By Francis Moran
Thankfully, we don’t get many pitches to this blog from fellow PR types trying to get us to cover their stuff; it’s obvious to all but the most dense that this is a corporate blog that really isn’t a conduit for media relations or blogger relations activities.
But such is the sad state of the PR business that it does happen. And it happened this morning.
Donatien Ratke from a French company called MailerLite — I’m deliberately not linking to the site — sent me not one but SIX emails this morning suggesting this blog write about his company’s “Next-generation email marketing tool.” That he even pitched this blog is a PR failure. Worse, though, is that I assume Donatien used his own new, next-generation email marketing tool, resulting in six identical emails, a clear failure of the software itself. Further, since I have absolutely no relationship with this company, have never given it permission to solicit me and the email has no opt-out mechanism, the whole thing qualifies as the worst sort of spam. That a so-called “next-generation email marketing tool” would even allow such grievous breaches of anti-spam regulations is a further catastrophic failure.
So, Donatien: Welcome to the harsh new world of blogger relations. You got your write-up, but it’s probably not what you were seeking. I hope the users of your new tool don’t make such a total hash of things.
By Leo Valiquette
Communications strategist Caroline Kealey has, over the past 10 years, marched to her own drum as the founder and chief executive of Ingenium Communications.
Her consultancy has carved a niche for itself in the nation’s capital and across the country in the “art and science of communications and marketing strategy” providing, in addition to its strategic communications and marketing services, facilitation, training and organizational development.
As with so many other consultancies, regardless of their discipline, this meant that Ingenium’s intellectual property resided almost entirely within the grey matter of its people, and especially of its leader, Kealey herself.
Six years ago, Kealey decided to change that. Despite being a busy single mother with a full-time business, she set out to lever the insight and expertise developed over a 20-year career into an educational resource for professional development and training. The Ingenium team, with a substantial amount of goodwill and in-kind support from friends and allies, set to work. The outcome is the Results Map, deemed by its creators to be the most comprehensive online tool for strategic communications planning available in the world.
Kealey took the time to share her thoughts on the tenacity required to launch her new venture, the challenges of bootstrapping, and the strategic marketing that has turned a largely local consultancy into a global play within a matter of weeks.
Q: Where did you get the idea for Results Map?
A: I think the idea came from my experience in having written now close to 400 communications strategies across a wide range of sectors and clients. I realized that much of the process is quite repeatable and that we had quite a lot of expertise in this specialized area. I also realized that, while seemingly a bit odd coming from someone who makes her living as an external consultant, optimally this process is most beneficial if it’s done in-house. So, I came up with the idea to package what we’ve learned from experience and create a methodology that communicators can easily apply within their organizations, tapping into their unique knowledge and experience with their subject matter and audiences.
Q: How did you go about validating the idea?
A: This whole project has been bootstrapped on the back of our traditional consulting practice and therefore integrates hundreds of conversations as part of regular client engagements and workshops. We carried out extensive market research to establish if there is anything like this … we looked at comparable solutions for other disciplines and went through an extensive process of one-and-one interviews in 2008 with people in different facets of the industry – academia, public, private, para-public sectors. We used all this to map out a business plan and worked with a focus group of 30 people to validate the concept from both a business and marketing point of view.
Q: What key challenges did you face turning this into a commercially available product?
A: This was far and away the most significant and complex project I have ever managed. The process has been ongoing over a six-year period and has been self-financed. The sheer tenacity and the focus required was a major challenge since the project had to run alongside our regular work and business development. Stitching this together into something coherent with an end goal in mind was a very significant challenge. This is not for the faint of heart.
Q: Where did you turn for sources of funding and other support to develop and launch Results Map?
A: One of the most extraordinary experiences throughout this process has been the generosity of the community in providing expertise (and) resources and offering to make valuable connections. I was really moved to the extent to which people are willing to support an entrepreneur who has a dream. That was a big part of our success – tapping into a lot of local in-kind support, and connections. We wanted to self-finance as much as possible, but did call upon the BDC and a private investor, both of whom have been extremely supportive.
Q: How do you characterize your experience, as an entrepreneur, in trying to secure funding and other key pieces of the puzzle?
A: As is often the case, it’s hard to appreciate the sheer volume of work and energy that this has required. In terms of lessons learned, you can’t underestimate the time and effort that isn’t immediately visible when you set out – the complexity of translation to another language, finding an online payment solution that works, developing a marketing plan, and addressing innumerable technological challenges. It all takes deep consideration, analysis and quality decision-making to position the company for success, and adjust in real-time to dependencies and changes in the development plan.
