I recently finished my third Country Music Half Marathon. When I tell people I walked rather than ran, I usually get a response of “ahhh” said in a tone implying that walking is easier than running. Well, let me tell you (with apologies to Yogi Berra) – walking or running, it’s still 13.1 miles. And, that’s a darn long walk (this year’s 3:48:28 is my personal best).
So, why do I get up early every Saturday morning from January through April, no matter the temperature, and walk distances ranging from five to 10 miles? And why do I religiously track my exercise the rest of the week? Well, yes, there is the guilt-free great breakfast my friends and I indulge ourselves with each Saturday, knowing we already walked off the Weight Watchers points
But the real reason is Personal Social Responsibility (PSR). Not unlike the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs that KVBPR organizes and implements for clients, this is my way of doing something for an organization that is important to many people in my life, Gilda’s Club of Nashville, while doing something for my own well-being at the same time.
And I am not alone. In addition to the 100-plus members of Gilda’s Gang, Team-In-Training, which is a national program that raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, expected hundreds of participants to raise $3 million at the 2008 Country Music Marathon. According to The Tennessean, at least 11 other organizations had teams to raise money or awareness for a cause, like the pink T-shirted, Hula Hooping runners/walkers who hooped the half to raise awareness about breast cancer. Imagine being passed on the course at mile six by a group of thirtysomethings in pink T-shirts rhythmically hula-ing their hoops while speed walking!
All of these marathoners were in it for the long haul. Each has a story about why their commitment to the marathon was part of their PSR – just as businesses should have a clear rationale and plan for their CSR commitments and be willing to go the distance to reach their goals.
Is musician Joe Hayden a rapper, classical banjo player, pop singer or symphonic musician? At a PR workshop I conducted recently for the Jackson Arts Council (JAC) in Jackson, Tenn., participants brought him to life in each of these ways.
At the end of the three hour morning class, I challenged them to practice what they had learned by working in small groups to come up with a public relations plan (with a goal, target audience, key messages and strategies) to promote a fundraising concert by imaginary Jackson native, Joe Hayden, a famous musician returning home to perform a fundraiser for their organization. Each group gave him a different personality, but all came up with effective plans to achieve their stated goals for the event.
After exploring the nuts and bolts of creating and implementing a strategic public relations plan that can be implemented without a large budget or paid staff, I was impressed by how committed the participants were to operating their respective organizations like businesses and maximizing their resources to achieve success.
While success varied from agency to agency, there are some constants. All are dedicated to their organization’s mission and to achieving the financial goals to enable them to further that mission and achieve their goals, whether through fundraising, ticket sales, enrollment or some other measurement.
It struck me that their grasp of the importance of tying your public relations efforts to business goals, pursuing a strategic direction, creating a realistic timeline and budget, measuring progress and doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t was far greater than that of many for-profit businesses.
When you have less to work with, every minute and every cent you spend on your effort is critical. You don’t have the luxury of trial and error. Perhaps those of us in for-profit business could learn some lessons from the successful nonprofits in our midst.
A year ago, our partners asked that I research Web 2.0 and determine which new internet-based tools were successfully supporting corporate communications efforts. Web 2.0, after a quick Google search, is simply the term coined by Tim O’Riley of O’Riley Media, Inc. to define second-generation Web-based communities. In more popular terms, those are the social networking sites.
Today, the sites are part of our daily vocabulary: MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube. But it’s Second Life that’s taken the user experience to a new level – drawing the attention of the world’s corporate giants. Those companies are dumping major marketing dollars into making sure their brands are as prominent in Second Life as they are in real life.
Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world created by Linden Labs of San Francisco, is a social community where you can chat with friends and meet new people with similar interests. Second Life takes the best of social networking and plugs it into a three-dimensional world complete with water, land, trees, buildings and yes, people. Now when users have a conversation with someone it’s more than copy in a dialogue box… there is a face behind it.
How does the 3-D experience ad up for company’s bottom lines?
There has been a backlash of negative attention in recent months surrounding the ad value for businesses investing in Second Life. One of the biggest question marks about the emerging communications outlet is: Will my message reach my audience? So far, Second Life has reported millions in advertising revenue spent in their virtual playground by Nissan, Dell, IBM, Sun Microsystems, among others, but the questions remains… what’s the ROI? You won’t find the answer on the bottom line of your year-end balance sheet or in green next to your stock market ticker.
In the new age of social media, calculating the number of potential consumers viewing your message is not easy because blasting a message is not the designated role of Web 2.0 outlets. Instead, they are designed for user-generated content where the “experience” is most important and can’t be bought, only created.
