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.
We recently worked with GKD on a redesign of our firm’s Web site. The process was extremely valuable as it provided an opportunity for us to re-evaluate our firm’s positioning, our brand attributes and the value we deliver clients. I found it inspiring and motivating to focus on the future vision of our business and how we would like to see our business develop in the coming years.
Our goals with the redesign of our site were to ensure we accurately positioned our business, updated the look and feel, made sure our book and blog were better integrated, and made sure we had an easy way to update information. We also wanted better integration with social media platforms – after all, six years ago when our original site was developed Twitter wasn’t even in existence.
Allocating resources for a Web site redesign in this economic climate is not an easy task; however, a dated site can do more damage than good. A company’s Web site often creates a first impression with a prospective customer, partner, investor or employee.
As you evaluate your Web site, you may want to ask yourself the following questions:
- Does your current site make the best impression?
- Is it accurately communicating the right messages about your organization?
- Is the site easy to navigate?
The reality is businesses evolve, new products are developed, messages shift, technology changes – and all of this impacts a company’s Web site. Many times these changes happen incrementally, but before long a Web site that was an accurate representation of your company and its messages may look dated, be off target and confuse potential business partners.
I would encourage you to evaluate your current site on a regular basis to determine if the messages are accurate and current, it is easy for visitors to find information and the company’s current brand is accurately represented.
Last week I attended the 2010 Ticket Summit in New York with Communiqué PR client Digonex. Targeted toward the secondary market (i.e. ticket brokers) this year’s Ticket Summit brought together more than 500 experts from across various parts of the industry to discuss today’s ticketing challenges.
Harry Sandler, director of strategic ticketing for Digonex, spoke to a standing room only audience on a panel entitled, “How to Price Your Tickets.” In attendance were not only ticket brokers, but ticket operations directors from a variety of sports franchises and venues who are looking to begin experimenting with dynamic pricing technology to help their organizations maximize revenue opportunities while keeping fans in the seats.
Dynamic pricing continues to be a hot topic among the ticketing industry as these organizations evaluate alternative pricing structures to combat the challenging economic climate, declining event attendance and increased competition for the entertainment dollar. After hearing several panel discussions, one thing is clear: 2010 could see significant changes in the ticketing industry.
In addition to speaking at the conference, Digonex met with several trade and national sports business reporters including Associated Press, The Deal Reporter, Sports Business Journal, Venues Today and Ticket News TV. This was a great opportunity for Digonex executives to foster relationships with key reporters and provide their perspective on why dynamic pricing technology provides a fair-for-all solution for primary ticketing organizations, ticket brokers and consumers.
“I don’t have time.” This is a common statement I hear from executives when speaking with them about social media. While I appreciate senior managers are busy, I believe it is essential they make time to use this powerful medium. Otherwise, they will not have a good grasp of this new technology and how it is impacting communication and disrupting traditional forms of marketing.
Jennifer and I wrote about this subject in a recent article published in the January 2010 issue of Seattle Business magazine called, “The Social Media Blind Spot.” In the article, we encourage executives to sign up for and use social media. We share examples of how Seattle-area businesses and non-profits are using Twitter and Facebook, and provide some simple tips on how execs can get started.
Once executives have had a first-hand experience engaging via social networks, they will be better equipped to evaluate the potential benefits of social media to their organizations. For more ideas on how to use social media to achieve your business objectives, please feel free to contact me.
As you may remember, in October the Communiqué PR team read “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” and discussed how we could apply the principles outlined in the book in both our private and professional lives. We are currently reading the book, “Just Listen” by Mark Goulston.
“Just Listen” provides eye-opening insights and practical tips for learning how to effectively reach people in virtually every scenario — defiant executives, angry employees, family members and others. Mark Goulston M.D., veteran psychiatrist and business coach, discusses how to get difficult people to do what you want in tough situations.
As PR professionals, we are often required to reach out to and connect with a variety of people — editors, analysts, bloggers, clients, vendors and venture capitalists to name a few. The premise of Dr. Goulston’s book is that by listening and acknowledging another person’s point of view you will be much more successful in achieving your goals.
Whether it’s counseling clients on a particular strategy to help propel their business forward, or sparking a journalist’s interest in a compelling story idea, it’s easy to get caught up with our own needs and forget to listen. This book provides practical tips and guidance on how to rewire ourselves to be able to truly listen to those around us in order to provide the best PR services possible. We have put his suggestions to work and seen some amazing results.
