Public Relations is More Than Order Taking

Tweet

By Rebecca Chappell, Account Executive 

Recently at a luncheon for hospitality sales and marketing professionals I heard the phrase, “I don’t care if you’re an order taker, be the best order taker you can be.” I suppose the phrase makes sense for a restaurant server, for example, since what typically sets the best servers apart is their ability to upsell: As you’ve each selected the same glass of wine, how about sharing a bottle? But could the same phrase also be applied to a PR professional? I certainly hope not.

At (W)right On we take ‘project orders’ from our clients all the time. In any given month we fulfill a myriad of requests from writing a press release or designing a brochure, to producing a video or strategizing an email marketing campaign. But it’s not our goal to simply be great order takers. As PR consultants, our goal is to help our clients achieve their communications goals while helping them to see a bigger picture. And that means steering them to the right strategies to reach their goals.

For example, before we ever sit at the table to create compelling copy for a brochure, we may first have to spend time gently explaining to a client why his company jargon isn’t compelling or why a brochure is not the communications vehicle in the first place. Or when a client comes to us with a “great idea” for a press release, we can’t be afraid to ask: so what? We’re in the business of communications, so it’s our job to pinpoint the “so what?” in every project we collaborate on. Is this idea newsworthy? If not, let’s come up with an idea that is! Will anyone care? If not, let’s look at why and figure out how to make it so! Is there a different marketing route we could take instead of a routine press release? Let’s brainstorm the possibilities!   

When I heard that phrase, “…be the best order taker you can be,” I immediately thought of (W)right On’s Core Values and how five of them illustrate why we will never consider ourselves order takers: 

We act with intention. When we know the outcomes that are being targeted and how these will help our clients reach their goals, we make the best use of client and agency resources and we can anticipate problems before they arise. 

We focus on the important. We don’t confuse flash for substance. And we don’t confuse activity for productivity.

We are relentless about results. We are creative and thorough in helping clients achieve their goals. And we accept that we won’t always be successful, but when we aren’t, it won’t be because of something we didn’t think of or do!

We embrace and lead change. We accept and strive to stay ahead of changes in our industry and our clients’ industries. 

We do what’s right. We always act with integrity and don’t compromise on excellence. We don’t take short-cuts that sacrifice quality or our reputation. When we make a mistake we own it and make it right. 

Fact of the matter is, for us, relationships rule, and you can’t really have a relationship with a client if you’re just an order taker. Order takers are a commodity. Leaders add value. We take the time to build relationships with our clients by adhering to our Core Values and setting clear expectations and goals, having open communication channels and showing mutual respect. 

How do you build relationships in your industry?

Where’s the Beef?

Tweet

By Maureen Legg, Account Executive

Communicating Value

No one ever likes losing a customer or client, especially when they leave for the wrong reasons or never share any of their doubt or discontent about your product or service. We often mistake no news for good news, but many people actually prefer the door to the daunting prospect of sharing their discontent.

Sharing their discontent with you, that is. They have no problem sharing with all their colleagues.

This problem is more common among consumers of services than actual products. With a physical product, if something doesn’t perform as a customer expected, they can return or exchange it. Consulting services, like those we provide at (W)right On Communications, require more proactive communication with clients to increase their understanding of the work product and value of the outcomes. And whether you’re in the communications consulting field or a seller of world-class widgets, the following five communication steps can increase client satisfaction and build client loyalty.

The Plan’s the Thing

As a service provider, it is important to establish upfront a client’s needs and expectations and how you plan to meet (and hopefully exceed!) them. Agreeing on a well-defined set of goals and objectives makes evaluation of your services turnkey. Documenting this communication in a plan of action keeps everyone on the same page.

Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow

With a plan in place, you can grow your relationship with your client by bringing to their attention relevant current events and new ideas that could impact their business. This is a value-added service you can provide that demonstrates what you bring to their team. If your contribution becomes an action item that requires amendments to the original plan, advise your client of the financial implications upfront.

