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. 

Securing the attention of journalists and editors in the modern media landscape is becoming increasingly difficult as journalists are busy with tighter deadlines, lower budgets, and more news to cover than ever before. According to the US Department of Labor, PR professionals now outnumber journalists by a ratio of more than 6-to-1, after employment dropped in newsrooms by 23% between 2008 and 2017.

Now, with more PR pitches flooding media inboxes, it’s critical to operate in a way that isn’t going to get your (or your entire agency’s) email blacklisted. Still, the value of a public relations practitioner according to PRSA is advocacy, i.e. “providing a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints of our clients.”

An effective public relations program establishes legitimacy with journalists by contributing thoughtful, accurate and newsworthy information to help the media better inform public debate. Above all, we’re here for our clients to help promote their ideas and insert them into the conversations which they belong. But as PR pros, we also must understand and have a deep appreciation for the fact that our ultimate goals depend on the efforts of the hardworking media personnel we interact with on a daily basis.

Here are four tips for how effective PR professionals improve their relationships with the media:

Think before you pitch. The most common piece of feedback journalists give to PR professionals is that their pitch isn’t a fit for their reporting. Often times, PR teams legitimize pitching an announcement to a large audience for “general awareness” without doing substantial research on the people who will receive the pitch. More often than not, the announcement will not be relevant to a large percentage of that list. Even if the news is relevant, the reporter may have just written a story about it and will not likely be interested in a follow-up.

When a journalist receives a pitch that is out of their editorial scope, it’s important to recognize that this lack of interest can have more permanent effects than just an ignored email. If this “spray and pray” approach comes through on a repetitive basis, then the communications agency can develop a reputation for thoughtlessly spamming news outlets with client announcements, and run the risk of being blacklisted from their reporters. Other small fixes like typos, using a journalist’s common name, and pitching in the context of other recent pitches you’ve sent that outlet can be crucial in gaining attention and having a real conversation with the reporter.

The best way to avoid these types of problems is to simply take time to research media contacts and the types of stories they want to tell before sending news their way; it saves time for all involved.

Be authentic. The cardinal rule of PR is “legitimacy.” Looking legit in the eyes of the public starts by being authentic and telling the best true story you have the ability to tell. Especially when talking to reporters and stakeholders who are regularly contacted about a client, it’s important to use language that is both professional and sounds like something that would be said in a normal conversation.

Too often, pitches and public statements get bogged down by bureaucratic language and technical descriptions to the point that they lose their effectiveness on the audience because no one can understand the take-home point. It’s natural to want to use jargon, but it’s the job of a PR pro to usher a client’s message into the pool of public discourse and help people understand the larger story behind a given announcement.

Provide true news value. Anyone can write a press release about how great their company is, but getting a news reporter or editor to do so is a different story entirely. News outlets have editorial teams to filter content for audiences and help them distinguish between a self-serving company announcement and news that can help inform public discourse. As a journalist once told me, “we wouldn’t run a story from McDonald’s about the benefits of eating cheeseburgers.”

Considerations like these must be top of mind for any PR professional’s strategy when interacting with media. Distinguishing between the news that is valuable for a company and the news that is valuable to reporters and editors is a difficult task, but one that is critical in establishing the third-party legitimacy of being covered by a news publication.

Don’t burn bridges. Having perseverance is a critical value in PR. Many PR pros have long refined the art of “checking in” repeatedly with journalists. However, if this perseverance turns into pestering reporters to talk to a client, it can often cause the opposite of the intended effect. It’s important to keep in mind that journalists are incredibly busy people, and injecting yourself or your client into their schedules unwanted can quickly rub them the wrong way. A simple rule of thumb: if following up multiple times doesn’t get their attention, they’re just not interested.

Incorporating these tips as a part of your larger PR strategy can have lasting effects with the media contacts you’re going after. Ultimately your media relations strategy should build (not burn) bridges and create a strong rapport with media personnel. These relationships are an intangible business asset that can cultivate mutually beneficence for clients and the media.

