You may think that collaboration is a natural component of the client-agency relationship. But in many cases clients don’t fully utilize their outside PR team’s expertise. Here’s a rundown of best practices for collaborating with you PR agency:

1. Involve the agency in your strategic planning. Some clients plan their PR on their own and then bring in their PR firm to help with implementation. But incorporating an outside agency’s experience and recommendations for developing a strategic communications plan while still in the planning phase will likely generate a more comprehensive communications program from a strategic and tactical perspective. After all, you are hiring your firm because they bring valuable expertise to the table!
2. Provide information that’s complete. Agency team members are often hamstrung by clients who don’t provide the right or enough information to do our jobs. We can’t speak to the media on your behalf, write effective content, or development strategic programs and messaging without a full understanding of your business.
3. Be responsive in a timely manner. Granted, even when you arm your PR team early-on during the planning stages, they will still need to address last-minute issues which are often driven by media queries – this is the nature of our industry. So why prepare your agency and then be slow to respond when media results are nearly secured? PR is driven by news, and as you know, news becomes “yesterday’s news” almost immediately in today’s world of instant communications. If your PR team is unable to instantly respond to a media query journalists will move onto other sources and opportunities will be lost!
4. Allow access to internal and external company resources. By letting your agency communicate with spokespeople, employees and even customers you enable them to gather a variety of perspectives about your business, which in turn trigger more ideas and lead to the development and execution of a more effective and authentic PR program.
5. Avoid filtering information. Keep your agency abreast of changes or potential problems that may impact the communications effort. Such transparency will enable you to work together to adapt the program as needed. You must be able to trust your PR agency.
6. Be inclusive. PR agencies are all too often the last ones to know what’s going on, so they’re chasing news rather than out in front of it (as much as they can be with social media). Good clients consider their PR people as part of their inner circle, the A team, THEIR team. This, of course, is predicated on the fact that your agency has proven to be big thinkers, knows what questions to ask and isn’t afraid to ask them. If this isn’t the case, find a new agency.
7. Trust your team. Trust is the foundation of a successful collaborative relationship. Consider your outside PR agency as an extension of your team. By fully integrating your efforts and COLLABORATING you will ensure efficiencies and maximize your budget. Your team AND BRAND are more likely to succeed!

We’d love to hear about your agency-client collaboration experiences. What has worked and what has not?

We took the opportunity this Valentine’s Day to pinpoint some of the creative marketing efforts associated with this day and wanted to share a few:

1. Social media provides immediate access to a world of information and resources which can completely save the many procrastinators in our lives on Valentine’s Day (and I’m sure you know a few). If you are among these procrastinators, you may want to watch this YouTube video by Socialnomics for some helpful tips on how not to disappoint your significant other on Valentine’s Day or other important days throughout the year.
2. On a holiday such as Valentine’s Day, which is all about relationships, one must ask “is social media making relationships more impersonal?” As sociologists and generationalists continue to study and debate how social media is impacting social skills – especially among younger generations – it’s comforting to read that 76% of social media savvy women recently surveyed by Socialmoms.com choose to give up Facebook over sex with their spouse on Valentine’s Day. Thank goodness!
3. As we’ve all witnessed, nowadays holidays and occasions provide an increased shelf life for brands to deploy extensive integrated multimedia marketing campaigns. This year’s Super Bowl was a shining example, with top advertisers engaging us though public relations and social media marketing for weeks leading up to and after the four-hour event. Valentine’s Day is no exception as demonstrated by a wide range of campaigns such as Mattel’s Barbie and Ken promotion. Fans voted in advance on whether this “couple” should reunite, with product sales being made available on Facebook for the first time ever on the day of the actual holiday. It will be interesting to evaluate post-event sales results on Facebook since this was unprecedented for the Barbie brand.

Newsmaker Group would also like to jump on the Valentine’s Day band wagon by sharing our own heart-felt appreciation for all the people who make our company a success & such a wonderful place to do business, including our clients, fellow Newsmaker Group-ers, and of course our friends in the media!

We’d love to hear about social media campaigns that stood out to you this Valentine’s Day.

