InsidEPR

Prepare Your Communications for an Equity Event

By Jeannette Bitz

2012 is here and as we enter into the new year, experts from seemingly every sector are looking into their crystal balls and revealing their “predictions” for the upcoming year.

For those compiling their “top 10 IPO lists,” there are the clear standouts - Facebook and Yelp - but also quite a bit of uncertainty amidst fluctuating market conditions.  However, there is a sense of optimism among analysts and many believe that we will see an increase in the number of IPOs and acquisitions throughout 2012. In fact if 2012 is anything like 2011, organizations may elect to get acquired versus going through the IPO process. Dow Jones VentureSource this month released its analysis of the number of venture capital-backed companies that exited in 2011. According to the report, the number of exits by acquisitions far exceeded the number of exits by IPO by the largest amount since 1992, when Dow Jones VentureSource first began to produce exit data.

Either exit strategy requires a well-thought out communications plan. For companies that are considering an IPO or preparing to be acquired, it is important to emphasize the importance of maintaining visibility throughout the process - from the months leading up to the filing or acquisition, throughout the quiet period in the case of an IPO, and after the transaction or event has occurred. Most organizations have never undertaken this type of effort and may not realize the pivotal role that a PR agency can and should play in guiding them through the process.

One of the most important pieces of advice we offer our clients is to make sure the communications efforts continue to move forward. Even during a quiet period, companies must avoid placing their marketing and PR programs on auto-pilot, or even worse, shutting them down altogether. Although there will always be cautious lawyers on hand to pull back the reins, the reality is that a company can continue with most of its planned PR activities, such as issuing press releases or launching products, as long as it had already been engaging in these activities in the past.

Once you start thinking about an IPO or other equity event is the time to make sure your PR and marketing efforts are in high-gear and focused on building your profile with prospects, customers, investors, and the media, to establish a business-as-usual level of outbound communications.
Here are five general guidelines that companies can leverage to continue to build momentum while preparing for an equity event:

1. Stay the course. Continue planned communications strategy, product launches, press releases, and editorial opportunities.
2. Simplify your story. Re-tool your messaging to make it easy for investors or prospective buyers to comprehend and relate to.
3. Analyze your PR strategy. Focus on the activities that will get you noticed, such as thought leadership pieces and placement in trend stories.
4. Refresh your marketing materials and other assets, such as sales collateral, corporate identity, website, newsletters, and direct marketing campaigns.
5. Develop and expand social media strategy. Implement or expand social media strategy, creating an integrated marketing matrix that ties in key initiatives with social media campaigns.

It is important to know that your company will emerge from the IPO or acquisition as a substantially more significant company - from both a size and revenue perspective - with a greater burden of accountability. By putting a communications framework in place, your PR agency partner can help your organization extend the goodwill earned during the IPO or acquisition far into the future.

Moving clients from tactical to strategic is a two-way street

By Jeannette Bitz

As we enter into the new year, some food for thought on how to begin thinking and planning more strategically...

It's easy to complain about clients that seem firmly set in tactical mode. We're also all aware of clients who have let an agency go because of its lack of strategic insight or inability to drive a successful PR program.

Clients seek PR support because they have a business challenge or a goal in mind, but it is sometimes presented in tactical terms and short time frames. For example, the client wants to launch a product next month, secure an industry award, or garner more coverage than competitors. Or the client may just want you to handle media relations and speaking opportunities. As PR counselors, we need to guide their thinking:

• Ask questions that will help client executives think in larger terms about overall business and marketing goals.
• Establish expectations for PR and educate clients on the role PR plays in contributing to sales and business success. Be upfront and honest about what is and is not achievable.
• Be objective, while showing that we understand the client's technology and industry, that we know market conditions and the competitive landscape, and that we can respond creatively to communications opportunities and challenges.
• Show we understand how PR fits within the larger marketing mix and amplifies and extends other channels. This is critical to building agency credibility and hence the client's willingness to seek out and accept PR counsel.
• Demonstrate a systematic approach to PR planning and goal-setting. Gaining client buy-in to a PR plan that identifies measurable goals and objectives by audience, and that links key strategies and tactics to them, is critical to success.
• Maintain the agreed-upon PR plan as a living document, regularly reviewing and updating it according to results-to-date and changing realities.
• Refer continuously to the PR plan to focus both client and agency on what is or is not a strategic use of time or budget. The agency should spend its time on projects of greatest strategic impact, not on seductive but low-value opportunities or standalone tactics.

Ultimately, being a strategic partner in achieving results and managing resources is the best way to ensure that clients also behave strategically.

