This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from April 2008. We welcome your feedback.
By Linda Forrest
Today, I’m doing a lot of work that’s invisible to the client’s naked eye. Having previously posted on database maintenance, a “behind the scenes” task that is incredibly important to the integrity of the PR campaign, I thought I would post a few other tasks that your agency is regularly undertaking on your behalf, invisibly.
As we’re nearing the end of launch campaigns for some new clients, I’m starting to get a feel for the full range of opportunities that exist in the mid- and long-term for these clients. This means I’m researching the published opportunities available in editorial calendars for target publications for these clients, establishing a list of relevant tradeshows and conferences where company executives could be spokespeople or where there might be value in attending for business development purposes (let’s hope they bear no resemblance to the cautionary tales mentioned yesterday), and generally getting a feel for the PR opportunity outside of the Tier 1, or most influential, media with whom we had in-depth conversations on our clients’ behalf during the launch phase and within which we have a firm handle on the opportunities forthcoming.
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By Linda Forrest
Yesterday, guest blogger Ken Rosen talked about the importance of using the same language as your customers. He referred to not only communication disconnects caused by language barriers, but also how, in order to be successful at customer engagement, you must speak the same language and define both features and benefits in terms that resonate.
How does this approach translate to PR efforts?
We had the good fortune this week again of having the story of a user of the advanced prosthetic technology of our longtime client Touch Bionics go global. The story had all the makings of a great piece – a precocious young man writes a cheeky request to an idol, who in turn pays for his branded bionic hand. This one had story angles to spare: human interest, business, technology, health, science, charity…
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By Linda Forrest
On this blog, we’ve written quite a bit about the PR value of reference customers and how to groom them. What we haven’t yet explored is how your PR team works with the balance of your team to cultivate that reference and ultimately exploit it to the highest degree within your PR program. This post aims to do just that.
How does your PR team know which customers to approach to be a reference?
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By Linda Forrest
There’s an old adage about the cobbler’s kids having no shoes, which means the shoemaker is too busy making shoes for his customers to ensure that his own children have shoes on their feet.
There’s an unfortunate parallel in marketing: marketers are often spending so much of their time marketing to prospective buyers that they fall down promoting the virtues of marketing to their higher ups, who make the ultimate decision about whether to sign off on the proposed marketing budget.
In an agency environment, the failure to articulate the value of marketing and why it’s an investment rather than a cost centre, can spell death for the business altogether. When internal marketing resources fail to sell their marketing proposals to the C-suite, the repercussions are felt far beyond the marketing department as campaigns not fully executed result in fewer leads entering the pipeline and fewer sales down the road.
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By Linda Forrest
Does everyone remember the game broken telephone? There’s a brilliant example of it from the Simpsons that added the phrase “Purple monkey dishwasher” to the lexicon of some circles.
What does this have to do with B2B marketing? When it comes to the media, quite a bit, as it turns out.
As Francis wrote last week, while media coverage is more credible than paid advertising, the message is hard to control:
Media relations practitioners have no say over how much space their story will get, where or when it will run, or what other messages — even opposing messages — might also run in the same story. You can mitigate this lack of control and vastly increase your chances of achieving your desired outcome, however, through the effective and strategic planning of your media relations efforts along with a sharp tactical understanding of how newsrooms operate.
In today’s age of media aggregation, it becomes even more challenging to control the message as media coverage that could be incorrect, misleading, or otherwise wrong can mutate and propagate well beyond the initial piece.
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