Learn how Bluetext Can Help with Your Brand’s Media Relations Program.

B2G public relations is a difficult challenge under the best of circumstances. Both technology companies for which the government is an important vertical and those that are solely focused on government agencies struggle to find customers who are willing or able to participate in media outreach on behalf of their vendor. In many cases, the programs themselves may be confidential or classified, while in other situations, program officials are reluctant to be seen as endorsing a specific contractor.

At Bluetext, we’ve found B2G public relations workarounds for our clients who sell to agencies at the Federal, state, and local level: Talk about the government customer as a hero and innovator rather than pitching a story about the contractor’s solution. While agencies might not want to talk publicly about a contractor’s software or cybersecurity platform, they are much more willing to talk about how their own team members have found innovative ways to solve agency problems.

This was exactly the challenge – and solution – Google’s public sector team was facing when it wanted to broaden its base of federal, state, and local business. Bluetext created a comprehensive “Gov Transformers” program that identified program managers at all levels across the United States who were solving technology and program problems with state-of-the-art technologies, “transforming” the way their agencies were doing business.

Our first step was to design a series of promotional “cards” that could be both physical for trade shows and digital for online marketing campaigns. Each card displayed a provocative statement on the front and included a stylized image of the individual on the back together with a description of the challenge and solution.  The stylized image was a visual treatment that rendered photographs into a similar type to attract attention and – more importantly – to “standardize” the images in order to compensate for different cameras and quality of each image.

The next step in our approach was to create a microsite repository of customer “hero” stories in the form of a lead-generating campaign with several interactive features. Each case study was tagged by type of solution and location so that searching was easy and intuitive. We sent our professional photographers to capture each individual with a more formal approach and made those images the homepage of the website:

The website was not only used for driving leads among government customers, but it was also pushed out to media as a bank of customer case studies that were packaged together and ready to go. The Gov Transformers campaign achieved several important goals. First, it presented a way to get the Google technology story out without violating any restrictions. Second, it made the government customers feel proud about they had achieved, and gave them the recognition they most often never get. And third, it built up a bank of media-ready customer case studies to power B2G public relations activities.

Learn how Bluetext can help you leverage your B2G Public Relations Program.

Bluetext, a leader in association marketing, is proud to announce that it has been selected by the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) as its design, marketing, and brand agency-of-record for NPE2021: The Plastics Show. NPE2021 is the industry’s largest and most influential plastics trade event and is held every three years in Orlando. Bluetext is designing the show’s logo, brand look and feel, website, and collateral, and is creating and executing the go-to-market campaigns to attract exhibitors and attendees to the event. It will also manage public and media relations as well as both organic and paid social media.

“We selected Bluetext because of its team’s strong creative and strategic vision that can help move the industry forward,” said Susan Krys, PLASTICS VP of Tradeshows and Marketing. “We’re off to a great start.”

NPE2021 will take place at the Orlando County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida May 17-21, 2021.

Learn how Bluetext can help with your association marketing, brand, and campaign needs.

It’s no question that the American media landscape has gone through growing pains in the past few years. From “fake news” allegations that branched from the 2016 general election to the decline of print sales, it’s safe to say that the relationship between the media and its readers is in flux. Thanks to the pressure on the media industry to continuously seek online engagement as a key element in its current business model, public relations professionals now face the same pressures that incentivize reporters to develop articles that garner as much attention as possible.

Because of the tumultuous relationship between politics and media organizations, it’s easy to believe that American citizens’ trust in the news has declined. But new data shows that the pendulum may be swinging back. According to Cision’s 2019 Global State of the Media Report, trust in the media may actually be on the rise. In fact, only 63 percent of journalist respondents feel the public lost trust in media over the previous year, a number that seems high except when compared to the staggering 91 percent who felt that way in 2017.

