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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.

We’re Adding to the Communiqué PR Team!

We are excited to announce we are adding to the Communiqué PR team. Currently, we are recruiting for a Senior Account Executive and an Account Manager. The complete job descriptions are included below for your consideration. If you are interested in being considered for either position, please email your letter of interest and resume to [email protected].

Communiqué Public Relations is a boutique public relations firm focused on providing public relations services to a wide variety of companies. Our goal is to secure results that allow our clients to achieve their toughest business and communication objectives. We are seeking entrepreneurial candidates who want to help our clients create awareness, increase their market share and develop strong media relations programs. The right candidate will thrive on hands-on work with a variety of clients. 

Senior Account Executive

Primary Responsibilities

  • Grow and maintain client relationships by engaging in day-to-day contact; proactively take initiative on issues and foster communication between client(s) and account team
  • Build understanding and knowledge of clients’ business and their competitive environments
  • Actively participate and contribute to the development of account plans and ideas and new business proposals
  • Oversee day-to-day planning of major events
  • Lead and support projects that demonstrate strategic planning and creative thinking as well as drive news and launches for events
  • Engage in media outreach, story development and editing of media materials
  • Effectively develop full range of written materials including press releases, byline articles, speeches, client correspondence and reports
  • Oversee and enforce consistent adherence to media management processes: media lists, coverage monitoring, and industry trends
  • Verify information to assure accuracy of media materials and contacts
  • Develop strong working relationships with clients, press, conference organizers and analysts while working to create opportunities for coverage
  • Inform account managers of day-to-day business, research and results
  • Provide guidance to and mentor junior staff

Requirements (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities)

  • Proven ability to write and develop compelling and superb press materials such as press releases, plans, speeches and backgrounders
  • Excellent communication and organizational skills as well as the ability to prioritize and multi-task in a dynamic, creative, challenging and fast-paced environment
  • Ability to establish and maintain effective editor and industry analyst relationships
  • Strong understanding of and ability to contribute to PR plans, strategies and programs based on client objectives
  • Knowledge of social media and the ability to identify how it can be leveraged to achieve client objectives and communication strategy
  • Familiarity with the Associated Press style guide
  • Ability to work effectively independently and collaborate with others in a team environment
  • Positive attitude in a deadline-oriented environment
  • Strong listening skills and the ability to facilitate meetings and make presentations
  • Problem solving skills

Education / Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree required in Communications, Journalism, Marketing, English or a related field
  • 4-6 years of experience in public relations, preferably in an agency setting and/or within an applicable industry. Experience in the high-tech industry preferred.
  • 2-3 years of experience as an account executive
  • Ability to think creatively and develop new and interesting ideas

For further consideration, please apply online at [email protected].

 

Account Manager

Primary Responsibilities

  • Manage, maintain and grow client relationships while assuring stakeholders are aligned
  • Partner with clients to understand communication and business objectives
  • Perform analysis of client objectives and make recommendations based on industry knowledge and trends
  • Identify short- and long-term strategic goals for client and translate them into a public relations plan/program
  • Define and develop successful communication plans for clients and manage client expectations
  • Drive day-to-day client activity by overseeing and performing necessary work, including developing and writing interesting and effective press materials, placing stories, leading press tours, providing counsel to clients, etc.
  • Manage account activity to public relations budgets and consistently achieve revenue goals
  • Lead client meetings, deliver presentations and facilitate client discussions
  • Develop strong working relationships with clients, press, conference organizers and analysts while working to create opportunities for coverage
  • Sell public relations to key stakeholders in client company and grow client account
  • Provide guidance to and mentor junior staff
  • Manage third-party vendors and contractors as needed

Requirements (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities)

  • Proven ability to write and develop compelling and superb press materials, such as press releases, plans, speeches, and backgrounders
  • Excellent communication and organizational skills as well as the ability to prioritize and multi-task in a dynamic, creative, challenging and fast-paced environment
  • Ability to establish and maintain effective editor and industry analyst relationships
  • Strong understanding of and ability to execute PR plans, strategies and programs based on client objectives
  • Knowledge of social media and the ability to identify how it can be leveraged to achieve client objectives and communication strategy
  • Familiarity with the Associated Press style guide
  • Ability to effectively manage client budgets
  • Ability to work effectively independently and collaborate with others in a team environment
  • Positive attitude in a deadline-oriented environment
  • Strong listening skills and the ability to facilitate meetings and make presentations
  • Problem solving skills
  • Ability to think creatively and develop new and interesting ideas

Education / Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree required in Communications, Journalism, Marketing, English or a related field.
  • 10+ years of experience in public relations, preferably in an agency setting and/or within an applicable industry. Experience in the high-tech industry preferred.
  • Minimum of five years public relations account management and execution experience, including developing communication plans, launch strategies, product positioning, and pitching stories

For further consideration, please apply online at [email protected].

