When it comes to reaching and selling to government agency decision-makers, a colleague of mine often smartly reminds our clients and prospects of the following: there is no “government.” By that, he means there isn’t this single, monolithic entity you can build B2G PR and B2G Marketing campaigns around. 

It is far more nuanced; not only between DoD, civilian, homeland security, intelligence, federal, state, and local but often down to specific agencies. Or in the case of DoD, specific Bases, Programs, and Offices you may want to reach, such as The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Project Convergence 21, Army Futures Command, DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), StateRAMP and so many others. 

The Account-Based Marketing (ABM) approach (which encompasses Account-Based PR as well) has been around for decades – often a core concept for B2B enterprises to leverage data on a prospect’s specific needs and priorities that they can then build highly customized lead generation campaigns around. ABM and ABPR are also relevant for government contractors, Federal IT providers, and others selling to the “government”, because as we noted each stakeholder target is driven by different needs and priorities. 

In my last blog post I looked at B2G PR and Marketing strategies for government contractors involved in M&A activity. Today’s post is more broadly geared towards organizations looking to develop a highly targeted B2G Account-Based PR strategy to effectively reach, influence, and sell to specific government stakeholders.

Before embarking on this effort, consider these 6 strategies:

Tailor efforts to government acquisition cycle.

Sounds basic, but when you are working backward to build out a multi-month strategy it matters. If you build a PR campaign that starts too late (or early) you will not be hitting decision-makers at the optimal time when they are primed to be thinking about buying new products and technologies. 

You know the Federal fiscal year by heart (Oct. 1 – Sept. 30), and that State fiscal years vary slightly state-to-state but most run July 1st-June 30th). Recognizing that agency decision-makers will cycle through various stages of the buyer’s journey during these months, PR programs should tailor content and PR efforts to align with that calendar. Depending on how well known your brand is to the decision-maker(s) you want to reach, winter and spring may be better suited to awareness and education campaigns. Thought leadership in the form of speaking, byline articles, ads, and sponsored content can start the process of making your brand more present to relevant audiences. As summer approaches the buyer mindset shifts more to decision mode, so pushing PR efforts further down the funnel can mean case studies, webinars, white papers, and lead gen paid social campaigns speaking to highly specific target pain points and solution benefits make more sense. PR during this time should also call out clear differentiators relative to competitors. As September approaches and agencies accelerate buying, PR can be utilized to really hone in on specific individuals to make sure they have the full brand and solution story.

Account for contract vehicle structure 

Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ), GSA Schedules, Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), BPAs, Small Business Set-Asides and, well you get the picture. There is no shortage of contract vehicles that a B2G organization is pursuing at any given time. Each vehicle has its own requirements, which means that decision-makers may be looking for different messages. For a single-award IDIQ, you may need to center PR activity around your own capabilities and ability to deliver as a single vendor. For other vehicles, PR needs to account for the strengths of multiple vendors. Each account or agency-based PR campaign should account for contract vehicles if your efforts are specific to one vehicle. 

Approach B2G PR as you would advertising

PR and advertising are not the same. But they share commonalities when it comes to effective campaigns. For one, you can’t just hit agency decision-makers once or twice and expect those efforts to be sufficient to make an impact that lasts weeks or months through the buyer’s journey.

Like advertising, repetition matters. Unless it is the Super Bowl, brands don’t just buy a single ad and then return to regularly scheduled programming. For B2G, you have to not only hit prospects over time but do it through multiple channels. If you are targeting a specific Army base, a PR campaign can develop messaging and content around specific programs at that location. These efforts can be buffeted by paid media campaigns that are geo-targeted around the base locations. 

Finally, despite COVID-19 and expanded remote work, your buyer is likely to still be commuting to and from government offices, bases, or facilities at least part of the time. Beyond reaching decision-makers through earned and paid media, consider Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising on billboards, transportation, and public transportation in the early brand awareness phases of your ABPR campaigns. The diversity of channels you can push messages across – in addition to the frequency – is a powerful combination if correctly targeted.

Participate, differentiate, dominate

If you are a well-known commodity within the public sector great, PR to support contract pursuits won’t require a lot of focus on establishing brand credibility. But there are thousands of firms selling to the government, and even if one agency or DoD unit knows you, others may not. Or they may know you for some products and services but not others. 

