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Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• June 27, 2008
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By Linda Forrest

As we here at inmedia are coordinating our upcoming vacation schedules and as next week has two major holidays in North America that kick off in earnest the sorts of summer activities that Nat King Cole envisioned in the song whose title is above, we begin to hear the common summer rumblings from clients and prospects about whether media relations efforts are best left to the Fall.

There’s a common misperception that summer media consumption drops away to almost nothing and that your investment is better spent holding off until the Fall. This very topic was explored in detail last year at OCRI’s Zone5ive, by Veronica Engleberts of Vector Media, a media planning and marketing agency here in Ottawa. The presentation has really stuck with me because it provided effective proof points to support the idea that marketing needs to be a year-round activity and that those companies that go fallow as the mercury rises are losing momentum by sending their marketing efforts on summer holidays.

Consider this, from Veronica’s presentation: “If every one of your prospects took a vacation at some point in July or August, it would amount to an average of 11% of prospects in any given week. Can you afford not to advertise to the other 89%?” Excellent point. Yes, people do take holidays, but not all your customers or prospects are away for the entire season. Why miss the opportunity to make some noise when perhaps your competitors are taking the summer off from getting their messages out?

With regards to media relations in particular, which is our bailiwick, there are even more compelling reasons to carry through with your campaigns. A lot of the media outlets that we target on behalf of clients are trade publications, some of which are glossy print publications with long lead times, sometimes three months or longer. So, by ceasing the conversation with these publications in the summer, we would, in essence, be scuppering our chances at seeing some coverage in the Fall editions. Our actions now are targeting opportunities through the balance of the year and beyond. Effective media relations is a consistent effort that is cumulative; it’s important to maintain regular contact with our targets through myriad tactics as you can never be sure when the tipping point will be that will secure the most impactful coverage available with that outlet. It’s quite possible that the editors are suffering from a content famine in the summer, prior to the feast that is that Fall when everyone ramps up their efforts once again.

Does this mean that I’m advocating sending out a news release on Canada Day or on Independence Day? Of course not (unless it’s really bad news, of course, and you’re hoping to bury it…) But to take the rest of the summer off is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Marketing strategy
• Public and media relations

Dealing with the media ain’t rocket science

• Posted by Leo Valiquette
• June 26, 2008
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By Leo Valiquette

OCRI’s last Technology Executive Breakfast of the season this morning featured three media figures well-known in the local business community, commenting on how to successfully engage the media.

With the catchy title of “Evaluating your media technique: Are you a hooker or a pusher?”, CFRA‘s Rob Snow, CTV-Ottawa’s Paul Brent and the Ottawa Citizen’s James Bagnall discussed what it takes to grab and hold the attention of the media, from the perspectives of radio, television and print.

Despite the fact that these local outlets are far more horizontal than the majority of the trade and industry press we predominantly deal with on behalf of our clients, there are plenty of worthy points that apply across boundaries. Many of these points, I’ve commented on before (Engaging the media: Part I and Part II), drawing on my own years as a business journalist. The messages from the fellows this morning boiled down to the following points:

1. Know the outlet you are pitching. Is your story the kind of material a particular media outlet is looking for? Easiest way to find out is read it or tune in to see what kind of news has been covered.

2. Make your message clear, crisp and comprehensible by the majority of people. These aren’t engineers you’re pitching to. In one example offered by the speakers, a long-winded pile of techno-jargon was distilled down to “It makes your cellphone battery last longer.”

3. Appreciate the value of an informed public relations intermediary who can speak with the media to provide more background, context and explore additional story angles if a journalist interested in the story needs more information.

4. Consider the medium. Print, radio and television all have different needs. Print can devote inches to detail and background. Radio needs clear communicators who can hold an audience. TV demands graphics, images and descriptive video. As Paul Brent says, a viewer should be able to understand what a broadcast story is about without having to hear the audio.