Q: What key entrepreneurial lessons did you learn through this? What would you do different next time?
A: If you roll back the clock, this could have gone in many different directions. Early on I became concerned by time-to-market and that other people would come in and scoop us. But that was fairly short-lived because I had trouble imagining that there would be too many others who would have the passion to drive through such a difficult task … call it stubbornness or stick-to-it-ness, it was clear that it was the road less travelled.
Most of the development work I did on this was between 5 and 7 a.m. before I got my kids up to get ready for school; that’s obviously not everyone’s cup of tea.
The technical development of the product took place over six months. This was very aggressive and in hindsight could have been done more comfortably over a year or 18 months. However, we had committed to complete and present by June 2010 at the International Association of Business Communicators World Conference in Toronto. As a result, we licensed our training platform from Telesto, a local development firm. Again, my whole orientation was on niche expertise, not on developing a tool in-house, from the ground up. This proved to be a good decision because the time and cost required to create a platform from scratch would have been prohibitive.
Q: What has been the market response to Results Map?
A: A few weeks ago I was running a local consulting company. Now our technology is on four continents and we are writing proposals for Fortune 500 companies … We have reached into some spheres that would not have been possible two weeks ago. We even have the government of Tanzania interested in our methodology.
This is precisely what we wanted to do with this product, have a global impact, and so far it’s off to the races.
Q: How did you take advantage of your attendance at the International Association of Business Communicators World Conference to launch of Results Map?
A: We had a whole strategy to make a splash at that event to capitalize on the fact that there were 1,500 communicators there from around the world. We ran a Twitter contest, a guerilla marketing campaign, exhibited with a booth, and I was a speaker. We very much took our own advice on having a plan and executing against that plan on a shoestring budget. People told us we were one of the highlights of the event, and that is entirely the result of our careful planning in terms of marketing, planning and positioning.
Now the challenge is chasing down all of our leads. The scope of our business has exploded in the space of a couple of weeks so while I’d thought the product development was the end of a goal, it really is just the beginning.
By Linda Forrest
It’s clear that we’re bad summertime bloggers. Sorry about that.
Occasionally there have been topics that have crossed my path in the last month and a bit that I thought could be ruminated on in a blog post, but when the spirit struck, it was usually when I was unplugged completely for a week-plus (No phone, no internet, no email, no television … heavenly!) or too swamped with client commitments to dedicate the time required to write it up. As I recently Tweeted, I haven’t blogged in so long that I suffered a brief case of performance anxiety about picking up the virtual pen once again.
I’m over it now.
I’ve been doing significant outreach in the UK for one of our clients and I’m noticing that journalists over there are far more eager to have a phone conversation with me than many of their North American counterparts. At outlets big and small, I’ve been greeted with enthusiasm, courtesy and appreciation for the information I’m providing, rather than being avoiding altogether, relegated to voicemail hell or, at worst, berated or abused because I deigned to call. All this latter negative experience has been all-too-common with some North American journalists I’ve dealt with in my decade plus as a PR practitioner. This has been a lovely experience and has resulted in some tangible and impactful coverage for my client.
Many of these same editors and reporters weren’t at all responsive to my emails, a distinct change from my experience in North America where calls and voicemails predominantly go unanswered and unresponded to, but emails fare far better. It was refreshing to have so many productive phone calls that resulted in good things for my clients.
I’d posit that the phone calls themselves went so well because we pride ourselves on building out a media list of pertinent, relevant and interested media targets so that we know all of the angles and all of the data points that are likely to result in coverage of our client. Or perhaps I just seemed exotic with my North American accent and that’s why they were so nice to me, eh?
Having had such a good string of calls, I was particularly interested about the articles I read this week about the death of the phone call. At least that’s the snazzy spin that’s put on the article, but the content rather suggests a more integrated communications approach – using the multiple channels available to us to best communicate with one another. The latter resonates strongly with my daily experience, while the former is hyperbolic and not at all what’s truly going on.
In my recent UK experience, I had indeed sent emails to the folks I later spoke with on the phone. For some, they’d read my email and highlighted as something to follow up at some nebulous point in the future, while others fully admitted that they hadn’t read it. That they had it in their mail and could call it up as we were speaking was very useful as they were provided with more information than I could succinctly deliver on the phone.
