News Archives • The Hoyt Organization

How To Recover From A Public Relations Crisis

A public relations crisis is often one of the most feared incidents that could befall just about any company. When not handled appropriately, such a crisis could result in a snowball effect leaving negative publicity, canceled contracts, and a decline in business revenue in its wake.

5 Steps To Recover From A PR Crisis

Below, we’ve outlined some of the top steps a company should implement to mitigate and recover from a PR crisis.

Analyze The Damage

If your company has fallen victim to a PR disaster, the first thing on your agenda should be to ascertain the damage done to your company.

Take a step back and objectively analyze the damage your corporate reputation has taken. To do this, first determine if there is a public attitude that reflects negatively towards the company or to stakeholders, employees, and customers.

This should be done using digital metrics available to you from your social media platforms, looking at online reviews, as well as benchmarked search results. Focus groups can also provide insights about public perception. You will be able to determine whether there’s been a noticeable shift in perception towards your brand.

Be sure to capture non-media metrics as well, like your company’s share prices, sales performance, and overall profitability. This data will provide you with detailed factual insights into the repercussions of the public relations crisis in question.

After you have analyzed all the data available to you, you’ll have a clearer idea of how to communicate with investors, stakeholders, and customers, and how to respond to media inquiries.

Communicate With Stakeholders & Investors

After combing through all the data, the next step would be to get the word out regarding the impact of the crisis. The most important group of people that you should talk to first would be your company’s stakeholders. This usually includes investors and business partners.

Start off by explaining what events led to the crisis and what measures are being implemented to put a stop to the crisis. Next, mention what future measures will be upheld to ensure that this specific scenario won’t happen again.

The goal should be to get everyone on the same page. You’ve got to prove to each stakeholder that you’ve got a game plan and that you won’t rest until you’ve contained the situation. Remember, timely engagement with key stakeholders is key.

Plan Your Media Communications Campaign Strategy

After getting your shareholders in the loop, the next step is to shape public perception. This part of the process can be viewed as the end goal of all crisis management strategies because it will ultimately determine the success of all your efforts.

Firstly, you will have to leverage the media by carefully selecting brand leaders to issue a public statement. If your company is at fault, you will need to take ownership of all the mistakes you have made.

By not addressing who is to blame or by deflecting blame onto a third party, you could blacken your company’s reputation even more. So, be sure to apologize where and when needed and let the public know that you are resolute in your commitment to resolving the problem.

If your company is not at fault, you’ve got to do the exact opposite. Instead of apologizing, remain steadfast and state your company’s position on the matter.

If the crisis unfolded due to mistruths published by the media, you could seek out a retraction. However, it may be more beneficial to ask the media house in question to publicly apologize for their misprint and to publish the correct version of the story.

Be Transparent

Whether your company is at fault or not, it is extremely important to be forthcoming.

By only apologizing after being caught in the crossfire, people could think that your company knew about the mistake all along. This could render any apology you give insincere and ineffective. It could also give the public reason to believe that you’ll deceive your customers again. In essence, this is exactly what you don’t want.

Instead, by immediately owning your part in the crisis directly after discovering the issue, you could reinforce trust in your company.

It will also enable you to construct the narrative before the media gets hold of the story. This changes everything and allows you to prove that this is an honest mistake rather than a periodic occurrence.

Adjust Your PR Strategy

Lastly, you should take charge online. Although social media could actually contribute to a PR crisis, you can also prohibit this from happening by taking control of all your communication platforms.

Be sure to fully prep your online team so they are equipped to monitor and take charge of conversations on social media platforms, blog commentary sections, Google review sections, and other online platforms.

To take control of the online narrative, you should publish a formal apology on all your online platforms. Make it factual and remember to list all of the ways that you plan on remedying the situation.

Conclusion

A public relations crisis can be scary no matter how long you’ve been in business. But, if handled correctly it can actually showcase your company’s values.

By letting customers know that you are sorry in a timely manner and that you are resolute in resolving the matter, you can effectively mitigate the crisis in question.

Nick Luvera

Why You Should Care About What Customers Feel

Long gone are the days when a company could simply open its doors on a busy street and expect tons of sales.

