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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 participated in a mid-year PR review with one of our clients to review our activities and results garnered.
To clearly outline the work we completed, we prepared for the meeting by developing a PowerPoint presentation which included the following information:
- Review of the client’s business and communication objectives
- The benefit of PR and how it contributes to an organization’s success
- PR versus advertising
- Our contribution to the client’s business
- Materials developed over the past six months
- Media outreach efforts and journalists we forged relationships with on behalf of the client
- Analyst relationships and quotes we have secured on behalf of the client
- Media impressions and articles secured to date
- A look at the overall value and impact of our activities on our client’s business
As a best practice, we believe it is important to do these types of reviews to ensure the work we are doing maps to our clients’ business objectives.
If you’re considering a mid-year review with your agency, we hope you’ll find these tips helpful in developing shared expectations on the information you’d like them to present.
The current economic climate is causing many shifts to occur in the media industry. In an unprecedented move, rival print dailies such as The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun are now collaborating and sharing news content because of a lack of resources and man power.
Additionally, in June four New York broadcasters announced they will use pool video, rather than send competing camera crews to events in order to cut costs.
It is important for PR practitioners and companies to adjust their approach and set client expectations to take these changes into account. For more information about news organizations sharing content, read the PRWeek article entitled, “Financial Reality Prompts News Organizations to Share Content.”
Jennifer Gehrt will be speaking at the Puget Sound American Marketing Association luncheon on September 9, 2009. Jennifer will be speaking about how marketing professionals can leverage the power of Twitter with her presentation entitled, “Twitterphoria: Adding Twitter Power to Your Marketing Mix, Today.”
If you’re interested in learning more about how to leverage Twitter to achieve your business and communication objectives, we hope you’ll register to attend this event.
By attending the event, you will:
Learn about current trends in social media and how you can integrate Twitter with your marketing plans to achieve your most pressing business objectives.
Gain social media best practices from Seattle’s leading practitioner and advisor of integrated social media.
Walk away with ready-to-execute tactics to promote your company’s product/service on Twitter and other social media platforms.
Visit http://www.psama.org/events/event_detail.aspx?id=74 to register today.
As many of you know, our book Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR was featured in the August issue of Costco Connection, a lifestyle magazine for Costco members.
We are delighted about this review as the magazine reaches more than seven million households and businesses. As a result of this feature, we have seen an increase in book sales and hits to our Web site. We have also received several e-mails from people around the country mentioning they had seen the feature on our book and were interested in learning more about Communiqué PR.
This is a great example of how PR can drive sales for an organization. If you’re interested in how this placement came about, please e-mail me at [email protected] and I will fill you in on the details.
Each year, Communiqué PR hosts a visit from Professor Fearn-Banks’ Communication 444 Public Relations and Society class. It is a very fun time for us as we get to talk to the next generation of PR professionals about the work we do.
This year, six students visited our boutique PR firm. We focused our discussion on the history of the firm, the difference between a large firm and a boutique agency, and provided them with tips on how to find their first internship and job in public relations.
We applaud professor Fearn-Banks for incorporating office visits into her curriculum as we believe they’re really helpful to students as they work to gain insight into what they should expect should they decide to pursue a career in public relations.
We also are big fans of Kathleen Fearn-Banks’ book on crisis communications. Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach is a good read for the PR professional wishing to stay current on best practices in this area.
In July 2009, Communiqué PR began working with Aveso Displays, a developer of printed electronic displays for the credit and security card industry. The company’s solution can be used for One Time Password (OTP) technology. For those of you who are not familiar with OTP technology, it is often used by large enterprise companies or financial institutions to prevent fraud.
When I was working for AOL about ten years ago, the company gave us all security fobs (tokens) which issued a new digital password every sixty seconds. We wore these tokens on lanyards around our neck and when we needed to log into the corporate network, we were required to enter in the numbers so we could gain access.
OTP has proven to be a very effective solution, but Aveso Displays is making it even better. The company has figured out a way to put these electronic displays on laminated cards; so instead of wearing a lanyard, employees will get an OTP card which will fit in their wallets.
Communiqué PR is charted with driving awareness of Aveso Displays’ technology with credit card manufacturers, financial institutions, security platform providers and industry analysts. It is an exciting assignment and we look forward to keeping you in the loop on our progress.