWorld Canada
Notebook Computer Software
PC World
Security News Portal
TechWorld
Webwereld
CIO, August 8, 2008, “Microsoft SharePoint Add-On Tracks Usage, Value,” Chris Lynch
ComputerWorld, August 8, 2008, “Live, Eat, Breath SharePoint,” by Mark Hall
CMSWire, August 8, 2008, “Nintex Reporting Eases MOSS Administration, “by Barb Mosher
If you are a journalist or analyst interested in learning more about Nintex, please feel free to call us at (206) 282-4923 ext. 118
The emergence of social media is significantly changing the current media landscape. The days of newspapers, magazines and network news programs have given way to a new generation of information sharing on the Internet. Blogs, social networking sites such as Second Life and Facebook and video-sharing sites like YouTube have changed the way information is being accessed, shared and personally processed.You may be thinking that social media, often called Web 2.0, is the sole domain of today’s teenagers and tech-savvy professionals. Not true. With its far-reaching impact, social media can provide new opportunities for organizations to reach, engage and retain audiences in a transparent way through digital channels.
PR and marketing professionals, as well as forward-thinking organizations, are realizing that these new media tools have legitimate business applications and are integrating them into traditional PR campaigns. According to Technorati, of the 112.5 million blogs on the Web, 5,000 are corporations using social media elements such as blogs to reach their core audiences. And that number will continue to grow. Well-known names such as Coca Cola, Starbucks, Delta Airlines and Kodak have dabbled in social media, launching corporate blogs to drive online discussions and reach audiences where they’re at the most – online.
While social media presents new opportunities for companies to promote their products and services it also comes with challenges that need to be considered before implementing a campaign. There are books, conferences and companies dedicated to the education of the pros and cons of social media, but there’s only one cardinal rule – BE TRANSPARENT. Whether your CEO is writing his/her own blog, commenting on another or sharing information with a Facebook group, it’s imperative to remain open and transparent with your audience.
Below is a quick primer on social media elements to consider integrating into your overall communications strategy:
* Corporate Blogs
A corporate blog can serve as a platform to interact with journalists, consumers and other key audiences in an intimate manner. It also offers an opportunity to establish thought leadership and drive online discussions about relevant topics or trends the author/company are passionate about.
* Spokesbloggers
Spokesbloggers are employees who are already active in the blogosphere either through their own personal blogs or by commenting on other blogs/outlets. Spokesbloggers can be used as “champions” to insert the company, its products or services into the online dialogue in a non-marketing manner. They should be used to speak on behalf of the company as opposed to themselves.
* Social Community Campaigns
Companies can create viral buzz around a compelling piece, news or product by launching a social community through Facebook, Second Life or MySpace. These groups offer another platform for the company to share photos, videos, announcements and other relevant information to engage users online and drive word of mouth.
* Viral Video Campaigns
Like advertisements, creating videos and posting to video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo or Vidder is another way companies can raise visibility. The videos can be anything from a product demo, keynote presentation or fun creative videos targeted at consumers.
A great example of a successful viral video campaign was done last year by BigFix, a Bay Area enterprise software company. BigFix decided to implement a viral video campaign to establish itself as one of the few honest software companies in the market. The fictitious campaign was set in Washington, D.C., to investigate the heavy-handed billing practices (and over-promises) of big enterprise software companies. They launched a fake news site which featured a series of videos of an actor being grilled by a fictitious Software Truth Commission.
That initiative garnered 250,000 visits to the BigFix site, 370,000 page views and 1.2 million downloads, more traffic than from the company’s ads on Google. In addition, the campaign drove a significant amount of business leads to the company.
As PR professionals we’re always looking at how these mediums can help amplify clients’ message to journalists and consumers and create evangelists for the brand. As the social media landscape evolves integrating social media elements will become even more critical for organizations who want to stay competitive. We’ll continue to explore these topics in future postings.
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When budgets shrink and companies look to cut costs, what gets the axe first? This question is particularly relevant during difficult economic times as procedures are streamlined and excess spending is trimmed. It would be easy to brush off public relations and marketing as expendable luxuries which are not intrinsic to a company’s bottom-line. But in a recent study by the USC Annenberg Strategic Relations Center, CEOs rated PR as one of the top contributors to organizational success. Perhaps it’s time to take a practical look at the value PR dollars add to business.
The comparative value of a well placed article to an advertisement has long been a hot topic. When a product or service is mentioned in an article, it is perceived as the subject of a journalist’s objective review. Readers trust journalists to write with the audience’s best interests in mind. Advertisements, however, are often viewed less favorably. While repeated exposure to an ad will certainly keep a product top-of-mind with an audience, readers often suspect ulterior motives and feel manipulated by sales pitches and profit-turning schemes. Advertisements are also considerably more expensive to place. Purchasing space in a widely circulated publication is astronomically high, especially in comparison to the cost of pitching a story to journalists.
Another important way strategic public relations can drive business success is through strengthening analyst relations. In many industries, analysts play a key role by fostering credibility and creating buzz. Analysts act as a third-party endorsement without a hidden agenda. An expensive ad won’t earn your company a coveted analyst mention. Public relations can play an integral role in strengthening analyst relationships by maintaining consistent communication and securing meetings to discuss new industry developments.
A company’s success is in jeopardy if it falls from the radar of shareholders, media, and current and potential customers. Shareholders need to know how a company is performing, especially during a recession. Any success should be publicized and will likely stand out even more as a triumph over adverse economic circumstances.
When times get tough, public relations is more important than ever in order to maintain a successful public profile.