For a business to be successful in 2022, one truly has to connect with your customers on a deeper level in order for them to choose and support your brand.

But how exactly do you do this? And why should you care about your customers’ feelings and thoughts? We discuss all you need to know regarding a brand’s emotional connection to its customer base below.

Why You Need To Form An Emotional Identity With Your Customers

Before we jump into the best ways to form an emotional connection with your customers, it is important to understand why emotional connections are vital to being successful.

With so many different products and services to choose from, customers are constantly weighing one brand against another. When considering purchasing your products, customers are asking themselves why they should choose you.

And why should they? This is, in fact, a very valid question. Out of all the brands that are constantly bombarding them with offers, deals, and sales, why should they settle on what your brand promises?

To stand out from the crowd, your brand has to go the extra mile. Customers may not recall what exactly they bought from your store a year from now. However, they will never forget how your brand made them feel.

Emotional branding is critical if you want to develop brand loyalty. Brand loyalty can be defined as a long-term commitment that a customer has towards a brand. When brand loyalty is high, higher sales numbers usually follow.

Emotional branding can help to refine your brand’s personality and highlights common interests or values that are shared by a brand and its customers. When done right, emotional branding can render your brand irreplaceable and make your buyers feel both seen and heard.

3 Tips For Establishing Your Brand’s Emotional Identity

Be Original

There are probably a million other companies that also offer what you sell, but none of them should look or sound like you. This is how you maintain your brand’s originality and truly stand out from the crowd.

If your brand was a real person, who would he or she be? What would the characteristics be of your brand and why would people want to hang out with your business? What does your brand care about and why? These are just some of the questions that you’ll need to consider when first creating your brand personality.

However, the most important step is to define how your brand communicates with your audience. In order to be original and to stay true to your brand personality, what you say and how you say it should line up with who you say you are.

Remember, you want to authentically connect with each customer in an intuitively human way that stays true to your unique brand personality. If there is a disconnect between what your brand silently promises and how you communicate with your customers, it will lead to confusion.

Identify Your Customers’ Emotional Motivators

After establishing an original brand personality, it’s time to look at what motivates your buyers. By understanding what motivates your target audience on an emotional level, it will be easier to nurture an emotional connection.

Each target group may have different emotional motivators, which means you will have to adapt your communication angle depending on who you are trying to connect with.

For example, some customers are more concerned with being perceived as special or unique. Knowing this, your marketing efforts should be highly personalized, and your team should be ready to immediately assist these types of customers whenever they need it.

Just don’t forget to always stay true to your brand’s image. The goal is to establish where your buyer’s emotional needs line up with what you can authentically offer. It won’t be sustainable for your brand to cater to the emotional motivators of a customer if meeting those needs doesn’t align with your brand personality.

Tell Great Stories

Storytelling is in every person’s DNA and has helped humans to communicate, connect, educate, share experiences and unite since the dawn of time. From a marketing standpoint, storytelling can help you to forge a deeper connection with your target audience.

In fact, lots of big brands use storytelling to construct brand traditions, build trust, make their brand more memorable, and communicate what their brand is all about.

In Summary

By establishing your brand personality, you’ll be able to connect with your target audience in a meaningful way. This will enable you to show every customer that you truly care about each interaction they have with your brand.

By embracing your brand’s value proposition, identifying what your customers care about, and crafting great branding stories, you can make each buyer feel special.

Leeza Hoyt

Words to live by: Why Communications is Critical

While the world will continue to evolve, there is one constant that will stay the same: the need to communicate — effectively. Remember, the way we communicate may change, but the need to do so will not. How did The Hoyt Organization, Inc., (THO) manage to stay at the top of its game for 30 years? Here’s a few pointers that may help you do the same.

Embrace change. It will forever be your guiding star. Each generation has a different history, which leads to a different perspective, and an evolving lifestyle. This, in itself will help agencies with their diversity and inclusion initiatives. Realize now, that your history and background belongs uniquely to you. Applaud the similarities of your team, and respect the differences. It will lead to a positive synergy that will make your team stronger and more effective.

