Four Keys to Getting the Most Out of PR

 

By Chance Shay, Senior Communications Strategist

Over a decade ago, Entrepreneur Magazine explained why every brand needs PR (back then brands were called “companies”) and while explaining that “good PR is the telling of a good story,” referenced The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR to illustrate their point. Long gone are the days where CEOs asked if public relations is important to their company. Instead, they’re asking how to make PR the most effective it can possibly be. Every brand in every vertical in every geographic market is different, but these four keys to getting the most out of PR are universally found at the foundation of all great public relations strategies.




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Focus on Efficiency

Whether you’re Justin Timberlake, Oprah or an exhausted PR director of a brand producing widgets, you have 24 hours in a day. Making the most out of that time is critical to beating competitors to the story angle punch and seeing your brand’s name in lights instead of on the outside looking in. Be smart about where your time goes.

This could come from instituting efficient work behaviors. Commit to starting the day off right. Schedule time for checking emails instead of responding to them as they hit your inbox. Make a point to prioritize your to-do list.

Another part is making sure you’re using technology to amplify the results while minimizing the time invested. Use tools like Hootsuite, Buffer or Soci to manage social media accounts, optimize content development and publishing, and streamline reporting (see below for why reporting is important). Use Basecamp to alleviate budget-eating project management time.

Remember, don’t bang your head against the wall. If there’s something your team lacks expertise in, outsource it.

Emphasize PR Measurement

To optimize your team’s efficiency, focus on results that provide the biggest bang for your buck. To understand which results are actually moving the needle, you have to measure them.

Without measurement, you won’t know where your resources are best spent. ROI was the buzzword (acronym?) of 2013, but it’s just as relevant today. Think of it this way: is an hour of your time best spent pitching a story or developing an eblast? If the time spent pitching media results in 10 sets of target audience eyeballs seeing your story, but that same time spent on the eblast results in 20 sets of target audience eyeballs seeing and engaging with your story, it’s easy to see where your focus should be.

But not all PR measurement is the same. Make sure you’re gauging outcomes over outputs. For good, strong and valid PR measurement, your team should follow the guidelines set by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communications, or AMEC.

PR and Marketing Go Hand in Hand

Do you still think of marketing as driving sales to customers and PR as building a brand’s reputation or trust? You shouldn’t. More so than ever, a brand’s reputation can make or break sales.

But the importance of traditional media is coming back down to earth, too. In fact, scholars and experts were writing about the declining influence of traditional media way back in 2010. With fragmented audiences and the socialization of the Web and its information, a brand doesn’t have to rely solely on traditional media to reach a large, targeted audience.

In 2016, marketing and PR are most effective when they’re done in tandem. Making sure what’s being said about your brand (media) and what you’re saying about your brand (marketing) are consistent is important because future or prospective customers are more informed than ever when they make a purchase decision. If there’s something out of sync with the information they’ve turned up in their research, they’ll see it as a big red flag.

Most importantly, PR and marketing working in tandem amplifies the result. If your PR results are driving the audience to additional brand-created content, then it’s easier to move them down the sales funnel.

Proactivity Over Reactivity

Finally, like a prize fighter, PR is most effective when it’s out in front of opportunities rather than back pedaling and swinging from its heels. Make sure a solid amount of lead time is given to prepare and launch campaigns. This allows you to tee up media wins in advance of the press release or advisory hitting the wire and ensure key influencers are already in the know before a single piece is published.

Being proactive is also important for fostering the strong media relationships. The quickest way to burn a media bridge is to cause a reporter to miss a deadline because you couldn’t provide the information they need fast enough. Anticipate the questions they might have and identify what information your brand is not comfortable releasing. If you’re announcing a development project, anticipate the detailed financial-related questions and have responses pre-approved. Be proactive in providing whatever is necessary to make it easy for a journalist to cover your story.

There is no magic bullet in PR. However, brands can set themselves up to maximize the return on their public relations investment by following these four keys. If you enjoyed this read, make sure you poke around the (W)right On Target Blog for some other pearls of wisdom from the world of PR and marketing. Some of my favorite recent posts include 12 Signs PR Agency Life Isn’t For You, 10 Feelings Anyone Who Works in PR Will Relate To and Reflections to Begin 2016, written by (W)right On’s CEO, Grant Wright.