Just Do It

One of the biggest benefits you can bring to the party is the ability to get things done. Find ways to solve problems apart from relying on the client for an assist. And meeting deadlines is a must. Lingering projects for any reason lead to apathy about your value and a lack confidence in your ability.

Making Dollars Make Sense

When a client complains about the bill, it means they are not fully aware of all the benefits they are receiving from you so they don’t understand the value. It’s up to you to continually communicate the benefits of your service. That can take the form of regular progress reports with measurable metrics (you can even send this with the bill). Periodically meeting with your client to review the bills gives them a chance to ask questions and for you to describe the value-added services that are often not reflected on the bill. This also gives your client the opportunity to clarify what kind of outcomes they are expecting so that there is no miscommunication.

Three Little Words

Checking in with your client from time to time is the easiest way to diffuse percolating issues. Simply asking, “How’s it going?” can initiate a meaningful dialogue that leads to good will (maybe even an accolade or two) or course corrections in advance of a crisis situation.

In a digital world, it’s easy to think we’re having conversations because we’re communicating with one another. But there’s no substitute for being in the moment with a live, back and forth, give and take conversation with real-time facial expressions and tangible emotional engagement.

And remember – it’s cheaper to keep a client than to find a new one. Beyond lost revenue, you’ve just cost yourself the time and resources to cultivate new business.

Rise Thee Visual Web, Rise!

Tweet

By Grant Wright, CEO

Did you receive some sort of electronic device over the holidays? A smartphone like an iPhone or Android? A video game, camera, iPod, tablet, or laptop or maybe a new PC or Mac?  If you didn’t chances are you know someone who did.

A year ago I wrote that for the first time smartphones sales exceeded yearly PC sales. And a few months back, I mentioned that there are African countries that have largely skipped the landline era and gone straight to mobile phones, with there now being more than 715 million in Africa. In the U.S., Comscore reports 114 million Americans used smartphones in July 2012, and that this represents roughly half the potential market. So, add another 100 million or so and the American market’s done. Thinking about the 2012 holiday period, I bet there was a healthy dent in this remaining half. So, what will people do with, and demand of, all these powerful devices?

 

Where I’m going with this is that I think we’re in for another sea change, and soon. Like many things, communication evolves, sometimes slowly, and sometimes with startling disruption – witness the printing press, typewriter, PC, Internet, email software, mobile text, Facebook, Twitter...

Sure, there are relative periods of stability – long like the ancient days of cave walls and word of mouth; medium like the era of print newspapers and magazines; and short, like mobile texting.

It’s this last one which days are especially numbered, at least as we know texting today. With so many smartphones capable of so much more than a simple text message; with WiFi proliferation and data costs dropping like a rock; carmakers now incorporating WiFi and imminently 4G in vehicles – texting and Twitter don’t stand a chance. Why type something when you can just Voxer someone or blast a picture or a quick hi-def video with Tout? All hail thee visual web!

At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show happening in Las Vegas as I write this, one theme seems to be even larger smartphone screens to come. Personally, I don’t want to hold a brick to my head (been there done that with cell phones in the 80s). And who knows where a smartphone ends and a tablet begins. Smablet anyone? Another CES theme seems to be the connection of all the new devices to traditional devices like TVs. But ALL of these devices point to the need for more audio and visual content, and less thumbing of the written word.

While the need for compelling information, good storytelling and devices like humor and emotion are among the few communication components that are ‘traditional’ anymore, how the information is conveyed, story told and emotion evoked is ever changing. Increasingly, the cut-through will be achieved through multimedia – sound, video, graphics, animation and, I predict, soon enough smell. Yep, they’ll figure a way to trigger your device to release bacon and perfume scents. Forward thinking firms are already thinking of ways to respond to, if not lead, the rise of the visual web so as to remain connected to their target audiences wherever they are.

(W)right On celebrates its 15^th anniversary this month, but we’re just getting started. Owing to our great team and amazing clients we are privileged to serve, (W)right On was recently honored as a 2012 Most Admired Company for its professionalism, integrity and accountability. But like it also leads on the more tangible fronts such as social media evolution and communication program results, you can expect (W)right On to remain on the forefront of the visual web rise. Will you be there too?

