Posts Tagged‘PR 101’

GM CEO speaks the truth while tackling a PR crisis

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “honesty is the best policy.” Some learn the hard way that “the truth always comes out eventually” and get burned. Others, like General Motor’s top exec, Mary Barra, followed a basic tenet of good PR:  if you have a problem or issue, own  it and address it upfront and quickly.

Very few CEO’s would want to be in Barra’s shoes right now, but many appreciate the fact that she is taking a recall into her own hands and tackling it head-on. You can catch up on the fine details of GM’s recall here. In a nutshell, it sounds like the automaker failed to fix faulty ignition switches in its Chevy Cobalt and those faults have since been linked to 12 deaths. To make matters worse, it appears that GM was aware of the problem for as long as 10 years before taking action to correct the problem.

There are obviously still some very serious issues at GM and many of them can’t be fixed by improved public relations.  But, improved public relations will help give GM the space and time they need to get things fixed IF they move forward to do so quickly, decisively and transparently.

If you read our post on the Tesla’s PR crisis, some of the same crisis management points can be used here. In general, Kovak-Likly recommends the following:

  • When lives are involved, it’s even more crucial to bring out the truth quickly and proactively than to have it pulled out.
  • Giving an update that says we have no new information is better than being silent, even if you have no new information to deliver.
  • Be transparent.
    o   Let people know what you are doing to resolve the situation.
    o   Detail the steps you plan to take to avoid this in the future.

Barra’s strategy will be tested over the coming weeks and is certainly on the path to a reasonable public relations outcome if she continues to be open and honest.

If you have a problem or issue you need help addressing, give us a call or shoot me an email, we’d love to help you develop an issue or crisis communications plan.

-BML

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Don’t count on luck when it comes to your PR strategy

If you’re wondering why your coworkers have been pinching you all morning, here’s a hint: It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Did you forget to wear green? Since luck is top-of-mind today, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about the importance of planning. I cannot stress this enough: Do not leave your PR strategy to chance. Rolling the dice and hoping for the best is not a strategy.

Let’s pretend you’re a medical device maker with a new product set to launch next week. You’re planning to issue a press release. However, that press release should be the tip of your planning iceberg. (If you just read that line and thought “uh oh…,” give me a call asap.) Here are some other basic things to consider:

  • Press kit. What will you do if a reporter asks for more details about your new product? You’ll want to be prepared with a press kit you can send. At a minimum, the press kit should contain a product fact sheet, a company fact sheet and a product FAQ, plus high resolution product images and your company’s logo. Based on your unique needs, it might make sense to include other elements, particularly if your technology is complicated.
  • Spokesperson. What will you do if the reporter wants to speak with someone at your company? Before any press release leaves your office, identify who will serve as spokesperson. Sometimes it makes sense to identify a couple of people who can respond to different aspects of the story. It could be a company researcher or clinical trial investigator to handle the science-based questions, and a C-level exec to handle questions about corporate strategy. You’ll want to identify these folks in advance, make sure they’re amenable to the spokesperson role and find out their schedules the week of the announcement. There’s nothing worse than finding out at the last minute that your star spokesperson is incommunicado when you need her.
  • Spokesperson prep. What will it take to ensure your spokesperson is prepared? I recommend using your key messages (you did refine your key messages after reading last week’s blog post, right?) as a starting point for creating talking points for the interview. You might also think about conducting a mock interview. We’ll get into media training in detail in a future post.

That’s my bare-bones, at-a-minimum, the least you can do planning recommendation. I highly recommend doing a comprehensive assessment of your overall PR strategy to uncover potential issues and make a plan. The team at Kovak-Likly can help with that, whether you need a basic strategy or a full, comprehensive marketing communications plan. Oh, and if I still haven’t convinced you of the need to plan to succeed, take a look at Business Insider’s summary of the 15 biggest PR disasters of the decade. Shoot me an email when you figure out what all 15 fails had in common.