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The Council of PR Firms Code of Ethics

A couple of months ago I participated in a survey by the Council of PR Firms, which included a question about business ethics. It got me thinking about the topic and the importance of business ethics in our professional lives.

According to Wikipedia, “Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.”

We all face issues in our personal and professional lives that challenge us. It’s how we respond to those challenges that often matters the most. For instance, when you make a mistake do you try to cover it up or do you admit the issue to a manager or client? When a manager or client asks you to do something that you don’t agree with do you explain your point of view, do it without sharing your perspective or simply ignore the request? If a client asks you to represent an issue to a journalist, but keep it a secret that they’re behind the initiative what do you?

If you work in PR, I would encourage you to take a minute to revisit the Council of PR Firms Code of Ethics. I think it is an excellent reminder about the standards of practice that we should all aspire to as we work to serve clients, communicate with the public and media, and collaborate with coworkers and partners.

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Standing Out in a Crowd: Marketing Lessons From Groupon

Groupon, like many start-ups of the 21st century, began with a unique idea. Its success came from distributing this idea using relevant technology, maintaining customer service, and consistently growing and developing its outreach. However, as with any well executed venture, other like-minded companies have begun saturating the market, leaving Groupon in a predicament that often repeats itself as industries evolve: How do you differentiate your brand from other, similar services?

Groupon has turned to several communication tactics to maintain relevancy and showcase its services. Currently holding 50 percent of the market share in the exclusive coupon and group deal vending sector, Groupon has obviously deployed a successful strategy. As its director of communications, Julie Messler, noted in PR Week, “We have so many new products, services, and features…PR is a critical arm in marketing that.”

By observing Groupon’s strategy as it continues to find success, in spite of competition from similar companies, we are able to see the raw power of a well executed brand and communication strategy. The fundamentals of Groupon’s approach can educate any company that is expanding its communications with the goal of establishing a unique brand and gaining industry clout.

What exactly can Groupon tell us about maintaining prowess in a slew of similar service providers?

Know your audience. Groupon chooses to disperse a combination of press releases and blog posts, with the majority of information being released on its blog. A blog is a more personal, friendly, and interactive platform, and because Groupon’s customer base is made up of individual consumers, this is a better way to relate to it than a formal press release. Groupon also makes an effort to steer clear of corporate-speak in its press releases, so that it is able to inform its target audience.

Social media: adjust as necessary. We recently posted on the topic of when social media is useful. Groupon follows a similar, critical mindset when it comes to social media. Instead of designing an overall social media plan, Groupon tailors its social media outreach based on the products and services they are offering, and when they are offering them. In this way, Groupon adjusts the timeliness of its social media outreach, and avoids committing to an ill-fitting plan. However, if you are operating in an industry that has a slower change rate, or a more consistent pace, a long term social media plan may be more adequate for your needs.

Use marketing to instill the usefulness of your product. Groupon’s campaigns are not designed to simply raise awareness. The goal is to promote the usefulness of its brand, and maintain its relevance to consumers. For example, they recently staged the “Live off Groupon” campaign, in which Josh Stevens received a $100,000 prize for living solely off Groupon goods for an entire year. This promoted brand awareness by showcasing Groupon’s usefulness, not by simply getting its name out there.

Companies will always jump on the bandwagon when it comes to a successful idea. When you log in to Google+ or Facebook, remember that it all started with Friendster. When you grab an iced latte from Peet’s, think of how Starbucks made corner coffee shops a trend. What determines the success of these brands is the way they separate themselves from the pack — and Groupon is showing us all how this can be done.

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Social Media and Election Campaigns

Remember what life was like before we had cell phones? It’s hard to recall what we did without the constant ability to connect with people and more recently, the persistent ability to connect to information with the increase in smartphones.

Social media is another innovation that’s fast becoming an engrained part of both our personal and professional lives. How long do you go without checking your Facebook account or posting a tweet?

Today, social media is a highly effective way for organizations to share content, build brand awareness and reach target audiences. So why wouldn’t this work for political campaigns? Given many of us (probable voters in particular), are active social media adopters, it makes sense for politicians to leverage social media as a campaign platform to reach constituents. In fact, some might say that social media is a much needed, critical engagement strategy for any election campaign.

