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Archive for the ‘Public Relations’ Category

There is an epidemic in the United States. An epidemic that is so overlooked, if gone unchecked any longer, could cripple the economic strata of the U.S. An epidemic that could be responsible for the genocide of millions of businesses. Curious what it is? I am referring to the gross mismanagement of e-commerce businesses. Okay, perhaps the phrases “cripple the economic strata” and “genocide of millions of businesses” was stretching a bit too far, however, it is a fact that the bulk of e-commerce businesses are not built on an infrastructure that embodies stability. I am referring to a lack of customer service support in the umbrella of businesses designating themselves “e-commerce” or “virtual businesses”.

It is true that the lure of starting the e-commerce business is powerful. An endeavor as such usually requires little or no capital investment, a credit card processing account, and rudimentary knowledge of HTML coding. These three elements compose the basic formula for starting an e-commerce business. There is a marked difference in the formula for starting a business and the formula for maintaining a business. To expound on the latter, what truly makes a business thrive is proper customer relationship management and immediate telephone / live voice account support. This is the key component that is missing from most on-line or “virtual” businesses.

Take, for instance, the internet based company Netflix. If you are unfamiliar with the company, they are a relatively young e-commerce business specializing in mail order DVD rental. The minds behind the ingenious idea that is the basis of Netflix failed to create telephone support for their product. There is no doubt this decision was a calculated one as they most likely weighed the cost of maintaining an in-house call center vs. integrating purely e-mail based support. Without looking at the numbers side of the argument, imagine the frustrated consumer having problems with their order and having to rely on a 24 hour lagged e-mail response system to rectify their account issues. Based on this plausible conjecture, I believe lack of live operator support will be the ruin of the Netflix organization and the downfall of all e-commerce businesses that follow the same train of thought. What these businesses do not realize is that it is possible and extremely cost effective to outsource your call center needs to an established advanced call center facility. This solution has a two fold benefit. It serves to establish a solid foundation of customer relationship management and opens businesses up to benefit from word of mouth advertising.
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You’ve just reviewed the final results of your last pro-active media campaign to launch that
new product or service. The numbers look pretty good: media impressions were in the millions;
coverage was evenly split between broadcast and print; and a leading national paper ran three
stories on the launch-pretty impressive. But could it have been better?

Analyze this

Analyzing issues or campaigns is the first big step in truly understanding any communications
success or failure. With busy schedules and/or tight client budgets, more often than not, media
analysis isn’t always carried out. A big investment is being made on gathering the media content,
but not on measuring and analyzing the trends, successes, and areas for improvement. Stories
are often filed away immediately or distributed to a limited group, never to be looked at again
or analyzed at all.

If you’re already conducting ongoing media analysis half the battle is won. But if not, you can
bet your client or director will demand it soon. New analysis technologies combined with increased
expectations to determine communications ROI (Return on Investment) are making analysis a must,
not a should.

Once you’ve determined the need or importance of analysis, what’s next? This is where the confusion
can set in. As can be expected, everyone has their own definition of how media content should be
analyzed based on their own experiences. And usually the issue of PR standards and formulas arise…and
that is when things often can come to a stand-still.

But before you get into how you are going to analyze, you must first determine what you’re interested
in analyzing. Here are a few considerations:

• Track success in key publications and mediums based on demographic suitability
• Evaluate key message penetration in media stories
• Track quality – not just quantity – of coverage
• Determine success vs. competitors
• Success of spokesperson pick-up
• Determine campaign ROI
• Measure advertising equivalency (if you must!)
• Monitor regional penetration comparisons
• Tabulate media impressions/audience numbers
• Compare key issues and/or product penetration
• Resulting editorial or other media commentary/letters to the editor

There are endless ways of analyzing and cross-referencing the information.
But you should note that you can accomplish all of the above considerations without getting
into confusing PR multipliers or complex formulas. The key is to determine what you’re interested
in evaluating and create benchmarks for future comparisons. And if you still want to add in
PR multipliers you can, as long as you consistently keep to the same formula. So whether you’re
multiplying by a factor of 3, 5, or 10, the coverage is always being evaluated in a consistent fashion
and can therefore be viewed as an unbiased and accurate portrayal.

