Here are some recent case studies that provide an overview of what we deliver to clients.
CASE STUDY 1: Turning A Crisis Into An Opportunity.
CLIENT: High technology company.
PROBLEM: A high tech company located in a community with strong ties to the military terminated an employee for poor job performance. The employee sued, claiming he was fired because he was an Army reservist at a time when it was possible the employee’s reservist unit would be called up and sent to Iraq. The company was slow to react to the former employee’s aggressive approaches to the media. As a result, local and regional reporters wrote articles antagonistic to the company. Its reputation as a good employer was in danger of being damaged, its stature in its home town and with the military -- an important customer -- threatened, and it had a growing concern about the inaccurate reporting spreading to other areas where the company had customers and other stakeholders.
OPPORTUNITY: Create and implement a crisis communications strategy to blunt and reverse the bad and inaccurate media coverage that risked damaging the company's reputation. There were two programs developed and run for the client, one involving the media and the public, the other for customers and the military, to turn the entire crisis into an opportunity.
DELIVERABLE: We provided two sets of deliverables for the company.
1. Program For The Media and Public
- Fact Sheet - We created a one page “Fact Sheet” that provided basic information and highlighted the many community programs the company sponsors.
- Media Partnerships: We developed and ran a media contact list, contacting each significant outlet and using the conversation as an opportunity to take the pulse of media interest in the company and the legal case.
- Media Tracking: We tracked media coverage alerting the company immediately of any coverage.
- Local Newspapers: We opened a dialog with key people at the local paper other than the reporter providing negative coverage. We facilitated an initial meeting with senior editors, and prepared the client for the meeting.
2. Program For Customers and the Military
- Local Military Base: We helped identify an employee who is a veteran with strong ties the local military who acted as an ambassador. This person worked directly with military leaders and family service officers to identify the needs of officers, reservists and families stationed at the base that go beyond the needs met by the military. These become the basis of a long-term program involving the client and the local base. This was done without media exposure to dispel concerns that it was motivated by current events, rather than a long-term commitment.
- Local university: We helped the company use the opportunity to build on its strong, positive relationships with the science and engineering departments into ongoing coverage in the campus newspaper.
- National Clients: We helped create a program for the company's Marketing Director to speak with the PR and Marketing Director's at each customer to inform them of the legal action and provide the company's position.
OUTCOME: Although the opportunity is on-going, the crisis communications plan began delivering positive outcomes for the client almost as soon as it was launched. The tone of media coverage changed, employees' unease was reduced, customers treated the matter as a routine HR issue, and the company was seen taking positive steps to reinforce its position in its community and with stakeholders.
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CASE STUDY 2: Turning A Good Speaker Into A Great Communicator.
CLIENT: Management consulting firm.
PROBLEM: The head of a new consulting firm decided the most effective way to build the business would be to deliver speeches at meetings of professional and trade associations whose members were in industries where he would most likely find new clients. He knew he had decent public speaking skills, having done it at previous jobs, but also knew that he needed help learning how to structure and deliver his talks in a way that truly engaged the audience, making people want to discuss their business issues with his firm so he could show ways in which his company could help.
OPPORTUNITY: The client was already booked for a half-dozen future speaking engagements at monthly, quarterly or annual meetings of trade and professional societies. If he could refine his existing skills and acquire new ones to enhance his basic ability before the speeches, the client would be in a good position to capitalize on being in front of large numbers of potential clients.
DELIVERABLES: We held five one-on-one meetings with the client, at first re-working past speeches with him as a way to illustrate a different way of communicating. Then, we worked with him as he drafted the text for upcoming presentations and speeches, weaving in the skills he learned such as inverting the structure of his talk, using word pictures, effectively using clichés and colloquialisms. Finally, we helped the client rehearse extensively before each speech.
OUTCOME: After his first talk, he was contacted by four people in the audience and two became clients. Each succeeding speech or presentation led to new business opportunities for the consulting firm.
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CASE STUDY 3: A Strategic Approach To Media Relations And Client Communications.
CLIENT: Global benefits consulting firm.