The point is, securing inclusion in articles in government publications about trends and challenges of interest to agency decision-makers can be critical. So if you are a lesser-known brand, step one is to participate: start participating in conversations even if it is alongside competitors. “No one gets fired for buying Microsoft” is an enduring adage, but if your brand is listed alongside larger competitors and multi-billion dollar government contractors, it can raise brand credibility. Then, once you start participating in media articles, there is an opportunity to differentiate your technology from competitors. What makes you different? How are you better positioned to enable mission success? Finally, you can start dominating conversations, driving the conversation as a market thought leader and innovator. 

Tailor PR content for top-down and bottom-up approaches

The straightest line to securing government contracts often leads to the senior-level leadership involved in direct buy-in for vendor products and services. But depending on what you are selling, bottoms-up PR and content development can have value. Think about the ultimate users for services like DevOps, technical audiences that can get exposed to your brand and capabilities. If a team of developers or developer managers pushes senior leadership to evaluate your solution that will carry significant weight.

As you develop a PR and content strategy, consider the level of content to reach varying audience levels. Technical content that resonates with product/technology users won’t have the same impact with senior leaders more focused on mission success and doing more with less. 

Get creative

Account-based PR for B2G has been upended by COVID-19. In-person conferences, events, and demo days that offered an opportunity to reach agency decision-makers directly pre-COVID are gone and will be slow to return in full force. At the same time, large chunks of the sales process have shifted from physical to digital. 

B2G firms that have succeeded over the past year stayed nimble and creative in reaching these audiences. Some are evaluating and deploying Digital Briefing Centers as a way to surround prospects with thought leadership, rich content, and interactive UX and recreate the in-person premium briefing experience lost during the pandemic. Elevating your brand and solutions above the crowd is always a challenge, even more so in a digital world where the barriers to entry drop dramatically. 

If you are a B2G brand interested in exploring integrated PR and marketing campaigns that target specific government agencies, programs, or decision-makers, give Bluetext a holler as we’d love to chat.

Software as a Service (SaaS) companies often run into a problem when they launch a new product or unveil updated features: they find it hard to secure the outstanding press coverage they expected. There’s a reason for this: the SaaS market is extremely crowded with tons of capable competitors, and, as a result, the media landscape for these technologies is heavily saturated.

To add to these challenges, SaaS technology is intangible. It is, as the name implies, a “service.” Unlike physical products that can be examined, physically held, or even photographed, SaaS is software delivered via the cloud. 

So, when looking to drive media coverage, the biggest question SaaS providers need to answer is how do they differentiate themselves from their competition? Looking to PR agencies as a resource is a great way to solve this dilemma. The PR agencies that are most successful in the SaaS space are the ones with a deep and wide understanding of the competitive landscape. An experienced B2B PR agency brings an informed third party perspective to identify where market gaps and needs exist, and how your particular solution can fill that gap. As an agency, these PR professionals have an acute awareness of industry competitors’ voices and most sought-after media outlets. The agency can lock in on your company’s niche, cultivate creative solutions to bring the organization’s message to the market, and understand the media landscape in order to capitalize on what storylines are driving coverage.

Finding SaaS Providers’ Niche

The first responsibility of any PR agency working with a new SaaS client is to determine what differentiates their client’s product from the competition. As the client, you have expert knowledge of everything your product has to offer, but may be challenged to find that one angle that makes you unique. For example, is the solution a scalable, cost-effective offering that enables organizations to deploy it quickly? Or does the technology excel by delivering top-level security automated backup to facilitate easier user management?

Whatever the case may be, in order to secure media coverage in the desired tech-media outlets, PR organizations must hone in on what makes that SaaS provider’s technology noteworthy. Once this differentiating factor is identified, the next step is to come up with creative tactics to highlight the benefits of this technology to intended prospects. 

Cultivating Creative PR Solutions

Given the SaaS marketplace is so crowded, core PR components of strategic news announcements, conducting media outreach, and authoring thought leadership contributed pieces hold value, but there is more that needs to be done. As such, it’s crucial to experiment and be as creative as possible to create the most engaging content. 

One potential alternative solution is hosting webinars. Webinars enable SaaS organizations to bring their message directly to digital audiences. It’s a strong engagement tool that can be leveraged across social channels for multiple months and on your website after the live premiere, initially as gated content and then for open viewing. Inviting key members of the press to attend is a great way to cultivate relationships with reporters as well.

