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.
Ahh, spring ‒ flowers are blooming, birds are singing, allergies are emerging, and clutter is accumulating! I’m not just talking about the junk in your closet ‒ public relations “clutter” tends to build up throughout the year and can inhibit your ability to produce effective PR results. Give the same attention to your PR strategy as you would your overflowing closet and do a little spring cleaning! Here are five suggestions for giving your PR strategy some deserved TLC this spring time.
1. Clean up your master press list
Remember that massive press list that you spent hours developing? With the dynamic nature of our industry, chances are some of those journalists have switched roles, moved publications or changed their contact information. Instead of wasting time pitching journalists with emails that will bounce, take an extra couple of hours to make sure the master list is up to date. It will be well worth your time in the long run!
2. Dig around for some new publications
New publications are popping up on the internet on a daily basis. A plethora of new outlets that could be a perfect fit for your client are out there ‒ it is up to you to find them! If you find yourself pitching the same outlets over and over again, it might be time to find some fresh targets. A great way to do this is through Google searches, Cision and monitoring HARO for new outlets that are posting queries.
3. Take a new look at your key messages
Now is a perfect time to review your key messages to ensure they are still communicating the right messages to your target audience. In your PR spring cleaning, take time to evaluate the changes or rebranding that occurred in your client’s business within the past year to ensure that the key messages are relevant and reflect the business’ core values.
4. Analyze your media coverage
Looking at past coverage can help you determine if the target audience is reached with the publications you pitch. For example, if you are trying to reach fruit producers, landing coverage in The American Lawyer probably was not worth the pitching effort. It can also be helpful to examine the Domain Authority and the unique visitors per month of each publication that you have landed coverage in. This can help you understand the amount of web traffic your coverage is getting. For more on Domain Authority, you can read this blog post.
5. Consider switching up your pitching style
If you are anything like me, you probably have a go-to template that you use for every pitch. Not only can they be mundane to write, similar pitches bore your media contacts too! To make them a little more fun, try making a specific reference to something the journalist has written in the past. You could also spice things up by coming up with a silly or clever subject line that is sure to grab the journalist’s attention. A tried and true way to achieve coverage is to explicitly state why the journalist’s readers will value the information you are presenting ‒ don’t make the journalist do extra work by having to decipher why your pitch is relevant to them.
Cleaning out the extra crud in your PR strategy is sure way to get you on the road towards achieving the PR results that you want. Happy spring cleaning, PR pros!
As a general rule of thumb in PR, every pitch should offer a dedicated spokesperson. Without losing sight of the foundational steps of ensuring your listed spokesperson is approved to speak on behalf of the company and prepared to speak to your pitch, consider the benefits of offering multiple spokespeople.
This strategy is particularly helpful when you’re attempting to illustrate a wide range of impacts and expand the perspective beyond just one company’s experience. Multiple spokespeople from different organizations help fill out the story and broaden the value to appeal to more readers.
When offering several spokespeople in a pitch, it’s helpful to provide additional context to help the reporter make the connection as to why these individuals are relevant to the story, and clearly articulate what is unique about their perspective or viewpoint.
Having multiple spokespeople available also allows you to strategically deploy different people to handle different mediums. You might use a knowledgeable but not as charismatic technical expert to handle print interviews and perhaps a less knowledgeable but more charismatic leader to handle broadcast interviews.
Finding the right spokespeople is critical to the success of your pitch. There are a few essential elements to consider when on the hunt:
Demonstrate subject matter expertise
In addition to offering your client’s perspective, identifying spokespeople who can provide specific subject matter expertise strengthens your credibility on an issue. For the best chance of exposure, aim to link your subject-matter expert’s knowledge and experience directly to the topic you’re pitching and clearly outline how the expertise will provide additional value. When applicable, draw parallels with relevant world events in the news cycle. Not only does this demonstrate your attention to timely topics, it also translates to a wider audience interest.
Provide a counter point
Offering a spokesperson with a counter point to the conflict you’re addressing demonstrates a big picture understanding about the situation that goes beyond just your client’s point of view. Journalists are always looking for a fresh approach, especially if an issue seems one-sided on the surface.
Leverage influencers
The more influential a spokesperson is in your niche, the more relevant your company is likely to become in the industry. Most people with authority have influence and a large following behind them. Consider who is top of your field and with whom you could cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship. Steve Olensky in Forbes describes influencers as “personalities who are perceived as having an impact, an influence, with a business’ purchasing client base.” For additional insight into influencer marketing strategies, check out a recent Communiqué PR blog for a deeper dive.