Take for example, the Geek Squad. In real life, they have built a name for themselves by driving around in their “geek mobile” and dressing in the traditional nerd uniform. Who better to help with the virus on your computer than a computer geek, right? Well now you can save your time (and their gas) by visiting their Second Life office (or islands as they are called in Second Life), where Geek Squad staff keep regular business hours to answer your IT questions… for free! Is this a revenue generator for Geek Squad? No way, even the service representative I spoke to testified to that. But, their laid-back approach has created a consumer-generated buzz, making their island one of the most popular on the grid. So, while their Wall Street stock may not be skyrocketing, their virtual stock amongst a new generation of potential consumers, some nine million strong, is producing steady returns.
Does Second Life fit into my communications plan?
Second Life hasn’t proven to be a threat to traditional media outlets for dispersing news, but organizations are finding their way in this virtual word. The Web 2.0 presence does provide an chance to enhance:
Brand presence: At its most simple, companies create the Second Life version of their Web site, giving information commonly included in the company credentials kit.
Human resources: Many companies including Accenture, U.S. Cellular and GE Money hold virtual job interviews in Second Life. The virtual interview process has become so popular that Second Life now holds its own series of job fairs.
Customer relations: This is another outlet for your audience to find answers to product related questions – an extension of customer-service sites and call centers.
Events: Perhaps the most appealing from a user standpoint, online events such as concerts, book reviews and online speaking engagements have been successful in reaching a large number of visitors.
While Second Life, with nearly $7.5 million in U.S. currency exchanges in Q1 2007, seems like a sure bet for getting in front of the next generation of consumers, the safe call may be to spend some time exploring before investing marketing dollars on creating an island in this vast marketing menagerie.
The prospect listened intently until I mentioned the word “research.” You would have thought I dumped a can of garbage from the nearest greasy spoon on the sleek conference room table by the way he recoiled in virtual horror.
“Isn’t that going to be expensive? I don’t think we can afford … research,” said the prospect.
So begins and ends the conversation about truly measuring the value of a public relations program beyond site clicks and newspaper clips.
Without conducting target-audience research prior to launching a strategic PR plan, it is impossible to collect critical attitudinal information about a product, service or issue and set benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. Results of this research can assist in crafting primary messages, where to focus marketing and media relations efforts – and sets a benchmark for our programs to exceed.
The conversation was salvaged with the prospect by assuring him that research does not have to be expensive. There are methods to gain insight into how target audiences think, feel, react to your product, your company and your competition.
For the Legends Ridge development in Williamson County, we developed economical focus groups of Realtors whose scope of business was homes in excess of one million dollars in the county. We found out their communications preferences, what publications they read and why Legends Ridge wasn’t on top of their list for prospective buyers. With that information, we developed a campaign that included marketing materials, advertising, direct mail, e-mail marketing and media relations. The successful program helped generate the sale of five lots in 90 days and13 houses sold in four months.
Armed with e-mail addresses, the online survey sites SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang allow customers to tailor their surveys and drill down through results to identify opportunities and possible issues. At KVBPR, we have executed our annual client survey through the SurveyMonkey site for many years.
The media coverage audit is an important tool to identify messages delivered to editors and reporters that are passed along to readers/viewers/listeners. Through relationships with trade and consumer media, as well as online searches, our staff knows where to find the stories and how to analyze them.
Meaningful program measurements begin with a research foundation – knowing who thinks what about your organization and why. That beginning allows us to target specific key messages and program activities directly to move the audiences’ thinking and behavior (cost-effective program implementation) – and conducting year-end research provides real results on how successful our efforts have been.
The time is upon us – graduation season. Just one month from now, another crop of PR graduates will be entering the “real world” – transitioning from the world of final exams and nightly homework to 8-to-5 jobs and water cooler conversations. The question is, are these graduates ready? And if they aren’t, do we have anyone to blame but ourselves?
An article titled “Preparing students for the future” in the most recent issue of PR Tactics took a closer look at internship programs across the country. I started reading the article expecting to see positive phrases like “paid internships are the norm” or “college graduates are ready for full-time employment.” Instead, the article stated, “only 36 percent of internships provide salary or stipends for student work” and “about 40 percent say their internship coordinators interact with students three or fewer times during the course of the internship.”
One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from senior practitioners is college graduates lack on-the-job experience and a good work ethic. The only way graduates are going to learn is if someone teaches them. And as public relations practitioners, we are that someone. After all, the future of the industry depends on it.