Become a ‘technologist.’ — I personally find the evolution of technology a fascinating science. If anyone has watched ‘Mad Men’ the sitcom with Don Draper that takes place in the 60s, it easy to understand how far we’ve come. They were using typewriters (one episode features the excitement of getting a copy machine) and rotary dials. Today, cell phones are on everyone’s hips, and we’re embracing virtual reality technology, that is being used to do everything from showing properties, to navigating roadways, and much more. Now, we’re even discussing the impact of interactive holograms that will be the next evolution.

Master social + digital (and whatever comes next). Myspace was a leading communications tool of its time; until it was overtaken by Facebook. Then we added Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, and more. Gone are the days of relying on print newspapers. While they still exist, its only a matter of time before they go fully digital. It’s critical to stay on top of those channels that champion your brands. Be active on the key channels, and make sure you understand the rest. No doubt there will be more added to the mix as the calendar moves forward.

Trust your gut. Ever had a new business meeting and walk out with an uneasy feeling? Pay attention to it. Whether that be on a new hire, a new client, or anything else. As my grandma said, there is another bus that comes along in 10 minutes. Be selective about how you plan your business, and your life.

Live with integrity.

Lead by example.

Learn every day.

…and laugh. After all, life is short. Enjoy it!

Leeza Hoyt

How To Promote Telehealth For Healthcare Services

Even though the world is gradually opening up again after the pandemic, many people are still hesitant to go outside and see their doctor in person. Telehealth provides a great solution for patients who want to consult with their physician from the comfort of their own homes.

Telehealth is becoming more and more popular as a way to provide healthcare services. In fact, research shows that over half of hospitals in the United States use telemedicine.

There are many benefits to using telehealth, including improved access to care, increased convenience, and reduced costs. However, many people are still not aware of what telehealth is or how it works.

In this article, we will explain what telehealth is and discuss some ways that you can promote it to increase its visibility and usage.

What is Telehealth?

Telehealth is the use of technology to provide healthcare services remotely. This can be done using video conferencing, phone calls, email, or even text messages. The important thing is that it allows patients to receive care without having to come into an office or hospital.

There are many types of telehealth services that can be provided. They include mental health counseling, primary care, disease management, and even specialty care.

How to Promote Telehealth

Here are a few tips on how to promote telehealth within your organization:

1. Create Value In Your Content

In the digital world, content is the undisputed king. No matter what you’re trying to sell, your potential customers are going to do their research online before they make a purchase.

The best way to promote telehealth within your organization is to create content that will show potential patients the value of your services. Write blog posts, create infographics, and shoot videos that explain the benefits in a way that is easy for people to understand.

Here are a few tips for creating valuable content in your messaging:

Make it Visually Appealing

People are more likely to engage with content that is easy on the eyes. Use plenty of visuals, and break up your text with headings and subheadings.

Keep it Short and Sweet

No one wants to read a novel when they’re trying to learn about a new service. Get to the point, and make sure your content is easy to skim.

Use Patient Testimonials

Nothing is more convincing than a real-life success story. If you have patients who have had positive experiences with your telehealth services, ask them if you can use their stories in your marketing materials.

2. Make Telehealth Easy To Access

One of the main barriers to telehealth adoption is patient confusion. Many people are still not familiar with the concept of virtual care, and they may not know how to access your services.

Make it easy for potential patients to find your telehealth offerings by prominently featuring them on your website and in all of your marketing materials. Ensure you include clear instructions on how to connect with a provider virtually.

You can also promote telehealth within your organization by following these tips:

Create a Dedicated Landing Page For Your Telehealth Services

Having a dedicated landing page will make it easy for patients to find the information they need and connect with a provider.

Have A Call-to-action On Your Site

Include a “Book Now” or “Schedule an Appointment” button on your website and in all of your email communications. This will make it easy for patients to take the next step.

Send Email Blasts To Patients Promoting Your Virtual Care Offerings

Include a “Book Now” or “Schedule an Appointment” button on your website and in all of your email communications. This will make it easy for patients to take the next step.

Include a link to your telehealth landing page in all of your email communications.

3. Build Trust Through Telehealth Success Stories

As with any new technology, there is always some uncertainty when it comes to adoption. Many patients may be hesitant to try telehealth because they’re not sure if it will work for them.