Creating testimonials of past customer success stories is another way to demonstrate how SaaS providers’ technologies drive key wins. These can take different forms – videos, print/digital case studies, or even a dedicated page on the organization’s website – but the goal should always be the same: draw attention to how your SaaS solutions have succeeded in the past and what made them successful.

Finally, social media is a critically important tool that can not only promote how SaaS providers’ solutions work but also serve as another way to engage with reporters and news outlets by sharing past coverage pieces that are informative, engaging, and well-written primers on topics that matter most to the SaaS organization and their customers.

Capitalize on the Media Landscape Momentum

“Newsjacking” larger PR stories with relevant SaaS messaging is also crucial to driving media coverage. In fact, the most successful SaaS PR pitches often leverage stories or trends happening in specific industries related to how the as-a-Service model meets organizations’ pain points. 

For example, when COVID-19 hit, government agencies were forced to reexamine how they work in an unfamiliar setting while school systems and students had to quickly adapt to remote learning. These rapid shifts demanded new technologies for workers and students to succeed that could be deployed quickly and cost-effectively. Both situations drove significant media coverage in the early months of the pandemic.

Leaning into the stories that are resonating most with the media at a given time enables technology providers to emphasize trends they’ve seen work best for their customers and contribute to meaningful conversations. Newsjacking is where you should especially lean on a PR agency’s expertise. While your company may have subject matter experts in technology, think of your PR agency as your subject matter expert of the media landscape.

How to Choose the Right PR Agency Partner

For SaaS providers that are feeling overwhelmed when it comes to dealing with the media, PR agencies like Bluetext can serve as a valuable resource. But these technology organizations should be wary of who they enlist as a partner. 

SaaS organizations should be sure to ask for agencies’ past client work and case studies. Feel free to ask questions that test the agency’s knowledge of the SaaS space. You want to be confident that your PR agency partner features individuals who have successfully worked in this industry previously.

To drive the most success with PR agencies, it is essential that SaaS providers feel they are incapable and knowledgeable hands. Embarking on partnership with an organization you do not trust will simply lead you back to where you started: unsure how to drive media coverage that features your product.

Want to know more about Bluetext’s past success with SaaS PR clients? Get in touch with us.

Developing an effective Business to Government (B2G) marketing strategy to reach decision-makers in the public sector requires a handful of marketing tactics, perhaps the most impactful of which is a well-founded public relations program. However, before diving headfirst into a multi-faceted digital marketing campaign, it is critical to recognize that government agencies have many different challenges than private-sector organizations, and therefore doing business with these agencies requires a much more tailored approach.

Many government agencies, especially at the state and local level, work in silos — meaning that it is often difficult for these agencies to get the technology, resources and expertise they need to efficiently serve their citizens. One recent survey found that more than 80% of U.S. government officials feel their agency is technologically behind where it needs to be in order to handle the new challenges it faces.

In order to effectively engage federal, state, and/or local government agencies, businesses must first understand the perspectives and challenges those entities face and where to best reach them. Once you’ve gotten a grasp on the barriers and challenges agencies face in working with you, you can begin to build out a content strategy that addresses those challenges and helps you get a foot in the door. Luckily, experienced PR agencies are well-versed in how to help cultivate messaging that will resonate with both government-oriented media outlets as well as the decision-makers themselves.

Target content at agency decision-makers 

In order to speak the language of government decision-makers, contractors need to develop content that speaks directly to agency decision-maker pain-points. Government agency contractors must also understand that government decision-makers are driven by different motivators than in an enterprise environment. 

Everything does not necessarily revolve around profits for them, therefore content must speak to decision-makers’ primary pain points. Messages that pivot away from the bottom-line, and refocus on unique challenges of the targeted government agencies will earn attention. Timing is also critical — organizations must hit decision-makers at the right time in the procurement process with content and knowledge that stands out in what is a very commoditized market where government-contractor and tech company messaging all seem to blur together.

Establish expertise in your market category

Understanding your organization’s existing and aspirational market footprint is the first step in carving out a niche that you can own as a thought leader. For example, there are countless cybersecurity vendors in the public sector, all of which sell a variety of security solutions that promise relatively similar results e.g. “visibility, detection, the response against evolving threats.” To gain real traction as a thought leader in the public sector, you must drill down into your specific two to three areas of expertise.