While the role of journalism in our society isn’t dead, it is clear that it’s in a state of metamorphosis, and as the industry evolves, it’s important to remember that the public relations field also needs to adapt if it is to remain effective.

Where Journalism is Headed
Between budget cuts, a shaky business model and a larger emphasis on social media, journalism is now more than ever in flux. The biggest change comes from the move to online media and the role that social media plays within that relationship. According to Pew Research, the average unique monthly visitors to newspaper websites increased from 8 million in 2014 to more than 11.5 million in 2016 and 2017—a substantial uptick in only two years.

Not only does the mass exodus from print news mean that the pressure is on reporters to have an exclusive scoop, but it also means that they need to be the first to publish. Another symptom of focusing on digital rather than print is the need to receive a large number of clicks in order for a story to be deemed monetarily successful. According to the Cision report, 65 percent of reporters said that the availability of audience metrics—engagement measures such as the number of views, shares, and reposts—has changed the way they evaluate stories they are interested in covering. The old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” has never been truer in the age of click generation.

What This Means for PR Specialists
Because social networks and influencers are quickly bypassing traditional paper media, public relations practitioners have a growing opportunity to help our journalists colleagues with timely and relevant sources for the stories they’re working on. In the Cision report, 42 percent of respondents said that they work on stories no more than a day in advance, meaning PR agencies and their clients need to ready to engage with the news cycle swiftly.

This change in strategy has benefits for public relations pros because they are able to better build relationships with the reporter. In fact, 27 percent of journalists said that their relationships with PR representatives have become more valuable since 2018, compared to only 9 percent who had the same response the year before.

How to Build Lasting Relationships with Reporters
Despite the fact that rapid response pitches are king in 2019, journalists often receive a slew of emails from PR representatives every day, many of which are offtopic or self-serving. To fight through this noise, it’s vital to be prepared with all essential materials and contacts when reaching out– especially when pitching a time-sensitive story.

Another key to building a beneficial relationship with a reporter is to value their time. There’s no question that reporters are extremely busy, so keep pitches short and remember that they don’t just receive your pitches. Ensuring the correct reporter is contacted is vital as well. While someone may be listed as a technology reporter, for example, it’s important to check what aspect of technology they cover. Do they cover consumer products? Business technology? Networking? The list can go on. But public relations reps need to do their research and ensure they contact the reporter with the appropriate beat.

It’s also important to consider the content you’re sending to reporters. It may come as a surprise, but 71 percent of journalists reported that news announcements and press releases are what they are most interested in receiving. This is followed by invitations to events and original research reports. While many PR pros spend their day perfectly crafting pitches complete with possible story angles, the most important part is to make sure the information is new and relevant.

Today’s hectic media climate will require everyone in the newsmaking process to adapt. For PR pros, the evolving industry will provide new opportunities to create meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with journalists to ensure quality reporting continues.

Learn how Bluetext can help with your public relations program.

When the stars fall smartly into alignment with a new brand, it can elevate the organization to new heights. For Integrity Applications, a government contractor comprised of three of the leading companies in space, intelligence, cyber, the stars became a main focus of the rebrand. It turned to Bluetext to develop a new name, messaging, and brand that would represent the value that it brings to its U.S. government customers in the intelligence and national security community.

The company had several significant challenges that needed to be overcome, the first of which is that it works primarily in a sector where the programs are very sensitive and highly classified. Second, a primary goal for the brand is recruiting a talented team with advanced skills in software engineering as well as all elements of STEM. And third, it needed to stand out as a prime contractor in a crowded field of competitors.

Bluetext employed an extensive discovery and research process that included In-Depth-Interviews (IDIs) with top experts and executives across the company to define the specific attributes that make the organization unique. Our goal was to define what ties together the missions that the company supports. After interviewing senior executives across the organization, we conducted a separate set of IDIs with newly hired recruits to understand what made them choose the company for their careers. The focus on space became a key component in our process. We also talked to a number of veteran employees to understand what made them stay and what was important to their longer-term careers, a crucial component of the new brand story and recruiting materials. Using the results of these interviews together with competitive analyses and additional research, we created a messaging platform that recognizes its strong commitment to space as a key part of its legacy as well as its biggest opportunity for growth.

