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.
For PR professionals, the backbone of every client relationship is a strategic plan that encompasses what your client is trying to achieve and how public relations can help support their overall goals. Creating a comprehensive plan is critical because it sets shared expectations and defines measureable results. A PR plan is typically comprised of three key elements: objectives, strategies and tactics. Seems simple enough, but understanding the difference between the three elements can be tricky – even seasoned PR pros occasionally refer to a tactic as a strategy. Following is a breakdown of what each element actually means.
Objectives
Objectives are tangible and should be achievable within a year or two. When creating an objective, keep the SMART acronym in mind: Is it specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-oriented?
Many PR plans include two sets of objectives – the company’s overall business objectives and the communication objectives that will help achieve them. Restating the business objectives ensures alignment on the company’s short-term goals and makes it easier to see how the communication objectives fit into the company’s strategy.
For example, if a technology company’s business objective is to execute a successful IPO by the end of 2017, one of its communication objectives may be to raise the CEO’s profile among potential shareholders.
Strategies
Strategies are general approaches used to achieve objectives. A PR plan typically includes three to eight strategies, depending on how complicated the objectives are. Strategies should be actionable and explain how you will accomplish the objective and why you are taking that approach.
Going back to the technology company example, strategies to help raise a CEO’s profile among potential shareholders could include:
- Pursue speaking opportunities at industry events to make the CEO known among key audiences
- Place contributed articles with technology trade publications to establish the CEO as an industry thought leader.
Tactics
Tactics are the activities that you or the team will implement to carry out each strategy. They are the day-to-day steps that will move the company forward towards reaching its overall objectives. Each tactic should help answer the question, what is the next step we will need to take to achieve the strategy?
Using the technology company example, the tactics that support placing contributed articles include identifying an article topic, interviewing the subject matter expert, outlining and drafting the article, pitching it to targeted news outlets, securing publication of the piece and making sure it is showcased on the company website.
Strategic planning is a critical first step towards achieving success across all areas of business. It is particularly important in public relations because ROI cannot be measured solely based on traditional metrics. A strategic plan ensures that there is a shared understanding of what you’re trying to achieve, how you plan to do it and how you’re going to measure success. Just make sure you’re grounded in the difference between objectives, strategies and tactics before diving into your next plan.
A few weekends ago, I read a book called Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, a New York Times investigative reporter and the author of the best-selling book The Power of Habit.
Smarter Faster Better focuses on productivity and why some people and companies are so good at getting a lot done. Duhigg explores how motivation, goal setting, focus, decision-making and data play a role in one’s productivity.
The book is very well researched and written. The real-life examples animate his points. For instance, in the chapter on absorbing data, Duhigg cites studies that show when people interact with data they internalize it better. He writes about school teachers in Ohio who had fancy dashboards and data on each student, but simply reading reports or charts on each student‘s performance did not help them figure out how to teach better. They really wanted to see their students’ test scores improve, but they were overwhelmed with the data and did not know how to apply the information to see results in their classrooms.
When Ohio implemented the Elementary Initiative, each teacher in this underperforming school had to spend a couple of hours a week in a conference room filling out index cards on each student. At first, they thought it would be a waste of time. However, they were soon able to see patterns and trends they were unaware of before, and they adjusted their behavior in the classroom. Eight months later the kids sat for the yearly assessment test scores and the results were dramatic with overall scores more than doubling over the previous year.
I loved this example and began thinking about how to apply it to our business. We use SalesforceIQ to track business development activities, but looking at the charts on your computer is not the same as interacting with the data.
Motivated by Duhigg’s book, our team is now also keeping track of progress with potential new clients on index cards. Specifically, the manager leading the new business effort gets an index card and notes the stage of the deal in the sales cycle. We also track the size of the deal and record which of us will work on the new business pitch. Receiving an index card also symbolizes ownership.
The experiment with the index cards has been fun, and like the teachers in Ohio, we are able to see some new patterns that were not as apparent from looking at reports in SalesforceIQ. Our sales pipeline meetings have taken on new energy with more in-depth discussions and brainstorming.
If you have a spirit of continuous improvement or just want to learn more about the secrets of being productive, this book is a must-read.
Image by Elizabeth Alter
The road to a successful career is a long and arduous one, but is a journey that can produce many rewards. When people begin their careers, they focus first on mastering foundational skills, however as they climb the ladder, their responsibilities grow along with their power and influence. Managers often are required to provide strategic counsel, deliver effective presentations and encourage teams to achieve revenue goals.
