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While it may not be the norm in public relations just yet, integrated communications is starting to take up more bandwidth in the PR process.
At our recent PR Agency Elite Luncheon, PR News spoke with Lia LoBello, a management supervisor at Peppercomm, which captured the Elite Award for Integrated Communications. LoBello shared a few tips on how PR execs can maximize integrated communications.
LoBello said that Peppercomm’s motto, “Listen, Engage, Repeat,” is the agency’s driving force behind working with other marketing disciplines. She added that in order to demonstrate their value, PR execs need a “deep understanding” of myriad marketing disciplines and should help decide how melding the various marketing channels together will create the best go-to-market strategy.
In helping to create integrated-marketing plans, PR agencies also need to take a “deep dive” into social media, LoBello said. “You need to take a hard look at all of the social channels,” she said. “Using Instagram may require a different approach” than Facebook or Twitter, for example. You have to match each social channel, if it’s appropriate for the campaign, with the ultimate goals of the client....
Much has been shared about the way the PR gig has changed over the past few years. While all of what’s being said is accurate and important, noteworthy is the fact that seeking new business has also changed. Listed here are a few of the ways new business generation has changed since I first jumped into the business:
In 2013, prospects find you. This is the first and by far the most significant item on this list. Prospects find agencies or individual PR professionals in a home office somewhere by way of their online presence. That’s an online presence far beyond just a website – although that remains hugely valuable. Prospects are looking for professionals who practice what they preach, and who are active and engaged....
Even as economic power has become increasingly concentrated in large corporations, communication power has become more diffuse. Most of us now carry global publishing power in our pockets, and we are connected to one another like never before. This combination of access and interconnection gives us the ability to make or break reputations and brands.
For the last two years, I’ve had a unique vantage point on this tumultuous change, as chair of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, the confederation of the world’s PR and communications professional associations.Professional business communicators are on the front lines of the communications revolution. The Global Alliance represents 160,000 practitioners and academics around the globe and I’ve been able to meet thousands of communicators on every continent, from at least 30 different countries and many different cultures. Based on that experience, I can share a few insights about how communication is changing the world of business — and how business communication itself must change as a consequence....
To be successful in the new multichannel and digital age businesses have to adopt an integrated approach to marketing.
And as companies seek to join up what have often been siloed activities, agencies are moving towards a fuller service offering to cater for the increased demand.
Data included in our new UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2013 shows that more than half of agencies (52%) now offer a ‘full range of digital marketing services’, an increase from 45% in 2012 and 42% in 2011.
In comparison just 12% of agencies specialise in SEO while 7% focused exclusively on paid search. A further 10% of agencies carry out both SEO and paid search....
For the first time ever, our clients have the ability to generate content in multiple forms--they are content publishers.Historically, the PR industry has revolved around media relations. Over the years, many firms have talked a big game about providing other services, but almost all buttered their bread by generating a mound of media clips for their clients.
Are media relations still important? Absolutely. Do we still provide media relations services at Peppercomm for most of our clients? You bet.
But, unlike the past, it’s not the focal point; instead, it’s one of many channels that we use to reach and engage with our client’s most important audiences. For the first time ever, our clients have the ability to generate content in multiple forms and distribute via a number of channels, and audience members might even feel compelled to circulate themselves. It’s no longer enough for a consumer products manufacturer to run 30-second TV spots touting their products. Now, they need to understand consumers’ lifestyles and engage in a meaningful, fully transparent way that brings real value to their lives.
This is why agencies like Peppercomm are starting to look more like publishers and less like traditional public relations firms. Companies need content that engages audiences and builds their brand’s value among stakeholders. And, if they know the best channels – digital and otherwise – in which to reach their audiences, they need agency partners that can develop content in multiple forms and distribute it effectively....
We all love lists, especially “best of lists” related to our own profession. It is even better, of course, when people we know actually make the list—and when we make the list ourselves. A number of “best PR blogs” lists recently surfaced. InkyBee, Cision and CyberAlert all weighed in, tackling the ranking in different ways using a variety of criteria....
Take a moment to think about what’s just happened in the last 6 months. - Facebook allows images in comments. - Instagram allows videos. - Twitter allows video through Vine. - Podcasting is back in a very big way. - LinkedIn rolls out video ads. - Google+ Hangouts integrate YouTube, Slideshare, and many other media types.
Think about how many different kinds of content these changes encompass. Video. Audio. Images. Text.Think about what it costs to license information from all of the different stock sites you work with on a regular basis.The public relations agency of the future will have a library, a digital repository of content that’s ready to go at a moment’s notice, and the associated creative team to help build and maintain it. Forward-thinking agencies already do....
Agencies that promise placements on the Oprah Winfrey Network and ‘The Rachael Ray Show’ in exchange for thousands of dollars don’t represent PR as a whole, but not everyone realizes that.