Once you’ve laser-focused on the arena in which you’re planning to own, a PR team of consultants can help you build out an editorial calendar of topics and discussions you want to participate in to align your content with quarterly and annual sales goals. This process of self-vetting and prioritizing will result in an organized and unified message about your company and its areas of knowledge when featured in editorial and published content.

Identify and prioritize your future-oriented solutions

Many organizations in the B2G marketplace make the mistake of getting stuck in the ruts in which they have always operated. They may have one or two solutions that sell well to their target audiences, so they become complacent in innovating new product lines or messaging. 

For example, in the 1960s and 70s tech-giant, IBM’s top-grossing product was a typewriter. It may have seemed safe at the time to streamline their operations and prioritize their top-grossing product as opposed to developing and pitching new products and technologies to their customers. With the benefit of time we now realize that typewriters were soon made obsolete by keyboard computers, meaning that if IBM would have centered its business model around typewriters, they would not be the tech giant with a global footprint they have today.

All this goes to say, it is imperative that businesses selling to government agencies consider that their top-grossing products may soon be eclipsed by newer, faster, stronger, and more advanced solutions. Keeping an eye and ear toward future government agency needs will help organizations stay on the cutting edge of tech demands in government. Cultivating relevant, thought-provoking content that stands out to public sector decision-makers is one of the primary in-roads to conducting business with the government. If you want to learn more about how we have driven successful B2G content programs through PR and digital campaigns, get in touch with Bluetext.

Amidst all of the business uncertainty in 2020 due to COVID-19, one area that remained relatively stable was a healthy volume of M&A activity for government contractors and government IT service providers.

You would be hard-pressed to find a tech PR and marketing agency that has helped to support the number of successful M&A events in the public sector space as Bluetext. It’s a big reason government contractors and Federal IT providers – along with private equity firms – turn to us to develop B2G PR campaigns that are designed for this very purpose. Thirty-four times in fact, Bluetext clients have been acquired within 24 months of an engagement with our agency.

I recently put together an op-ed for Washington Technology with 5 key PR strategies for B2G firms to consider before, during, and after an M&A transaction event. You can find the article here.

To learn more about our work with B2G clients in the M&A arena and how we may be able to help you achieve your own M&A goals, contact us today.

There was a time not so long ago when organizations could navigate the ebb and flow of the 24/7 news cycle to maximize how and when they shared important corporate developments. Much of the traditional news cycle ended in March 2020, as COVID-19 took over the news like nothing we have ever seen before. And rightfully so, as it’s affecting millions of people around the world in myriad ways. 

For B2B technology firms – a market category Bluetext frequently works with – a status quo media relations strategy will not cut it.  Between the pandemic and the media domination of the Trump Administration, one could argue we’ve operated in a relentless “breaking news” cycle for the past 4+ years – creating an unprecedented challenge for B2B brands to get their message in front of the right audience at the right time.

Here are 4 considerations for your B2B PR strategy during the pandemic:

 Find your story, but don’t chase it

Ambulance chasing is never the right PR strategy. But throughout the pandemic, many B2B firms are playing a role in protecting citizens and workforces – or helping businesses and consumers adapt to the world we now live in.

Whether your work involves efforts to deliver advanced data analytics being used to inform health and economic decisions, technology to improve contact tracing efforts, or cybersecurity solutions to protect the ever-expanding attack surface brought on by near-full remote work, there are stories to be told and people who want to hear them. So, find your story; but don’t chase it. Your voice during extended crisis events like the pandemic must be authentic and focus efforts on contributing to the conversation, not the bottom line.

Don’t wait long for news cycle gaps

If you are waiting for the news cycle to slow, give it up man. The pandemic will remain the prevailing narrative for months to come. Stay committed to your PR strategy, but depending on the nature of each news announcement, ensure the messaging is relevant to the current environment businesses, workforces and consumers face. Even in today’s news cycle, there is room for stories that are about things other than COVID. Product launches, funding news, survey data, and company milestones will all continue to be covered––and it’s possible to share this news without being tone-deaf to the economic realities of today. While it may not receive the broad coverage typically expected before the pandemic, if it’s a good story and important to your business it’s likely that there is a publication that’s open to writing about your news. This leads us to the next tip…

 Know your beats and boundaries

Journalists have been dealing with the same work and life challenges as the rest of us. With so many working remotely, some PR flacks are blurring the lines between business and personal communications profiles. If you find yourself dialing a reporter’s cell phone number to pitch them on your client’s new product, first ask yourself which reaction is more likely: will they answer the phone “Hi so and so, great to hear from you” or will the retort be “how in the heck did you get this number?” And if it’s the latter, don’t say you lifted it from a 2015 RSA pre-registered media list. Hitting them up on social media? Maybe. Again, it depends on the nature of your relationship with the reporter and the type of social network communication.