What do you think of when you think of business assets? Many of us are likely to cite the more tangible things a business owns: computers, desks, equipment, even factories. Some people may see staff or employees or the company’s brand and reputation as assets. But what about the content that a company creates?
This, too, is a business asset and one that is often overlooked when people are taking stock of the things a company owns or when quantifying its value.
“Content is an important business asset, and companies need to think carefully about how they create, curate and manage it,” said Ann Naumann, senior content marketing manager with A Place for Mom, the largest referral service for senior living in North America.
To understand best practices around this activity, Ann shares the following tips:
- Begin with the big picture and your overarching strategy. Know what you’re trying to achieve with content and how it will benefit your company or organization. It is a
good idea to have a documented content strategy as well as a content manifesto. Think of this as a short description of your key messages and your perspective about them. What is your messaging platform? What is the emotional content of that messaging? - Know how you’ll measure success and be able to calculate your return on investment. For instance, what are all the results you derive from the content you create? How will you quantify those results? Are there quantitative results you’d like to see? By answering these questions, you’ll be in a better position to understand and analyze the impact of the content you create.
- Create an editorial calendar. Once you have articulated the vision, mission and value for your content program, it is a good idea to develop an in-depth editorial calendar. In this you can identify themes you want to explore and determine the ideal timing for content creation. Your editorial calendar doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be as simple as a list of topics and the dates when you want certain content completed and/or published.
- Don’t underestimate the power of the creative brief. For specific content, you may also want to develop a creative brief. Information in this brief often includes:
- The persona of your reader or readers. How old are your readers? What are their interests and desires? Why will they care about your content?
- The ideal length of the content you want to produce. How many words will be required to cover the topic? What is the attention span of your reader?
- The key words to be included. Oftentimes, people discover content by doing searches on keywords, or perhaps they have Google alerts set so news and information is pushed to them. If so, you’ll want to identify these keywords and include them in your content. This will make it easier for people to find it when they do online searches for information
- Where your readers are in the buyers’ journey. There are many different ways to describe the path readers take to their final destination. The ones Ann Naumann uses are Awareness, Research, Consideration, Decision and Advocacy. Understanding what need you are fulfilling will help you create better content and will also help you think about what the best next steps are for that reader to take.
- The style and tone to which the piece should adhere. This often refers to things like word choice, sentence structure, formatting, punctuation and even spelling. For instance, should you use a formal or informal style? Are contractions OK or should they be avoided? Do you need to adhere to Associated Press style or some other style guide? (Some people include this in writer’s guidelines, but I like to make sure it is in our creative briefs.)
- Publication and promotion. How do you plan to promote your content? After all, if no one reads it, you’re essentially cutting down the proverbial tree in the woods and wondering if anyone heard it.
- Understand your workflow. Consider these critical steps: ideation, creation, publication and promotion. Your workflow is how you connect the dots between these steps.
- Adopt technology solutions carefully. The martech stack is growing. There are tons of good tools, but before you adopt one, it is a good idea to understand your content creation and publishing process. Consider simple tools before you adopt a more complicated automated workflow tool. It might be overkill for you.
Understanding that content is a business asset is essential, as is the process in which content is created. For those of us in marketing, public relations or communications, part of our responsibility is managing the development of compelling content. What are some of the ways that your business or firm creates and manages content?
Every March, Communiqué PR (CPR) kicks off its annual review process. During this time, each full-time employee conducts a self-evaluation where we review the core areas of our day-to-day roles and responsibilities and assess our performance over the past year. In this review period, we also share peer reviews and set goals that echo our professional development objectives, as well as the tactical skills we want to improve.
Although employees often dread them, review programs are a great opportunity to measure personal growth, learn from past mistakes, and celebrate team achievements accomplished during the year. The evaluation period also reinforces the skills required to professionally deliver and receive constructive feedback – crucial to success in any business setting.
Despite the benefits review programs provide, completing the self-evaluations can be time consuming if not approached properly. Below are three best practices to consider incorporating throughout the year to make the review process a breeze:
- Organized results tracking: Organization is really the first step in every project, but for self-reviews, it is an absolute must. One best practice a few of my colleagues and I have is to keep an email folder where we file feedback (positive and constructive) that we then turn to during the review period. This level of organization makes it easier and more efficient to complete the reviews and also helps showcase quantifiable results that are valuable to upper management.
