What We Do
Strategic Communications
While everything we do is strategic, if you’re looking for foundational communications support, like crisis communications, speechwriting, audits, custom trainings or copywriting, we’ll set you up for success.
Media Relations
Newsrooms continue to shrink, which makes earned media a prized tactic. Through our relationships with local, regional and national reporters, we help make connections to have your story told broadly.
Content Marketing
Owned media gives you control. Through email marketing, blogs, social media, website copy and podcasts, we’ll help you write those messages and promote them to the right people at the right time.
Paid Promotion
With a savvy paid promotion strategy, through social and traditional media, you can increase the likelihood of having your message heard by the right people at the right time.
Crisis Communications
Crises are inevitable. We help manage communications strategy and messaging at a critical time. We also help write plans that help you prepare for a crisis ahead of time.
Creative Services
We provide strategic comms through earned, owned and paid media: Creative Services bridges all three. Strong design brings brands to life through collateral design, social graphics and video.
Sign-up for Press Box
Our monthly email newsletter
Our Clients
Our Focus Areas
Education
From pre-K to higher ed, our education experience has been rewarding at every level, helping to tell stories on how our clients are making a difference in students’ lives. Now that feels good.
Nonprofit
Our nonprofit clients hold a special place in our hearts. We get to build awareness and drive donations, all while bettering the communities we live in.
Econ. Dev. & Retail
We firmly believe that generating interest in local businesses and communities drives economic impact and supports quality of life. We can help shape and share those stories.
Tourism & Hospitality
We help small and mid-size destinations, hospitality brands and craft industries make headlines, capture attention and welcome new visitors through a variety of PR strategies and tactics.
B2B & Logistics
Most businesses have customer targets that are more precisely defined. Developing B2B campaigns that leverage trade media, trade shows and content strategies is one of our specialties.
Advocacy
We may not be able to change the world, but we love working with clients who are out to change a little part of it. Our advocacy clients have a passion and fire that’s contagious.
Case Studies
Hodges Embraces Earned-Owned-Paid Approach to Support Higher Education Brand Reputation Strategy
Leveraging an EOP tactical mix to build reputation and boost enrollment, Hodges generated millions of impressions for Virginia’s Community Colleges that increased likelihood to enroll.
Results:
- Enrollment increased 4.3%
- Likelihood to enroll increased 19 points
Hodges Builds Advocacy Toolkit for Virginia-Wide Coalition of Early Childhood Advocates
To help make the case to policymakers, Hodges was tasked with developing a comprehensive toolkit, a unified “song sheet” of messaging and assets, to ensure the Gotta Have Childcare campaign reached stakeholders where they were.
Results:
- A unified toolkit for advocates and organizations, ensuring a consistent look, feel, and message
- A downloadable one-pager to support conversations with policymakers
Integrated Marketing Program Leads to Increased Sales, Tourism and Awareness of Virginia’s Burgeoning, World-Class Spirits Industry
The Virginia Spirits Board distributes funding to expand spirits distilling research, education and promotion of the growing of grains and the production of spirits in Virginia. In 2023 the Board partnered with The Hodges Partnership to form the Virginia Spirits Board Marketing Office (VSBMO), charged with developing and executing an ongoing fully integrated marketing and branding program for the Virginia spirits industry.
Results:
- Sales of Virginia-made spirits in Virginia ABC stores increased 12%
- Sales during Virginia Spirits Month increased 25.47%
Hodges Leads a Statewide PR Effort to Support Critical Workforce Development Program
Using an EOP approach, emphasizing community relations to recruit early educators, Hodges supported Virginia Early Childhood Foundation in the hiring of 100+ early childhood educators.
Results:
- 729 total leads generated
- 100+ hires made at early childcare employers across Virginia
National Disaster Relief Organization Raises Profile and Serves More Than 20 Million Meals
Mercy Chefs, a Virginia-based disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization that serves chef-prepared meals in national emergencies and natural disasters, wanted to raise awareness to increase donations and, ultimately, meals served to people in need. The organization turned to The Hodges Partnership for ongoing media relations support.