Twitter: Grant_Wright

Tout: Grant_Wright

LinkedIn: /grantwrightwoc

Twitter: @wrightoncomm

Facebook: /wrightoncomm

Wrightoncommunications.blogspot.com

Wrightoncomm.com

The Myth of the Marketing ‘No-Brainer’

Tweet

By Julie Wright, President

Over the past 20 years, I’ve often heard people ask for the ‘no-brainer’ marketing idea. Two weeks ago, it was an entrepreneur with a national retail product looking for a PR ‘slam dunk.’ And two days ago it was the nonprofit executive overseeing a multi-million dollar fundraising campaign who scoffed at the notion that marketing dollars should be budgeted for her organization’s social media program.

This thinking is a dangerous delusion: There are no marketing no-brainers, slam dunks or results without a commitment of time, resources and, yes, budget.

How can I be so sure? It’s pretty obvious to me: If it were that easy, we’d all be millionaires and every nonprofit would be well-funded.

It takes a lot of hard work and money to understand your target market’s needs, reach them with your messages and keep those messages top of mind so that they think of you when they are ready to buy or donate.

Social media may have low barriers to entry but that doesn’t mean that making it work is free. Far from it. Like press coverage, engaging your target audience via social media means you need to earn their attention—earn, as in “to receive as return for effort and especially work done or services rendered.”

Entrepreneurs underestimate the investment required in time, attention and dollars to earn both their market’s attention and its business. This myth may be a big reason that roughly half of all businesses fail within five years.

Nonprofits need to keep their cause “top of heart” with donors all year round through storytelling and sharing. Imagine how donors will feel when reading a yearend appeal letter when they know how hard an organization has been working all year round. Their heart is already open to the appeal.

Return on investment from marketing activities requires strategies, systems and the people in place to see them through. The first step to marketing success is letting go of the idea that there’s a slam dunk, no-brainer or result to be earned without any investment.

5 Tips for Great Pictures

Tweet

By Kairee Luna, Design Specialist

One job that I truly love doing — no matter the circumstances, time required or pay — is one that I taught myself. It sometimes requires me to work outside in the cold or heat, roll around in dirt, and occasionally endure public humiliation. This is the life of a family photographer. I love what I do, and I’ve learned simple tips along the way that can help anyone take great pictures.

1. Edit photos sparingly.

Editing can enhance a photograph, but it can also detract from a photograph if done incorrectly. Editing should emphasize the good that already exists. Whenever I edit a photo, I try to keep it looking  as natural as possible while still making it "pop." I do so by adjusting lighting, saturation and contrast. Many beginners over contrast, or over or under saturate an image. It's fun to experiment with filters, so it's easy to go overboard. Still, the best photos are the ones that look natural, with the main focus on the subjects, not the strange colors and dark shadows that may exist around them. Now if you're going for artful or abstract photography, that's another story.

2. Don't be afraid to embarrass yourself.

If you're photographing children and want their attention, you'll need to act a little goofy to get them to laugh. During one of my recent shoots, I spent a good portion of the session making popping sounds with my mouth. And don't be afraid to sing if you have to. Luckily for me, I now have a partner who accompanies me on my shoots to take over the embarrassing battle of making silly faces for the kids. However, that task never truly ends.

3. Don't over or under pose your subjects.

My biggest weakness as a photographer is not knowing appropriate pose techniques. This can lead to awkward pauses where I attempt to think of something quick and on the spot, which may not make for the smartest decisions. At the same time, I believe this is also one of my strengths as it allows me to capture the moments I do. I don't strive for perfection; I strive for the raw and natural. You'll rarely see me move a client's arm to the small of his wife’s back, or tilt a child's head to get the very best angle. Sure, I'll give my clients loose direction and make sure they're all facing the camera, but I allow them to pose how they want. And when a family laughs, or a child runs off to play on their own, they become the best moments to capture. If a client doesn't feel comfortable, you'll sense it in a photograph. Likewise, if they're caressing their boyfriend's cheek in a way they wouldn’t in real life, it’s awkward for everyone. Sure, the photo might look awesome and resemble a romantic novel cover, but it doesn't reflect the personalities of the people in it. 

