It’s been painful to sit ringside to so much hurt around us. Not just the coronavirus patients and their families. Not only the government leaders struggling with no-win decisions and confronting unprecedented and agonizing budgetary choices in the months ahead. But all those experiencing the brute-force whammy on the economic front. Layoffs. Furloughs. Businesses shuttering, perhaps for good. What makes so much of it especially heartbreaking is our sense of guilt that, so far (knock on wood), our agency has felt little impact from the…
Read MoreWe’re in unchartered territory. Or so they say. For those of us who toil in the trenches of media relations – and who are old enough to painfully remember that there was a short-lived “Friends” spinoff called “Joey” – this moment in our nation’s history has an eerie déjà vu quality to it. I’m referring to the weeks if not months following 9-11 when pitching your client’s story to the media was not only seen as tone deaf but enough of a transgression to get…
Read MoreOver the past few weeks, I’ve gotten the distinct impression that my health and wellbeing is the most important thing to the companies I do business with. (And by that I mean, Josh, the consumer, not Josh, part of The Hodges Partnership.) Like you, I’ve received dozens of emails from retailers and travel companies marketing during a pandemic, from my bank and dry cleaner, and even my barber shop, all of whom want me to know what a high priority they place on my safety. …
Read MoreThere are some base logical assumptions in the field of marketing, and perhaps chief among them is the axiom that creating greater awareness about your product and services will ultimately lead to greater demand for it. After all, people don’t very often purchase what they have not heard of. Have you had those moments perusing the drug store or supermarket shelves when you come across a product you think might be worth buying, only to choose something else because you had never heard of it? …
Read MoreThis will likely expose my nerdiness – to the extent that it already hasn’t been widely exposed – but I’m not one of those people who uses social media to stay abreast of my favorite celebrities. Although I will confess to following Michael Palin – wait, that’s now Sir Michael Palin – on Facebook, there’s not much else. I don’t see what famous people are opining about on Twitter. I have scant interest in seeing the latest red carpet fashions on Instagram. And I subscribe…
Read MoreI talk to a lot of young people who are interested in finding a job in public relations. They typically fall into two buckets. There are the recent graduates, wide-eyed and earnest, who really just need to catch a break and find that entry-level opening. If they’re lucky, they have some PR-related internships under their belt, and I have a personal prejudice toward those who wrote for their college newspapers, although, sad to say, that is a rarity these days. But between their degree in…
Read MoreAn effective content marketing strategy is largely built on creating original content that projects your organization’s expertise and experience in ways that resonate with your target audiences. The foundation for such a program is typically laid brick by brick through regular blog posts. And as the contractor, you can build your blogging strategy as you see fit, showcasing the various parts of your business that highlight your knowledge and skill in your line of business. As long as you refrain from being too salesy, you…
Read MoreOf all the venerable questions – paper vs. plastic? the chicken or the egg? Ginger or Mary Ann? – the one that marketers struggle with most is whether to invest marketing dollars in advertising or public relations. Driving awareness through traditional advertising There was a time, not all that long ago, when the answer was more clear-cut. If you needed a campaign to drive awareness by hitting target audiences with a sustained frequency, then advertising was the way to go. Your only limit to reaching…
Read MoreI get excited about preliminary meetings with prospective clients. It’s not so much the possibility of helping solve their communications challenges – though I love that – but I like hearing folks tell us their story – how they were founded, what they do better than their competitors, how they came up with their latest big idea? Inevitably, layered within that story are varying degrees of uncertainty. How can we do a better job at communicating who we are to our important constituencies, including sales…
Read MoreI was on a long car trip a couple weeks back with an old college friend, and as the miles rolled by, we got a chance to share our perspectives on the issues of the day. He’s among my smartest friends (I tell him he’s easily in the “Top 50”) and works as an international consultant advising technology companies about go-to-market strategies. Like me, he stays up on the news, and despite the fact that we live 3,000 miles from one another, we seem to…
Read MoreMy eyes caught an article online the other day that included this sentence: “Officials also stated that an innocent 35-year-old passerby who found himself caught up in a long-winded dispute over use of the serial, or Oxford, comma had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” My first reaction was, “damn, so it’s come to that.” I know many people whose ardor toward their preferred rules of grammar and usage is consummate. But it’s hard to believe such passions would end so tragically. Only upon reading…
Read MoreMore than a few years back, we had a client that had an aversion to social media. A small government agency, it was intrigued by the idea of being able to post its news directly to its constituencies on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. After all, such tools were changing – and have changed – the face of public relations and put several target-seeking arrows into the PR quiver. But when the agency realized that citizens would be able to comment on its otherwise oh-so-positive…
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