Top PR agencies know that metrics-driven pr is an essential strategy for marketing and communications. In today’s digital information environment, where the number of channels and platforms for reaching audiences directly grows every year, it is tempting to ignore more traditional methods like public relations for positioning a brand and engaging with prospective buyers and influencers. Nevertheless, 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 for the simple reason that it both provides air cover for the sales and marketing teams and has the potential to position a brand as a strong thought leader in a crowded marketplace.

Sales and marketing teams, as well as top executives rightfully 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 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.

Here, then, are our top tips for designing a metrics-driven PR program:

1. Be in close alignment with the client on what to measure. Clients don’t often know how to assess the effectiveness of a public relations campaign. That’s why it’s important to be pro-active and develop the metrics that count before you launch a program. Don’t only identify what you will measure, but what the goals of the program are, and make sure you have agreement and buy-in with the client before moving forward.
2. Choose quality over quantity. The public relations industry is still struggling to get over its dot.com era hangover of dialing-for-dollars – going after any mention in any article in any publication as a sign of a successful campaign. That wasn’t true in 1999, and it certainly is not the case now. Mentions in publications or websites that are far afield from targeted influencers and decision-makers don’t move the needle and don’t generate leads. It’s more important to have fewer articles as long as those articles are in the right publications and demonstrate thought leadership on topics relevant to the client’s products or services.
3. Bylined placements should be part of the mix. It wasn’t that long ago that client-supplied content was viewed as too much like advertising and therefore was not well-received by target audiences. Today, customers would actually rather hear about insights and experiences from executives and subject matter experts from solution providers who have hands-on experience. We’re not saying this should make up all of the coverage, but it’s a valuable part of the mix.
4. Take a baseline measurement across all metrics at the beginning of the program. You need to know where you are starting from. In some cases, for example, if there hasn’t been a program in place previously, you may be starting from zero. In other cases, the client may have a well-established footprint in the market already on which to build.
5. Follow that up with quarterly progress reports. Don’t leave your clients or your own team guessing about the progress of a metrics-driven PR program. Honest reporting on a regular basis that allows for tweaks, adjustments, or a wholesale redesign will show a commitment to reaching the right results.
6. Put the time into your measuring tools. The best metrics platforms require Boolean logic to deliver meaningful analytics and insights. Don’t take shortcuts – put the time into developing the right search queries and analyses against competitors and the market in general to generate meaningful metrics that can be evaluated and leveraged for the program.

A successful metrics-driven PR program takes time and hard work, but the payoff is a campaign that achieves the goals not only of the public relations team but also of the sales, marketing and executive teams across the organization. In subsequent posts, we’ll discuss some specific case studies and the metrics applied to measure the results.

What to explore a metrics-driven PR program for your brand? Let Bluetext show you how.

Rapid response is a core component of Bluetext’s public relations services. We focus on having messages and media targets teed up when there is an opportunity for our clients to contribute expertise to breaking news events, whether it is a cyber attack, tech policy development, or in this case the horrific wildfires raging across Southern California. As the leading Emergency Mass Notification Services (EMNS) provider, Bluetext positioned client OnSolve’s CEO to speak about the challenge local officials face to alert citizens when wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters hit; ways for citizens to stay safe; and innovative new capabilities available through providers like OnSolve. Multiple interviews were arranged for OnSolve, including this live segment with The Weather Channel.

Need help with driving better PR results?  Bluetext can help!

Last week Bluetext served as a sponsor for the 2017 GAIN government marketing conference, and it was great to connect with and hear from some of the DC region’s leading government marketers – including some of our own clients.

As part of her presentation on effective thought leadership, Rita Walston, immixGroup Senior Director, Marketing Programs, quoted a government Chief Technology Officer as saying the following: “If you wait until you’re in front of me to tell me how your company can help me, you’re way too late. I’ve already made up your mind.”

Thought leadership is a core piece of the b2g, b2b and b2c public relations and content marketing programs we develop and executive for clients. But often we are asked by clients to about the value of thought leadership (byline articles, blog posts, conference panels) relative to more traditional media coverage around customer deployments, product launches, and trend stories. This is due to the fact that with byline articles, the content cannot be self promotional.  

But the government agency CTO comment underscores why thought leadership is a critical top-of-funnel piece to the buyer’s journey. Government decision makers ingest information from several sources prior to any sales meeting. Without exposure to your brand, an understanding of your expertise and clarity on your capabilities, the opportunity might be lost before your sales team even walks in the meeting.

