Join Debbie Wetherhead for her online training session, “Key Message Development: Building a Foundation for Effective Communications,” on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. 

It’s not sexy; it’s not fun. But, oh, so necessary. We’re talking key message development. With repeated use, such statements serve as the foundation of your branding/marketing efforts and should be reflected in all written and spoken communications.

Not a believer? Consider what business guru Tom Peters says: “In a competitive environment, only those who have a strong, unified message, who create and sell quality and value, will survive.”

So what are key messages? You can describe them as:

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Join Ken DeSieghardt for his online training session, “Take the Mystery Out of Market Research: Learn to Better Understand Your Clients and Prospects,” on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. 

If you are currently sitting on a communications budget that is as big — or bigger — than the one you had five years ago, you can stop reading now. (Thank you for visiting this blog, Mr. Gates. Have a nice day.)

For the rest of us, the challenge to build and nurture relationships with those who are important to the success of our company (or our clients’ companies) continues to grow as our budgets continue to shrink. Add into the mix the ever-expanding platforms demanding the attention of your key stakeholders, and it’s enough to cause even the most seasoned public relations pro to throw up his or her hands and exclaim, “It can’t be done without more budget!”

Actually, it can. And the people who can tell you how to build and field a successful communications plan are those very stakeholders you are trying to reach.

Continue reading " Research Makes Your Communications Plan Work Smarter, Harder and More Frugally "

Join Chris Foster, Dr. Gary Puckrein, Rex Repass and Patrick Pho for their workshop, Just Five More Seconds of Mindshare? Use the Best Strategies and Tools to Reach Your Audience!, on Sunday, October 16, 2011 4:45 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. at the PRSA 2011 International Conference, Oct. 15–18 in Orlando, Fla.!

Picture this: It’s another Monday morning.  As you step out of bed, you are beginning to mentally prepare for the thirteen meetings that stagger ahead on your manic schedule. While gradually awakening, you emerge to commence your daily routine… pick up the paper, make the coffee, pop the English muffin into the toaster and turn on your computer – ready to respond to a series of instant messages and e-mails aggregated in your inbox from the time you kissed the kids goodnight at 11PM until the time the alarm clock went off at 5:45AM. You want to be in the office by 7, so you quickly rush through your calendar reminders to ensure you are on time and aware of all of your obligations. You enjoy that one last sip of coffee before jumping into your suit and you wave goodbye to you family (who are just now waking up). After shutting the car door, you immediately turn on your Bluetooth (allowing you to multitask even more!) and quickly dial-in for your weekly Monday morning staff call.  Turning on your mental auto pilot, you suddenly realize you’re 20 minutes into the call and you’ve been asked to provide your projections for the week.  What did you gather from the first half of the call?

We’ve all been in similar situations before – and it’s likely our audiences have been through the same.  Overtaxed for time, how do we retain our audiences’ undivided attention?

Continue reading " Cut Through the Clutter: Use the Best Strategies and Tools to Reach Your Audience and Measure Impact "

We all know that paying attention to the old adage, “Ready, Aim, Fire,” makes a whole lot more sense than “Fire, fire, fire.”    Yet, day-to-day, in this environment of instant message delivery, a seeming need for instant message response and, yes, instant decision making, we seem to often “fire” with little consideration for “ready” or “aim.”

And, too often, working in this “fire, fire, fire” environment is frustrating, inefficient and less than effective.

The answer to this “fire” environment is strategic thinking and strategic planning, the “ready” and “aim” that should precede “fire.”

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In my session at the PRSA 2010 International Conference I talked about how we at Bailey Gardiner use the Web and social media to support our new business work. Our work started with the recognition that we really weren’t taking our own medicine — we espouse the importance of the website as a resource for decision makers to our clients but were we using it that way? Did we showcase our work creatively? Did we provide understandable case studies and results? Nope.

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