Results:
- Since 2018, Mercy Chefs has served more than 18 million meals, compared to only 2 million meals in the organization’s first 12 years in operation.
Increasing Web Traffic and Contacts Through an Integrated Content Marketing Strategy for Virginia Telehealth Network
Virginia Telehealth Network (VTN) is nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to promote and enhance telehealth efforts in the commonwealth. VTN launched its Equity & Telehealth initiative and worked with The Hodges Partnership to design an equity-focused series of web pages, develop ongoing blog content and strategically convey that content to the right audience through paid social media and email newsletter campaigns.
Results:
- 54% increase in web traffic
- 121% increase in email newsletter signups
- 429,395 impressions and over 4,500 clicks from paid social media advertising campaigns
The Gong Blog
Helpful Email Marketing Pointers to Keep in Mind
Emails are essentially direct tickets to your audience. You’re landing in their inbox and you’re landing in their phone by way of a notification that begs to be read. Unlike…
Read More
Teaming Up Live: A Morning with National Media Voices on June 18
Landing national media coverage is often considered the holy grail of PR – and for good reason. The credibility and reach it offers can elevate a brand’s story in ways…
Read MoreLeveraging Earned Media During the General Assembly to Strengthen Virginia’s Free and Charitable Clinics
Across the commonwealth, there are hundreds of thousands of uninsured and underinsured Virginians. Many of these individuals turn to Virginia’s free and charitable clinics for care, which serve as an important safety net resource for working families who can’t afford healthcare or health insurance. By delivering important preventative and chronic care, the Virginia Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (VAFCC) helps patients remain healthy, reduce unnecessary visits to the emergency room and avoid missed time from work due to illness. Make no mistake, Virginia’s free…
Read MoreEpisode 38: Building Relationships with Onie Girton, Hilldrup
In our latest episode of Teaming Up, Lindsay O’Bar is joined by Onie Girton, senior vice president of sales and client services at Hilldrup. Hilldrup, and Onie in particular, represents our longest standing client relationship. We’ve been working with her since we onboarded Hilldrup in 2011. Building and nurturing relationships is a critical part to our business, and to the work Onie does at Hilldrup, which involves client retention and sales. A relationship-building role isn’t right for everyone because it’s just as much learned skill…
Read MoreSparking a National Movement… Or Observance Like National Home Visiting Week
It’s been nearly two years since we first started working with a client in the home visiting space. From Early Impact Virginia, a statewide alliance helping elevate and support local programs, to The Institute for the Advancement of Family Support Professionals, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing the home visiting profession through career development and resources, these are some of the organizations making important strides to strengthen the young families in our communities. Home visiting is an evidence-based, voluntary service where trained professionals visit pregnant…
Read MoreAbout Us
The Hodges Partnership is a full-service PR agency based in Richmond, Virginia. Using an earned, owned, paid media approach, we provide strategic communications, content marketing and creative services, shaping the PR strategy you need. Our relationships and team continuity are proof points to our ability to build and maintain trusted partnerships that stand the test of time.
Our core values are built on being Collaborative, Inclusive, Bright, Driven and Genuine. It’s these core values that have helped us foster long-term relationships with our clients, and with our own people. You get the public relations services and the team you need.
Who is Hodges?
The name of our agency comes from Dodgers great and former Mets manager Gil Hodges. No, he didn’t start the agency, but his quiet heroics and values of decency and fair play inspired the real co-founders (who grew up in the New York area) to honor Gil by naming the agency for him. A decorated Marine serving in the Pacific in World War II, Gil had a prodigious career at the plate, with a career .273 batting average, 1,921 hits, 1,274 RBIs and 370 home runs over 18 seasons. Beloved by Dodgers fans, he was perhaps the only player never to be booed by the Ebbets Field crowds. During one hitless streak, one Brooklyn priest told his congregation, “It’s too hot for a homily. Keep the Commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges.” Among his greatest feats was managing the Miracle Mets to a World Series in 1969, a team that had finished 15 games below .500 the year before. Mostly, Gil was revered for his character and quiet discipline. Fifty years after he retired as a player, Gil was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 2022.
