Media Relations
How a business manages and develops its relationships with the media will have a knock on effect with how it is treated in the press. If you pay little or no attention to the medium of print, broadcast & online media as a method of communication then one of two things is likely to happen – the media will pay little or no attention to you in which case your message will not be heard. Or secondly, and more perilous, the media, through no fault of their own, will reflect a message that is not telling of your business – that is inaccurate.
With our help your business can present itself favourably to the media allowing you to demonstrate your area of expertise.
Developing good relationships with key media personnel is integral to an effective approach to any communications campaign. Journalists have a job to do. If you (with our help) them to do this by providing them with accurate, relevant and interesting information then you will foster and maintain good working relationships.
Corporate Messaging
We help clients to create or improve their corporate identity invariably supported with a set corporate identity guidelines. Depending on the depth required, this can extend to a complete set of values that reflect the client’s unique product and service offerings.
Without a clear and simple understanding of what a business offers, potential clients will quickly turn off and seek out a competitive offering. Therefore, the timeframe in which to communicate an organisation’s USB is getting shorter and shorter each year.
Communications Campaign Development & Execution
This is at the core of our business. Whether it’s a 6month information campaign; a 3month profile building exercise or a damage limitation project – we can achieve it. Campaigns are organic in nature and no one campaign is the same – however there are a few generic steps that we take to ensure we effectively execute a communications campaign that meets the needs of our clients.
- Determine Business goals
- Develop business messages
- Outline target publics
- Decide on the best and most appropriate communications tools and resources to use
- Roll-out
- Follow up & evaluate
Crisis Management
The importance of how you as an organisation communicate with your key audiences in the event of a crisis cannot be exaggerated. We have all seen how poor public relations management has crippled an organisation and/ or how in a flash how it has dismantled any corporate reputation a business has built and how it can take years to repair this.
Editorial & Copywriting
What you may find mundane about your business may actually be very interesting to a certain audience. Similarly, what you find to be an exciting news story about your business may actually not be very appealing to a journalist. We have the expertise to decipher between these stories and to find the “newsy” angle that will ensure that your press release gets picked up and ultimately read by the people you are reaching out to.
How a press release is drafted have a significant bearing on whether it will even get read by a journalist. Press releases and other communications material need to be tailored for different audiences and we know how to do this.
Media Training
Whether it’s addressing a room full of peers or chatting to a journalist on the Six One news – public speaking can be a daunting task – even if it’s on a topic you know inside out.
We provide practical training & support for those who would like to engage with broadcast media and/ or who would like to be able to speak at a conference but feel they are not yet in a position that they would be confident enough to do either. And as always – practice make perfect.
Public speaking is not for everyone however – and we realise that. So while we might suggest some media training we can also develop very effective communications campaigns that do not require people to become adept at public speaking.
Conference Moderation
With strong knowledge on financial and corporate topics, we offer a conference moderating service to a select number of clients. Our interviewing skills and topic expertise ensures that these sessions extract the most from the panelists resulting in strong audience engagement.
Strategic marketing
1. Review of existing marketing plan and activities
We are often asked by our clients to review their existing marketing plans. This is a great way of bringing a fresh perspective to your business and your way of doing things. Our aim is to ensure existing initiatives are delivering in terms of brand building and customer generation while also introducing some alternative and exciting ideas. We will also ensure that the marketing goals are fully aligned with the goals of the business.
2. Marketing team review and mentoring
If you are concerned the output of your marketing department is unclear or possibly not in line with the core business objectives, or that the function is not being utilised effectively, we can help. We will review the structure, roles, skills, outputs of marketing and will examine the effectiveness of its relationship and communication with key internal stakeholders. We will mentor and develop your existing marketing function to become motivated, and to ensure they understand and are aligned with the goals of the business.
3. Outsourced marketing
We can operate all marketing activity for your business, allowing you and your team to focus on what you do best. We will develop a marketing plan, manage the roll-out of marketing activities, measure success against agreed KPIs and report back to you on an ongoing basis.
4. Branding
We will help you define your brand identify and work with you to bring your brand to life.
Our approach to branding is to work internally with your team, to ensure they have a clear understanding of your brand and adopt a sense of pride in it. This will then enable us to translate the experience across to your customers, ensuring that every point of contact with them is considered and that they experience top-class brand consistency and strong service levels across all marketing channels.
5. Efficient use of digital marketing
Digital marketing provides extremely useful tools to sell your business and attract customers. However, it can become overwhelming, and it needs to be tightly controlled to ensure it remains focused on your business’s objectives.
In addition, businesses often outsource this function to specialists that may not have a comprehensive understanding of that business sector which invariably results in missed opportunities and inconsistencies that are confusing for customers.
We will work with you to review your current approach to digital marketing, make recommendations for improvement and develop a digital marketing strategy that works best for your business.
Customer lifecycle strategies
1. Winning business
Pitching for new business is a critical but time-consuming requirement. To be successful, you need a clear understanding of your potential customer’s business, their needs and how you can help them.
We will review your existing pitch process and provide you with a Pitch Process & Pitch Toolkit. By putting structure on how you approach winning business and providing tools to speed up aspects of the process, your team will have more time to focus on the important elements of pitching which will assist improve your win ratio.
2. Customer listening
We help our clients develop a closer relationship with their customers and gain a better understanding of their needs by listening to them and acting on their feedback. The result is customer loyalty, repeat business, positive word of mouth and greater referrals of business.
We will help set-up and manage customer listening programmes and key account programmes. We will work with you to identify and manage relationships with key referrers of business and to segment your customer base to ensure you are tailoring your service offering to their unique needs.
Project work
- Brand awareness campaigns
- Mergers
- Office openings
- Recruitment drives
- Sponsorship programmes