Communicating Design With Clients

 

Graphic-Design

By Design & Multimedia Specialist, Keely Smith

Twitter: @KeelySmith8

When it comes to designing for client partners, it’s not your skill that makes a successful design project, but how effectively you communicate about it. We’ve all been there: you work on a design and you feel confident in what you’ve created, but when it’s time to reveal your masterpiece to your client partner, lo and behold…they hate it! So what happened? Mishaps like these are often a result of a lack of communication or understanding goals and expectations. Here are some best practices to set yourself – and your client partners – up for success and clear conversations on any design project.

Have an open ear

Right off the bat, you need to listen to what your client partner is trying to achieve. It’s vital to understand what’s happening under the surface. By this, I mean what are the goals of the design project – is it to drive more leads? Increase engagement? Or simply to revamp a brand for marketing purposes? These are important questions that will naturally arise as you have an open exchange about ideas and expectations.

Flesh out the details

Once you’ve put your listening cap on and have gathered the feedback needed, it’s time to put it in writing. It’s vital to clearly outline project deliverables, responsibilities and projected timelines for project completion. These details can be included in or accompany a creative brief, which should explain the design goals and how success will be measured, if applicable.

 

Stay on track

Sometimes unexpected developments can throw a wrench into the system, but it’s important to keep to the initial timeline and stay within the scope of the project. If a client partner requests work that is out of scope, be sure to add to or revisit the deliverables that have been agreed upon by both parties. This is not only to to keep things on track, but so you can be a good steward of your client’s budget and dedicate your time appropriately to deliver a product that you are proud of and they love!

Say it loud and proud

Design is an expertise, and any given project has you spending hours mulling over the perfect typeface, colors, arrangement and so much more. If a client partner suggests something that doesn’t seem to align with the project goals, don’t be afraid to address it… just keep it professional. It’s easy to be an order taker, but you’d be selling yourself short if you gave into every idea or request. This also has the potential to avert the project from the initial goals. Having skill is one thing, but as we know, knowledge is power! Giving your client partner access to your knowledge on such things will benefit the overall success of the project.

With clear and intentional communication leading all of your endeavors with client partners, you and your team will cultivate a valued relationship based on professionalism, understanding, respect and, most important, eye-popping design work. Designers, what tips would you share to help keep fellow pros on track?

Reflections to Begin 2016…

 

By Grant Wright, CEO

Twitter: @Grant_Wright 

In the media, sometimes truth is distorted. I don’t mean journalists lie, although that can happen. But I do mean that some aspect of the truth can be emphasized more than others, leaving an unbalanced impression of a situation.

PR pros are typically engaged to emphasize the good for client partners, and occasionally we’re called upon to mitigate the bad. All this message shaping extends in a broader sense to what society consumes every day in the form of “news.” Personally, and professionally, I think the state of journalism in America is abysmal. For example, when CNN provides “breaking news” that is not fact but instead speculation from an unnamed source, it should be called neither “breaking” nor “news.” It’s definitely not quality journalism.

In aggregate, the penchant for the negative – if it bleeds, it leads – is at an all-time high. Were an alien to visit America and listen only to major news outlets for a week or even a day, he/she/it would probably conclude that America is a dangerous place where little good happens and humanity mostly cares about Donald Trump and the Kardashians.

But I think there’s a much brighter reality to the current state of affairs than the news has far too many people believing. In 2015, there were dozens of good things that happened we heard much too little about, or their significance was lost in the din of negative media bombardment. Just a few examples of many are:

Decreased Poverty

Global poverty continued to fall – the World Bank announced that for the fist time ever, fewer than 10% of the global population now lives in abject poverty. Just 25 years ago, one-third of humanity lived with barely enough to subsist. We’ve of course much further to go, but the good news trend is clear and profound.

Environment

Almost 200 countries, including China, signed an unprecedented climate accord. There is finally global, cohesive recognition that humanity cannot continue on the current course of planetary abuse and expect to hand the planet to future generations the way we found it. Yes, Earth has a natural assimilative capacity to soak up carbon, but it’s not infinite. That 2015 was the year we finally seem to be coming to our senses is something to feel good about.