Internships shouldn’t be viewed as an opportunity to hire cheap labor. And interns definitely shouldn’t be employees who are only seen at their welcome and farewell lunches. Interns are the future of the public relations profession. They are students whose desire to succeed in this industry motivates them to start before they have to. Most schools don’t require internships. Therefore, most interns aren’t doing this because they have to – they actually want to.
I challenge all public relations practitioners to start looking at internships in a different light. The most rewarding experience you can have is to mentor another person. Take it from someone who benefited from a successful internship experience herself – by helping one student, you aren’t just making a difference in his or her life; you are shaping the future of this profession for years to come.
Tuesday night’s debut of Katie Couric in the anchor chair of The CBS Evening News brought on the usual Wednesday reviews - mostly positive, yet not overly enthusiastic - and paid off for the network in a big ratings spike. No surprises there.
It has been years since I watched an evening network newscast with any regularity, but I still knew what to anticipate from the 22 on-air minutes wrapped in the high-gloss patina of Katie Couric’s star power. Headlines. Correspondent reports. An on-air anchor interview.
On the surface, Katie’s newscast was splashier than Rather’s and certainly more colorful than Cronkite’s. What surprised me as the newscast unfolded was this CBS Evening News was less about remolding the institution and more about repositioning the medium itself as a news-reporting tool.
Yes, network television news Web sites are chocked with video, both Web “exclusive” (which previously said to me that the story wasn’t strong enough to make the on-air lineup) and those stories edited from previous newscasts. But in the case of CBS News, a new day has dawned – providing viewers “anytime, anywhere” access to the nightly broadcast via a live simulcast or the ability to personalize the newscast by “building your own newscast” from a series of menus.
During Tuesday’s broadcast, Couric turned the television into an Internet portal – no less than three times urging viewers to the CBS News Web site to see more, learn more or provide her with a memorable nightly farewell.
What this anchor and this newscast recognizes and embraces is that the traditional evening newscast can no longer be that at all. Couric & Co. knows that the future lies in using the broadcast to drive Web traffic and serve as a more relevant news-reporting organization to a wider audience – securing its future and building new credibility with a younger audience as a journalistic force.
It’s fiction. It says so right on the spine of the book, above the title, The Da Vinci Code.
It’s meant to be nothing more than a good read that causes you to pause occasionally after reading a passage and think, “gee, I should take another look at that masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci.”
Why is it that anytime a good read is published, there’s an outcry that the book is going to destroy our faith, encourage bad behavior or corrupt us in other ways. The latest is The Da Vinci Code. Before that it was the Harry Potter series and Harry Potter was preceded by To Kill a Mockingbird and C.S. Lewis books. Fiction is a great escape — transporting the reader to other lands and lives – until marketing muddies the water.
Positive word-of-mouth marketing can land a book on The New York Times bestseller list and get it adopted as a must-read for book clubs. Equally positive (or negative, as is the case here) grassroots advocacy can cause a book to be bashed from the pulpit and on the op-ed pages of the national and local newspapers. The positive buzz can quickly turn to negative and confuse fiction with fact.
The fact is … it’s fiction … fiction that has encouraged people to turn away from the TV and turn another page in the book. It’s fiction that has encouraged lunchroom discussions among co-workers and conversations with friends and family. That’s what a good read is all about.
“Marketers must remember that they’re in the customer advocacy business, not the cost containment business. Forget that fact, and you’ve lost.” – Michael Krauss, Marion Consulting Partners. (Marketing News, March 1 2006).
When it comes down to it, even the best PR is an uphill battle if the core of your business is not customer-centric. Regardless of endless research that proves this point, companies continue to seem stupendously unaware that retaining clients is less expensive and has a far better return than recruiting them.
Take for example, my recent experience at a local kids’ gym. My young daughter attends, and we are about to finish our third 10-week session. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity at a silent auction fundraiser to bid on a $50 gift certificate to this gym. Assuming that we would continue our classes, I bid on the certificate and ended up the highest bidder at the end of the night.
When I presented the certificate to our teacher (who also is a co-owner), rather than cheerfully accept the certificate and be pleased that we would be signing up for a fourth session, she seemed aghast that I had acquired such a thing at a fundraiser – “we never donate certificates of this value” I believe was what she said to me – and was really quite bummed out that she had to honor it. I think she was ready to call her fellow owner (who presumably issued the certificate) right then and there and cuss her out. I could tell she was peeved with her colleague, but I felt as though she also was peeved at me. To further convince me that I was right, she begrudgingly agreed to honor the certificate (for which I did pay real money, you understand), but not the $10-off early bird special they happened to be running that day.