4. It's not the camera or equipment that makes a great photographer, it's the person behind the lens.

My biggest pet peeve is when someone compliments an awesome photograph, but then follows up by saying, "What kind of camera do you have? It takes great photos!" I shoot with the bare basics — a camera body and a 50mm camera lens, no fancy flashes, accessories or even top-of-the-line lenses that might separate me from looking like a hobbyist on a regular day. But if a photographer knows how to use their camera, frame an image and work with their subjects, it doesn't matter how old or basic the camera is. The photos will always turn out beautifully. And just because someone has better or newer equipment, doesn't mean their photographs will be any better than your own. 

5. Practice, practice, practice.

Photography is a skill you'll never stop learning, and the more you do it, the more you'll grow as a photographer and develop your own style.

Fear Is Its Own Food

Tweet

By Grant Wright, CEO

It struck me the other day that America was consumed by fear for so many months leading to the election. Fear of more Obama. Fear of change to Romney. Fear that the housing market isn’t strong enough. Fear that it’s too strong and becoming unaffordable again. Fear of Obamacare. Fear that Obama really does care. Fear that things won’t be OK. Fear that things will be OK for us, but we’re not doing enough for others. Fear. Fear.

Watching a morning ‘news’ channel that for months pedaled little more than outrage, speculation and what-ifs, suddenly overnight seeming to set its communication priorities on a discussion of coffee varieties; reading of Mitt Romney no longer having Secret Service or his campaign plane, and leaving a meeting a couple days later by getting into the back seat of his son’s ordinary gray Subaru; seeing the media offer us the latest catchphrase to turn our suddenly vacant fear capacity to “fiscal cliff” (listen for it, it too was everywhere overnight) – reminds me to stop and refuse to buy into it.

Don’t get me wrong – if you’re a gazelle with a cheetah bearing down on you then fear is a good thing. And arguably a little more tempering fear and prudence preceding the 2008 financial meltdown would have been a good thing. But we’re not gazelles and so much of what we fear is manufactured by others who profit ridiculously by playing to our fear response. So it can be hard to know good fear and harmful fear.

I recently heard someone quote a study that something like 98 percent of what we fret about never comes to pass. Arguably, at least some of it doesn’t come to pass because we worried about it and prevented it. But still, the extraordinary price we humans pay by worrying is, well, extraordinary.

Antacid sales worldwide each year alone reportedly top more than $10 billion. Sure, a lot of this is to do with other health factors like the obesity epidemic here in the U.S., but I’m guessing another big factor in this is simply people worrying, often needlessly.

KPBS radio recently reported that each year in the U.S. hospitals and surgeons have to pay out a total of more than $1 billion to surgery patients who have had something left inside them, like a sponge. And this is because there’s on average 4,000 items unintentionally left inside patients each year. Should I fear this if I need surgery? Of course not, in the same way you can’t worry about your plane being the one to crash from the roughly 50,000 commercial flights that take off every day somewhere in the world.

Since we live in the information age, we are bombarded with things to worry about like no time before. Things to potentially worry about have always happened; it’s just that we never knew about a lot of them.

So, how do we filter but not become callous? I don’t know. If you have a sure-fire solution let me know. For now, and for me, I do my best to balance and try to err on the side of concern versus indifference. As they say, what goes around comes around. So we can hope to put out more good than less, and if we’re lucky maybe some of that will come back to us. But you can’t, and shouldn’t of course, have that expectation.

At (W)right On, we advise our clients not to make decisions from a platform of fear. It is a poor platform. Better to make it from a reasonably and intelligently informed position, and then put full effort behind making whatever that decision have the best possible outcome.

Fear. Worry. Unless there’s a cheetah chasing you, in the inimitable words of Meher Baba made even more famous by Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t worry, be happy.”