Technology

Tons of advancements! Just one in 2015 is that humankind took close-up, high-def pictures of a planetary body only 1,400 miles wide but more than three billion miles from Earth! We flew a craft to Pluto, didn’t forget to take the lens cap off and beamed photos billions of miles back across space. But I think the biggest tech accomplishment is the aggregate of technology continuing to flow information ever more freely around the globe. It’s increasingly difficult for dictators to fool their citizens, and humanity to ignore the plight of millions of refugees from man-made and natural disasters.

Much More

Whether it’s the country of Paula designating a new marine reserve the size of California, Myanmar/Burma finally holding elections, violent crime in the USA continuing to decrease (35% less than 20 years ago), Ebola being defeated in Africa, same-sex couples in America finally having the right to marry or the U.S. women’s national soccer team winning the World Cup with a record-breaking 27 million American TV viewers… a great deal of good happened in 2015.

It is these positive developments of 2015 I reflect on, and why I’m optimistic for 2016.

Sure, more bad things will happen, messages will continue to be shaped and the media will continue to obsess the negative. But this doesn’t mean there won’t be a concurrent reality of extraordinarily good things happening, too.

Information transparency will continue around the globe, we’ll be one year closer to self-driving cars and ending the 36,000+ deaths on American roads each year, technologies like 3D printing will spawn exciting new industries and there will be more breathtaking scientific discoveries.

At (W)right On, our continuing growth is founded in our willingness to embrace change with gusto, leadership and optimism. I can’t wait to dive into new opportunities this year and continue to do our part to help leave the world just a little better of a place than when we inherited it. How about you?

10 Feelings Anyone Who Works in PR Will Relate To

 

By Erica Gadbois, Communications Strategist

  1. That feeling when… you nail the lead paragraph of a contributed article and it all just flows from there.

kanye

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. That feeling when… your favorite reporter comes through, yet again.

ron burgundy

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. That feeling when… you’re in back-to-back meetings and realize the office is out of coffee.

gaga (002)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. That feeling when… the reporter at the other end of a great HARO opportunity says they’ve had too many responses.

britney

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. That feeling when… you’re out in the field all day and your cellphone gives you a low battery notice.

lauren conrad

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. That feeling when… you and your client partner have the same great idea at a meeting.

samantha jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. That feeling when… you handle a crisis comms situation perfectly.

scandal handled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. That feeling when… you’re in annual planning meetings with your client partners.

oprah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. That feeling when… you can’t stop your mind from wanting to correct every PR fail you witness.

miley

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. That feeling when… you try explaining to your friends and family what you do from day to day.

Bowie

Branding & Pop Culture

Pop Culture branding image

By Erica Schlesinger, Communications Strategist

Jay-Z. Lady Gaga. Kim Kardashian. These names may or may not make you cringe, but one thing they have down to a T is their presence in pop culture, making you aware of exactly who they are. With longstanding stints in the public eye, these celebrities have established a recognizable, trademark presence and personal brand down to a science. Even if you’re not looking to make yourself the next rap-repreneuer, eccentric musical goddess or love-to-hate pop culture fixture, this group delivers some great takeaways that can inform developing and innovating branding and messaging in just about any industry.

Jay-Z

Jay said it himself: “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.” This guy has his hand in more projects than most people manage in a lifetime – besides his obvious source of primary income as a rapper, he owns record labels, liquor brands, nightclubs and more. The backbone of his brand is elevating himself as a high-class jack of all trades, but with a twist – it’s not his businesses that make him, but the other way around.

What he can teach you: Build yourself or your brand up to be the authority, the reigning expert. Identify areas where you can position yourself as a thought leader, early adopter or innovator and capitalize on them. If you’re like Jay and can truly master a number of empires, by all means, do it and do it proud. However, it’s far better to be absolutely stellar at one thing than to be just ok at many – that will build a reputable, strong presence within your industry or with your customers.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is a chameleon when it comes to her style du jour – who could forget her infamous meat dress? – but her brand has been consistent from the start. She lives the old Oscar Wilde adage, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Gaga uses her quirkiness and willingness to dance to the beat of a slightly different drummer to stay on people’s radars, as well as her passionate devotion to human rights causes.

