Like many Minneapolis B2B PR firms, Snow Communications uses Google analytics, SEO strategies, and related digital marketing technologies; but we understand that content is everything. We know a good story when we see it. Maybe that comes from having been a reporter and writer for The New York Times, The Star Tribune, Radio Sweden and other news organizations. Having been an editor, I have a good idea of what editors want, and don’t want. Good B2B PR firms figure out how take a story that is not fundamentally glamorous – and often far from it, and turn it into something a publication’s subscribers want to read.

In addition, we’ve launched dozens of new companies successfully.

Content Marketing: The Gift That Kept Giving

Zepol logo

When we launched new company Zepol, we realized right away that this was a content marketing play – even before that term was in wide use. Zepol publishes trade data – data about the movement of goods from country to country, and that data is of great interest to a lot of people at companies and other organizations.

We made successful pitches about Zepol, its rapid growth, its value to its customers and related themes. But the gift that kept giving was where we offered recognized publications the opportunity to provide Zepol trade data in their publication and on their website. This became a recurring source of promotion for Zepol long after our work with them was complete.

Please read our case study

See details in our Zepol case study.

Law firm PR generates new business when PR and content marketing is used to positively change perceptions in the firm’s market. When Gray Plant Mooty, a business law firm with a 100-plus year history in the Minneapolis – St. Paul market, wanted to gain more public company business, they asked a Minneapolis PR firm that specializes in law firm PR, Snow Communications, to develop a strategy and then implement it.

Gray Plant Mooty logo

Key To Campaign

Key to the campaign was understanding the market perceptions that were hindering the firm from gaining more public company business. With a better understanding of these perceptions, Snow was able to develop and implement a communications strategy that targeted some key areas of market perception for change.As an experienced law firm PR firm, Snow Communications has worked as a law firm PR firm for numerous law firms, and was well grounded in law firm PR, so it already had a methodology developed for working with law firms and creating successful law firm PR campaigns.

Central to the campaign was creating visibility for the public company issue in key media read and valued by decision makers, buyers and key influencers.

Encouraging Results

The results included improved awareness of the firm’s public company legal services offerings and additional business. As a Minneapolis PR firm with law firm experience, Snow Communications understands that supporting business development is the key to bring value to its law firm PR engagements.

For more information, see our case study, “Legal PR: Breaking Through.”

Are your legal services viewed as a commodity or a brand? Law firms are struggling with price pressures from customers and prospects, yet few law firms actively and comprehensively market their services in a branded way. As an agency that works not only with law firms but also with branded companies like Hormel, General Mills and 3M, we’re used to designing marketing campaigns that build on branded products and services and make the case for the price premium customers expect to pay.

Branded product marketing communicates higher quality, greater overall satisfaction and the higher likelihood that the product will meet the customer’s specific needs. In the case of branded services, the customer service dimension, including a satisfaction guarantee, is highlighted along with the promised end result. Branded product and service marketing tout the key differentiators that make that product or service unique.

Law firms that seek to build market share and pricing power should develop a branded marketing strategy and communicate their brand promise in a consistent, comprehensive way.

– Joshua Schneck

Groupthink, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.”

Such conformity to group opinion can be a real danger when company leaders, believing that they and those around them have an accurate sense of their brand’s reputation, fail to generate external feedback prior to making branding decisions. Brand evaluation and reorganization can be a very positive and healthy thing. Every business must evolve to survive. Messages need to be updated. Websites refreshed. Ads evaluated. But when tackling these challenges, it is important to remember that public perception is what really matters, and that perception can sometimes vary widely from what’s assumed by the top brass.

For example, members of your sales team might not feel comfortable  speaking up about their distaste for the current logo when sitting across from the company’s top executives, who likely approved that very design.

Your company’s clients, however, will probably have no qualms about being more direct.

So, what options are available for gathering meaningful data on corporate brand? Here are a few that can be much more valuable than an internal discussion in the conference room:

• One-on-one meetings with customers
• Focus groups
• Ad Readership Studies (if appropriate)
• Online survey tools like those offered by Constant Contact or SurveyMonkey.

In other words, don’t just make sure you are asking the right questions; make sure you are you asking the right people. Internal discussions are necessary, but the most coveted opinions should be reserved for customers and potential customers.

Simply put, a strategic communications plan is a description of a company’s marketing and communications goals and activities. And it should be treated as an essential document for any company, especially a start-up. While every plan should include a few key sections (outlined below), there is no single, one-size-fits-all approach that works for every business. A communications plan for a restaurant will be much different than one for a hospital, for example. But here is a snapshot of the crucial elements that every plan should include.