Image credit: ajlber / 123RF Stock Photo

Movember Tips from a Dedicated Mo

Tweet

By Chancelor Shay, Account Executive

While at the supermarket picking up supplies for Thanksgiving, did you find yourself thinking, “What's with all these horrendous mustaches?” Those in the know can tell you it’s no coincidence you’re seeing more mo’s around this time of year as the annual fundraising challenge Movember is in full swing. If you didn't know, Movember is an annual month-long campaign where men grow out their Flavor Savers to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, particularly prostate and testicular cancer. Proud participants, such as myself, build teams and set up online accounts where friends, family, colleagues and extended supporters can donate some of their hard-earned cash to help the cause.

In my third year, I’m hardly an expert. In fact, that’s not even the point. But I have learned a few things and while I was sharing some tips with NBC San Diego, I decided a more thorough list of pointers was warranted. These guidelines won’t help thicken your Lip Rug, or at least they didn't for mine, but they will help you get the most out of your efforts and have a lot of fun in the process.

Create the conversation! First and foremost, Movember isn't simply an excuse to don a 'stache, it’s a movement not only to help fund research to develop a cure or treatment for a disease that affects one in two men, it’s also to make preventative and proactive men’s health decisions mainstream and acceptable. When someone compliments your Mouth Brow, don’t just say thanks; take it a step further and create a dialogue which will help connect them with the movement. Hopefully, this will have a ripple effect where they start other conversations around men’s health issues (and mustaches) and it keeps going.

Solicit team members, not donations. There are plenty of people with their hand out asking for money and many times it’s for a worthy cause. But if you ask a friend to join your team, they now have a vested interest in the team’s success and bring with them resources and connections that benefit your team and the entire campaign. The more people spreading the message and encouraging donations the more funds your team will raise. It’s simple math.

Share your team’s successes. Fundraising 101 says you don’t actively solicit donations until you’ve raised more than half your goal. While that can’t be true for this type of campaign, apply that concept and announce when you or your team receives a donation. Everyone wants to be on the winning team, so showing your team is doing well will renew interest and excitement in your campaign.

Stay committed! For many new mo growers, there’s a stage of awkwardness where your mustache is beyond stubble, but visible enough to get a few weird looks. Don’t give up! Continue to groom and shape your Muzzy regularly. I promise, your efforts will be rewarded.

Get personal. Compassion rarely translates in the digital world, so stay away from an impersonal social media blast asking for money. While that can generate some donations from others you know that are already passionate about the cause, it won’t inspire others who are yet to care. Talk about it when catching up with friends during happy hour. Your contagious enthusiasm will be more effective in getting friends on board and willing to open up their wallet.

Don’t forget the mo sistas! Just as NFL players don pink in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month, it’s important to include women in your team’s men’s health campaign and capitalize on the benefits that brings.

Say thanks! Say thanks for joining the team, spreading the word, generating donations…for everything! Everyone has 25 hours worth of obligations to fit into 24 hours. So when others create a blog post, send a shout out, even fill out the short form to join your team, they took time away from doing something else — not to mention disposable income is at a premium for most. Every dollar they donate to your campaign is a dollar they’re not saving for travel, using on a date with their significant other or spending on something else that makes them happy. That is worth a quick “thank you” note, right?

Have fun! Cookie Dusters are supposed to be fun, especially for those who don’t rock them year round. So get creative and have some fun with it. Personally, I like to name my mo and adopt a fitting persona. This year I've named it The Errol, after Errol Flynn, whom some say I resemble. I have to admit, I feel like I walk around with a certain air of Old Hollywood pizzazz and sophistication now that The Errol has graced my upper lip. Not to mention, every major city in the U.S. holds an end of Movember party. Hope to see many of you at the SD gala.

These tips are tried and proven, and great to keep in mind during your Movember efforts. But there are other Movember related problems that will arise…such as how to deal with the throngs of women infatuated with your Crumb Catcher. I don’t have a tip for that, but I imagine you’ll figure out a good solution. And to my mustache’s biggest fan: Sorry, but this thing is gone when the calendar flips to December, Mom.