What she can teach you: It is important to build your own brand of weird – it may not even be weird in the literal sense, but just how you set yourself apart from your competitors. What makes you different from them and why? It also never hurts to attach yourself to a cause, whether it’s fighting for better content marketing or making sure your organization spends time giving back. Just one thing – if it’s the latter, please be genuine. There’s nothing worse than using a philanthropic cause just to look good.

Kim Kardashian

Ms. Kardashian cultivates a wide-eyed, vapid persona that makes her seem… well, dumb. But you know what? I’d bet you the whole Kardashian-Jenner and West fortune she’s not.  Think back a decade. No one knew who Kim Kardashian was. And although she may not have burst onto the scene in the most flattering light, she definitely rose above it and has built herself an empire. Sure, she’s famous for simply being famous, but she’s effectively leveraged that to build businesses and amass a fortune that is nothing to sneeze at.

What she can teach you: You can make a comeback. People make mistakes, and these people run companies and develop brands. Maybe a new logo didn’t sit well with diehard fans or a social media manager made a snafu on Twitter. Acknowledge your error, listen to your audience and put a plan in motion to make it right. It always helps if you can laugh at yourself a bit, too – the humanity will be appreciated. Plus, if you’re on the radar for doing something not-so-great, a well-executed new strategy will be even sweeter once carried out.

What other celebrities do you think have PR and branding down? Let us know at @wrightoncomm.

Meet the Team: Kara – Communications Coordinator

Headshot_KaraWe’re giving you the inside scoop on the entire WOC team with our “Meet the Team” series. This month, the spotlight is on our new Communications Coordinator, Kara DeMent.

Kara is known for her “out of the box” thinking and passion for the media industry. As Communications Coordinator, she supports (W)right On’s land development, energy, utility, technology, B-to-B, professional services, hospitality and non-profit clients. Before joining (W)right On, Kara served as a PR Assistant at a boutique PR firm and supported communications for the Orlando Magic and LA Clippers. She graduated from California State University, San Bernardino with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with an emphasis in PR and Mass Communications. As a California native, she enjoys the beach, Disneyland trips, crafting, and being outdoors.

What would you be doing if you weren’t at your current job?

I would be looking for my current job! Haha

What’s one word you would use to describe yourself?

Ambitious

Fill in the blank. “If you really knew me, you’d know ____.”

If you really knew me, you’d know that I have this dream of becoming a New York City Rockette and performing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

What super power would you like to have?

I would love the power of having super strength.

What would a “perfect” day look like to you?

A perfect day would be going to brunch (I love mimosas) and going to a sporting event. Preferably, a Clippers game J

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the past year?

To be patient and know that things will happen when they’re meant to.

Best vacation you’ve had?

A family trip to Walt Disney World, followed by a cruise to the Bahamas!

What’s your most embarrassing moment at work?

There was one time I spilt coffee on Deandre Jordan before a press conference. He was cool about it, but I about died. Haha

Favorite quote?

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” –Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would be cast as you?

Jennifer Lawrence, for sure!

What’s your drink of choice?

Jack and coke.

If you were stuck on an island and could only choose 5 CDs, what would they be?

Usher 8701, Matchbox Twenty Yourself or Someone Like You, NSYNC, Bing Crosby Christmas CD, Brittney Spears (not sure which one though), and Journey’s Escape CD.

Fill in the blank. “People would be surprised if they knew___.”

People would be surprised if they knew that I have a weird obsession with everything supernatural and Harry Potter. I own a wand from Harry Potter Land.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

I feel like I have a lot, but the one that really gets me is when people don’t say thank you.

What tv show/movie is your guilty pleasure?

I have a lot of these too, but if I had to choose one Vampire Diaries would have to be it.

What’s one thing you can’t live without?

Disneyland. Haha

Favorite line from a movie?

One of my favorites, “SANTA, I know him!” – Buddy, ELF

Do you have an office nickname? What is it?

No.

What’s the best/worst gift you have ever received?

The best gift I’ve received would have to be my Mustang. I love that car.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy sporting events, hiking, crafting (specifically painting), brunching, Disneyland, being with my friends and family, and Netflix.