Go Electronic, Go Real-Time

Reviewing the success of a new product launch, the impact of a crisis on your organization, or a
monthly comparison after-the-fact can provide valuable insight for future planning. But imagine the
change you could make if you have real-time data available to you at your fingertips in an instant.
Using real-time data you could monitor:
Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve just reviewed the final results of your last pro-active media campaign to launch that new product or service. The numbers look pretty good: media impressions were in the millions; coverage was evenly split between broadcast and print; and a leading national paper ran three stories on the launch-pretty impressive. But could it have been better?

Analyze this
Analyzing issues or campaigns is the first big step in truly understanding any communications success or failure. With busy schedules and/or tight client budgets, more often than not, media analysis isn’t always carried out. A big investment is being made on gathering the media content, but not on measuring and analyzing the trends, successes, and areas for improvement. Stories are often filed away immediately or distributed to a limited group, never to be looked at again or analyzed at all.

If you’re already conducting ongoing media analysis half the battle is won. But if not, you can bet your client or director will demand it soon. New analysis technologies combined with increased expectations to determine communications ROI (Return on Investment) are making analysis a must, not a should.

Once you’ve determined the need or importance of analysis, what’s next? This is where the confusion can set in. As can be expected, everyone has their own definition of how media content should be analyzed based on their own experiences. And usually the issue of PR standards and formulas arise…and that is when things often can come to a stand-still.

But before you get into how you are going to analyze, you must first determine what you’re interested in analyzing. Here are a few considerations:

Track success in key publications and mediums based on demographic suitability
Evaluate key message penetration in media stories
Track quality – not just quantity – of coverage
Determine success vs. competitors
Success of spokesperson pick-up
Determine campaign ROI
Measure advertising equivalency (if you must!)
Monitor regional penetration comparisons
Tabulate media impressions/audience numbers
Compare key issues and/or product penetration
Resulting editorial or other media commentary/letters to the editor

There are endless ways of analyzing and cross-referencing the information. But you should note that you can accomplish all of the above considerations without getting into confusing PR multipliers or complex formulas. The key is to determine what you’re interested in evaluating and create benchmarks for future comparisons. And if you still want to add in PR multipliers you can, as long as you consistently keep to the same formula. So whether you’re multiplying by a factor of 3, 5, or 10, the coverage is always being evaluated in a consistent fashion and can therefore be viewed as an unbiased and accurate portrayal.

Go Electronic, Go Real-Time
Reviewing the success of a new product launch, the impact of a crisis on your organization, or a monthly comparison after-the-fact can provide valuable insight for future planning. But imagine the change you could make if you have real-time data available to you at your fingertips in an instant. Using real-time data you could monitor:
Read the rest of this entry »

In the past few years, the anti-corporate movement (including those opposed to globalization) has gained a bit of steam.

What many people in the movement promote now is called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the idea that corporations should be responsible to all of society and the environment, as well as to shareholders.

It’s a shame they’ve gained momentum. After all, without modern corporations we would all be poorer, and in particular, few of us could expect to retire comfortably. More than anything else, modern corporations exist to provide pension income.

Sure, corporations used to be owned by a few, extremely rich people. But, with the widespread adoption of pension funds and mutual funds, corporations now belong mostly to working people.

While it’s true the average working person has far, far less wealth than the average billionaire, there are many, many times more working people. That means company and government pension plans can invest vast sums of money into capital stock, making working class people the largest shareholders of many corporations.

From a communication perspective, I’m interested in knowing why Corporate Social Responsibility gets such good media coverage and so much attention. I’m also interested in knowing what we, as communicators, can learn from them.

For starters, the anti-corporate movement has a simple message: “Corporations have too much money and power; working people don’t have enough,” or some variation on that theme. On the other hand, my defence of corporations above is anything but simple, even though I’m pretty good at capturing ideas in words. Did your eyes glaze over as you read my description?

The ‘anti’ movement also enjoys the luxury of making a good (poor working people) versus bad (rich corporations) argument. That’s a moral argument, one that adds spice to any news story. On the other hand, the ‘pro’ side works largely with rational discourse and the ideas of economists.

Third, the protestors bring passion to the anti-corporate message. After all, this is a battle of good against evil, isn’t it? Again, the defenders of modern corporations and globalization have to rely on the prosaic science of economists.
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