Crisis Communications: Turning a PR fail into a big win

Many companies are scared silly about having to deal with the fallout from a PR disaster, what with the speed and flow of news and information today. But like many other aspects of business, a bad situation can quickly be turned into a positive with the right approach.

Negative PR has become a bigger concern today mainly because of the internet and social media. Both have created a totally different communications environment where bad news travels quickly and impacts more people to a greater extent than ever before. You need to be sensitive to this and the impact it might have on your company and brand.

Prepare, Plan and React Appropriately
The key to dealing with a potential PR disaster is to be prepared in advance for it by incorporating the following principles:

• Develop a Crisis Communications Plan that addresses most if not all your known and potential risks. Take steps to minimize or eliminate these risks where possible.
• This plan needs to be maintained and updated on a regular basis, communicated clearly throughout the organization and have buy-in from senior management.
• When dealing with PR failures, be honest and sincere with your stakeholders. Nowadays, people are more adept at smelling a rat. Don’t give them a reason to doubt and distrust you by failing to be upfront with them.
• Make sure your social media, PR and related areas are manned by experienced communicators capable of crafting appropriate messages ‘on the fly’. And have a clearly defined escalation process in place to deal with any crises. At this point, the last thing you can afford is for someone to add any fuel to your fire!

In doing all of this, ensure that your vision, values and overall business strategy are reflected in everything you say and do, and that you remain ‘real’ at all times. Picture your desired outcome and work towards achieving it with clear and forthright messaging.

Do this and you can avert disaster. More importantly, do it well and with sincerity and you can actually be rewarded through the creation of brand advocates that respect you just as much for how you’ve handled this situation as for the products you sell!

Turning a PR Disaster Around
It’s indeed possible to turn a PR problem into a positive. What it takes is a disciplined approach that covers the points noted above. A recent example worth noting is the controversy around Under Armour’s speedskating suits for the US team at the Sochi Winter Olympics.

You can check out the full account of this PR turnaround in the excellent article Ad Age wrote. Suffice it to say that by acknowledging the issue, developing targeted, strategic communications involving key influencers and spokespeople, and most importantly reaffirming their commitment to US Speedskating by extending their sponsorship deal to 2022, Under Armour was able to right the ship and keep it sailing on to calmer waters.

If you need help with social media, PR or your Crisis Communications Plan, give us a ring. We’d be happy to sit down with you and discuss this in greater detail!

Marketing is NOT a science

One of the more problematic trends I’ve noticed in the past few years has been the movement by more and more marketers to use strictly quantitative measures to evaluate and rationalize the success of a given marketing campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, empirical evidence is critical in all areas of business, including marketing. However, the trend to blindly follow email marketing metrics, Google Analytics values and the like can truly be dangerous. Why you ask? It’s because this approach tends to discount the importance of the creative component of marketing.

The reality is that no matter how you slice it, quantifying marketing results is an inexact science fraught with assumptions and inaccuracies. To suggest that marketing automation tools can fully explain, justify and support a given marketing tactic and indicate its relative success is at best a stretch.

In the end, common sense – both from a marketing and overall business perspective – should prevail. What this means for businesses is the following:

1. Quantify, where appropriate, the marketing activities you’re engaged in, but don’t rely on it exclusively.
2. Use your marketing and business knowledge to inject a subjective approach to what you’re doing. Sometimes your gut is the best analytics tool available!
3. Ideally, if you can combine sound statistical information with solid business analysis and decision-making, you’ll achieve a better end-result.

I studied sciences throughout high school and university, and one thing I learned was that science can explain much, but not everything about what transpires in our lives. If this wasn’t true, there would be no reason why our children should learn subjects like history, sociology and philosophy in school.

Marketing is much like other business topics such as accounting and finance in that quantifiable evidence and information should be used to help make business decisions; however it shouldn’t be allowed to dictate them! Happy marketing everyone.

To learn more about combining smart analytics with sound marketing and business decision-making, contact us to book a complimentary one hour consultation.