Who to pitch
Clients often ask “Why does it take so much time to pitch my story to TV news targets?” That really isn’t the right question to assess if your media relations representative is handling this task properly. A more relevant question is “How long did you spend researching the producers you are pitching?” Connecting with the appropriate newsroom contact is essential, and this requires researching what topics they cover to determine if your story is appropriate for them. A producer who oversees health stories won’t be interested in a new sneaker design just because people wear the product while exercising. A more effective approach would be to target the consumer products team about a round-up on the latest fitness apparel. You could also consider pitching business producers and reporters if the new sneaker represents a new business strategy for the maker. Bottom line — you’ll achieve better results pitching five highly targeted producers that cover your beat rather than 300 producers who do not.

When to pitch
Another important aspect of pitching TV is understanding the typical newsroom schedule. A newsroom is always busy, so there is never a great time to call. In most instances, early is better, especially in the case of daily news shows that assign stories during a morning meeting. The biggest no-no when pitching TV is DO NOT CALL WHILE THE TARGETED SHOW IS ON AIR. First of all, your contacts want YOU to be watching the show, and secondly, the show’s producers will be watching the program themselves or working on last minute details. If you can avoid it, don’t try to compete with breaking news or anticipated busy news days, such as when the President is in town, a severe weather day, or even when a local accident or crime is capturing headlines.

To pitch or not to pitch … this is the most important question
We understand it’s desirable to be on TV but the best PR professionals will tell you honestly when your story is not appropriate for this medium—maybe because your company, product, or expertise is not relevant enough to TV viewers; cannot be linked to a larger issue; or doesn’t offer the necessary visuals for TV. The main thing to remember is that television is about reporting breaking news and timely feature stories that are of interest to an audience comprised of multiple demographics. So producers need to consider if a story will appeal to a large percentage of the show’s viewers.

What to Pitch
Once you decide that your company, product and/or spokesperson are right for television and you are targeting the correct producers, you need to pinpoint your angle. A product or company on its own is not typically newsworthy and, in fact, can be viewed as too commercial. A good media relations team will find newsworthy angles tied in with trends, pegged to round-up stories that minimize the “sales” aspect of a story segment, and/or be armed with facts and data to make the story more interesting.

Next you should ensure that your pitch is targeted, quick, concise and very to the point. You should be able to explain your pitch idea in one very appealing and interesting sentence that will hook the producer or at least buy another minute on the phone.

I recently spoke with a morning show producer who told me I needed to “make her love the story.” And this was only half the battle! Once you get a producer to bite, you’re not home free. Your contact must then pitch the idea to the senior producers. Many stories don’t make it past this point. But if you take all of these steps, you have a much better chance of booking a segment or at least starting a dialogue with a producer.

While many forms of media have evolved over the years, when it comes to pitching TV, the basics have stayed the same. Relationships are crucial; knowing your story in and out is fundamental; and understanding the producers’ areas of interest are essential to securing TV coverage.
We’d love to hear about your experiences with TV pitching.

Daily papers and 24-hour cable news channels will dedicate countless pages and hours to political wheelings, dealings and the latest voter polls. Furthermore, throughout the year nearly every news outlet will cover the 2012 Presidential election to some degree. Since the 1990s, for example, MTV has reported on presidential elections, so even Snooki and The Situation need to make room for MTV’s “Power of 12” campaign coverage. Even subject-specific outlets like Field & Stream, Apartment Finance Today, and Seventeen include election-related content in their 2012 editorial calendars.

So, how do you break through election overload? Relevance!

This does not require you to take a political stance. Rather, consider ways of tying your communications tactics and messages to the election topics. Think consumer real estate business, for example. How could communicators tie this business to current political events? Well, with elections, winners and losers move in and out of WashingtonD.C. How about writing an article offering tips on a moving check list, or researching good schools for children, or understanding renting/ buying trends?

An energy company or utility could leverage the elections with a thought leadership strategy and speaking engagements designed to educate customers about the related policy positions of Democrats and Republicans. Expert media interviews, blog posts and even speaking engagements can focus on the world with and without natural gas, for example.

PR professionals employ this opportunistic strategy regularly. Olympic Games – can you offer media fitness experts or travel destination recommendations? Back-to-school season – do you represent a technology that can be positioned as a trend to the academic community or students?

What are some of the creative ways you’ve tied your brand or expert to the day’s news?

Like all business practices, PR programs must be strategic. Once you have determined your communications objectives (see A Portrait of a Good PR Client – Part 1, Understanding You Goals), the PR team can analyze the best way to reach your target audiences and influencers.