Employee engagement was a critical element in the process, especially given the competition to attract the best candidates with the technical skills and security clearances required by government customers. Once the new brand was approved, team members across the company were asked to participate in the brand launch through parties, branded clothing, contests, and a variety of other engaging activities. We also created a “Brand Essence” video to help tell the story.

Because of its interest in and focus on space, we also wanted to capture the hopes and vision that space exploration suggests. The result was the new brand Centauri. Centauri, from the star system Alpha Centauri, is the closest star system to Earth. And, like the company, it is composed of the brightest stars in the sky. It also has always been used as a navigation guide throughout history. We believed that because of these associations, Centauri was a great fit for the brand.

Once the name was approved, we turned to the corporate visual identity. Bluetext designed a cutting-edge look and feel for Centauri that sets it apart from the competition. Written in a custom lowercase typeface, the Centauri logo is modern and approachable with a unique icon representing the stars that make up the Centauri constellation. The star pattern around the logo became the basis for texture and patterns across collateral and the website.

We then turned to the website. Centauri’s new website incorporates all of the brand’s new elements, ensuring consistent brand identity and a strong web presence. Bluetext designed a site and user experience that prioritizes recruitment.

With the brand in place and the website launched, we introduced Centauri to the market through a series of media interviews with key vertical trade publications. Offering details and interviews with CEO Dave Dzaran in advance to key target outlets under an embargo agreement, we were able to shape the initial launch coverage to focus on Centauri’s growth strategy as it continues to acquire new capabilities for its customers.

For Centauri, with the help of Bluetext, the stars aligned for a bright new brand and a successful launch.

Interested in Refreshing Your Company’s Brand? Learn How Bluetext Can Help!

For our final post to end the year and look forward to 2019, let’s turn to the marketing component that is perhaps undergoing the most significant transition: Public Relations. PR was once universally recognized as the bread and butter for communications activities, the core element of any marketing program. That’s no longer the case, as publications that a generation ago would readily cover almost any technology pitch have seen their print ads shrink. As a result, they have drastically cut back on reporters and news coverage as they scramble to define their business models in the digital age.

As a result, public relations firms are having to work harder to create their own opportunities to get coverage for their clients. Instead of a reporter writing on a topic, editors now ask for submitted bylines that they can print – which makes perfect sense, since that’s free content that agencies are providing on behalf of their clients.

Public relations, as a practice, is in need of a significant overhaul. Media relations is not simply a subset of PR, which must focus on a much broader range of channels to reach prospects and customers. This means that influencer marketing, paid content, submitted bylines, content syndicators, specialty websites, and even trade associations must now be part of the outreach mix. It’s not enough to rely purely on earned coverage – practitioners must look for new, creative ways to get their messages out to core audiences.

Some of this is self-preservation. As the economy slows, PR is the first marketing practice to take the hit.

Here is what see as the most important public relations trends for 2019:

Influencer Marketing is on the Rise. Identifying, engaging, and recruiting influencers who have their own followers will be the biggest change for 2019. Understanding which ones have the most valuable followers will be a challenge requiring more sophisticated social measurement tools. Learning how to pitch influencers will mean a steep learning curve, as many influencers try to figure out their value in the market and on the social media channels where they thrive.

Public Relations Must Drive Better Content. Instead of drafters of press releases for clients, PR agencies must evolve into content providers that know how to produce rich, graphical content that can attract attention. Visual assets – which require a creative team in addition to media relations experts – will be essential to delivering content that can be quickly posted for key audiences to see.