Seasons Greetings from Engage PR

By Molly Reynolds

What are your holiday wishes? At Engage PR, we're looking forward to another year with our wonderful clients. As we close out 2011, the team recounted EPR's holiday wishes. Along the way, we ran into a few "blooper moments".  Enjoy that gem of a video here: 
 

 We wish you happy holidays and a very happy 2012!

Key Factors to Consider When Evaluating a Potential Client

By Jeannette Bitz

As the owner of an independent PR agency, one of my most important challenges is evaluating potential clients. A solid understanding of where a company stands in its market today and where it may be in five years can indicate if it has the resources we need to do the job or if we'll be spinning our wheels.

Every agency has a methodology to determine whether to stick with a client. I've found that by evaluating the factors below, I can be confident about the companies we take on.

Take a look at the industry experience of the CEO, CMO, and CCO. Have they had success in similar companies? Even C-level executives can get in over their heads or into markets where they have limited experience.

If it's a private company, do well-respected venture capital firms back it? If it's public, consider earnings-to-income ratio and trends.

Analysts are an excellent place to start investigating overall company health and how it compares to competitors. Is there a steady stream of new customers? Increasing sales and users? Examine the target market's size and maturity; is there room for growth?

In addition to being successful now, the company should have a clear vision for growing its market position, developing new products and services, and so on.  Lack of vision can be a major red flag indicating the company's business has a short runway.

Does your sense of where the company is now and where it's headed jibe with what its executives say in the media and what they want in an agency? Not every company can become the next Apple.

Is there a process that allows customer feedback to impact product development? Without an active feedback process, customer loyalty can drop off and market share can go to competitors.

For some companies, leadership changes mean a new CMO, marketing staff, and PR team. How many PR agencies had this prospect previously gone through? Identifying the reasons for high, or low, turnover can let you know how your firm may be treated.

Does the PR budget reflect the company's size, its business goals, and expected PR results? Does it allow the agency to add strategic value, and the client to react to additional opportunities?

Into the Looking Glass: A View into 2012

By Suzanne Panoplos

December is one our favorite time of year from a news perspective. It is the time of year when publications and media outlets begin issuing its “top” and “best” lists and when industry experts look into their crystal balls to predict the future.

Here at Engage PR, we definitely wouldn’t classify our staff as “industry experts” but we do have quite a bit of exposure to  interesting clients that align with hot trends such as cloud computing and consumer IT.  Because our clientele span across several markets from Mobile to Enterprise Software to Telecom to Green IT, we feel that we have a front row seat to some of the interesting technologies hitting the market.

In our year end version of our quarterly newsletter the team took a look at some of the interesting trends hitting the market in 2012; more importantly for our clients, we've examined how the media is covering these trends. We also thought it would be fun to look back into the rear view mirror to see how 2011 shaped up with respect to last year's "predictions".  We think that you will find some of the media trends from last year will still be very relevant in 2012.

Take a look at the latest edition of inFocus – we are always interested in hearing your views.

Media Prediction 2012 Misses Green Boat

By Fran Lowe

I can only conclude that the Financial Times is, as they claimed earlier this week, the early media leader in moving coverage of Green business to its front page and business sections. FT is doing away with separate coverage - bringing green, clean economy and environmental coverage into the mainstream. This end to the “ghettoization" of Green IT, clean tech and corporate sustainability is a positive sign.

It is significant that green is being seen as a new way of doing business.  It is not just about creating new efficiencies, new goods and new markets; but also, it relates to global issues such as supply chain sustainability and global resource management, to name but a few.

This positive sign, however, seemed to run into a major stop sign at this week’s PRSA Media Predicts event, a gathering of top media luminaries that deliver their insights on what technologies, topics and trends will be significant in 2012. When asked by an audience member to predict what would happen in green tech in 2012 – and presumably what the media will be looking to cover – there was decidedly a “universal deer in the headlights” moment from the star line up of eight tech journalists that included TV (Bloomberg and CNBC), NY Times, SF Chronicle, IDG, TechCrunch, technologizer, SFGate and O’Reilly Radar.

The response, when it came, referred to Nest, the maker of a cool new green thermostat for consumers and current favorite with Nick Bilton, NYTimes, (@nickbilton) with a comment on consumers needing to see the benefit or incentive.  That’s certainly true, but what about business?

Sadly, consumer bias was the tone for much of the panel discussion. Sam Whitmore(@samwhitmore) summed it up well the morning after noting that John Gallant (@JohnGallant1) from IDG single-handedly drove enterprise discussion.