For example, let’s say you manufacture glow in the dark snow boots. Certainly a fairly unique item that would get the attention of media. But consider your goals. Are you looking for investors or trying to sell your company? Or is your primary objective to increase sales among women. If it’s the latter, although a business story in The Wall Street Journal may be impressive, it likely won’t reach the target audience that will generate sales.

You also need to consider your capabilities. While a segment on “Today” would expose your product to a large number of consumers, you must evaluate if you have the bandwidth to respond to a significant increase in demand. Remember, “satisfied customers” is one of your selling points – don’t damage your reputation because you can’t fulfill orders.

Look to your PR agency to identify the most effective way to engage your customers. To reach your niche target market, our efforts would include tapping into consumer magazines, newspapers and news programs, as well as online and social media opportunities that focus on relevant audiences (e.g., Women’s Health, OutsideMom.com, Colorado Snow). A focused approach will lead to results that are strategically aligned with your business plan!

Now that you’ve accepted it may be a waste of your time to sit down for a one-on-one with Oprah, you should understand how time – and timing – influence PR. Many media outlets, even some online news sites and daily papers, work weeks or even months in advance of publication. For instance, a member of our team scored a great product review in one of the country’s leading daily newspapers in January 2012 – it took a year from pitch to placement!

PR goals. Target audiences. Lead times. Rely on the experience and expertise of PR professionals for developing a strategic communications plan that effectively incorporates these factors. And we’ll leave the glow-in-the-dark snowboot creations to you!

First stop, Washington, DC. At 9:00 a.m. at the National Press Club we orchestrated a press briefing about Lufthansa’s biofuel test and the previous day’s inaugural transatlantic biofuel flight to the U.S. The event attracted more than a dozen journalists and industry experts, including representatives from The New York Times, Aviation Daily, Seattle Times, Bloomberg News and more. (We love the photo to the left which pictures the natural ingredients used to make biofuel!)

Next stop – New York City where we hosted an annual New Year’s media luncheon at the Mandarin hotel. 20 journalists attended from outlets such as Conde Nast Traveler, Departures Magazine, New York Times, and Travel & Leisure. Senior U.S. Lufthansa Group airline executives presented key brand updates for Lufthansa, SWISS, Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines. As we discussed in our holiday blog entitled Promoting Your Brand During the Holidays, in-person contact goes a very long way. The relationships we build with press during an event like this are extremely beneficial to our year-round efforts.

Here are some key takeaways about why these dual events were a flying success:

• A truly seamless client-agency relationship enabled us to be effective and efficient.
• As a firm specializing in media relations, we understood how our long-term nurturing of media relationships would really pay off, garnering strong media interest in announcements and events.
• Newsmaker’s “dual client representatives” approach, through which we ensure two senior executives are immersed in each account, allowed us to address the simultaneous needs of Lufthansa both in DC and NY.
• As a consumer and business-to-business public relations specialist, our team’s versatility enabled us to effectively attract business and industry media to the DC event, and consumer press in NYC.

I have always found the Lincoln Memorial to be a wonderful place for reflection, sitting on the steps looking out over the Reflecting Pool, Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol in the distance. The steps also immortalize the “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just a few months ago a memorial honoring Dr. King was unveiled not far from the Lincoln Memorial. As chance would have it, my visit fell on the weekend that celebrates King’s contributions, which further enhanced the sense of inspiration I felt during my first visit to this monument. As I read and contemplated the quotes carved into stone around the memorial and gazed upon the enormous sculpture of Dr. King I also looked around at my fellow visitors – among them a mother and young daughter, couples and even a famous filmmaker – and imagined what they were feeling. Black and white, old and young – I sensed we were simultaneously sharing an experience as well as forming unique memories as we reflected on Dr. King’s legacy.

We’ve come so far as a nation, but I think we would all agree that we have miles to go. I was in town for a media event showcasing biofuel. The future of power from plants! Surely a science fiction notion just four decades ago. Such advancements are truly amazing. But I believe we must always have an eye to the past. Rather than holding us back, honoring our history reminds us of what we are striving for – and the sacrifices of those who helped us get this far.

Trait #1 – Understanding your goals. When you embark on a public relations program, odds are your overarching purpose is to increase sales, drive another type of action, or simply to “generate publicity”. But these are too vague. Marketing teams need specifics to create an effective strategy that achieves meaningful goals to positively impact your business. So consider additional details, such as:

• Who are your key competitors and what are they up to?
• What are your unique selling points and what impact can you reasonably expect these will have on your target market?
• Can a member of your team be positioned as an industry thought leader, and if so, what would be the benefits?
• What is the size of your marketplace and what type of reasonable growth can you expect?
• Can you prioritize the demographics of the target audiences you’re looking to motivate?
• What communications efforts have been successful for you in the past? Which have not?