Building Relationships. Press releases will still serve a purpose – sometimes a legal requirement and other times as a shorthand tool for reporters. But more important for PR agencies is the ability to build relationships with target audiences across multiple channels. Social media will play a part, but so will communications to targets through a regular cadence of outreach that includes emails, eNewsletters, blog posts, and other content formats.

Blurring the Line. The once-thick-but-now-fine line between public relations and marketing will continue to blur. Long-form client-generated content is getting more popular for several reasons. First, you control every word and don’t have to worry about lousy quotes, misinformation, or competitors being included higher up in the article. Second, publishers are desperately trying to find new revenue streams, so they will continue to push paid native advertising as a way to reach customers and generate more cash. And third, customers would rather hear from experts within companies than reporters who most likely are not as technically proficient.

It’s All About the Metrics. The impact and value of earned media have traditionally been difficult to measure. Agencies must go beyond the typical share of voice, reach and ad value equivalency metrics to include more useful tools that connect the audience with actions. One start-up described in a recent Wall Street Journal article has created a service to measure readership information of articles that specifically mention brands. Look for more analytics tools from Google and other platforms that can connect more of the communications software stacks together for a better look at how prospects are reacting to PR campaigns.

These are all pretty big changes in how we approach the public relations programs we deliver for our clients. Making the shift won’t be easy, but it’s essential to drive results.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

The Federal government Buying Season is right around the corner. That means that any company that has the technology to help government agencies meet their mission requirements needs to start getting in front of those buyers quickly. The Federal Buying Season begins in August and runs through September as agency procurement officers will make their final selections to meet end-of-year spending requirements. With the government, allocated funds are often “use-it-or-lose-it,’ meaning they won’t carry on through the next fiscal year. Anything unspent becomes out-of-reach.

For government contractors and global brands who consider the agencies a key vertical, putting in place a comprehensive marketing campaign to reach these decision makers starts now. As we pointed out in our previous post, government agencies respond differently than commercial markets. For their Buying Season, they have mission requirements to meet and are looking for the best solutions that will help them do that. That’s why a marketing campaign needs to speak their language and not simply rely on the same campaigns targeted to the commercial sector.

Here are some of the key elements to consider when designing your Federal Buying Season marketing campaign:

1. Start with Messaging. As we noted in our previous post, messaging targeted towards the needs of the government buyer is critical. Make sure that messaging talks to their pain points, their mission requirements, and the past experience you have in the market. Those are the three top components that this audience needs to see.
2. The Creative Needs to Match the Market. Cutesy, humorous, out-of-the-box campaigns are ok, but within limits. Stay away from the controversial, but adding a little humor can be effective. We recently did a campaign for Intel that included a guy wearing pajamas on the bottom with a suit on top to demonstrate how its technology helps Federal telecommuters. It was clever, cute, and got people thinking while keeping far away from anything offensive.
3. Go Directly After the Market. Programmatic campaigns, relying on sophisticated email workflows and paid banner and social media can be effective for driving leads if done in a way reaches those audiences in an intelligent way. Bluetext has had significant, measurable success with well-constructed campaigns targeted at government decision-makers and buyers.
4. Coverage in Government Publications Gives Air Cover. A strong media relations component of the campaign can provide thought leadership, wide exposure, and air cover for the sales team. Many government tech trades are happy to publish submitted bylines from industry experts provided that they explore market needs and trends, and are not simply marketing pieces disguised as a news article.
5. Drive Time is Prime Time. In the D.C. region – the home to most of the nation’s Federal executives – commuting is a fact of life. That means a captive audience twice a day every day during morning and evening rush hours. We are big believers in radio spots as well as broadcast interviews to reach this audience when they are most receptive.
6. Leverage All of Your Company Assets. Every company has a number of Members of Congress that represent their employees. Turn these legislators into advocates for your brand. They can help open doors across the government.

Learn how Bluetext can help your brand with a successful Buying Season campaign. 