PROBLEM: Develop and implement a media relations, community involvement and client communications strategy to raise the firm's profile and differentiate itself from competitors as part of developing the firm's new national marketing plan. The need was created by new market research which revealed that, despite being the world's oldest and largest benefits consulting firm, not even its own clients could articulate what made our client different or better than its competitors; potential clients saw the field as filled with largely interchangeable service providers. To maintain market share, fees, and profit margins, the firm's senior management needed to look beyond traditional answers to find non-traditional solutions.
OPPORTUNITY: We participated in a two day “think tank” with the firm's entire roster of marketing and communications advisors that was convened by the Chief Marketing Officer; the CEO also participated. After hearing a report on the market research, a thorough discussion on how to correct problems identified and exploit competitive opportunities revealed in the study resulted in an opportunity to re-position the firm to users of benefits, pension and human resources consultants.
DELIVERABLES: As a direct result of our participation in the think tank, we helped the CMO draft a section in the new strategic marketing plan on using the news media and client communications more effectively, and a community involvement program that went beyond writing checks to worthy causes. Specifically, we proposed and created:
- A series of “Lunch ‘N Learn” sessions for consultants on how the news media works, what it needs from sources, and effective communications techniques to use when contacted by reporters.
- Working with the CMO, the internal media relations department and the firm's outside PR consultants, we helped identify story opportunities and shape the message that was pitched to editors and reporters.
- When a planned media opportunity was scheduled, such as a print or broadcast interview, we coached a number of consultants on how to find and deliver their key message in a succinct way, how to create word pictures to “illustrate” the points they wanted to make, and how to become an on-going source for the journalist.
- Every month, the firm's largest office held a client breakfast where consultants would present new or emerging ideas that clients should be considering, as well as an annual “The Year Ahead” forecast of likely developments in the field. Working with a number of consultants delivering talks at these events, we helped them construct and draft their speeches in language the audience could understand easily. We also worked with the consultants to rehearse their talks – something few of them had ever done – and used Camcorders and tape to help them improve their communications techniques.
- A new client communications package was developed.
OUTCOME: After five years of relatively flat growth, our work was credited with helping the client achieve four goals:
- The revenue and profit curve began trending upward, and market share widened.
- While the organization's consultants had always been quoted in the trade press, during the first year after the new media strategy was launched, firm consultants found them being quoted with increasing regularity in the daily business press. For instance, there were six stories in one newspaper “Management” section profiling specific Mercer consultants, highlights of its annual salary review survey was published for the first time in newspapers across Canada.
- Its annual “Year Ahead Fearless Forecast” was covered almost monthly by the business news media, something that had never before happened.
- Consultants began approaching the public relations department with story ideas, indicating a 180' shift in their thinking adding leverage to the PR strategy.
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CASE STUDY 4: Redefining Delivery Of Women’s Healthcare.
CLIENT: A large healthcare delivery organization.
PROBLEM: Local medical centers claimed to deliver “one stop medicine” for women's healthcare. But in reality, patients had to march from one building to another, and from one treatment or diagnostic center to another and then wait for reports before follow-up appointments could be scheduled. All of this affected the quality of care. Our client said it would build a genuine, single facility for the examination, diagnosis, treatment and recovery of women's healthcare issues that would be unique to the area. The problem was to differentiate the proposed facility from what other organizations claimed inaccurately they already offered as our client went to the news media to build public support, and to the state for approval of a Certificate of Need.
OPPORTUNITY: The opportunity was to receive approval for the facility and thus redefine delivery of women's healthcare services so that our client became not just the service provider of choice among its target client base but also the “gold standard” against which all competitors would come to be measured by the public, the news media and the certificate-issuing body.
DELIVERABLES: We prepared spokespeople at several levels of the organization to deliver key messages that were simple and easily grasped by members of the state board and the news media. We also did extensive “dress rehearsals” and trial runs with spokespeople, ranging from preparing for formal presentations to scheduled interviews to hit-and-run Q-and-A sessions with reporters.
OUTCOME: The communications plan was deemed a total success: Media coverage was very positive despite efforts of competitors to denigrate our client's proposal. The staff, fundraisers and other key stakeholders were enthusiastic about the proposed facility, the community viewed it as a positive development and the government issued a Certificate of Need. Although it was not built for other reasons, the communications plan was viewed as a complete success and was credited with making a major contribution to public support and government acceptance of the proposal.