More often than not, organizations look for external PR help without understanding how they work. Here are seven reasons you're not ready to hire a PR firm.... Sometimes the prospects are start-ups and they want to trade services for equity. While I’d love to be able to do that (Jay Baer does some angel investing and coaching), we can’t make payroll with equity. So we often turn away those opportunities. More often than not, though, the organizations just aren’t ready for outsourced marketing and communications help. Seven Reasons You’re Not Ready to Hire a PR Firm Throughout the years, I’ve figured out the questions to ask to disqualify prospects (eventually I’ll take Marcus Sheridan’s advice and send them content that helps me disqualify them). If you think you’d like to hire a PR firm, go through this list first....
Best tip for how to pitch a client? Don't make them feel defensive. They may want better online marketing, but criticism of their website can feel personal. ... And now some kid tells you that your website has serious problems? And you have to fix them right away? And it’s going to cost you how much money? Does he really think he knows more about your business than you do? It really can’t be that bad or you would have noticed. You’re doing just fine, thank you very much. That’s exactly how business owners and stakeholders can feel when you’re pitching your services. Defensive. As an online marketer, you know that your work on their website can improve their business and help them make money. You even have proof in the form of research and reports about their website and their competitors’ websites. But if you put your potential client on the defensive, chances are that you’ll be escorted politely to the door even if they’re the ones who asked for a proposal in the first place. Instead, when you’re thinking of how to pitch a client, anticipate the reasons that they might feel defensive and try to prevent it. Here’s how....
I'm a big believer in lifelong learning and the importance of listening before crafting a communications strategy, much less a campaign.
But, I recently learned a very painful lesson by violating my own code of listen first, last and always.
The setting was a new business presentation to a professional services firm. Because I'd done so much work in the field over the years, I just assumed I knew what the prospect's challenges would be. Even worse, I was so blinded by the brilliance of what we'd built at Peppercomm over the past 18 months or so that I didn't listen when the prospects began to explain why they were firing a global, holding company and looking for a smarter, nimbler and more creative partner....
Is your business as profitable as it could be? Here are top tips to help you thrive in the current climate and key ways to cut costs, based on research into today’s most successful agencies... Chris Merrington, director of training consultancy Spring 80:20, who worked in conjuction with Kingston Smith W1 to conduct the report's research, comments: “A key recommendation that I often make to the PR agencies that I work with, whether during tough times or otherwise, is to focus on the four key business priorities of: sustainable profitable revenue, resource management, cash flow and delivering massive value to clients. Agencies can’t simply cut their way to growth; a trap that many seem to fall into.”...
Our Los Angeles-based friend, Serena, tipped us off to Time's Editor-at-Large, Harry McCracken. Harry has started posting bad pitches on his Facebook page. And we're glad. But we're betting the agency that sent it would like to send him the above someecard.
Facebook: Our Inner Dialogue...Online
Social media tends to become an inner dialogus of sorts. And we want folks like Harry to vent the pressure of bad pitches. Am I being dramatic? Well a now ancient sitcom once said, "Serenity Now, Insanity Later." And Facebook's serving that purpose for Harry....
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On Thursday, Ketchum scored another public-relations coup: It helped place a Putin commentary in opinion pages of The New York Times, just as representatives from Russia and the United States were beginning to meet in Geneva to negotiate a plan for Syria to give up its chemical weapons.
The article made quite a splash in Washington. Putin painted himself as a peacemaker and lectured the United States for what he said was a tendency to use "brute force" in world disputes. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said he was "insulted" by the article, while the White House noted that Putin was taking advantage of press freedoms unavailable in Russia.
Ketchum, a division of the Omnicom Group Inc., has earned more than $25 million working for Russia, according to documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. It also has been paid more than $26 million since 2007 to promote Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas company....
Doug McKinlay, a 71-year-old ad professor at Brigham Young University, worked as an unpaid intern at dallas agency Richards Group over the summer.
Would your agency ever consider hiring a senior citizen for a summer internship?
In a business that's obsessed with hiring the hottest young talent boasting digital experience, most shops would probably balk. But 71-year old Doug McKinlay -- an ad professor at Brigham Young University and former agency owner -- took a chance anyway, and proposed an internship to Dallas-based Richards Group this summer.
"The industry is moving at Mach One and academia isn't moving nearly that fast," Mr. McKinlay said, comparing the pace of changes to advertising curriculum to "the speed of a receding glacier...
New webmaster rules from Google just killed PR agencies according to Tom Foremski's post "Did Google just kill PR agencies?" last month.He highlights a Google webmaster update warning about black hat, linkbait press releases and other similar improper SEO content practices trying to manipulate search engine results.Look out PR agencies Foremski warns....
The competition between public relations agencies and inbound marketing agencies is heavily one-sided. What can PR professionals do to step up their game?
Most agencies (advertising, social, search, design, digital) realize that inbound marketing isn’t just some concept waiting to get trumped by the next fad. It’s actually a comprehensive, forward-thinking type of marketing that puts the power in the consumers’ hands. I know this can be scary for some, and that may explain why not everyone is as excited about inbound marketing as they should be.PR agencies have all the makings of successful inbound marketers (in fact, some could argue that public relations professionals were the original inbound marketers), but for some reason they just don’t seem to get it.