The rumours of the telephone call’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Telephone calls still play an important role in the PR practitioner’s day-to-day practice; I will agree that their ranking in the grand scheme of all of the tools available may have slipped, but make no mistake – there’s nothing quite like speaking to someone to get your point across. Whether it’s through Skype or an old rotary dial or anything in between, don’t count the phone call out just yet.
As an aside, there’s an interesting corollary to this phenomenon in the world of popular music. When I was growing up, there were scads of popular songs that highlighted the importance of the phone call – from Blondie’s “Call Me”, Phil Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number”, and Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309.” The only popular song of late that references the telephone (at least the only one that’s coming to mind at the moment) is Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” with the repeated chorus of “stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore.” Pop music’s just reflecting our shared experience and indicating that the honeymoon’s over when it comes to our love affair with the telephone.
By Linda Forrest
Well, yesterday was interesting. Ottawa was the major city nearest to the epicenter of a 5.0 (heavily disputed) magnitude earthquake.
A friend who has traveled extensively was rolling his eyes at us meek Canucks, saying he felt quakes like this in Japan all the time. Suffice to say, I’d be a shaky mess if that was a regular occurrence.
Not used to seismic events of any magnitude happening in this area, at first, like so many, I thought there must be a big truck outside making all that noise, but as the shaking intensified, I began to think it might in fact be an earthquake and ran outside. When the quake subsided, I immediately picked up the phone to call the daycare just around the bend to see if either a) I was crazy, or b) did they feel it there too? (I’m not crazy.)
Then, purveyor of media that I am, I instantly began visiting media websites to see if there were any details on what had happened. I went to CFRA’s website, CBC.ca, Google News, Ottawa Citizen – nothing. I checked Twitter and bingo – there was instantaneous, regularly updated information available in real-time, people sharing experiences, jokes, links, statistics…
I was lucky to have spoken with both my daycare provider and my husband, because immediately afterwards, the phone lines were down – both cell and landline – as everyone else in the affected area called their spouses and daycare providers.
Traditional media were not quick enough to provide the information needed, traditional forms of communication were unreliable, but social media saved the day. Within minutes of the quake, thanks to Twitter, I knew where the epicenter was, the magnitude, the affected areas, and more. Twitter really proved its mettle to me beyond a shadow of a doubt as an important, relevant and succinct communications channel. While I’ve been using Twitter as part of my outreach for clients and networking for myself for two years now, I had recently grown tired of the endless witticisms, location updates and general narcissistic tone of some of its users but when push came to shove, Twitter was the most important communications channel where others lagged or failed entirely.
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Before the earth moved yesterday, the power of the media made a technicolour display when Stanley McChrystal, the top general in charge of the U.S. military in Afghanistan had his feet held to the flames for outrageous, disrespectful and unpatriotic comments made in a disastrous forthcoming Rolling Stone article. He had a decidedly uncomfortable meeting with President Obama wherein he tendered his resignation, certainly milliseconds before he was fired.
The article is truly scandalous and worth a read.
As a PR professional, my first thought was HOW did this happen? Are there no communications professionals involved with the highest strata of the U.S. military that would have overseen the opportunity and decided what could be gained by profiling a top general in a rock and roll magazine? If they then decided to move forward, would they not have been along every step of the way, providing both strategic and tactical counsel to the general about what he’s to say and what not to say, key messages, likely lines of questioning, etc.? Surely with an organization so reliant on security and secrecy, the PR team would have also had the opportunity to review the copy for approval prior to publication? Anyone? Bueller?
The most egregious of the comments were off the cuff, said not during any formal interview but when perhaps the general and his team thought comments would be off the record. As we’ve discussed previously, the interview is never over. The journalist was interviewed in the aftermath, also worth a watch.
I’m flabbergasted not only at the comments of the general and his staff but also at the incredible failing of the communications function of the U.S. military in this instance. By contrast, there was a brilliant article on McChrystal’s successor David Petraeus in a recent Vanity Fair. Whether it was better journalism, a better communications team that managed the process more carefully, or just a better man as the subject, we’ll never know.
By Linda Forrest
Oh dear.
The standards editor at the New York Times (@nytimes) has banned usage of the word Tweet, insisting that its use flies in the face of the paper’s general avoidance of “colloquialisms, neologisms and jargon.” His reasoning is that Twitter might be next year’s proverbial bird-cage liner and the Times will have egg on its face for adopting this word before its usage was properly established and therefore considered “ordinary.”