- 1:1 meetings: Weekly throughout the year we have 1:1 meetings with our direct managers to discuss current workload and track our progress toward the goals we set during the review process. These meetings provide added value in a smaller agency because it is also a time to discuss constructive feedback and make improvements before the review process. With that being said, feedback shared in the review process is never a surprise, thanks to these 1:1 meetings.
- Diligent proofreading: Similar to organization, carefully proofreading work is an important routine to practice throughout the year. However, during the review process (when performance and commitment are being assessed) it’s even more crucial to take the time to comb through reports and correct any careless errors that would project that the report was rushed or unimportant.
After reviews are completed, the priority shifts to setting goals for the year to come. In order to continue seeing career growth, it’s necessary to evolve goals and develop new skills. I recently came across an article in the Harvard Business Review called “4 Habits of People Who Are Always Learning New Skills,” which uncovers four practices that can be instrumental to master and maintain new skills:
1) Focus on emerging skills or skills that align in a trend in your industry
2) Immerse yourself in the skill, making it a synchronous practice
3) Implement practicing the skill immediately
4) Set an end goal or “golden benchmark.”
Do you have best practices that help you track your professional growth and results? Does your company hold annual personal and peer reviews?
As I’ve blogged previously, I’m a passionate B2B (business to business) technology geek. Give me some complicated network infrastructure or some cloud-based enterprise software to pitch to reporters, and I’m a happy PR person.
What I enjoy about B2B-focused products and services is that they use a unique and specialized language to reach their target audiences, one that is often times a lot more nuanced than B2C (business to consumer)-focused offerings. Selling a multi-million-dollar network infrastructure solution is a vastly different process than selling, for example, gummy vitamins.
Likewise, using influencers to drive sales and build awareness of a B2B product is a very different process than consumer-based influencer marketing programs. What exactly makes up an influencer? Steve Olensky in Forbes describes influencers as “personalities who are perceived as having an impact, an influence, with a business’ purchasing client base.” For example, using a popular Kardashian or Jenner family member to feature your product on Instagram (#sponsoredpost!) seems like a no-brainer for consumer-focused offerings like detox tea and sneakers, but the same strategy might fall flat for more complicated B2B products and services.
As Kaya Ismail writes in CMSWire, “With B2B marketing, you aren’t always trying to grab the attention of the masses. Usually, you just want to catch the eyes of target clients and their respected gatekeepers and decision makers.”
Therefore, B2B companies looking to leverage influencers and thought leaders are learning how to modify their campaigns to reach their specific target audiences. Ismail offers some strong examples of elements that B2B companies can use as part of an influencer campaign to build their brands, and ultimately bolster revenues:
Marketing collateral and other assets backed by influencers and thought leaders – This can include whitepapers, case studies, industry reports or webinars that include quotes, data and other insights from sources like industry analysts and other credible third parties.
Employee word-of-mouth – As Ismail writes, “In a B2B environment, influencers aren’t necessarily A-list celebrities.” Leveraging your employees to spread the word about a recent press release or company launch helps to position them as thought leaders, and drives traffic to your website to get more information. Using social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter help employees to spread information quickly to their followers, and make it easy for those audiences to re-tweet and continue amplifying the news and information.
Case studies and client testimonials – If done correctly, Ismail notes “businesses can amplify each testimonial into a fully-fledged B2B influencer marketing campaign.” Using video, for example, can create a more personal and authentic connection to the customer’s experience, which can elevate a simple case study into a shareable piece of content.
Additionally, MarTech contributor Jake Athey recommends that for B2B technology companies in particularly, it’s a good practice to think of influencers across three main categories: Experts, Implementers and Users.
- Industry analysts like Gartner and Forrester, for example, are considered experts. As Athey writes, “Experts define why a space matters and who belongs,” which is why it’s important that companies brief analysts about their offerings regularly to be considered for their reports.
- Implementers are third-party consultants that are paid by a company to vet, set up and teach about the offerings. “While they don’t force a system upon their clients, they have favorites,” writes Athey. “Consultants define the criteria for quality and decide how a … solution should be used.”