Rather than integrating their practices to keep up with the competition, they are choosing to stay in the background and focus on less competitive areas like crisis communications, social monitoring and CSR.For the past few years people have actually been saying that PR as we know it is dead. Rather than adjusting to the new world of journalism, many PR agencies are content to sit on the sidelines and wither away while other firms take their business. Which makes no sense, because public relations is the industry most similar to inbound marketing....
It’s just over a hundred years since the first press release was issued by a company in an effort to tell their story in the media. In 1906, after a railroad accident, the company hired a journalist to help them deal with the disaster and the media coverage. Soon press releases and media relations became a core part of public relations.In the 1930s radio was a part of most American households.
Companies and PR agencies soon realized that just sending a text press release to a radio station was not enough. Sending a photograph was a complete waste of time. This was a new medium with new technology and it needed new content. And so the sound bite was born. Smart PR agencies and company PR pros quickly learned how to make 15-second audio clips to send with their releases.
And then came TV. By 1955 half of all American homes had a TV and this became the medium of choice for news. Smart PR folk had to adapt once again....
Toward the end of the meeting he asked us to describe how he knows if the communications firm is the right fit for them. A data scientist, he wanted something solid on which to place his decision.
Unfortunately, I told him, 99.9 percent of working with a communications firm is gut, chemistry, and trust. But I could tell he was very uncomfortable with that answer and I’ve been thinking about it since.
I, of course, have never hired a communications firm because I’ve worked inside one my entire career so I had to put my business owner hat and think about how we hire professional services firms for work we can’t do.
PR Firms: Is it the Right Fit?
So how do you know if the PR firm is the right fit for you?...
Here are some telltale signs you've been in the PR rat race a bit long.... It's tough being a public relations pro these days. Reporters don’t respond to your daily pitches; clients want more media hits. You’re tasked with creating content for social media only to find out your client can’t tell the difference between a like and a tweet. Digiday spoke with several public relations execs about how they know they’ve been in PR too long. Here are 20 reasons it’s time to hang up the PR spikes....
Two huge public-relations firms are going into the advertising business -- focusing on areas that are natural extensions of PR.... In general, public-relations firms have been quicker to adapt to the changing social-media landscape. It's not just the big players like Edelman and Weber Shandwick. Independent firms such as Shift Communications and Digital Influence Group saw social media, and in turn content marketing, as a natural extension of their mission. It's important to note that public-relations firms aren't banging down doors to break into the traditional advertising world of print and television, at least not yet. Rather, they're smartly taking advantage of opportunities that have come their way. For example, the concept of native advertising -- embedding paid content in an editorial environment so that it is barely distinguishable from the journalistic information around it -- is conceptually the same as placing press releases that look like independent journalism. It's a natural fit for public-relations firms. These firms come to this new world with advantages. They understand the publishing business and have a long tradition of collaborating with publishers to create content. And they get that content marketing is not only about creating interesting material; it is equally about managing the distribution of content through all of the social channels. With the major social platforms like Facebook and Twitter introducing paid-media opportunities, the public-relations firms simply are climbing on board.
Only a few weeks before I participated in a panel with Steve Barrett, the managing editor for PR Week, on “The Future Of PR Firms” at the North American meeting of global PR network IPREX. I had initially prepared 11 critical capabilities I believe agencies must offer or actions they must take to successfully serve their client partners in the years ahead. But on contemplation, I realized these are the capabilities firms must have today, or at least have a strategy to get them in the very near future. They can do so via training, new hires, acquisition, alliances, getting purchased, or some combination thereof. I share Danny’s view: If some of your competitors already offer these, why would your firm wait until 2017 to do so?
On February 14, a group of senior corporate and agency PR executives came together, under the sponsorship of PRWeek and MSLGroup, to discuss a number of issues that had also been on the agenda of the World Economic Forum at Davos.... Veronis Suhler Stevenson (http://media.prsa.org/pr-by-the-number/), a leading private investment firm, is bullish on our industry. They’ve predicted that annual U.S. spending on combined public relations and word of mouth marketing services will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 14% between 2010 and 2015, to $10.96 billion. (Of course, not everyone agrees.)...
When first striking out on their own as businesspeople, many consultants and designers don’t know how to bargain or strike a deal. Consider this story from Ted Leonhardt, cofounder of The Leonhardt Group and a consultant for design businesses. What would you do in this situation?...
Hiring a public-relations firm for your small business can be a difficult decision. There's no guarantee that a PR campaign will produce the desired results, and the costs can be quite high. Yet, a successful campaign can help you expand your business in ways you never could on your own. So how do you find a PR agency that is likely to benefit your business? "It comes down to a combination of your budget, expectations, their track record in delivering results, and your chemistry," says Dave Manzer, founder of PR Over Coffee, an Austin, Texas organization that educates small businesses on how to do PR. Here are 10 questions to help you assess PR agencies...
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Social media business - social media marketing, HR, recruitment, sales, customer service | culture and Internet / social media addiction and trolls - Call Peter on 07930330125 or email peter@peter.uk.com
Highly useful information to have in regards to marketing, as well as other perspectives of PR