One of the best ways to promote telehealth within your organization is to share success stories from patients who have used your services. These stories can be included in your marketing materials, on your website, or even shared on social media.

By sharing success stories, you can help to build trust and show potential patients that your services are effective.

Use Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is a great way to promote your telehealth services to a wider audience. You can use paid ads to target potential patients in your area who may be interested in your services.

There are a number of different platforms you can use for paid advertising, including Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. Each platform has its own strengths, so it’s important to choose the one that will work best for your needs.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to promoting telehealth, there are a lot of options and avenues available. The key is finding the right mix that works for your organization and patients. With the tips outlined in this article, you should be well on your way to getting started with a successful telehealth program.

Leeza Hoyt

3 Healthcare Lessons Public Relations Agencies Learned From The Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the healthcare industry. And while the impact has been felt by everyone from hospitals and insurance companies to patients and families, there are also important lessons to be learned by those in the public relations field.

Los Angeles healthcare PR firms and other PR players across the globe have been forced to adapt and innovate at a breakneck pace over the past year. They’ve had to navigate uncharted territory, deal with new challenges and find new ways to reach and engage their audiences.

In this article, we are going to look at ways public relations shaped the pandemic as well as three key lessons that healthcare PR agencies learned from the pandemic.

Public Relations During The Pandemic

From the very beginning, public relations has played a vital role in shaping how the world perceives and responds to pandemics. In fact, PR agencies were some of the first to sound the alarm about COVID-19 back in January 2020. They were helping their clients navigate the ever-changing landscape and providing guidance on how to respond. They did this through:

Educating

PR agencies played an important role in educating the public about the pandemic. They did this through traditional means such as news releases and media relations, but also through newer channels such as social media.

Informing

PR agencies also served as a valuable source of information for their clients. They provided them with up-to-date data on the pandemic, helped them understand the latest research, and advised them on how to best communicate with their audiences.

Assuring

Finally, PR agencies also played a vital role in assuring the public that their clients were taking the necessary steps to protect them. They did this by sharing information about the measures their clients were taking, such as increased cleaning and sanitation efforts, and by highlighting the importance of following safety guidelines.

3 Key Lessons Healthcare PR Agencies Learned From the Pandemic

The pandemic has been a challenging time for everyone, including healthcare PR agencies. They have had to adapt the way we work to keep their clients and staff safe, while still delivering results.

Here are three key lessons we’ve learned during the pandemic:

Flexibility Is Key

The first healthcare lesson PR firms learned from the pandemic is the importance of being flexible. With client meetings and events being canceled at short notice, we had to be adaptable to the way we work. This has included moving to virtual meetings and events, managing remote teams, and finding new ways to pitch media and connect with different audiences.

Most importantly, we learned that being flexible is key to delivering results in a rapidly changing environment. This will be an important lesson for PR firms going forward, as the world continues to change at a rapid pace.

Throughout the pandemic, clients appreciated agility and adaptability in these challenging times. The pandemic has shown that healthcare PR firms are able to be nimble and adapt to change quickly, which is a valuable skill in an ever-changing world.

The Importance Of International Communication

Healthcare PR firms learned that international communication is key during a pandemic. When the COVID-19 outbreak started, many healthcare organizations were caught off guard because they did not have protocols in place for dealing with a global health crisis. As a result, these organizations turned to PR firms for help in communicating with the public and the media.

With countries going into lockdown at different times, and with different restrictions in place, it was important for healthcare PR firms to be able to communicate effectively with their clients around the world.

This meant having a good understanding of the situation in each country and being able to adapt their communications accordingly. It also meant being able to provide support and advice to clients in different time zones, as well as dealing with the challenges of working with teams in different countries.

Re-Evaluate Crisis Plans

Los Angeles healthcare PR firms and other healthcare communicators had to re-evaluate their crisis plans in light of the pandemic.

This has meant looking at what worked well and what could be improved, as well as thinking about how to respond to future crises. Crisis communication is an important part of healthcare PR, and the pandemic has shown that it is possible to adapt and improve plans quickly during a crisis.

Final Thoughts

The COVD-19 pandemic has been a tough time for everyone. Healthcare PR firms are no different. They had to adapt the way they work, think, and operate. However, there have been some silver linings. The pandemic has taught them many lessons that will make us better at our jobs moving forward. It has also inspired us to be more creative and innovative in our work.