The pandemic has also undeniably shifted newsroom structures and beats. Some reporters have shifted partially or fully to cover various aspects of the pandemic. This requires keeping your finger on the pulse of what reporters are covering – as these shifts may create new challenges and opportunities. 

 

[Almost] Always Be Closing

Within B2B tech yes, reporters still want to hear about groundbreaking technologies. But there is also an awareness by journalists of the broader challenges that organizations face achieving growth, positive company culture, and workforce productivity in a pandemic. In other words, reporters also want to cover the human side of business. 

 Don’t be afraid to look for stories in new places. Are there employee stories you can highlight? How about the way in which you are keeping employees connected virtually or new ways that work is getting done? These stories may not drive sales but they can help with positive brand awareness and talent acquisition.

 

Want to find your story? Get in touch with Bluetext. 

 

A common question we get from new Public Relations clients and prospects at Bluetext is ultimately the most important one: how do you measure results? Organizations, understandably, seek the same depth and breadth of metrics for public relations that they can achieve with their ad spend, SEO, and other lead generation activities.

If you go back several years, the metrics query is one that would trigger beads of sweat to stream down the foreheads of PR professionals across the world. Why? Because the way marketers want to measure (activity spend — sales) doesn’t always fit neatly with how public relations works. 

If a B2B, B2G, and B2C technology firm decision-maker reads an article referencing your company and then three weeks later decides to visit your website or reach out to a sales contact, it is very difficult to track that back to the initial PR hit as you would if the lead clicks on a digital ad or trackable piece of content. Top of funnel PR to build brand awareness and leads also holds significant value (clients won’t buy your services if they don’t know who you are and what you do), but again these are not always activities that will result in a prospect immediately rushing to your website or sales team. 

The good news is that PR measurement tools have become increasingly sophisticated, which empowers forward-looking agencies to make leaps in using innovative technologies and approaches to demonstrate how PR spend connects to tangible results such as leads, sales, increased brand awareness, and growth. The days of relying on archaic and misguided measures such as the number of media hits (with no regard for their quality or impact), Ad Equivalency Value (AEV), or website impressions are long gone, and businesses should demand more from their agencies. 

If your brand is thinking about better ways to measure PR internally or through an agency relationship, there are promising new tools and metrics to consider.  

1. Traditional PR Metrics Are Not Enough

When showing clients coverage volume, PR agencies often also highlight an outlet’s impressions, or unique visitors per month (UVPM), to emphasize the impact of a coverage placement. The more prominent the media outlet, the higher the impression count. While interview opportunities and coverage placements are tangible results that can be counted and used as a benchmark for internal success, the value of impressions has always been difficult to articulate to clients.

UVPM tracks an outlet’s audience size. It offers a number of potential individuals that may read or watch the story, but cannot drill down to the specific total. Those impressions numbers also cannot determine how a media placement directly impacts a company’s business goals, audience reach, or brand sentiment.

With the need for more robust reporting metrics that go beyond the total number of coverage hits, an outlet’s circulation, and AEV, agencies are increasingly turning to newer metrics such as referral traffic, social media conversation monitoring, and, even more recently, Share of Voice and Power of Voice.

2. Expand Your PR Measurement Horizons

“Public Relations” is a broad umbrella term that can mean different things to different organizations – which complicates measurement. Maybe your objective is to elevate your brand to page 1 on Google Organic Search results through earned media coverage to capture more high-quality prospects. It might be to increase mindshare through thought leadership around key practice areas or market categories. More likely, you have multiple objectives that need to be tracked.

One way to measure this is through referral traffic. Having links in story placements that directly feed readers back to an organization’s website can help generate increased site traffic. Social media-driven traffic is an additional way to track website visitors from social channels so it is important to ensure you can measure and track social media conversations and activity as well. 