Dr. Goulston not only provides perspective on how to make people listen to us, he also discusses the following:
- Taking control of a stressful situation
- Steering clear of toxic people
- The power of saying thank you and apologizing
- Gaining trust and establishing relationships with the gatekeepers
Whether you’re a PR professional reaching out to a journalist, a CEO obtaining buy-in from board members, or a manager dealing with hostile employees, “Just Listen” provides a blueprint for connecting with the hardest to reach people and turning them into allies. We highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve his or her communication and listening skills with business associates, friends or family.
I have been thinking about the responsibilities of a panel chair as I prepare to moderate a panel on damage control later this month. Colleen and I have been doing a significant amount of speaking as we promote our book, “Strategic Public Relations.” In addition, many of our clients are asked to chair panels as they achieve thought-leadership positions within their industries. Given this, I thought I would take a minute to share my thoughts on the attributes of a good facilitator or panel chair.
- Be Prepared. Think deeply about how the panelists can add value to the audience. What are the questions attendees want answered? Once you have identified the key questions to be addressed be sure to share them with the panelists in advance. Part of your role as a moderator is to make sure the members of the panel are well prepared. To do this, I recommend sending the panelists written materials and holding a brief call with them prior to the panel.
- Make Introductions. Another key role as the facilitator of a panel is to introduce each of the panelists as well as the topic. You want to keep the introductions brief, but it is important the audience understands who is presenting and why they were selected to participate in the discussion.
- Establish the Ground Rules. Consider taking a few minutes before you delve into your discussion to review ground rules for the discussion. You can do this by simply stating, I know each of you have a lot of information to share today, but in the essences of making sure we cover XYZ, Id like you to limit your response to a couple of minutes.
- Frame the Discussion. Make sure you tell your audience what is in it for them. I like to grab the audience’s attention by helping them understand the three things they’re going to get from us as a group. For instance, for my damage control panel at Enterprise Social 2.0 the audience can expect to learn the following three things: 1) what they can do to prepare for a crisis; 2) best practices for leveraging social media during a crisis; 3) how to turn a negative into a positive.
- Keep Things Moving. It’s important to maintain the pace of the discussion. If the conversation is moving into a rat hole, you need to re-direct it. This can be done simply by stating, “I want to remain true to our goal of covering X and we have limited time today, so Joe, I’d like to have you share your perspective on XYZ.”
- Engage the Audience. Consider ways to involve the audience in the discussion. It might be helpful to ask for a show of hands around a subject before inviting the panelists to delve deeper with their comments and feedback. In Amsterdam, I may ask the audience for a show of hands on how many of them feel as if their company is prepared to respond to a crisis using social media.
- Conclude the Discussion. Finally, as the moderator you will be responsible for wrapping up the discussion. I like to summarize some of the key points, thank the panelists and call for questions from the audience.
If you have been a panel moderator and have other thoughts or best practices, please share them with us.
We thought you’d be interested to know that Harry Sandler, director of strategic ticketing for Digonex Technologies, will be speaking at Ticket Summit, a leading industry conference for the secondary ticket market being held in New York on January 13 to 15. Digonex is rapidly becoming known as a leader in the dynamic pricing market and has published numerous contributed articles on this topic including: “Maximizing Virtual Goods through Dynamic Pricing,” which was published in the Dec. 3 issue of Virtual Goods Insider; as well as “Guest Commentary: Dynamic Pricing: A Fair-to-All Solution to Event Ticketing Prices,” which was published recently in TicketNews.com. Harry will participate in a panel discussion titled, “How to Price Your Tickets” on Fri., Jan. 15 at 10 a.m. and will provide insight on how companies can determine if they are pricing their ticket inventory too high or too low and will offer tips on how to adjust and optimize ticket prices for maximum profit. Harry has more than 40 years experience in the industry and has worked extensively with venues, promoters, managers and artists. For the past five years, Sandler has worked on ticketing strategies for the music industry, developing new and innovative pricing platforms. Ticket Summit brings together hundreds of experts within the ticket industry and provides an opportunity for leaders to discuss important issues surrounding ticketing, other panel sessions will include:
- “Building Your Brand”
- “The Economics of Ticketing”
- “Legal Issues and Ticketing Trends”
- “The Broadway Box Office”
- “Then and Now: The Primary Market”
To learn more about the Harry Sandler’s panel or trends in ticketing, please feel free to contact Communiqué PR at [email protected].