If there’s one thing that we can take away from this pandemic, it’s that healthcare PR firms are resilient. We’ve been able to weather the storm and come out stronger on the other side.

Leeza Hoyt

How Public Relations Can Globally Influence Support for Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has been raging on for over one month now, and it seems like there is no end in sight. However, with the help of public relations professionals, maybe we can start to turn the tide and gather more public support for Ukraine.

Public relations (PR) campaigns can be used to build awareness of a cause, shift perceptions, and generate support from the public. By crafting a strategic PR campaign, the public relations global network can bring more attention to the situation in Ukraine and make it a global priority.

In this article, we will explore ways in which public relations can be used to support Ukraine. Hopefully, with the help of these tactics, we can start to bring about change.

Create Awareness

If your business is looking for ways to help create awareness for Ukraine, here are some tips that can help you achieve this:

Identify The Messages You Want To Communicate

The first step is to identify the key messages that you want to communicate and then craft a story that will resonate with your target audience. This story should be based on the facts, but it also needs to be engaging and relevant.

Develop Creative Content

Once you have your key messages nailed down, you need to develop creative content that will help to get your story out there. This could include videos, infographics, articles, social media posts, or any other content that will catch people’s attention.

Engage Key Influencers

To reach your target audience, you need to engage key influencers who can help spread your message. This could include journalists, bloggers, social media stars, or anyone with a large following who can influence public opinion.

Track Results And Adjust Course As Needed

It’s essential to track the results of your PR campaign and adjust the course as needed. If something isn’t working, make changes and try something else. The key is to keep trying until you find the best approach for your target audience.

Shift Perceptions

Public relations can also shift perceptions about a situation or organization. The war in Ukraine has been mulled in propaganda and conflicting reports. Therefore, it can be difficult for people to form an accurate opinion. By running a PR campaign, you can help to shift perceptions and build support for Ukraine.

Establish A Clear Narrative

One of the main goals of public relations is to establish a clear narrative about the current situation. This narrative should be based on the facts, but it also needs to be easy to understand and engaging.

Build Relationships With Key Stakeholders

Another important part of public relations is building relationships with key stakeholders. This includes journalists, bloggers, social media stars, and anyone who can help to spread your message.

Read Information From Reputable Sources

It is your responsibility to remain vigilant and only consume information from reputable sources. This is especially important given the current state of affairs in Ukraine.

By verifying information before sharing it with others, you can help to ensure that people have the most accurate picture of what’s happening on the ground. Also, doing this can help to dispel any myths or misconceptions that may be circulating.

Generate Support

Public relations can also generate support for a cause or organization. This support can come from individuals, businesses, or governments. By running a successful PR campaign, you can help to build a global coalition in support of Ukraine.

Some ways that you can generate support include:

Organize Events

One way to generate support is to organize events that bring people together to learn more about the situation in Ukraine and show their solidarity with the country.

Launch A Social Media Campaign

Another great way to generate support is through a social media campaign. This could include videos, photos, or articles that help raise awareness of the situation in Ukraine.

Engage Key Decision-Makers

It’s also important to engage key decision-makers who can help influence policy decisions that will benefit Ukraine. Find out what you can do to help them and what messages you should be sharing.

Provide Resources

Finally, you can also provide resources such as information packets, fact sheets, and talking points to help people learn more about the situation in Ukraine and how they can get involved.

Final Thoughts

Through public relations, you can help to build awareness of the situation in Ukraine and generate support for the country worldwide. By following these tips, you can help to make a difference and support the people of Ukraine.

If you are looking for the best Los Angeles PR agency that can help you globally influence support for Ukraine, or attain your business goals, look no further than The Hoyt Organization. We have a team of experienced professionals who are passionate about helping to make a difference in the world.

Leeza Hoyt

What Brands Need To Know About Marketing In The Metaverse

The metaverse is more than just a trending buzzword. If you were around during the birth of social media and digital marketing, you know big things are coming.

Statista reports that there are currently over 4.2 billion active social media accounts. Another study determined that 93% of all marketers use social media to market businesses.