Metrics-driven PR is an essential strategy in today’s competitive media landscape, helping to set the direction for public relations as well as validating its success. Traditional public relations and media outreach that seeks placements and coverage in print and online publications remains one of the most valuable assets in a marketers mix of activities. But how do you know if your PR program is achieving the right objectives? How do you know if you’re getting the value from your PR expenditure, or if the needle is stuck in the same position?

Top executives who are managing budget, as well as sales and marketing teams who have specific sales numbers to hit, continue to ask difficult questions to justify the cost of a successful public relations program because it is so difficult to assign revenues and leads directly to public relations efforts. This is not a new issue, but with so many other options that can be tied directly to lead generation, top public relations agencies know they need to have strong metrics to validate the effectiveness of their programs.

At Bluetext, we have been practicing metrics-driven PR since we launched our agency more than seven years ago. The reason is not that it’s a way to justify the expense of using a top PR firm, but more importantly, because it gives us a real-time ability to manage every PR campaign we launch for our clients, and to make quick adjustments to improve results. The alternative is to launch and execute a program without any idea of the impact on what matters most to clients: increased leads and higher revenues. The challenge, of course, is what to measure that will provide real insight into the results that matter.

That’s why we’ve published our eBook on Metrics-driven PR as a comprehensive primer on what you need to know – whether it’s for the commercial markets, for the public sector, focused on cybersecurity, or with an acquisition in mind, we share case studies and top tips for a program that measures results and achieve your strategic and revenue goals.

If any industry vertical is a prime opportunity for metrics-driven PR, it’s the public sector. Government agencies are a massive opportunity for technology and other companies that can help supply the products, services, and solutions that agencies need on a daily basis. Yet, many brands struggle with how to market to the public sector, especially at the Federal level. How purchasing decisions are made, the way agencies issue contracts and the buying cycles they follow are much different than the commercial sector.

More importantly, the messages that resonate with Federal executives are different. Return on investment, a key marker in the commercial world, isn’t as much of a factor in the public sector. Agencies have fixed budgets; and while they have downward budget pressures, they don’t have to answer to investors or the stock market. Instead, they focus on mission requirements, staying within budget parameters, and meeting legislative and policy mandates. They are risk-averse and look for solutions that will enable them to accomplish their goals without jeopardizing their own careers.

For these reasons, it takes a different approach to public relations to execute an effective campaign that will reach, educate, and motivate government buyers. There are fewer media outlets that cover the vertical, and fewer reporters available as the size of the publications have shrunk. Because of this demanding market, metrics-driven pr in the public sector is essential for implementing a successful media relations program.

One of our clients that has the public sector as one of its key target markets is Cloudera, an industry leader in open-source Hadoop big data solutions for enterprise organizations to leverage the intelligence in their systems. When Cloudera wanted to expand its presence in the Federal market, it turned to Bluetext to design and execute an effective metrics-driven public relations program.

Some of the key elements of the program, in addition to plain old-fashioned nuts and bolts media relations, was to “Federalize” Cloudera’s messages and news. This included:

• Identifying customer advocates early in their relationship to secure customers that would share their results with Cloudera for media relations purpose;
• Identifying Cloudera-specific messages and differentiated angles on news topics;
• Streamlining the pitch review cycle, especially for rapid response; and
• Enlarging the spokesperson bench to establish early on the topics and areas of expertise that each expert could talk to.The results of this program have proven the point that when a sophisticated program is linked to metrics, it has the best chance of achieving the program goals.

Here are some of the results of the program over the previous 12 months:

• 39 stories, surpassing the target goal
• 18 target publications hit, including American City & County, FCW, MeriTalk, The Hill, Federal News Radio, and NextGov
• 7 bylines placed in NASCIO, FCW, GovLoop, American City & County, SIGNAL, Fifth Domain

More importantly, we were able to garner a more than 44 percent Share of Voice in the market against Cloudera’s main competitors.

Need help implementing a metrics-driven PR program in the public sector? See how Bluetext can help.