5. Be available. This one struck the greatest chord with me. As a journalist, I can’t remember the number of times we decided to act on a press release, only to find that the contact listed was on vacation. Or PR people who offer a source for comment on a given issue or topic, then act as if it’s a hassle for them to set up the interview when you take them up on the offer. Even more important is the willingness to respond to bad news as well as good news. It’s the only way to have any part in a story that will likely get written regardless of your participation. For some reason, bad news just won’t go away if you ignore it.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I remain convinced that the vast majority of journalists are looking to provide accurate, factual and compelling content for the readers to the best of their ability. But they’re also working under tight deadlines, often with little time to devote to research. It’s in the best interests of any PR person, therefore, to do their own research and ensure they taking the right story to the right outlet and have readily available the information and sources the journalist needs to produce a quality piece by deadline. You can’t control what a journalist ultimately writes, but you can work with them to ensure you have provided everything you could to prevent any unwelcome surprises when you pick up the paper or turn on the TV.

Leo Valiquette

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

Determining the right level of investment in PR

• Posted by Danny Sullivan
• June 26, 2008
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Danny Sullivan

For companies looking to establish a PR program, there is a burning question that rises above all others: how much should I invest in PR to achieve the best return? Every company is different, and simply throwing more money at a program is not necessarily going to improve results.

Is it reasonable to expect a PR firm to be able to determine the optimum workload that a new client will require, without having truly tested the opportunity that exists to tell the story? I think not.

Sure, doing some initial analysis of the relevant media landscape, editorial calendars, and so on, will help give you an idea of the potential that exists, but you can never be confident of this without a comprehensive exercise that truly tests the story among its target media.

Here at inmedia, we insist on conducting an initial “ramp up and roll out” exercise on behalf of almost every new client, even if they have executed a PR program prior to our engagement with them.

While immediate media coverage is invariably a valuable byproduct of this exercise, its real purpose is to allow us to assemble the detailed level of understanding required to be able to confidently describe the optimal PR program for the road ahead. The feedback garnered from conversations with the top media targets provides us with insight into the kinds of opportunities that can reasonably be expected over the course of an extended program, and thus gives us the ability to recommend a level of investment that will allow our clients to take advantage of those opportunities.

Danny Sullivan

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

If you’ve got it, use it

• Posted by Leo Valiquette
• June 25, 2008
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By Leo Valiquette

This may be a little off topic for a public relations blog, but it’s one of those issues that can have far-reaching consequences for any organization, impacting productivity, staff morale and the retention of top talent.

I’m talking about vacation time. We want it, we count the days till we can take it, and yet, many of us find one reason or another not to indulge. At least, that’s the conclusion of a report in the news today which you can read at the The National Post, which found that 29 per cent of us are not taking our full allotment of vacation time each year, despite that fact that increased and more flexible vacation time is a big magnet for getting new bodies in the door, especially with the 20-something crowd. According to the study, $6.3 billion worth of vacation time is being given back to employers each year, the equivalent of about 41 million discarded vacation days.

This is creating a condition known as “vacation deprivation,” most often sparked by fears of missing important meetings and being perceived negatively by co-workers and superiors.

Get over it. If you are a valuable contributor to your organization, your allotted vacation time is your just reward. Sure, there’s always a measure of inconvenience when a member of the team is away for a period of time, but that shouldn’t be seen as a barrier to a deserved break that will help one recharge the batteries and return to the job rested and renewed. It’s a short-term pain for a long-term gain. The alternative is burned out employees who no longer perform at their optimum level.

At my previous employer, staff were not allowed to carry over vacation time, or take cash in lieu. The emphasis was on giving staff the break they needed, in no small part because of the liability issue if someone ended up on a stress leave and could blame it on the employer and vacation deprivation.

So as we head into the hot and hazy days of summer, don’t begrudge yourself, or your staff, the right to take that much needed break. I’ll be at the cottage myself next week.