 For those of us who focus on B2B and the drive for not just greater efficiency and reductions in energy consumption but real innovation that is building new products, categories and industries, this green thing is pretty big stuff!

Netflix has a few things to learn from cable operators yet

By Caitlin Mattias

Netflix has been busy hacking away at the DVD rental brick-and-mortar stores of yesteryear ever since the launch of the no-late-fee, mail-order service launched in 1999. Let’s be honest, no one enjoyed rushing to the closest movie rental store only to find that all the copies of “Clueless” had already been rented for the weekend. Not to mention the inevitable late fees when your little brother forgot to drop off the movie after school. The old model was clearly rife with problems, so few tears were shed by consumers as Netflix’s signature red DVD sleeve became a cultural icon.

With all this next-generation thinking and industry-demolition going on, it’s clear that Netflix management was under the impression that their business decisions were touched by the divine. It’s become evident over the last few weeks, however, that the company DOES in fact have something to learn from the traditional cable operators they’re now targeting for extinction.

Ever since Netflix launched their on-demand streaming service, the cable provider ecosystem has had to quickly develop strategies to address subscribers sucking up bandwidth by streaming video. Of course, Netflix isn’t the only site to blame here – YouTube, Hulu and even music streaming services Spotify, Pandora and a legion of others are causing headaches for those managing network data usage.

If there’s one thing that cable providers have learned in the last few years, it’s that customers are fickle  characters. They have no qualms about switching providers, especially if one can offer more customizable services to cater to their household without using a complicated pricing structure. The industry trend today about cable providers is to offer triple-play services, i.e. bundling high-speed internet, television and telephone/voice service.

Somehow, Netflix management didn’t get this memo. In July, the company announced that it would split the DVD rental service from streaming, prompting an outcry on Twitter (where else?). Last month, the frustration of tweets amped back up as the company announced it was spinning off the DVD rental service altogether into a new company named Qwikster. In short, customers would be provided LESS options under one roof and they would have to pay MORE for the services that they had already been enjoying for one monthly price.

It came as no shock that Netflix issued a harried apology via blog post explaining the split late in September. But Netflix Co-Founder and CEO Reed Hastings’ apology and explanation didn’t change the fact that no one wanted the silly name “Qwikster” showing up on their credit card statements. It seems that all Reed and the rest of the management team needed was a little nudge from the stock market (read: stock plunge) to realize this whole spin-off might not work. And a scant three weeks after this bombshell dropped, we learned Monday that DVDs will be staying at Netflix after all.

Maybe those cable guys aren’t as out of touch with consumers as you thought, Reed.

 

Leaving Las Vegas

By Suzanne Panoplos

What happens in Vegas – stays in Vegas.  In this situation, I hope that is not the case.  En route back from Metaswitch’s Customer Forum in Las Vegas, I took time to reflect back on the highlights of the week and wondered what other people would be taking away from Metaswitch's four-day event. Would people remember the great customer case studies?  The industry luminaries and their insightful predictions?  Would it be Thursday’s keynote, Richard Noble, the land speed record holder and his really fast rocket car? 

In most situations, my vote would be on the Richard Noble. After all, with an audience of NASCAR lovers that is predominantly male, how could you go wrong with a presentation about a rocket car that goes  supersonic at 1000mph?  Even though I have to admit that his video demonstration of the car beating a fighter jet in a race was pretty cool, I have to think that the most important takeaway from the forum relates to the relationships that are built at these events.

Whether it is a new relationship, renewed relationship, improved relationship --- this event was all about solidifying relationships. The theme of Metaswitch’s Forum this year was the “Power of M” and as VP of Marketing Steve Gleave was delivering his final thoughts, he compared the relationship between a company and its customer as a “Marriage”.

From a PR perspective, I am not sure we are in the “marrying phase” yet; but, we definitely were able deepen our rapport with our client, their customers and our media/analyst contacts attending the event. The Forum PR team was able to spend time with the folks that we usually only communicate with over email or the phone and hear firsthand what they thought about a variety of topics. From our media/analyst friends, we heard the “back story” on what they thought about the company, our agency and PR professionals in general. (The latter topic is definitely fodder for another blog --- so stay tuned).

So as I leave Las Vegas amidst travel-weary businessmen, Vegas revelers and gamblers whose wallets are now perhaps a bit lighter, I can’t help thinking about the people we met and the “new” relationships we will have moving forward.

Corporate Complacency on Green Costly Misstep

By Fran Lowe

It makes sense in a mistaken sort of way that every time the economy dives, so too does the commitment level of corporations to green and sustainable practices.