Just today, the Oxford English Dictionary added a number of words to its tome – data center among them. Until now, was that just jargon? When I consider the OED more closely, however, maybe it’s not the best arbiter of what’s ridiculous and what’s not, as evidenced by this meant to be comical but rather frighting piece. I’d be very interested in the standards editor’s position on muggle and gaydar. Perhaps the paper could devote an On Language feature to Frankenfood or bouncebackability… Here’s an interesting article where the columnist behind On Language reports on the fact that Tweet was 2009’s WORD OF THE YEAR. That would indicate that the word is in common usage, would it not?
If it’s familiarity with terms that the editor is worried about he can rest easy in the knowledge that fully 87% of Americans know what Twitter is; you can be assured that fewer people than that know what paleolithic means, Mr. Standards Editor. And paleolithic is exactly how you seem to the 105 million registered users of the platform.
What truly strikes me as comical, however, is that this comes despite of the great extent to which the NY Times itself Tweets, er, writes on Twitter. The paper as a whole, various sections and, according to @nytimes, 96 staffers all have distinct Twitter accounts. I hate to tell you, Phil, but this thing’s catching on.
What I fear is that this indicates a larger problem – how out of touch the media can be with, well, how to be successful in the modern media marketplace. Heaven knows Rupert Murdoch’s plans to rip the Wall Street Journal content from search engines as they erect a paywall is doomed to failure. Should be interesting to watch. The Times itself is planning on employing a metered pay system itself next January. Too late. People have been enjoying your content for free for far too long to want to pay for it now.
This does remind me of a time in 1999 when I was privy to a tour of one of the major record label HQs and the president, when asked what their online strategy was, said “we’ve got a couple of guys working on it. Nobody really knows what they do, but I’m sure this ‘Internet’ thing will be short-lived anyway and we’ve got it well in hand.” We know how that worked out. It would be a shame if the New York Times suffered the same sad fate, but this obtuse move doesn’t bode well for its future.
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Canadian bacon sizzles in the Valley
May 26, 2010 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette Last night, I had the honour of attending the Canadian launch of the C100 in downtown Ottawa at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. What is the C100? It’s a group of those ex-pat Canadians who we refer to when we lament the “brain drain.” They have stepped up to put their time, money and […]
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I’d like to thank the Academy…
May 18, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Many moons ago, we wrote a post that gave a general overview of how awards fit into an integrated PR program. All of this information still rings true. Awards can be a worthwhile part of your communications program, but make sure that the ROI is worth it if it’s something you have […]
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Twitter for marketing and PR
May 11, 2010 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran There’s a witty little joke that’s been running on Twitter for some time now. I don’t remember when I first saw it, but every so often it pops into my Twitter stream and I click through to the punchline again. The otherwise redoubtable @missrougue, Montreal-based Tara Hunt, hooked me this morning. The […]
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PR blogosphere round-up: the good and the bad
May 03, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest In this round-up, I’d like to highlight where to find examples of good PR campaigns, as well as cautionary tales on what not to do. The Good Bulldog Reporter has a feature called Winning PR Campaigns that highlights recent successful campaigns. PRWeek highlights successful campaigns every week, like this recent Seventh Generation […]
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More cheque-book journalism on its way
April 30, 2010 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran The news last week that major international news agencies, including Reuters and Agence France-Presse, were going to boycott the news conference launching this year’s Cannes film festival in a dispute over restricted access to the festival’s fabled red carpet is an uncomfortable but not wholly unexpected consequence of both the blurring lines […]
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The real thing
April 28, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Last night, I happened upon a special on CNBC about Coca-Cola called The Real Story Behind the Real Thing. It was a fascinating look at the soft-drink company whose grasp and usage of marketing is legendary. Legendary also is the grave misstep it made in the 1980s when it launched New Coke. […]
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Return on investment served two ways
April 13, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest I had a long and interesting chat with the publisher of a specialized trade publication this morning, the results of which turned my thoughts to the importance of getting a return on investment in PR. I mean this in two ways: first, getting the most value for your dollars spent with a […]
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Think like the fish
April 07, 2010 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran I can’t remember when or from whom I first heard the line, “Marketers should think like the fish, not like the fisher.” But I have always enjoyed it as a pithy summary of our marketing credo that says you must put yourself in your customers’ shoes when plotting your marketing strategy. It […]
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