There’s no doubt that your business uses social media for marketing its products and services. If you want your business to succeed in an ever-changing world, it’ll pay to keep an eye on the metaverse.

Luckily, preparing your business for the metaverse doesn’t have to be a daunting task!

At The Hoyt Organization, we help brands authentically connect with their audiences and tell stories that inspire growth and loyalty.

Here is our concise guide to everything a brand needs to know about marketing in the metaverse.

What Is The Metaverse?

The metaverse, short for “meta-universe,” is a virtual world that connects directly to the physical world. You can think of it as the next generation internet or Web 3.0.

Individuals will be able to instantly connect to the virtual world while interacting with the physical world.

For instance, instead of meeting your coworkers on Zoom, you can don a pair of VR goggles and hold the meeting in a virtual reality boardroom.

Just like in the physical world, people will be able to do the same things in the metaverse. They’ll be able to buy clothing, accessories, or even art.

Some innovative companies plan to sell physical copies that you can also take into the digital world.

Imagine buying a rare painting for your office. You can scan in a code and display this rare painting in your digital boardroom to impress visitors and staff.

This connectivity between the physical and the digital is the metaverse. It brings many incredible benefits that brands and marketers can capitalize on.

How Can Brands Prepare For The Metaverse?

The metaverse will provide marketers with plenty of new opportunities to promote their products, services, and brands.

The most obvious opportunity is renting ad space, similar to how you’d rent billboard space in the physical world.

Yet, it’s not the only way to prepare for this new marketing frontier.

Companies, big and small, should also start investing in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality experiences (VR), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

These technologies all form an essential part of the metaverse. If your company isn’t familiar with it, you may not be able to outperform your competitors within the metaverse.

5 Tips For A Long-term Business Strategy In The Metaverse

Marketers and business leaders need to understand the power of the metaverse. It would be best to stay updated with the latest trends and developments.

Knowing what’s happening and how it’s occurring will make it easier to adapt your marketing strategy for the metaverse. Here are our top tips for capitalizing on the growth of the Metaverse.

1. Embrace Parallel Marketing In And Out Of The Metaverse

The metaverse seamlessly merges the digital and the physical world. Your marketing efforts should reflect this.

For instance, AB InBev’s brand, Stella Artois, worked with Zed Run to create a unique marketing experience for the Kentucky Derby. Together, they created an online platform where users could trade horses, race them, and even breed them.

This marketing experience offered a digital adventure while nurturing brand loyalty in the physical world.

2. Create Immersive Experiences

Offer immersive experiences. For example, several savvy realtors offer prospective buyers VR tours of prestigious properties.

Architecture firms also offer VR tours of proposed buildings, allowing investors to walk through the structure before finalizing the construction plans.

3. Make Collectables

Let your fans and followers collect unique items. People love collecting things!

One brand that embraced this was Gucci with their Gucci Garden Experience. Users could collect limited Gucci items in the metaverse. They could even sell these items.

So, consider releasing some sort of NFT items that people can buy for their VR avatars to wear when in the metaverse.

4. Engage With Leaders And Promoters

People are mostly opposed to ads. So, engage with your community. Search out promoters and leaders that can help take your brand into the metaverse.

If you’re not sure how to do this, check out our guide on why your brand needs an influencer PR strategy.

5. Continue To Experiment

Don’t be afraid to experiment. This area of marketing is relatively new and brands should embrace the opportunity. There are no concrete rules for what works and how you should do it.

Be flexible and experiment when looking for new, creative ways to grow your brand in the metaverse.

Final Thoughts

As the metaverse continues to grow, more and more brands will adjust their marketing strategies to make the most of this digital world. So, it’s important to ensure your brand stays on top of it too. If all of this sounds complicated, don’t worry! We’re here to help simplify your marketing and PR strategies.

Connect with us, and let’s see how we can grow your brand within the metaverse.

Leeza Hoyt

Why Your PR Strategy Needs Digital Marketing

Traditionally, PR was print-based. However, today’s world is all about digital channels. As such, your PR tactics need to embrace more digital strategies. This includes digital marketing to help boost your brand awareness and image.

If you’re looking to evolve your business and create an impactful online presence, then digital marketing is the way to go. From driving traffic to relationship building, we’ll discuss how digital marketing and PR go hand-in-hand in building your brand.