It is no surprise that these higher-level responsibilities require very different skills than the ones needed to perform entry-level duties. However, one concept that many professionals fail to consider as they move into senior leadership roles is how to build and use power effectively. If leaders are going to be successful in achieving their goals, they need to understand power, learn when to use it, and how to build or overcome a shortage of it.
Amy Cuddy, the author of Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, explains there are two types of power: social power and personal power. According to Cuddy, “Social power is characterized by the ability to exert dominance, to influence or control the behavior of others.” She explains that individuals earn and express social power through “disproportionate control over valued resources.”[i]
Consider for instance, a VP in a PR firm. The VP is going to have control over more resources —such as staff and direction of client budget – than an intern does. According to the model provided by Cuddy, a VP has more social power than an intern does.
On the other hand, personal power stems from the ability to control one’s inner resources such as thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Personal power provides us with the ability to control our emotions, relate to others in a meaningful way, create intimacy, and project confidence.
In summary Cuddy explains, “… Social power is power over – the capacity to control others’ states and behaviors. Personal power is power to – the ability to control our own states and behaviors.”
Clearly, senior leaders need to understand and harness both types of power, but the way to build social power differs from how one builds personal power. According to the article “How to Overcome a Power Deficit,” by Jean-Louis Barsoux and Cyril Bouquet, power at work comes from three things: legitimacy, access to resources, and the strength of one’s network.[ii]
Inspired by Barsoux and Bouquets’ research, here are three ideas on how PR professionals can increase their social power to improve their relationships with not only managers and co-workers, but also with clients, journalists, analysts and others.
Continually Build your Skillset and Expertise for Legitimacy
To design and implement effective PR or communication campaigns in a world where the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, it is critical to stay up to speed on the latest trends and technologies. If you do not do this, you risk losing legitimacy since your base of knowledge is no longer relevant.
In the past 10 years, we have seen the introduction and growth of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as new marketing automation tools such as Marketo, Hubspot and Pardot. Social media platforms and marketing automation tools are just two types of technology innovations that have a huge impact on communication and PR programs, that ultimately impacts engagement with consumers.
To stay current, PR and communication professionals need to stay informed, and they need to experiment with new approaches to learn what works and what does not. Finally, depending on their specific areas of expertise, and as technology changes, they need to evolve their skills in areas such as storytelling, customer engagement, writing, video production, and A/B testing of content.
Consistently Measure and Merchandise Results to Grow Resources
In the fields of public relations, communications, and marketing, people often perceive you (and your firm) to be only as good as your latest campaign results. This means you need to be continually self-evaluating your work and its impact. You must know what tangible results you have generated and you must proactively share these results with managers, clients, and other stakeholders.
When sharing results, use your marketing communications expertise to package them in a contextually and visually compelling manner, and be sure to explain why the results are significant.
By routinely improving your results, you will be in a much better position to demonstrate value and grow your marketing communications budget, which is essential to maintaining a power position. Conversely, if you are not demonstrating a return on investment, you must consider recommending, and making changes.
Develop a Broad Network and Nurture Relationships
Relationships are valuable. By building strong ones with reputable, well-regarded people on whom you rely – journalists, bloggers, consumer advocates, board members, academics, and other influencers – you can significantly increase your position of power. Through relationships we learn and grow, we gain access to information, we secure customers, we help clients gain customers, and much more. Given this, the well-informed marketer or communication professional must look for ways to connect and be socially engaging with a wide range of people.
When working to grow one’s networks and build relationships, it is important be avoid being sycophantic. Instead, look to add value by sharing information, offering to help with connections, or providing advice. A great way to expand one’s network is to look for opportunities to do volunteer work, join boards, or form your own group. For instance, I have made a number of valuable professional connections through my neighborhood-walking group.
While this advice may seem basic, I recently have spoken with a number of senior-level marketing leaders who have experienced issues at work. These issues have not stemmed from a lack of ability to do the actual work, but from a lack of power and their ability to influence change or build consensus for specific projects. By taking the time to think about how to grow their legitimacy, resources and networks, they can regain some of their social power, which will make them more effective and successful.
One of the most sought-after skills in the business world today is “critical thinking.” The Wall Street Journal reported that mentions of critical thinking in job posts on the career-search site Indeed.com have doubled since 2009. Critical thinking also ranked first on the “Most Important Skills for Next Gen Leaders” in a 2016 survey from Executive Development Associates, Inc. (EDA), Pearson’s TalentLens group, and Performance Assessment Network (PAN).
Certainly for PR and communications professionals, the importance of critical thinking cannot be overstated. Clients and partners look to us to be trusted advisors and a credible resource to shape their communications and PR strategies – running on autopilot just doesn’t cut it in this industry.