Thought leadership can support your B2G sales efforts in several ways:

Communicate your core competencies

If your government sales team walks into a meeting and the decision maker doesn’t already: 1) believe you understand their pain points; 2) understand how your solutions can address these pain points; and 3) have a sense of why your company is uniquely qualified to solve their pain points, chances of winning the business go down considerably.

Thought leadership in the form of byline articles and blog posts present an opportunity to lay the foundation for this part of the buyer’s journey by demonstrating your expertise across core competencies, whether it’s cloud computing, mobility, cybersecurity, data analytics, or some combination of the above. While this content doesn’t directly address how your products and solutions deliver capabilities in these areas, it communicates you are players in the space.

Establish brand awareness

If you are a large or established vendor in the government market, brand awareness may not be a problem. But perhaps you have brand penetration with certain agencies and not others, or a recent acquisition has added capabilities that agencies are not yet aware of. Advertising can accomplish this, but it can be expensive and must be sustained over an extended period of time.

Byline articles position your brand with government decision makers hungry for content that offers actionable intelligence on how to address pain points they face every day. Vendors and contractors can associate their brand with current and emerging trends, while reaching decision makers in a targeted fashion, whether it’s civilian, DoD, or specific branches of the military.

Fill momentum gaps

Marketing to government agencies requires a steady drumbeat of activity. Not every vendor has the budget for a sustained advertising campaign, and there won’t necessarily be announcements and opportunities for media coverage on a weekly or even monthly basis. Thought leadership can fill these gaps to ensure brand momentum throughout the year.

Lets your sellers ‘sell’

Circling back to the agency CTO comment referenced earlier in the article, the ability for your b2g sales team to enter a meeting able to focus squarely on closing the sale is vital. If the agency decision maker enters the meeting with limited awareness of your brand or competencies, his/her buyer’s journey may be too far along to make an impact.

Let’s discuss government marketing communications and how it impacts your business. Contact us!

A few weeks back, I posted a blog about over-used PR terms to avoid. Needless to say, that post generated lots of responses and even a clever email from an old colleague that tried to use all them in one friendly note to me. The list of pr terms to avoid seems to be endless. So many to choose from, so little time.

So, due to popular demand, here are seven more PR terms avoid – to debate, disagree with, eliminate from your online dictionary, but above all else, to please stop using. And as with my previous post, I too am guilty of using some of these terms and will take my own medicine. I also recognize that language is defined by common usage, so that even though some of these terms may not be allowed in the Queen’s English, dictionaries reflect how people actually use words, regardless of the Queen. Nevertheless, I am fighting a last stand to get these words out of the PR world, at least for now.

• Leverage. This is a tricky one because as a noun, I think it’s perfectly fine. The problem is when it is so frequently used as a verb, its meaning becomes vague and just seems lazy.
• Impact. I know I’m losing this battle, but the word “impact” is a noun, not a verb or a gerund (ending in “ing”), and certainly not “impactful.” That’s just removing whatever impact it had in the first place.
• Their. As in, “Bluetext is a cutting-edge digital marketing agency – their work is amazing!” While the sentence may be accurate, it still doesn’t work. Agencies, companies and inanimate objects are “its”, not “theirs.” This is a pet peeve of mine, and I always correct this whenever I see it.
• Unique, when preceded by “somewhat” or some similar modifier. The word “unique” is binary – something is either unique or it isn’t –  there is nothing in-between.
• Disruptive. This is a big red flag in a PR pitch or press release. Unless when talking about a student’s behavior in kindergarten, let’s all agree that this is both over-used and not used correctly. We can only look backward to see if a new product or technology was in fact disruptive. Predicting this in advance is wishful thinking.
• Authentic. I was once guilty of using this word far too often. The idea was that campaigns would resonate better with target audiences through content such as social media and blog posts if they were “authentic” as opposed to “artificial” in their voice.  In fact, everything we do for our clients should be authentic, and pointing this out just undermines its credibility.
• State-of-the-Art. Doesn’t every client want to describe their product as “state-of-the-art”? Let the product speak for itself. The audience can decide whether it’s new and different or not.

Part 3 of PR terms to avoid will be forthcoming.

Looking for an agency to take your PR results to the next level?  Contact us.