An Overview

This opening section describes the nature of the business and how it plans to grow through strategic communications and marketing.

Background Research

Arguably, the single most important feature of any communications plan is the background research and analysis. After all, how can you be expected to tell your company’s story if you don’t know much about the industry in which you operate? Generally this background research will identify the current market size, segmentation, target customers, growth opportunities, risks and competitors. In addition a SWOT analysis for the company itself would be helpful here.

Establish Your Mission, and Your Messages

Now is the time to define your brand, your products, your company and your value proposition to the market.

State Your Goals

Goals should be simply what you want your communications to achieve. These are specific, measurable outcomes: a percentage of market share, annual sales, growth into certain markets, etc.

Define Your Strategy

Strategies are the initiatives that will allow you to realize your goals. These should answer the question of “how” the company plans to communicate to its customers. For example, a restaurant might devise a strategy for becoming a go-to family gathering place on Monday nights, in the hopes of meeting its overall revenue goals. Or, a backup software company might create a strategy for focusing on a certain customer niche, like publishing companies or law firms, in order to support its own expectations.

Define Your Tactics

These are the tools of the trade. Identify the channels of your communications strategy here, such as social media, blogging, digital advertising, direct response marketing, or media relations. Be as specific as possible. It’s not enough to simply list a bunch of marketing channels – describe how they will be used. Consider the strategies you’ve identified above. Do your tactics support them?

Build a Schedule and a Budget

Now that you have a set of tasks to complete, put them on a schedule. Identify who “owns” each task, and list anticipated completion dates. Keep your team accountable and abreast of approaching deadlines. Also, is your marketing and communications budget in line with the strategies you plan to implement? Talk with vendors, publishers, printers and anyone else that can give you the necessary cost information to make sure what you’re planning falls within your budget.

Keep it Alive

You’ll put a lot of work into this plan. The last thing you want is to see it relegated to a dusty corner in someone’s office. Marketing and communications strategies evolve. You might have to prioritize certain goals over others. Test and measure what’s working and update your plan accordingly.

The press release, that tried and true tactic used by companies and PR practitioners for eons, has gone through quite an evolution over the past decade or so. Before the age of the Internet, the press release was generally only seen by, you know, the press. Companies and their PR agencies would distribute the announcement and hope that it was compelling enough to warrant a story.

Today, the release plays a more dynamic role. Social media and company websites allow for direct communication and interaction with customers. Releases are generally drafted with multiple audiences in mind – including journalists, customers and industry analysts.

But there is one additional “audience” that should not be forgotten – search engine spiders, or web crawlers. These automated bots constantly scour the Web for content, and their findings are used to determine which websites are shown when an individual conducts a search using various keywords. If you anticipate that your press release will be posted anywhere online – your website, through a newswire, or any media outlet with an online presence, then it’s important to consider the language used from a search engine’s perspective.

For example, if your business provides computer data cloud storage solutions, and you’re announcing upgraded security protections for customers, give the release a heavy dose of the technical upgrades you’re offering and how your customers will benefit. Generic, over-used language – groundbreaking, world-class, revolutionary – not only gets on readers’ nerves, it also does nothing for search engine optimization. The classic Gobbledygook Manifesto [PDF] shows just how frequently these terms are used – and the more often a term is used, the more competition there is for the attention of the search engine crawlers. Detailed, descriptive keywords are more effective in generating meaningful website traffic.

Press releases are a mainstay for public relations campaigns. By keeping search engine crawlers in mind when crafting the language within them, releases can continue to provide benefits for a long time.

This is Part 5 in a five-part series titled The Art of the Pitch.

Part 1, Four Factors That Make for an Ideal Pitch, can be found here.

Part 2, Doing Your Pitch Homework, can be found here.

Part 3, Crafting the Pitch, can be found here.

Part 4, Sending the Pitch, can be found here.

The most important piece for any media relations campaign is the source itself. After all, what good is a carefully crafted pitch if the interviewee is underprepared? It’s often the job of the PR agency to make sure that the source being interviewed knows what to say, how to say it, and how to handle any curveballs during the interview.  Below are a few tricks that help to ensure your source is prepped and ready to go.

Opportunity Briefs

Opportunity briefs are summaries of the upcoming media opportunity that describe the focus of the interview, the media outlet, the journalist’s background and previous works, and logistical details such as time, location and estimated duration of the interview. Opportunity briefs serve to help give the source a better understanding of the Who, What, When, Where and Why.

Advance Questions

Some journalists are willing to provide questions in advance to make sure the source is ready to give the most detailed, organized answer possible. Questions won’t be available in advance every time, but it’s usually worth checking just in case. Knowing what will be asked is obviously a tremendous help.