Over the past few years, Share of Voice (SOV) has been a core metric used by PR agencies and in-house communications teams. Search Engine Journal has a tidy roundup of how SOV works and why it is worth measuring. In a nutshell, Share of Voice measures an organization’s “share” of the media conversation compared to competitors. For example, an Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) cybersecurity vendor that is frustrated after being left out of key articles it knows customers and prospects read, and which features its competitors, would want to increase its Share of Voice in these articles. If that vendor engages with a new Tech PR agency or continues with its existing firm, it may want to track growth in Share of Voice over time as a way to measure PR results. 

In the end, the strongest metric tools combine social monitoring, audience insights, and traditional volume measurements to provide the most complete portrait of coverage in the media, which is why a growing number of Tech PR agencies and professionals are evaluating Power of Voice.

3. The Sum of All Parts: Power of Voice 

Power of Voice differs from traditional reporting measures as it holistically accounts for both the quantity and quality of coverage hits. This new technology combines an article’s tone, sentiment, relevance, and social amplification into a single competitive metric.

Through Power of Voice, PR professionals also can more easily identify which reporters would most align with their pitch and storyline, eliminating hours of cultivating expansive media lists. 

Most importantly, Power of Voice enables agencies to track brand sentiment over time to garner a better understanding of how a specific organization’s perception changed relative to a specific event. This creates a meaningful visual of how a press release, media placement, or contributed byline directly impacted the client’s company.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Try Different Reporting Tools

B2B, B2G, and B2C technology firms are right to seek deeper and more meaningful metrics to evaluate their PR spend. If your organization is evaluating Tech PR agencies – or simply seeking more from your existing agency – ask about the tools and methods they use to measure PR results.

Ultimately, effective PR measurement boils down to clearly established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the onset of the engagement. With both agency and client in sync on PR KPIs, it is far more likely you will be measuring the metrics that matter – and that makes an impact. 

Interested in learning more about how we measure PR results for clients? Get in touch with Bluetext.

 

Bluetext’s public relations client SAS has long been a trusted partner of colleges and universities around the world, leveraging their advanced analytics capabilities to provide safe, effective learning environments for students.

This year, the task of providing a safe and effective learning environment is much more challenging as an abundance of COVID-19 makes gathering in tight quarters like dorms, classrooms, and campuses without spreading the virus next to impossible. As a result, many universities have taken detailed measures to plan for student safety in the event of new outbreaks upon their return to campus. 

One of these is Oklahoma State University (OSU), where administrators are leveraging SAS technology combined with unique campus data to track the spread of COVID-19 using contact tracing and data analytics. 

To be ready for the return of students, faculty, and staff, OSU has integrated different data sources to create inferred links between people, places, and times. OSU connected institutional data such as time and location-based information from its extensive campus Wi-Fi network with over 5,000 access points. This data is then combined with other location-based information such as campus store purchases, card swipes, class schedules and more, which can be linked directly to individual students and provide a more complete picture of anyone who has been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID and anyone who has been in the same location for more than 15 minutes.

These OSU data models generate alerts if the data indicates quarantines or isolations are broken, or if a super-spreader is suspected, and provides general alerts for faculty and students. The data will also be used to help identify areas in need of increased cleaning, social distance monitoring, and other education efforts.

The Today Show recently visited Oklahoma State University and followed a freshman student through a day in his campus life amid COVID, illustrating how the university is leveraging its campus data to track where students have been in the event that new cases of COVID are identified.

Watch this segment of The Today Show here.

 

PR and marketing have changed overnight. There is still a need to reach customers and prospects, but it goes without saying that priorities have shifted in the “new normal” brought on by COVID-19.

It is a challenging tightrope to walk; the news cycle is rightly dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which means many narratives that resonated pre-coronavirus will struggle to reach your target audiences. For our technology clients selling to government and enterprise decision makers – as well as consumers – we’ve preached several key PR and marketing tenets.

Chief among them is “do no harm.” If we have a client that can offer valuable expertise and insights to advance the conversation and help individuals and organizations navigate the current climate while protecting consumers and businesses, we support those efforts. But you can’t force connections that aren’t there and detract from those better positioned to make a positive impact. In other words, don’t be an opportunist. Don’t be an ambulance chaser. Those efforts will backfire and damage your brand.