Top PR agencies know that words really do matter. That’s why crafting pitches that will grab a reporter’s attention but not disappoint, confuse or otherwise lose their interest is essential to a successful campaign. Unfortunately, concise writing that doesn’t rely on using the same old tired phrases but still gets noticed seems to be a lost art in the public relations realm. At Bluetext, we’re careful to make sure that we always keep our writing fresh, clever, accurate, and to the point – without resorting to jargon. Here are eight over-used PR terms that are so tired that it’s time to retire them.

• “Unicorn.” A unicorn in tech PR parlance is the next billion-dollar start-up that’s just waiting to be discovered. Of course, every startup thinks it is the next unicorn. By throwing this term into the pitch mix, you’re sending a clear sign of unreal expectations or hyping a company far beyond its real story. True unicorns don’t need to be labeled as such.
• “Synergy.” We never were really sure what this dog of a word meant. It seems just like more marketing babble rather that a true description of how organizations (or even individuals) can create more value when working together than on their own.
• “So,…” This is a big faux pas and is not allowed out of the shop here at Bluetext. Starting a sentence with “So” is simply sloppy writing. Your argument should speak for itself, and your reader should be able to figure that out without being instructed to do so.
• “Arguably,…” Following on the heels of “So,” this is another one of our forbidden words. As a writer and editor, I see the reason as part logic, part annoyance. Anything that can be argued is arguable, so using the term doesn’t add anything, except for annoying me.
• “Circle Back.” Ok, I’m guilty of this one and pledge to police myself better. A reporter already gets that you are “circling back” because you do so in the email. Telling them again doesn’t make it more likely that they will respond. Let the pitch do the convincing rather than the extraneous words.
• “Honestly.” One of my least favorites. Using this term is a signal that everything else you’ve written hasn’t been honest. Not good.
• “Thrilled.” As in, “We’re thrilled to announce our client’s latest product/service/new hire/etc.” Really? That’s not an emotion I typically associate with client announcements. It gets less thrilling every time a reporter sees that word.
• “Stakeholder.” I’m also guilty of overusing this term. Technically speaking, a stakeholder is someone who owns stock in a company. Today everyone is a stakeholder if they even have a minimal relationship to the company. Calling someone a stakeholder doesn’t really mean anything. Just use a more precise term, like the customer, employee, partner or vendor.

If PR professionals can dial back on these tired PR terms, they’ll be forced to write more concisely with less confusion, and have more success with their pitches.

Looking to boost your public relations results?  Contact us.

As a journalist in my first career, as someone who spent a dozen years in the media spotlight in politics, and as a member of the public relations team here at Bluetext, I am very comfortable talking to reporters, for print publications, on the radio, and as a commentator on broadcast networks. I act as a spokesperson for many of our clients, and am often interviewed myself. Most of our clients, of course, don’t have this same background and spend their time running and growing their businesses, not thinking about media interviews. Giving them the public relations interview tips is essential.

They are frequently nervous and uncertain on how to act in an interview or how to stay on message. So when we have opportunities to place them in front of reporters to discuss their companies, we often provide media training in advance to get them ready.

One of the lessons I teach is that even though I do this for a living, I still make mistakes when I’m not prepared. With that in mind, here are 10 tips for preparing for a public relations interview to make sure you get your message out the way you want it:

1) Find out what the reporter wants to ask before the interview, and prepare your talking points ahead of time. Practice with a colleague or family member.
2) Reporters like sound-bites, whether in print or on air. Draft one or two beforehand so that you can use them during the interview.
3) This is not a test. It’s okay to have notes in front of you during the interview with your talking points and sound-bites. The only exception is for a video interview, but you can still have them nearby.
4) When interviewed on video, you want the audience to listen to what you are saying, not looking at what you are wearing. Dress conservatively without embellishment.
5) Reporters are neither your friend nor your adversary. They are simply the conduits to your real audience, the reader or viewer of the interview.
6) Never get defensive. Always remain positive and smile. It’s not about you, it’s about the message you are delivering for your brand or organization.
7) Take your time when answering, and make sure you understand the question. It’s ok to rephrase it, or to ask for clarification if you don’t understand it.
8) When on camera, lock your eyes onto the reporter’s eyes; don’t look at the camera. If it’s a “remote” interview, where the reporter is in a different location, look only into the camera.
9) Pause between thoughts for two beats–it gives the editors a place to edit.
10) Keep your interviews short and answers concise. That gives a much better chance that your sound bite will be the one used for the story.

And finally, practice, practice practice. The more comfortable you before the public relations interview, the more likely you will ace the interview.

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