Context Public Relations

Spend a day or so out of the office and most of us will come back to a packed Inbox of work emails and promotional mail.  While I tend to delete a lot as irrelevant there are always a few interesting gems that grab my attention – leading me to read on and do the all-important ‘click throughs’.

E-mail marketing today is more sophisticated than it’s ever been, and it’s an important element of any marketing mix.  But, the key is to create an e-mail that targets those people you want to interact with in a way that will grab their attention and make them want to find out more.

Too often we see poorly executed e-letters – they’re not personalised, there’s no strong message, and there may be no design what so ever.  It’s not hard to create something that will have a lot more impact – with the potential to get you noticed and win you more business.

Want to find out more about e-marketing?  Why not get in touch.

Tags: Marketing Mix by Rachel
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Social media is becoming increasingly important in any company’s marketing activity and blogging is no exception. However, with research showing that 60-80% of blogs are abandoned within one month of creation, we have launched a new service to help companies maintain a regularly updated blog.

Our new service, Blogging for Business, is available to all UK businesses that have identified the importance of having a blog to help with Search Engine Optimisation and customer communication, but simply don’t have the time to upload regular blogs to keep the content current.

We have experience of managing blogs for companies in a range of sectors and can coordinate activity to suit the needs of individual businesses. So if you’d like to know more, why not give us a call on 01625 511966.

Tags: Marketing Mix, Public Relations, SEO by Debbie
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Now that X Factor has returned to our screens, Saturday nights will never be the same… well not until after Christmas anyway. And I think it’s fair to say that the audition stages are vastly more entertaining than the final live performances.

There’s nothing quite like that first cringe when you see an act appear on the stage in a sequined suit or dressed as a chicken, but it just goes to show how important first impressions are.

Those more unfortunate auditionees who thought they could get the judges’ attention by ‘dressing up’ will never be remembered for their singing, even if they do have talent they’re almost dismissed before they even begin their performance.

And just like a good first impression, a news release needs to have the same impact. If you try to grab the journalist’s attention with a Mickey Mouse title or if the opening paragraph misses the point you can lose their attention completely, and there’s no hope of them continuing to read the rest of the story despite how newsworthy it might be.

So when writing a news story, make sure you have a strong title and an opening paragraph that summarises the nature of the release effectively or you could be asked to stop before you’ve even had your chance to shine…like this guy.

Tags: Public Relations by Megan
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I’m off on holiday this week – finally some actual sunshine during our so- called “summer” – I cannot wait!

While I’m jetting off most people are probably returning from their breaks – as the end of summer draws in and kids go back to school – and it will be back to business as usual for the working masses.

However one question clients often ask is, is it worth issuing PR material to the press during holiday season?

In a word yes. The Easter, Summer and Christmas holiday periods may be quieter work wise than the rest of the year, but the fact of the matter is despite being a bit thinner on the ground, magazine staff are still there working on their publications. Deadlines still need to be met as magazines still need to be published weekly, monthly or quarterly, so material is still needed to fill pages.

Regardless of the time of year it’s important to keep a steady stream of news flowing to help maintain your company’s profile in the press, so sending in your press releases and opinion articles during the holidays is not a wasted effort. On the contrary, with people being out of the office – including your competitors – your PR material will have less to compete with, potentially giving you far more column inches than you may have expected to get!

Tags: Public Relations by Priya
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There’s the common misconception that media profiling is all about pampering egos and indulging navel-gazing for senior executive staff.

Personal profiling is in fact a powerful and persuasive means of strengthening your media profile and brand awareness, as well as building effective relationships with key journalist contacts in the process, for ongoing media opportunities.

We have an instinctive interest in other people’s lives, and so profiles can help to draw the reader in, giving the back-story on how your company was formed, where the inspiration came from, hard lessons learned along the way, and where you’re going next. 

How else could you secure a page or so of dedicated editorial in a national newspaper such as The Times, focused entirely on your company, your brand and your leading man or woman, without the very hefty advertising price tag?

So don’t be afraid to show the faces, characters and personalities behind your brand.  Properly managed, and with the right consultative advice and support from your PR agency, you can ensure you get your key marketing messages out there, raising brand and market awareness in front of a captive audience.

Tags: Public Relations by Luke
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• Google apologises for gmail outage (Guardian)
• Gmail outage: now how am I going to sell this Viagra? (The Telegraph)
• Google outage setback for business email pitch (Reuters)

What many companies fail to realise is that when something happens no comment or even silence is not an option. Responding to a crisis is often as important as getting out the good news so that’s where crisis management planning helps.

Following are four steps you may want to take during your own crisis management planning

Step 1 – Identify scenarios

By running an internal brainstorm you can identify a number of things that could happen to your business. Don’t forget to consider external issues as well as internal ones.

Step 2 – Come up with a response

Once you have the scenarios you can get a good idea what your response should be. It may be as simple as saying what has happened and what you are doing about it, but in most cases you may want to go into more detail including identifying company spokespeople or information that you may want to issue.

Step 3 – Make someone responsible

Always make sure that there is a single point of contact. By nominating a single point of contact for quotes and comment you make sure that your key messages are communicated clearly and the crisis turns into a positive for the business.

Step 4 – Communicate the plan

If you have done a crisis management plan make sure everyone knows about it and also make sure that it is not locked away in the MD’s office, you may even want to include it in your employees handbook.

If in doubt please take a moment to look at our feature on crisis management planning.

Tags: Public Relations by Rob
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As you’ve probably seen, last week Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia launched in 2001 with the aim of being an online repository of all human knowledge, announced that it was abandoning one of its founding principles.

To combat growing amounts of misleading or false information on the site, a two-month trial has started in which new entries and updates will be edited before they go live.

What does that mean to your PR strategy?  A positive Wikipedia entry on your company or offering is always good for profile – but actually getting an initial entry on the site has obviously become more difficult now. 

So now more than ever, the rule is to start small:  add your company or solution name to the relevant pages on their application or use.  Then start to build a small, factual entry on your company, without using jargon or hype.  Use evidence such external links and references wherever possible.  Invite partners to submit edits to the content.

If you’d like to understand more about how the changes to Wikipedia might affect you, contact us.

Tags: Marketing Mix, Public Relations by Craig
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