Bluetext Digital Briefing Centers

Second, clients and their PR/marketing agencies need to be measured, but also creative and nimble. A government contractor or enterprise software company that relied on physical conferences and in-person sales meetings to engage with customers and prospects must now turn more attention to digital strategies.

Check out how Bluetext has developed Digital Briefing Centers (DBCs) for clients needing a dynamic way to digitally showcase to customers and prospects their full range of solutions in action. Customized presentations, live demos and in-depth discussions can be arranged while offering a proven short-term alternative and long-term complement to physical, face-to-face environments.

 

PR In the Age of Telework

 

 

Businesses can’t just throw up their hands and wait it out; there is still a need for smart PR and marketing to grow or at least sustain sales for the near-term. Digital Briefing Centers address the fact that your website and digital presence is by far now the most important doorway to your brand and brand experience while traditional, physical doors remain closed.

On the PR side, the best way to illustrate how Bluetext thinks when it comes to remaining proactive and creative with clients is through a real-life case study. Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global data services provider with a telecom unit that provides robocall detection technology to U.S. telecom providers. Recognizing that scammers seize on the fear, chaos and confusion caused by health crises, we knew this was an opportunity for TNS to share its important data to help protect consumers from risks to their savings and personal information. Coronavirus scams cost people $7 million in the first 9 days of April alone — so the stakes are high.

Bluetext worked with TNS to rapidly build a strategy to communicate the financial risk to citizens and analyzing data to determine which robocall scams were most prevalent in which parts of the country. Some of the media coverage generated in a two-week period is included below.

In addition to developing a rapid response strategy, we started to think longer-term about robocall risks in the coming weeks and months. First, we worked with the client to gather data on political robocallers who were capitalizing on confusion regarding postponed Democratic Primary dates in a way that could influence election outcomes – and ensuring the data could be easily visualized.

The bottom line is this: we are in an uncharted phase as a society, and it is a phase that may last for months and even years. The organizations able to adapt to the “new normal” will be those best positioned to support their customers, partners and employees.

If you are looking for a partner to better position yourself to support your customers, reach out to Bluetext. 

 

This Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs will square off against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV; anticipated to be one of the most entertaining sporting events of the year brought to you by gunslinging quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Jimmy Garoppolo.

Thanks to two electrifying football teams and the unofficial holiday that comes with Super Bowl Sunday, a projected 100+ million viewers in the U.S. will tune into FOX at the same time, creating an unparalleled opportunity for marketing pros to cultivate a memorable brand association with more than a quarter of the U.S. population.

But these opportunities do not come cheap

Outside of the cost of producing the commercials, (which anyone in marketing can tell you isn’t cheap) you have to pay egregious dollar figures just to place it on the primetime Super Bowl stage. FOX sold out of its Super Bowl ad slots in late November, which reportedly sold for between $5 million and $5.6 million.

$5.6 million!

Let that number sink in. $5.6 million could buy you a five-bedroom house with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in downtown San Francisco. Or 10 five-bedroom houses in the Kansas City-area. Suffice to say, there’s a lot you could do with that money.

From a marketing standpoint, if your brand is considering purchasing a primetime 30-second Super Bowl ad, or you’re simply wondering how you could make a splash during the event without blowing your entire annual budget, consider these marketing alternatives that you could buy for the same price:

1. 20 years of a PR retainer at 20K per month

While it probably does not make sense to stretch one year’s marketing budget over the next two decades, this illustrates how far your marketing dollar could go over time with a PR budget as opposed to a single, 30-second Super Bowl ad. A monthly PR retainer could produce the ability for your brand to demonstrate expertise to more targeted audiences than the general public watching the Super Bowl at a fraction of the cost. This is typically executed with media relations and strategic placements of messaging within publications of interest to the brand’s most important audiences. Spending your marketing dollars in this way would create a steady burn of messaging over a long period of time as opposed to one, 30-second firework explosion of your brand that a large portion of the Super Bowl audience could miss.

2. Multiple omnichannel digital campaigns

In order for any Super Bowl campaign to be successful, it must eventually migrate to the digital realm in one way or another. Outside of the $5.6 million it will cost to run the ad in the spotlight, brands also have to shell out at least another $1 million to market the ad via social media. So why not go straight to digital with your campaign?