According to the Environmental Leader, a new survey by SustainAbility and GlobeScan demonstrates that sustainability experts and practitioners are not feeling the sense of urgency they once did. In the survey of experts from 64 countries, the five most urgent issues on the sustainability agenda – climate change, water scarcity, food security, poverty and biodiversity loss – were all perceived as less urgent challenges than they were in 2009.

Among other findings, in addition to the obvious impact of economic woes, the survey indicates that experts are beginning to accept environmental issues as a permanent part of the social and political landscape. They are frustrated by lack of political will and action in making policy changes. At the same time, they are overwhelmed by the size and scale of environmental and social issues.

Of course like any perfect storm, these environmental problems are only going to become more severe as corporations choose to ignore them and blindly stand behind their duty to maximize shareholder wealth, at the expense of all else. Corporate performance and success is not only measured in terms of financial prosperity; but also, it includes environmental health and social justice.

Clearly there are a number of business leaders and corporations whose commitment to sustainability is  now ingrained in their DNA - where each and every decision from the supply chain to product stewardship - is viewed in terms of how it does or does not contribute to the company’s ultimate goals as a sustainable business. However, it seems as if these corporations are still few and far between.

Sustainability, far from a being a cost center, is a driver for innovation and new revenue. New business efficiencies (much of it the result of ongoing Green IT initiatives) are delivering cost-savings; however, as the world becomes more and more resource-constrained, the token green project or product will have little to no impact on environmental and social threats. Bottom line: If corporations fail to act sustainably now, they are unlikely to have the resources they need not just to remain profitable, but to survive.

10 Social Media Don’ts for the Professional… and Everyone Else

By Ashley Paula

With the popularity of social media today, it is becoming increasingly difficult for individuals to separate their “online identity” from their “actual identity”. This crosses over into the business world. Organizations of all sizes have come to terms with the fact that social media is not going away – not anytime soon at least. Therefore, many companies have integrated social media into their business plans, marketing strategies and service offerings. Because the line between the personal and professional social media forums has blurred, it is necessary to take caution when using social media. Here are a few suggestions of “What Not to Do” when sharing information through social media platforms:

1. Broadcast an opinion you do not want everyone to see:We are all entitled to our own opinions. However, if you are concerned with “who” or how many people will see an opinion, don’t post it. Even if the social media channel such as Twitter or Facebook is not open to everyone, people always share information outside your personal network.
2. Complain about the workplace:Remember, your boss and colleagues are also online – and so are your future employers. Not only can you lose your job due to bad-mouthing the company or your colleagues; but also, future employers can scan your social media activity when looking to hire.
3. Share when you are angry: Social media environments are not the best place to be impulsive or to vent. You can’t take back what you’ve shared online, so make sure you think twice before communicating your emotions.
4. Lie:The more people that know about a lie, the more likely it is to be discovered. When posting anything online, it’s safer to just either tell the truth or keep quiet.
5. Gossip about industry peers: It is a good practice to keep your comments about industry peers to yourself. In almost every industry, networking is an important part of one’s success and reputation. If you are known to gossip, no one will want to connect with you on a professional level.
6. Post when intoxicated: When judgment is impaired and inhibitions are lowered, you never know what you may end up posting and regretting later. Therefore, our suggestion is: don’t post when intoxicated.
7. Post an inappropriate profile picture: Your profile picture on any networking website should be one that would withstand scrutiny from the highest level executive in your industry. Your profile picture is often your online image in search engines, sales tools, etc. For example, Salesforce.com has recently launched features such as Faceconnector that pulls Facebook profile and friend information into Salesforce CRM, allowing users to have a “360 degree view of customers, prospects and business associates”.
8. Share confidential content: It is best not to share information online that is not meant for a larger audience. Items you post on networking sites can be traced back to you.
9. Broadcast all of your personal information: When posting personal information to networking sites, be as discrete as possible. For example, if you post your birthday, for security reasons you may want to alter the year. Also, if you don’t want everyone to know or ask you details about personal events in your life, don’t share them online.
10. Share pictures that you don’t want certain groups to see: When posting pictures to social media sites, it’s best to avoid posting inappropriate pictures – or pictures you wouldn’t want your boss to see. Despite the various privacy settings that social media sites such as Facebook might have, there are no guarantees that your photos will not be distributed.

All in all, the lesson here is to keep your social media and online presence as clean and straight forward as possible. With the lines blurred between personal and professional use of social media, it’s best to protect your reputation by safeguarding your online presence