So what does it mean to be a critical thinker, exactly? Aren’t you automatically thinking all day, every day? The answer is both yes and no. The key here is the phrase “automatically thinking.” Critical thinking requires you to shut off the autopilot mode and thoughtfully consider the task at hand. For example:
Understand the bigger picture. Consider, for example, that you’ve been tasked with building a media list for an upcoming announcement. You might pull up your master media list, identify the top “friendly” journalists who have covered your company previously, and leave it there. Applying critical thinking to this task involves going a step further and examining questions such as:
- “Why is this announcement important to my client? To the industry at large?”
- “Who are the target audiences for this news? What publications do they read?”
- “Is my client’s business evolving in a new/different direction with this announcement?”
With this example, critical thinking elevates the task to something far more substantive than building a simple media list. You’re thinking critically about the more strategic goals behind an announcement, how it pertains to your clients’ business, and how it fits into the broader competitive landscape.
Anticipate & identify potential flaws in your logic. When presenting ideas to a manager, client or reporter, it’s important to anticipate potential questions or concerns. On its own, this demonstrates a thoughtful approach – but it’s only one part of the process around critical thinking. The first step is to think deeper to find potential flaws in your initial logic so that they can be addressed early in the process.
Let’s say you’ve got a great idea for a proactive media pitch – you draft it up and want to send it off to some target reporters ASAP. Think critically here before hitting the “send” button:
- “Is this really a timely/unique story angle? Why and why not?”
- “What do industry analysts have to say on this topic? Is there a quote/study/stat I could include to back up my point?”
- “What has this person written about recently? Why is it relevant for them, specifically, not just the outlet?”
- “If I was a journalist and I received this pitch, what kind of story would I write? What questions would I ask in the interview?”
Here, critical thinking lifts the pitch from a rapid-fire email to a reporter to a more thoughtful, well-researched story idea. You’re backing up your points with stats and information and can present the idea in a new, creative way.
Be discerning about data, and make informed decisions. Being able to analyze information from multiple sources, and apply that information to your task at hand, is a big component of critical thinking. Journalists have to utilize this skill on a daily basis. In the code of ethics for the Society for Professional Journalists, one of the very first tenants is to for reporters to “take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.”
For PR and business professionals, this translates to demonstrating the thinking behind the claims you’re making, and use data from a variety of sources to back up your claims. The final example we use here is around how to accept (or decline) feedback from multiple sources as part of an editing cycle on a document.
Having a second (or third) pair of eyes on a press release draft, for example, can catch things you might have missed the first time around. It’s easy to just quickly “accept all” after someone’s reviewed a document, and consider the job done. This is one of the most dangerous examples of auto-pilot mode: simply assuming the person editing/reviewing the document is correct. Critical thinking allows you to consider both the strength and validity of the original content being edited, and the edits themselves. Some questions to help guide your thinking:
- “Do I actually agree with these edits? Are they correct?”
- “Does the person editing/reviewing the document have familiarity with the situation/content being addressed?”
- “Are these edits necessary, or are they subjective and more a matter of writing style preferences?”
Critical thinking allows you to consider another person’s perspective and suggestions to consider, but more importantly, it allows you to actively choose to accept them or not.
What other parts of critical thinking do you utilize in your PR career? Are there other areas where you’ve found yourself working on autopilot? We’d love to hear about it in our comments section!
In a recent PR Week article, Giles Fraser, the co-founder of Brands2Life, discusses how brand communications has entered a new era. In this piece, he shares his rationale behind why PR professionals should immediately begin to adopt a particular set of marketing skills.
Fraser says, “In a world where purchases are only a click away, people expect to have the option to try and/or buy something at the beginning or end of a brand content experience. In fact, some feel short-changed if they don’t. … For PR practitioners this can only be good news. A campaign can start with an issue or insight being called out and finish with an opportunity for customers to engage directly with the brand and/or product.”
What Fraser is saying is that there are now opportunities for PR campaigns at nearly every step of the customer journey. With this being the case, campaigns must build both brand awareness and business impact in order to satisfy both their clients’ and the consumers’ expectations. It is necessary now that PR agencies widen the scope of their programs and develop the skills needed in order to deliver on this demand.
However, this opportunity goes both ways, as other marketing disciplines are updating their skill sets-sets just as fast as PR professionals are expanding theirs. With this situation and the increasing competition, PR professionals must shift their mindset from strictly communications to a more marketing-encompassing set of offerings. Adapting the following marketing skills will help professionals drive brand awareness and action:
- Consumer behavior. Studying consumer patterns and the larger trends in your client’s industry will enable you to anticipate purchasing needs, uncover pain points, and make service/product improvements that will exceed expectations. Incorporating consumer behavior strategies into your PR skill set will further differentiate your brand above the traditional PR scope of work, particularly enabling your client to release news and start a new conversation.