Marketing Plans provide Guidance and Focus

Many companies develop a business plan when they first start out, and update it regularly as a way of setting their vision and goals for the future. However, few businesses translate this into a more focused marketing effort through the creation of a well thought out marketing plan. Unfortunately many of these businesses are doing so at their own peril.

Why is a marketing plan so important? And wouldn’t a detailed business plan suffice, especially since it usually includes a section on marketing? This is a question we often get. Simply put, while most business plans include a fairly detailed marketing section, they’re primarily a tactical overview of the marketing initiatives for the business with emphasis on where the marketing budget will be spent.

This plan rarely looks at marketing from a strategic perspective, and even when it does, it’s usually only in a cursory manner. A solid marketing plan takes the ideas and concepts developed in a solid marketing strategy and outline what and how the company will be doing them from a marketing perspective.

If you’re contemplating investing your time and money in a marketing plan for your business, here are four things you can expect to get out of it:

1. Prioritized marketing activities: A plan would be pointless unless it indicated what are the most, and even the least important marketing tactics the business should undertake.
2. Budget allocation: One of the true benefits of a marketing plan is its ability to allocate finite financial resources against competing priorities, and get buy-in from all interested parties.
3. Heightened focus: This plan provides a roadmap for the business’ marketing activities, and helps to get everyone focused on the key objectives.
4. Provides a tangible link to marketing strategy: Many businesses don’t see the value of a comprehensive marketing strategy if it can’t be translated into something tangible. A marketing plan does just that since the key elements of the plan are identified directly from the conclusions derived from the marketing strategy itself.

Any business that wants to become more deliberate, cost-effective and strategic with their marketing efforts should consider developing a marketing plan. It will help you leverage your marketing strategy to deliver superior marketing efforts that will resonate with your target market while delivering real, bottom-line results. Contact us today to learn more.

Why you should collaborate with your clients

Collaborating with our clients probably isn’t that foreign to most of us – we’ve likely done it at some point in our careers. The real question is how often do we do it? Is it just something we do only when it’s convenient or when the client insists upon it? Or is this the approach we often engage in, one that forms a fundamental way to we meet our clients needs?

At Sydcam Marketing Communications, we develop collaborative marketing strategies, plans and communications by working closely with our clients. In this blog we’ll explain to you why we feel so adamant about it.

Collaboration delivers results

As we’ve seen with the explosion of Web 2.0, social networking is all about collaborating with clients to better understand their needs and to provide them with products and services they want. Bottom line, collaboration with clients has been proven to achieve better results and bigger successes. Why you may ask? Well, it can simply be the result of the old adage “two heads are better than one”.

It would be difficult to dispute that our clients possess considerable knowledge about their industries, markets and ultimately, their clients. We need to proactively tap into this wealth of knowledge to deliver superior results for our clients. Engaging them in the planning and decision making process can only benefit us in developing products and services that will truly “wow” them.

How can we make this work?

Many readers may think “this can’t work in my business”. Truthfully, collaboration can occur successfully in a variety of different ways, and with many different players. Employers and employees can collaborate as a team, and industry and academia can also collaborate together.

The most important element to successful collaboration is the willingness of both parties to work together, appreciate each others unique perspectives, be able to contribute and engage fully in the process, and finally be willing to compromise where necessary.

Collaborating with Consumers

In marketing, collaboration can be taken one step further by engaging consumers in the development of marketing strategies, plans and tactics. Through the use of surveys, feedback from social media and “old school” concepts such as focus groups, the consumer can become an integral part of the conversation, identifying what they feel would be the best way to satisfy their needs.

By working collaboratively with either clients or consumers, we’re able to create very practical and pragmatic solutions, and gain a fresh perspective on how best to apply marketing concepts and strategies for maximum affect. In our highly competitive and ever evolving marketplace, it seems inconceivable to ignore this input and information.

If you’re interested in working with a firm that wants to develop collaborative marketing programs with its clients, contact Sydcam Marketing Communications by email at info@sydcamcommunications.com. We want to hear from like-minded businesses that see the value in building stronger relationships as a means to creating better solutions. Let’s work together to build even better mousetraps!