Leo Valiquette

Posted in:

• Random thoughts

The best earbud ever and outstanding customer service, too

• Posted by Francis Moran
• June 24, 2008
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By Francis Moran

I have written a few posts (Take One and Take Two) about the generally lousy job too many companies do at taking care of their customers once they’ve made the sale. It’s a phenomenon that frustrates the customer in me and utterly bewilders the marketer in me.

The customer frustration bit is obvious, and I doubt there’s a fellow citizen who has not railed against robot voices that answer the phone and can’t help, so-called customer-service agents who eventually come on the phone and can’t help, or web-based “Contact us” forms that never generate a reply or that generate a meaningless reply that can’t help.

The marketer in me is bewildered by a strategy, so widely deployed it has come to be accepted as the norm, that has companies treat their only source of revenue as something icky that has been scraped off the bottom of their shoes and must be disposed of as swiftly and cheaply as possible. A large forest of trees has been pulped to print all the studies that prove that superior customer service is clearly the most potent differentiator in an era when your technology advantage can be leap-frogged, your cost advantage can be evaporated by an offshore competitor and brand loyalty means increasingly less and less.

So I am one cynical and unhappy old crank, both personally and professionally, when it comes to any expectation that any customer-service experience is going to be a happy one.

Which makes it all the more enjoyable to report on one that went phenomenally well.

While in Las Vegas a few months back, I bought a Jawbone ear bud for my iPhone. I’m an early adopter, remember, so having a Bluetooth wireless earbud is nothing new for me. I bought an early product from Jabra many years ago that created an unholy echo on the Treo I used at that time. I replaced it with a Treo-branded device that squashed the echo but had a lot of trouble holding its pairing with the phone. I had heard a lot about the Jawbone, and I held off until I was able to visit an Apple store to buy it because I wanted to make sure it would work properly.

Man, was I delighted. It is easily one of the best pieces of new technology I have ever used. It is gorgeous in design, brilliant in feature and utterly reliable. What a standout.

Except I broke it.

Okay, I broke one of the little ear loops that come with it. (They give you four, two of different sizes for each ear. They also give four little snap-on buds so you’re sure to find one that fits comfortably in your ear. This recognition that one size does not fit all is just one very-well-thought-out element that makes this thing such a standout.)

So I went on Jawbone’s website to see what could be done to replace the broken loop. I fired off one of those “Contact us” emails and assumed I’d never hear anything back.

Well, turns out their customer service is every bit as brilliant as their technology. Ben, from the Jawbone Support Team, emailed me back. My first surprise was that he had actually read and understood my full email. He knew I had recently bought the device but couldn’t prove it since Apple, in a breakdown in its customer-service department, had failed to email me the receipt for my purchase as the Apple store clerk had promised. No problem. Turns out there’s a small date code etched on the Jawbone. I sent that to Ben, and he said he’d need a delivery address. I gave him one, and he promised I’d get a replacement loop in five to seven business days.

Now, this is where my cynicism went into overdrive. Up to that point, I had not mentioned that I live in Canada. So I wasn’t too surprised when a couple of weeks went by with no sign of a package from Jawbone.

Until a little box showed up the other day, containing a complete set of four loops. It was later than promised, but with good reason. I had provided my home address, but my office postal code. That was my mistake. Then, someone in the Jawbone shipping department compounded my mistake by replacing my home town of Ottawa with Toronto. So a thoroughly buggered address, and yet it still made it to me.

So there are two customer-service heroes in this story. The first is Jawbone, which has salted an already superior customer experience. Very wll done, Ben, and the rest of the Jawbone Support Team. And the second is Canada Post, which persisted in its task and eventually found me. For the record, that second one doesn’t really surprise me; Canada Post is consistently exceptional at what we pay it to do, usually delivering letters here in Ottawa the morning after I post them.

Francis Moran

Posted in:

• Product marketing
• Public and media relations
• Random thoughts