Newcastle Brown Ale was among the first to attempt this digital-first Super Bowl strategy in 2014 with a satirical YouTube commercial featuring Anna Kendrick about the Super Bowl commercial they almost made but didn’t have the money. By posting the video directly to YouTube and spending all of their resources marketing the commercial online, they found a witty way to poke fun at the nature of Super Bowl commercials by making one while also saving A LOT of money in the process. Digital campaigns can be an extremely effective (not to mention more targeted) way of maximizing your exposure to your key audiences. Ultimately the third-party validation that will come from individuals sharing your content will be the mark of a successful campaign, so digital-first strategies could be the next iteration of Super Bowl commercials.

3. Yearly platinum sponsorships in ten of your audience’s favorite publications

If your brand is targeting audiences that congregate around specific media outlets, paid partnerships with those media outlets can be a great way to enhance your exposure to the people who matter most. Sponsorship packages at media publications vary based on their target audience, the type of content they typically publish, and what you’ll get for your spend. But with big dollar figures in the hundreds of thousands, you could expect millions of unique viewers, digital ad space, thought leadership content, lead-gen, sponsored webinars, and more!

As Americans and football fans around the world tune in to the game on February 2, household brands will be vying for your loyalty and lesser-known companies will be introducing themselves to the world on the hottest advertising real estate money can buy. However, you can also expect to see many organizations turning to alternative marketing to make their splash during the game.

The real winners of this international media event will not be limited to just the Chiefs or the 49ers, but also to the organizations who strategically employ ALL of the marketing tactics available to them.

It’s long been said that public relations media outreach is an art, not a science. But getting the attention of a media target for a client’s pitch is, in fact, both an art and a science. The reason may sound simple: The most effective pitches are not always formulaic but require some creative thinking. And that’s where the art comes in, because what compels one editor may not resonate the same way with others. 

Yet, there is a place for a formulaic approach. In our experience, the majority of successful public relations media outreach strategies have four components: a strong relationship with the media contact, the quality of the pitch, newsworthiness and the pitch brevity. 

Below are 4 creative ways to re-think your public relations media outreach, starting with the pitch.

Make the uninteresting interesting! If you’re challenged with pitching a mundane announcement, you might want to consider including additional newsworthy elements. For example, pitches don’t always have to be about the announcement itself but can focus on what will happen as a result. 

Consider this:

1. What’s the current news surrounding this topic? Pick one angle that connects to your pitch.
2. Does this announcement go against any trends? Maybe your pitch is announcing a new trend.
3. Is there any significant upcoming event that can be tied into your announcement?

Pitch People, Not an Institution. Editors at seldom interested in X company that received a high customer service score, reached its ten-year anniversary or had some other milestone that may seem important internally. What reporters do care about is how the company got there, who made it happen and who else will be affected.

Your source for these otherwise mundane announcements might include celebrities, customers, suppliers, vendors, industry groups and industry thought leaders. And when offering these sources, keep in mind that journalists tend to evaluate sources based on:

1. Credentials: what are their qualifications?
2. Content: what will the source say?
3. Clarity: how will the source say it?
4. Convenience: how easy will it be to reach them?

Help Reporters to Help You. One way we can help out reporters these days is by sending news tips that are aligned with their coverage. In the pitches you write to your top media targets, it’s a good idea to adjust the writing style to match that of the reporter’s. This makes it easier for them visualize your pitch as their own story. And to give them no reason to ignore you, provide everything they would need to write the story including images, quotes, graphs, backlinks, and other relevant information. 

Brevity is Key. These days reporters are overwhelmed with the 24-hour news cycle and keeping an eye out for scoops on social media. One of the most important things about today’s successful pitches is brevity. That means, ideally, a pitch is around 150 words (there are exceptions). A good rule of thumb is that reporters should see the end of your email when they open it. If they have to scroll, it’s probably too long!

Keep in mind:

• Omit proper nouns unless they propel news value
• Resist the temptation to introduce yourself and your organization
• If your pitch is longer than 150 words and the extra content isn’t newsworthy, it can be left out

With reporters receiving more pitches on a daily basis than ever, it has become increasingly difficult for PR pros to stand out in a crowded inbox. While rethinking your approach to public relations media outreach is an adjustment and takes practice, these small changes can pay dividends in the end.