- CRM. Customer relationship management includes the strategies and technologies companies use to track and manage data through the customer lifecycle. In addition to maintaining relationships with clients, PR agencies can incorporate CRM to track and maintain reporter relationships and the measure the impact of a campaign or announcement’s success.
- Insights and data. Leveraging big data in the form of social media records and publically available sources can benefit the approach and strategy of relationship building. PR professionals would need to prioritize potential sources for data, determine the amount of data they will realistically be able to analyze, and then determine the strategy for leveraging the insights uncovered in order to effectively drive brand awareness and action for their clients.
- Performance marketing. This term refers to marketing and advertising programs in which a reward is received when an action is achieved or a goal is met. Unlike traditional advertising, this allows for real-time measurement and a diversified revenue stream. Extending this strategy into PR practices can start by first determining the end goals and action items that would warrant the real-time payment.
If and how PR professionals decide to incorporate these skills is up to them. However, in doing so, not only will companies have a larger scope of services to offer, they will leave their competitors in the dust. Expanding skill sets takes investment in resources, but in the end will benefit both the company and the clients you represent.
Client expectations are rising – what will your company do to exceed them?
For several years, Communiqué PR worked closely with BlueBin, Inc., an innovator in the healthcare industry, to help the company increase general awareness and enhance its perceived value.
Since 2009, BlueBin has specialized in supply chain solutions for healthcare organizations worldwide. Its goal is to improve and streamline the healthcare supply chain process, ultimately ensuring that clinicians have the right supplies at the right time, resulting in improved patient care quality.
Here is how BlueBin works: the company employs established methods generally found in the automotive, retail and aerospace industries, including the BlueBin’s signature 2Bin Kanban technique, which essentially creates a balanced production line for a variety of products in daily demand for nurses. Instead of ordering and stockpiling large quantities of products and potentially not using them, clinicians order supplies on a daily basis based on actual customer demand.
BlueBin has introduced and successfully deployed lean manufacturing methods in the trillion-dollar healthcare industry and today, BlueBin’s solution is helping more than 20 healthcare organizations dramatically cut costs, increase efficiency, eliminate waste and improve patient care.
In one of many examples, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago deployed BlueBin and saved more than $1 million a year in supply costs. The hospital also reduced bulk storage space by nearly 50 percent, and its clinicians no longer have to search for supplies allowing them to regain 28,000 hours a year.
In order to raise awareness of BlueBin’s solution, Communiqué worked closely with the company to educate potential customers on the features and benefits of BlueBin; help decision makers understand why its solution is critical to the success of a healthcare organization; and position BlueBin and its executives as thought leaders in the healthcare industry. Here are some highlights of our PR results:
Editorial Coverage
To reach BlueBin’s target audience of C-level executives in healthcare organizations, as well as decision makers in the healthcare industry, Communiqué focused on securing editorial coverage in healthcare and supply chain trade publications, including:
- ModernHealthcare.com: “Maintaining Morale”
- SupplyChain Management Review: “Ailing Healthcare Supply Chain needs Help, BlueBin Reports”
- Healthcare Purchasing News: “Mercy saves millions of dollars, thousands of clinical hours”
- Supply Chain Strategies & Solutions (ARHMM): “Embracing Lean ‘Lean’”
- Executive Insight: “Transforming Materials Management Strategies to Meet the Needs of Healthcare Reform”
Case Studies
Communiqué also developed case studies to showcase how hospitals successfully implemented BlueBin.
- BlueBin Case Study: Mercy hospital & Medical Center
- BlueBin Case Study: Martin Health System Implements the Demand Flow Process [VIDEO]
- BlueBin Case Study: Nemours Children’s Hospital
LinkedIn Long-Form Posts
The Communiqué team worked closely with Robb Swan, BlueBin CMO, on the following three articles. The aim of this content was to establish BlueBin’s executive team as credible thought leaders around key industry issues and provide guidance around the challenges many healthcare organizations face around their supply chain. Next, we worked with LinkedIn to assign Robb’s posts to the Healthcare PULSE channel, which has more than 4.1 million followers.
- Revamping the Hospital Supply Chain: How to Have a Conversation with Your CFO
- Washington State’s First ACO Set to Change the Healthcare Landscape
- Yanking the Hospital Supply Chain: Is it Ready for a Crisis?
Because of these programs, BlueBin has seen a significant increase in customer interest from hospitals and other healthcare organizations. The company has grown its team and is now looking to expand into new markets. For more on BlueBin and its impact on the healthcare industry, please visit www.bluebin.com.