– BML

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Refine your key messages today, thank me tomorrow

What’s the big deal about key messages? Your company is your company, your brand is your brand and your products are your products, right? Not so fast. I bet if you asked two people to describe your company, your brand or your products, you’d get two different sets of descriptions. Have you ever identified an object as blue, only to be told that it’s not blue, it’s cerulean? It’s kind of like that.  (For those of you who know I’m color blind, you’ll see a bit of humor in this.)

It’s important to control how your company, brand, products or services are messaged. If you don’t position them appropriately, someone else will most likely interpret them differently, and you might not like the results. You might think you’re offering a cerulean masterpiece, while somebody else might call it a blue piece of junk.  Messaging dictates how people perceive what you have to offer, and you can’t leave that to chance. You want your leadership team, your sales team, your customers and the media to describe what you have to offer the same way—the way you describe it. The secret to that is your key messages.

When the Kovak-Likly team works with our healthcare clients to develop key messages, we start by asking the following questions:

  • What do you want people to know about your company?
    • When asked who you are, what do you want others to know about your company?
    • What does your company stand for?
    • Who does your company serve/who are your customers?
    • What is your company’s record and reputation?
    • What do you want people to know about your brands/products?
    • What are the brand’s key values?
    • Who does the company/brand/product aspire to be?
    • What makes the company/brand/product special?
    • What problems does your company/brand or product solve?

Once you answer those questions and you write out your messages, consider the following factors and think about refining your messages:

  • Do your key messages align with the interests of your target audiences? If they aren’t in alignment, are you planning to go after a new target audience? Different audiences want different things. Some people buy on price, others on quality, still others on exclusivity. If your key messages don’t align with your key audience’s priorities, you should think about new messages, or  shifting your target audiences.
  • Do your key messages differentiate you from your competitors? Positioning yourself as the same as the other guy is not going to win any hearts or minds—or sales. Key messages need to identify your key differentiators. Is it your U.S.-based manufacturing? Your customer service? First/best/only?

Once you develop your key messages, you should validate them with your key stakeholders and target audiences, then stick to them with conviction and deploy them everywhere. Use them in media interviews, adapt them for your marketing collateral, talk about them within your company and on your social media platforms, etc. And if you need help with your key messages or getting them to your targeted audiences and making them sink in, shoot me an email. We’d love to help.

– BML

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PR 101: Why is reminding ourselves of the basics and getting back to them so important?

In college, I was a competitive skier and had the opportunity to compete internationally at a pretty high level.  I learned a ton of life lessons from that experience.  One of those lessons is that getting back to the basics is critical if you want to ensure top performance.  I made a point to get back to basics once a quarter, which meant taking a hard look at my training and competition plan, evaluating the components of those plans, my execution of that plan, and my technique.  I often found that if I was working hard and not getting the results I expected, I needed to revisit these basics and focus less on the clutter that filled my world.

The same strategy applies to leveraging public relations to drive business goals and objectives.

If you currently work with a PR agency, you hopefully already know the impact PR can have on your company and your brands. (If you work with a firm and you can’t see the value, you should call us. We should have a serious talk about getting back to basics.) Maybe you’re somewhat new to PR or maybe your boss or mentor has suggested some PR counsel might be helpful to your business. Regardless of which camp you are in, knowing the basics—and focusing on the basics—of public relations will always net a better result than all the pomp, circumstance, glitz, glamour and money you can throw at a challenge.

To start, it helps if you speak the same language as the experts. Here’s a quick overview:

What is PR?

It’s short for public relations. This means exactly what it says. PR helps to build, repair and maintain relationships with the public. Who that public is depends of the specific needs of each client.

How do you determine which public to target?

Research and listening. At Kovak-Likly, we do our homework. We ask questions and we listen—really listen—to our clients and members of the communities they wish to serve; and we conduct research to determine how to target messaging efforts more efficiently and effectively. Which audiences we want or need to reach in order to meet an objective is usually determined through our understanding of specific industries, the needs of our clients and input from a wide variety of sources which we check and cross check.  Knowing who your most important key audiences are, and validating that understanding, is a basic component of highly successful public relations programs.

