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Practices
Two words - service and industry. KVBPR has a team of experts in every practice discipline. Each partner brings unique talents to the firm, and they continue to recruit and develop a team of skilled professionals.
Practice is defined as repeatedly performing an activity to perfect a skill. That is what we do for our clients. KVBPR practice areas include corporate social responsibility (which strengthens the reputation of a company), crisis management, public affairs, media relations, marketing and corporate communications.
In addition to the broad range of practice disciplines, our team has experience in many fields. But we are also specialists, and we focus a great deal of our work on health care and civic growth and development.
Services
Katcher Vaughn & Bailey Public Relations engages a broad range of practice disciplines to help our clients achieve their goals. KVBPR builds its account teams to match the practices specifically dictated by the strategies we employ on behalf of our clients. Our practice areas are as follows:
Corporate Communications
There is an old bit of wisdom in our profession: Every business challenge is a communications challenge.
It is true. Effective communication — internally and externally — is at the heart of everything you do. It is also at the heart of everything we do for clients.
Our specific expertise in corporate communications includes:
- Assisting in the creation of branded identities and graphic standards
- Creating printed collateral, such as brochures, annual reports and media kits
- Developing Web sites and intranet sites
- Developing, executing and delivering employee newsletters, both print and electronic
Corporate Social Responsibility
Now more than ever, companies must understand the vital importance of social responsibility. It strengthens their reputations and builds goodwill that serves them well during times of crisis.
And it is the right thing to do.
We help clients recognize, however, that social responsibility only BEGINS with volunteerism and philanthropy.
We take a practical, systematic approach to social responsibility. We research and evaluate opportunities. We align clients with organizations that share complementary missions or goals. We strengthen alliances. And we carefully assess the impact of corporate social responsibility programs on our clients' principal stakeholders in business, their communities and the public policy environment.
Crisis Management
Simply put: Organizations are people. Inevitably, even the best people sometimes make mistakes.
With smart, careful planning and effective management, mistakes can be mitigated.
An effective crisis plan is a critical component of any comprehensive public relations program. We counsel senior management to expect — and prepare for — the unexpected.
When a crisis hits, our team engages quickly to execute the plan and contain the problem. Our planning includes:
- identifying potential crisis situations and developing responses
- designating an assessment and response team
- defining an effective structure for decision-making
- establishing protocols for handling media inquiries
- communicating with internal and external audiences
Marketing
At its heart, marketing involves developing the same alignment of interests that we seek in our pyramid model: understanding what your potential customers want or need, ensuring that your products meet those needs, and telling your story in a compelling way.
We help our clients align their products and services to their customers, then communicate a powerful sales message.
Our marketing services include:
- Strategically planning new product, service and company launches to maximize attention in the marketplace
- Assisting clients in creating messages that address customer needs and wants
- Developing effective materials to equip a sales force
- Identifying new or additional markets for existing products
- Utilizing media, trade shows, speakers bureaus, direct mail, print collateral and electronic communication to reach target audiences
Media Relations
We disagree with Marshall McLuhan: The medium is NOT the message (at least not always). But the news media are perhaps the most powerful deliverer of your message.
For that reason, your overall reputation is only as strong as your relationships with the media.
We separate the medium from the message. First, we develop and prioritize your messages. Then we determine which media offer the best opportunities for delivering those messages to your audiences. And then we utilize our long-standing media relationships on your behalf.
Specifically, our media relations efforts include:
- training spokespeople to understand how the media think and how to handle media encounters effectively
- identifying the most appropriate trade or consumer media
- creating the most appropriate materials to pique—and peak—media interest
- building relationships with reporters/editors on behalf of our client
Public Affairs/Issues Management
Government regulation and scrutiny are facts of life for companies today. We cannot change that. Our role is to communicate winning positions on issues with public-policy implications for our clients.
Drawing on our knowledge of the business of government, we activate advocates to educate lawmakers about our clients' positions on the issues.
Among the components of our grassroots campaigns:
- research
- message development
- education and community information programs
- mobilization of allies and activists within organizations
- media relations
- rapid-response crisis management
Presenting issues is not "spin" (a word we never use to describe our work). Instead, we communicate in a straightforward, honest and credible manner that serves both a client’s immediate needs and long-term interests.
To us, practices are more than a theory. We actively apply each practice area within our own company.
Industry
Our experience reflects across a broad range of business segments. We work with — and in — a variety of fields.
But we also pride ourselves as specialists. So we focus a great deal of our work on these priority areas:
Health Care
We possess a singular understanding of the exceptional challenges (and opportunities) presented by health care communications in an environment of stringent, ever-changing regulation; rising costs; and intense public policy debates over health care economics and delivery of care.
Our clients have included hospitals, health care technology companies, trade associations, managed care and insurance companies, and disease management companies.
We provide a diverse group of strategies for clients, including:
- strategic planning and implementation for expansion projects
- product and service marketing
- media relations
- business development
- professional recruiting
- grassroots advocacy campaigns
- crisis planning and management
We are proud of the many awards KVBPR has earned on their behalf. But we are extremely proud of the trust we gain from clients in one of America’s most dynamic fields and Nashville’s No. 1 industry.
Civic Growth and Development
Around Nashville, you often hear, "We are growing so fast … we don’t want to be another (fill in the blank of any large city where its downtown core is desolate and suburbs have given way to exurbs)."
At KVBPR, we believe in civic-minded growth; in other words, planning growth in an intelligent fashion that doesn’t destroy the landscape or the culture that is singularly Middle Tennessee. We represent engineers, architects, land planners, a real estate firm, as well as a land conservation organization. The firm has helped revive a dormant residential subdivision and conducted public policy campaigns to gain approval for new developments.
We take a 360-degree approach to what we call civic growth and development work. Our account team assesses the community environment – the possibilities and challenges -- and crafts specific strategies to identify and engage local advocates and educate the public about a particular project. We develop plans of action for all approvals or work with our clients in the business-to-business space to make certain they’re known to their prospective clients and customers – no matter where they live.
Most importantly, we conduct business in a manner that creates relationships of trust. We recognize that growth and development is not a short-term proposition. And trust is the best assurance of long-term success.
Business to business
The business-to-business environment is different from consumer media relations or public issues management. It’s much harder to reach business decision-makers.
We begin the quest by asking the same critical questions: Are we targeting Main Street or the C suite? What motivates them? How can we impact their business?
By asking (and answering) these questions, we identify strategies for clients allowing them to make direct contact with their business audience and structure relationships based on aligned interests—the foundation for success.
Focusing our efforts builds a depth of expertise that benefits our clients. As a firm, we do not aim to be all things to all people. Instead, we aspire to be everything that a select group of clients need in a public relations partner.