Ad Age posted a recent story that poses three interesting points concerning why social media now has the power to make or break election campaigns.

  • Audience: It’s no longer just tweens, teens and young Obama voters who use Facebook and Twitter. Social media use by people over 50 is on the rise, and during elections, voters on both sides of the fence are relying on social media to connect to campaigns. According to Ad Age, Facebook has 150 million U.S. users old enough to vote, and the average user has 130 friends. The social media audience is huge, continues to grow, and users are quick to share information that they’re most passionate about.  
  • Influence: Ad Age also notes that the median age of a TV evening news viewer is approaching 63, so it’s possible that voters aged 18 to 35 won’t even hear a candidate’s message unless it’s coming to them through social media. Social media users rely heavily on their connections for advice on what to eat, wear, watch, and who and what to vote for. Getting messages into the billions of news feeds on Facebook is critical to entering conversations and getting messages across.
  • Money: Realizing the size and power of social-media audiences, top brand advertisers (both commercial and political) are funneling serious money into online and mobile advertising. Because of the recent Supreme Court decision to end a ban on political spending by corporations, the amount of money invested in campaign advertising and therefore in social media, will rise significantly. Additionally, because earned media is furthered by viral sharing through social media, social media engagement can be the most cost-effective way to reach targeted audiences at scale.

So, what do you think? Can social media really make or break an election? I believe the proliferation of social media during the 2008 election was a good indication that 2012 election campaigns will be heavily focused on online engagements as a key strategy to gain votes and generate excitement for political candidates.

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Results for RPI: “Customizing” Key Messages and PR Plan to Announce a Strategic Company Acquisition

We recently started working with RPI, Inc., a leader in make-on-demand private label personalized products, such as photo books, greeting cards and stationery products, for mass and specialty retailers. As we began our engagement, it was fascinating to learn more about mass customization (the ability for a consumer to tailor a product’s appearance, features or content to their own liking), and how retailers are responding positively to this rising trend.

Over the past 30 years, RPI has pioneered the mass customization industry by leveraging its consumer insight, creative product development expertise, and developing the technology to manufacturer the highest quality personalized products for their customers. Most recently, the company acquired the assets of Paro Group, a respected manufacturing and fulfillment company headquartered in the Netherlands, with the goal of creating a stronger mass customization platform to meet the ever-changing needs of its customers.

In the weeks leading up to the announcement, our first priority was to collaborate closely with executives at RPI and Paro Group to identify their key messages and develop the corresponding materials to communicate the significance of this acquisition to media, their employees and customers. Once developed and finalized, we conducted outreach to a select group of influential media to pre-brief them before publicly distributing the announcement.

As a result of our efforts, RPI garnered coverage among leading publishing and print industry publications as well as business media outlets. Some of those recent articles include:

We have enjoyed working with RPI to learn more about the mass customized industry and to support its PR activities. On a personal level, I have often been a “creator” of personalized holiday greeting cards and party invitations, and found it fascinating to see how these products are produced and manufactured at RPI’s facility in South Seattle. I look forward to seeing what innovative new products RPI will create as result of this acquisition – the possibilities are endless!

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Executive Leadership Transitions and Achieving Coverage

Changes in executive leadership can be an exciting time for a company. Change often signals a continuation of momentum or the start of a new direction. These announcements are also interesting to media, who get to know executives in their given industries over time through numerous briefings and product announcements.

Recently, Opscode, the leader in a burgeoning IT industry segment called cloud infrastructure automation, appointed Mitch Hill, formerly of cloud computing giant Avanade, as CEO, and asked us to help with his introduction. To ensure this announcement was a success, we reached out to key journalists and analysts to alert them to the transition and provide them the opportunity to interview Hill, as well as former CEO and now Chief Community Officer Jesse Robbins.

We also ensured that we were leveraging social media properly for this announcement. Specifically, we suggested Jesse Robbins develop a blog post for Opscode’s website explaining the transition and his new role with the company. This also served to continue generating excitement around the transition.

The news was well-received, with most reporters recognizing that leadership transitions such as this are often a natural part of a start-up’s growth. We saw coverage in print editions of local newspapers and on online news sites, as well as several national industry publications. Below is a summary of coverage:

If your company is getting ready to announce a leadership transition, be sure to plan properly and allow the media enough time to digest the news. This will ensure that you have enough time to work out any of their questions or concerns, and that the proper messages will shine through.

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