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CASE STUDY 5: Turning Chaos Into A Communications Victory.
CLIENT: A non-profit organization.
PROBLEM: Our client, a clearing house for a wide range of information about organ donation, was starting to receive negative media coverage because calls from the public and reporters seeking information were not being returned promptly, or the wrong person returned the call, or the information given was not what the caller wanted or needed. So, for the first time in its history, the organization was being treated with hostility by reporters, and there was a risk that public would be turned off to organ donation in spite of community programs run by our client to encourage doing so.
OPPORTUNITY: Stem the negative publicity by creating and implementing an orchestrated, systematic system that directed calls to the right person who would respond promptly with the appropriate information.
DELIVERABLES: We created a communication plan that ensured all involved parties understood the importance of responding quickly, knowing the nature of the media request, the potential issues that may develop because of a media contact, and the best strategy for dealing with the media in a crisis situation. The approach ensured that we discussed each media request, assigning a numerical rating based on the kind of media exposure likely to occur.
- We designated “media contact” people at the organization, assigning someone to respond to the request based on the rating and the specific ability of an individual to respond to certain types of questions. Finally, we developed a detailed procedure to process media requests and developing an appropriate response to the request.
- We developed a program to respond to internal inquiries such as those from board members, staff, fundraisers and volunteers. Depending on the nature and source of the inquiry, options ranged from a personal call or letter from the president to a tailored e-mail reply from staff that was sent with supporting documents and information. As appropriate, such responses were posted on the organization's website.
- The plan was set up to be assessed annually to determine the frequency and relevant importance of the various key audiences, and how the organization communicated with each.
OUTCOME: In the three years since the communications plan was established, there have been no negative stories written about the organization, and an early but gnawing public perception of an ineffective and inept entity was reversed.
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CASE STUDY 6: Turning Strong Lawyers Into Good Communicators.
CLIENT: Large, regional law firm.
PROBLEM: A large, one-office law firm in a major financial and business center had more than its share of top lawyers, handling complex transactions, financings, litigation and other legal matters for small and mid-sized clients in a range of sectors and industries. But it had difficulty competing for work from top tier companies and institutions. The firm hired a new marketing director with international credits and successes in the field. His marketing plan envisioned an opportunity to outflank competing, larger law firms by adopting a totally new client communications strategy, which included a higher profile in the city's ample print and broadcast business news media.
OPPORTUNITY: Proprietary market research revealed a unique opportunity for the firm because clients and non-clients participating in the “blind” project revealed three key bits of intelligence:
- Business people who hire and use lawyers believed all “downtown” firms were pretty much the same, saying a firm's relative size was important only to other lawyers so it did not matter that much larger competitors were in the field;
- Lawyers generally do a poor job of communicating in the language of the client, as opposed to the language of the law; and
- As a result, clients seldom read newsletters and other communications tool favored by lawyers, relying on the daily business news media for important information.
DELIVERABLES: Working with the marketing director, we created a news media strategy and communications plan for the firm and select lawyers. We worked with the client's outside PR agency to help implement the plan:
- With input from lawyers, the marketing director and the PR firm, we helped fashion specific stories and messages to “pitch” to specific journalists at specific media outlets.
- As specific opportunities arose, we prepped the lawyers and coached them on the upcoming interview, usually in person but sometimes on VideoConference® when schedules conflicted.
- We prepared and delivered a series of lunchtime seminars for lawyers on the news media, and on how to use the media to deliver a message to the real audience – clients and potential clients.
- We helped the marketing director develop and refine a four-part in-house learning seminar, “Writing For Non-Lawyers,” to improve their written communications skills.
OUTCOME: Over an 18 month period, the firm greatly enhanced its profile and perception, according to follow-up research:
- Its client communications, written by lawyers, saw readership increase, both in paper form and on-line. Research showed a rise in how the firm's lawyers were perceived by clients as “better understanding my needs.”
- The number of news media opportunities rose appreciably, by nearly 40% in print and 60% on broadcast business news shows.
- When the writing seminars were offered for a second time, the number of lawyers wanting to participate more than doubled from the first offering.
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For more information on the case studies, or to discuss communications your organization’s communications needs, please contact us.