What’s going on here? I understand that a small business owner has to wear all hats – controller as well as marketer. However, when poor marketing has a negative impact on revenue, the controller conscience should recognize the impending “cost” (loss of customer) and back off.
In the book Creating Customer Evangelists, authors Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba discuss how to cultivate loyal customers – certainly for the long-term value they themselves represent, but almost even more for their potential as a volunteer sales force.
Remember the last time you found a product that thrilled you so much you couldn’t stop talking about it to your friends? I remember several years ago discovering Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, which, with just water, made my dingy kitchen cabinets look freshly painted, all because of their amazing cleaning ability. My latest find, thanks to my friend Amy, is the Method line of home cleaning products carried at Target. She gave them to me as a gift; I in turn gave them as gifts to three others and have probably told 10 more about them.
Do you see the potential? Delighted customers can be your best salespeople – they are genuinely passionate about your products or services; they aren’t employees and are therefore more credible, and they aren’t even on your payroll! What’s more, your PR and marketing efforts will go much further when you already have evangelists in the marketplace dousing your prospects with kerosene-like enthusiasm.
Creating customer evangelists is really quite simple: treat your customers as you would like to be treated. Thrill them with attention. Check on their satisfaction. Take every opportunity to say “thank you,” and show how much you value your relationship with them. Don’t quibble over small change.
Meanwhile, back at the gym – actually, we won’t be going back. There won’t be any glowing recommendations about our experiences there. They did not turn me into a customer evangelist. My daughter enjoyed it very much, and they do an amazing job with so many small children. And if someone ever asks me how we liked going there, I’m sure I’ll tell them that. But the bad taste in my mouth will involuntarily trigger an odd look on my face and a hesitation in my voice, and I will be compelled to explain that my business was not valued.
In a column labeled “TV Crime – Fake News,” the Nashville Scene recently took a local TV station to task for running a video news release without attribution.
According to the Scene, the station picked up a story from a network news feed that was developed from a VNR but not labeled as such, leading a local weekend producer to believe it was a network news package and hence “kosher” to use as news. Was that a crime?
The Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) guidelines for the use of VNRs direct managers to determine if the station is able to shoot the video itself or get it through regular editorial channels. If a VNR is used, the stations should clearly disclose and label the origin of information.
RTNDA says stations should determine if the VNR follows the same newsroom standards they have regarding conflict of interest and editorial processes. Producers should question the source of all videos, including network source feeds. (Complete RTNDA VNR Guidelines: http://www.rtnda.org/foi/finalvnr.shtml)
Did the local news producer question the source? Did he assume a story about tax preparation during tax season is hardly controversial or even questionable, especially if its central interview was with the CEO of the second largest tax preparation service in the country? What should he have done? And did the tax company waste its resources producing the VNR if it was going to be so closely scrutinized?
In testimony given before a U.S. Senate Committee last year, national PRSA President Judith Phair said the society recognizes that in strategic communications planning, VNRs can be valuable tools promoting the free flow of information. But, they should be produced and disseminated with the highest levels of transparency, candor and honesty.
Phair also testified that VNRs should provide broadcasters with all the needed information to decide the best usage. Disclosure to the public, however, is ultimately the responsibility of broadcasters.
The lesson: Everyone involved needs to do the right thing. Public relations practitioners should ensure that any VNRs they produce clearly identify the sponsoring organization (client or company paying for the piece.) They should focus on using VNRs to meet public information needs and interest.
The broadcast media, in return, should carefully weigh the value of using the video. If used, it should clearly identify the source, either in audio or in on-screen credit.
When produced following a high ethical standard, and aired by those same standards, VNRs can provide helpful information. And using them is hardly a crime.
I was asked by a young public relations professional last week what I thought of blogs.
My immediate response was there is so much information available to us on any given day, how can we support the proliferation of blogs. In other words, so many blogs, so little time to read them.
On any given day, I read two to four newspapers and receive daily email updates with links to relevant articles from four other publications, email news digests (which include links to blog postings) from four news and industry sources and news alerts sporadically from several outlets alerting me to “breaking news.” And, of course, I try to catch at least one radio news report and one local TV newscast everyday. Oh, and also do my work.
I admit, some days, I skip a newspaper and delete some of the email sources without reading them. And I read some things more thoroughly than others.
What good is a blog if no one reads it? And, that doesn’t take into account the time it takes to write and keep up a blog.
While blogs may be the “in” thing, I predict that in a year’s time, we will see many go by the wayside as audiences gravitate to the most useful, most credible sources and as many of the thousands (could it be millions?) of bloggers out there tire of spending their time pontificating.