With this type of information, your PR agency can effectively plan and strategize your campaign. If you’re unsure how to articulate these details, don’t hesitate to ask the agency for advice. Or, for comparison, reference other campaigns that appear to have had similar objectives. Certainly no two campaigns can (or should) be the same, but it’s a starting point for identifying and communicating your goals.

To be continued — Trait #2 – being realistic about results and timing…

Don’t forget the JOY of the season
Laughing releases the feel-good endorphins (just like chocolate, but with fewer calories). Call a friend and ask for the funniest thing that happened to him or her this year. Play your favorite winter holiday comedy DVD or watch some funny videos on YouTube. Life is too short to be stressed out all the time.

Kiss the cook!
Go inside the kitchen and give a helping hand. You can create your original dish, or just pass the ingredients to the chef. While the turkey is baking in the oven share stories and jokes.

Have a picnic outside in the snow
We know it’s cold. But wrap yourself up and serve the appetizers with a side of snowballs if you’re fortunate to be in a location where there’s a “white Christmas!”

Have a family dance contest
Come on, you know this would be HYSTERICAL (and imagine the pictures you can share year after year!!). As your relatives gather around the fireplace, feeling peaceful and quiet, liven things up by cranking some tunes. Could be traditional holiday music, or old classics – whatever gets things in motion.

Be generous
Winter holidays are a time of giving. This doesn’t necessarily imply spending a lot of money. Generosity can be expressed simply by sharing a compliment, or being a good listener to a friend. Your love and thoughtfulness often make the best gifts!

How do YOU relax during the holidays? Let us know by leaving a comment. Thanks!

Seasoned communicators are well versed in the traditional elements of a marketing plan, including determining goals, identifying target audiences, crafting messaging and ascertaining effective vehicles. But there are other factors that must be taken into account. These moving targets can make it pretty difficult to lock-in a final strategic communications plan. Some you have no control over, such as the fluctuating economy, – while others present opportunities to which you can adapt to maximize results – namely, the changing social media landscape.

With today’s blog we tackle the social media landscape, and how trends and opportunities can impact your planning. To start, let’s have a quick look at social media statistics for 2011:

• LinkedIn has two new users every second
• In June Facebook officially passed the 700 million user mark
• Since the beginning of the year Twitter has made at least 528 changes to its site
• AND, most importantly, now everyone agrees that social media must be taken seriously by everyone!

So, beyond simply posting, what are some social media tactics you can integrate into your strategic communications planning?

1. Choose the most effective ways to communicate with your audience via social media and then properly prepare stakeholders for maximum effectiveness. Are your spokespeople and top executives trained to communicate via social media or are they still only familiar with traditional forms of communication? How can social media tools be best used to interact with your customers? Will you simply use social media to post information, or are you prepared to participate in the active engagement your audiences expect?
2. Get to know what your target audience is thinking and what they’ll respond to. The most effective way to know them better is to arrange focus groups, so consider ways to conduct in-person interviews if possible. But since time and funding don’t always allow for this, turn to social media for this type of one-on-one engagement by posting polls on Facebook and Twitter, posing questions to your LinkedIn groups, and more.
3. Check that you have enough resources to effectively implement a social media campaign. Before you begin planning, determine your budget. There is no point to creating a plan with numerous components if you don’t have the team to implement it. And look to free and inexpensive tools, such as Facebook ads and YouTube, that let you target users by the interests or brands they like. When utilizing Twitter, tap into free services from HootSuite or SocialOomph to research and set up keywords so you reach individuals who are likely interested in your activities.
4. Don’t forget to monitor and measure results. It is vital for future campaigns to know what you did right. Study communications strategies that fans “liked” for similar organizations or in your own earlier efforts and continue in that direction. Conversely, analyze unsuccessful efforts to see what needs to be improved in your communication strategy.
5. Finally – BE FLEXIBLE. Flexibility is an important feature of your entire communication strategy – not just social media. Alternate plans or the ability to adapt a strategy in response to the marketplace and other factors can mean success in 2012. After all, it’s only a matter of time before we’re reflecting back once again!