What does relations really mean?

Relations should really be thought of in terms of perspective.  This notion of perspective is an important, basic component of successful public relations programs. The relationships we have with others, with companies and with brands we choose or don’t choose are fundamentally based on the perspective we have with them.  As an extension, relations are affected by the messaging, information, education and resulting perspective audiences have on a given topic.

So when you think of public relations, you should really be thinking in terms of educating targeted audiences on a given topic or providing information that will assist those audiences in gaining perspective that is valuable in the way you would like your company or brand to be perceived.

When you approach PR from this perspective, there are limitless opportunities to cost-effectively reach large audiences and impart on them perspectives that are most valuable to you and your business.  It will also aid your key audiences in viewing your company and brands in the favorable light you are looking for.

Here are some realistic expectations for your next PR campaign:

  • PR  can educate first time buyers so they can make important decisions with valuable knowledge up front, making the buying experience more enjoyable, more efficient and hopefully more fruitful for your business objectives.
  • PR can educate distributors and decision makers (and even gate keepers) along the decision path to facilitate acquisition of your product or service.  This can help you secure stronger distribution partners and develop supportive relationships with intermediate decision makers and often critical gatekeepers.
  • PR can educate multiple audiences in a specific marketplace either independently or at the same time. Using healthcare as an example, there are a wide variety of public relations techniques we use to help clients educate the marketplace on new medical developments and get valuable information to doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies, patient advocacy organizations, research institutions, patients and their loved ones so they gain the valuable perspective we’ve been discussing.

There are so many other ways PR can help you achieve your objectives.  What is most important is knowing the basics and executing on them with focus and determination.  I hope this gives you a good start. Let me know if you have any questions, or if you’re interested in learning more about Kovak-Likly’s capabilities.

-BML

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The Importance of Proofreading

If I told you I knew a shortcut that could give your company instant credibility and enhance your position as a go-to expert, what do you think I’d suggest? A celebrity spokesperson? A new million-dollar integrated marketing campaign that includes public relations, advertising and investor relations initiatives? A guaranteed interview in a top newspaper?

Try more diligent proofreading. Yes, proofreading.

Let me explain. Error-free writing is low-hanging fruit. It’s the easiest thing you can do to maintain your company’s credibility and prove that you’re as detail-oriented as you say you are. Here’s an example. Let’s say you receive a communication from your doctor. It’s riddled with typos and spelling errors. Does that help or hurt your doc’s credibility? Fair or not, that communication might make me wonder what other mistakes my doctor might be making.

Thanks to Ragan.com and LinkedIn for the helpful infographic.

Thanks to Ragan.com and LinkedIn for the helpful infographic.

Clean, error-free copy—whether it’s in the form of a press release, marketing piece, social media post or website—puts the focus on your message. Here are the three things to look for before going live with any content:

  • Grammar. They’re/their/there? Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check is a good first step to making sure your grammar is top-notch, but it’s far from comprehensive. (Want to test this out? Open Word and type in the following: “I ate there food. I ate they’re food. I eight there food.” See what I mean?) Ask a colleague to edit your copy, or run your pieces through a site like Grammarly.com.
  • Spelling and punctuation. Start with Word, but be sure to carefully proof your drafts. I find that proofing a paper copy—rather than on the computer screen—helps me spot typos.
  • Clarity. Your copy should be easy to read. If you have to read and re-read a sentence to understand what you were trying to say, rewrite it. No one ever complains about a press release that’s too easy to read.

Another great resource I recommend is Grammar Girl’s section on www.quickanddirtytips.com. One final tip is to put another set of eyes on it. Nothing beats passing important communications past a second set of eyes before sending it out. If it’s an important message to communicate, it’s important to communicate it properly. If you feel like you need more help getting your content in great shape, shoot me an email or give me a call.

– BML

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