Media Training

We could spend a lot of time covering what goes into media training and why it can be so important, but that’s for another blog entry. However it’s worth discussing that media training can be an essential exercise for interview sources, especially if they are inexperienced in dealing with the media. Just like any other skill, practice makes perfect. Media training sessions may cover different things depending on the type of interview – is the source going to be on camera, or speaking by phone? Will there be a press conference? Sometimes media training might be geared toward a specific interview on the horizon, while other training might focus on general preparedness. Either way, it can be an invaluable tool for helping a source feel comfortable and ready to handle the upcoming situation.

This is Part 4 in a five-part series titled The Art of the Pitch.

Part 1, Four Factors That Make for an Ideal Pitch, can be found here.

Part 2, Doing Your Pitch Homework, can be found here.

Part 3, Crafting the Pitch, can be found here.

Once your story pitch is teed up and ready to go, all you’ve got to do is send it, right? Well, sort of. While it’s easy enough to send off your story suggestion to the journalists on your list, it’s worth considering a few things before doing so.

One at a Time

We discussed the need to “keep it custom” in Part 3, but it’s worth reiterating here. Emails that begin with “Hello”, “Dear Sir”, or another generic introduction tell the recipient that your pitch was sent to multiple targets at once, making it less likely to be considered. Journalists favor exclusivity. Something as simple as addressing them by name, with a pitch that clearly indicates it’s been written for their needs, has a better shot at success.

That’s not to say that using a system to send multiple pitches at once is always a bad idea, but it’s helpful to weigh the benefits (speed, convenience) against the potential drawbacks.

Try to Avoid Fridays

Generally, Fridays are when companies and politicians release unfavorable news. There are reasons for this – generally media consumption is lighter on Saturdays, and by Monday there will (hopefully) be other, more recent news to cover. For media pitches, there is another reason to wait until Monday: if the email goes unread on Friday, it will be buried deep within the inbox by Monday morning.

Exceptions include breaking news on a Friday that you’ll want your source to be a part of, or publications that have midweek deadlines. In those cases, Friday isn’t such a bad option – but the earlier in the day, the better.

Careful With the Follow-Ups

Routinely and without fail, one of the biggest pet peeves cited by the media about PR people is receiving an immediate phone call after an email was received, in which the PR person says, “Just confirming that you received our press release.” Chances are they saw it, and they’ll write about it if it’s compelling. Calling immediately to follow up will probably land you in the reporter’s dog house and might do more harm than good.

There’s no official rule for when to follow-up, but I generally try to allow for a buffer period of at least 24 hours – possibly several days depending upon what type of medium I’m pitching and the urgency of the story. And when I do get a journalist on the line, I’m quick to ask if it’s a good time to speak before launching into the reason for my call. A little courtesy goes a long way.

Part 5 of The Art of the Pitch will be posted next week, in which we’ll discuss “Preparing the Expert Source”.

This is Part 3 in a five-part series titled The Art of the Pitch. Part 1, Four Factors That Make for an Ideal Pitch, can be found here. Part 2, Doing Your Pitch Homework, can be found here.

Once you’ve got a compelling story idea, an expert source at the ready, and a particular journalist in mind, it’s time to write that pitch. How well this is done can be the difference between an interview and an express route to the trash bin.  Consider following these simple steps for maximum likelihood of success.

Keep it Short

The journalist you’re contacting is likely under a current deadline. Chances are also excellent that they constantly receive unprompted story suggestions, some of which are only marginally relevant to their beat. They don’t have time to read a novel, so you’d better get to the point quickly.

Don’t beat around the bush. Use the subject line to quickly summarize why you’re writing. Tell them what the story is, your source’s credentials, and what they can offer. A general rule of thumb to follow is three paragraphs maximum – and by paragraphs, I mean 2-4 sentences per paragraph.

Keep it Interesting

This is a no-brainer that can also be difficult to get right. I generally try not to get too cute when pitching journalists, but I don’t want to be overly vanilla either. Strive for punchy, concise copy that tells the reporter exactly how you envision the story, and your source’s compelling role within that story.

Keep it Custom

Whenever possible, tailor the pitch for the journalist that’s receiving it. Mention the publication. Talk about an upcoming issue for which this story would be a perfect fit. Make sure they know that you wrote this pitch with them specifically in mind.

And whatever you do, don’t use the salutations “Dear Sir or Madam”, “Hello”, or another generic greeting that basically screams “You’re on a mass media list and every one of them got this exact pitch.”

Part 4 of The Art of the Pitch will be posted next week, in which we’ll discuss “Sending the Pitch”.