- Finally, users are the individuals that actually choose the platforms, and either use or administer the systems. “Buyers trust them to comment on customer support, ease of use, value, and qualities that become apparent with time. They are the most relatable influencers because they share the buyer’s job titles, roles, and responsibilities,” says Athey.
Remember that a cookie-cutter approach doesn’t translate from the consumer-marketing world to the business arena. Gummy vitamins might seem easier to sell than B2B technology or services, but it’s all a matter of speaking your audiences’ language and reaching them on the channels they pay attention to. As with the basic components of marketing and public relations, the first step for a strong B2B-focused influencer marketing program comes down to identifying your target audiences, and knowing the key messages that will resonate.
Have you had success with an influencer program for a B2B company? What worked – or what didn’t? Tell us here in the comments!
I recently had the opportunity to go back to school and attend a professional development course at Harvard University’s Extension School. The specific course I participated in was Managing Yourself and Leading Others and entailed two full days on Harvard’s campus with a very diverse group of about 50 individuals.
The course was incredibly valuable, incorporating case studies, small group activities, class discussions, lectures and self-reflection. As someone just beginning to take on more management responsibility, this course was helpful in building foundational skills that I will be able to leverage for years to come. I want to share some of the most beneficial lessons I took away from the course.
Anyone Can Lead
One of the first things the Professor Jennifer Stine shared with the class was, “anyone can lead.” She went on to further explain that management and leadership are not one in the same, stating, “people can demonstrate leadership in a variety of situations.” As a young professional, this statement struck me. While I am beginning to gain more management responsibilities, both
internally and externally, I felt this was an important distinction. Just because I didn’t manage entire accounts or a large team of people, didn’t mean that I couldn’t act as a leader.
Soft Skill Make a Difference
One of the first exercises we did was reflect on managers we had admired and respected. We then wrote down the qualities that had led to the admiration and wrote each one down on individual Post-It notes. Once we had about five items written down, we stuck each quality to a board, labeling it as either a soft skill or a technical skill. The qualities on the soft skills board overwhelmingly outnumbered the qualities on the technical skills board. It was clear that the managers who had had the biggest impact on people didn’t just have the expertise required to execute tasks, they had displayed respect, empathy and trust to cultivate meaningful relationships.
Professor Stine went on to explain that emotional intelligence becomes one of the best ways to differentiate yourself. Everyone will have a certain level of technical expertise—it’s required to obtain the position. However, after that, the ability to demonstrate leadership skills and build admiration amongst your colleagues will become an important skill that will help you get ahead.
Advocacy and Inquiry
Understanding others’ perspectives is crucial to a collaborative and cohesive team. Being able to voice your opinion is also vital to playing an active role on a team. So how do you ensure you’ve shared your perspective as well as listened to others? Learn to balance advocacy and inquiry.
It’s important to make and active effort to listen to others’ opinions and do your best to understand their point of view and the reasoning behind it. However, it is equally important to share your perspective, especially when you feel strongly about an issue. A team with no conflict (I don’t mean, yelling and throwing things across the room conflict), is a complacent team.
While this is a lesson that can be easily applied to your teams internally, it also seems to be incredibly applicable to relationships with clients. It is important that we do all we can to understand our clients’ objectives, wants and ideas, but as their consultants, they are relying on us to provide counsel around what we think will be most effective for them, even if it isn’t in alignment with what they’re proposing.
The Growth Mindset
We started on this topic by watching a TEDx talk called, The Power of Believing that You Can Improve, by Carol Dweck. In this talk, Dweck refers to a study done by the University of Washington, in which they monitored results from elementary and middle school classrooms that applied the growth mindset to grading. Rather than failing students on tests or assignments, teachers would write, “not yet.” Instead of positioning students as failures, it positioned students as novices with the potential to acquire the skills needed to succeed. This repositioning led classrooms that once struggled to keep up, to become some of the top performing classes in the nation.
Throughout a career, there are tests and challenges that may leave individuals feeling disheartened or frustrated, but maintaining a growth mindset can allow for a more positive perspective on failure and ultimately lead to growth.
The course offered by Harvard has already proved to be useful and applicable to my routine—I’ve already leveraged multiple lessons from the training. If you have the opportunity to attend this training, or another with positive reviews, I highly recommend it. It can be challenging to step out of the office for trainings when your to-do list never seems to get shorter. But taking time to reflect on your leadership style and focus on developing new skills can be an incredibly valuable experience that can ultimately make you more effective.