The Connection Between PR And Digital Marketing

Digital PR is an online marketing tactic used by businesses and marketers to increase a brand’s online presence. This strategy is used to:

improve SEO
enhance brand awareness
increase traffic to a website
boost sales
improve social engagement

Digital PR strategy is therefore a combination of digital marketing and public relations.

Digital marketing involves the use of online technology to promote brands and their products or services. Public relations, on the other hand, is a process of communication. It is used to build relationships between companies and their customers.

By using digital marketing in PR, brands can further boost their brand awareness and build better relationships with customers.

Why Is Digital Marketing Important In Your PR Strategy?

There are many ways in which you can use the internet to your advantage with PR. Digital marketing helps your PR strategy to include interactive and user-driven tactics that may help build better relationships with customers.

Digital marketing has become an essential part of PR as its benefits exceed those of traditional marketing.

Although digital PR may be similar to traditional PR, it provides an opportunity to reach a much broader audience than traditional methods. Strategies such as SEO, content marketing, influencer marketing and social media marketing help your brand to connect relatable content with the right audiences.

Digital PR can achieve its goal of improving online presence and visibility as well as building long-lasting relationships with users as information can now be turned into real conversations.

By investing in a digital PR strategy, you can connect with users by speaking directly to them at any time of the day. Not only is this quick and effective, but it is available 24/7.

How Digital Marketing Can Boost Your PR Strategy

Analytics Improves Performance

There are many helpful tools available to give your organization a competitive advantage in the world of PR. Analytics tools help track the performance and metrics on your pages, posts and campaigns. As a result, you can see what is working and what isn’t.

Analytics tools can provide metrics such as post reach, number of clicks, views, bounce rate and demographics. When you use this in your PR strategy, it will provide you with the consumer insight that you need to improve your strategy.

You can easily adjust campaigns where necessary. And after finding what works for certain target groups, you can target your audience more precisely.

Creative Content Creation

Content is the key to building credibility and authority. It is a key aspect of digital marketing – and it can work wonders for your PR strategy, too.

Creative content can be a powerful persuasive tool that can drive conversation. As part of your PR strategy, make sure you create content that engages and interests your customers. Including video content is a great way to do this while boosting ROI for your campaigns. This is because video content has shown to be the most effective among different types of content.

All content created for your PR strategy must be creative and exciting. It also needs to be relevant to your audience. You can create content in the form of graphics, video content, interactive content, and blog posts. Digital content can reach a large audience across various channels. So, it is a sure-fire way to drive traffic, increase brand awareness, build trust, and boost conversions.

Links To Drive Traffic

Receiving backlinks from reputable, authoritative sites can not only drive traffic but can boost your website’s authority too. This is an effective digital marketing and SEO tactic but it can be a valuable PR tactic as well.

Other websites in similar industries or affiliate sites will include a link to your site if the content is valuable and relatable to their readers. This will give your site credibility and a good reputation.

If you want your PR campaigns to reach and impress these types of reliable sites, you must create consistent content and promote it well. Implementing a digital marketing strategy can help you to do this.

Key Takeaways

By incorporating some effective digital marketing tactics into your PR strategy, you can improve brand awareness, boost your credibility, and increase traffic to your site.

Gone are the days of traditional marketing. It’s crucial to embrace what the digital world has to offer. This will help you stay in a competitive position in your industry and boost your online presence and success.

Leeza Hoyt

Why Your Brand Needs An Influencer PR Strategy

In today’s fast moving, ever changing digital world, you have to invest in effective marketing strategies that resonate with your audience to get your brand noticed. By incorporating an influencer PR strategy into your strategic digital marketing plan, you have a better opportunity to really connect with potential customers.

Unlike any other marketing tactic. consumers find influencers more trustworthy than brands.

Consider the following facts:

The average consumer has 8.4 social media accounts
Over 60% of marketers report that influencer marketing outperforms other type of marketing
93% of marketers have used influencer marketing
Influencer generated content outperforms brand posts

And this is exactly the kind of advertising connections you should be looking for.

Below, we’ve outlined why your brand needs an influencer PR strategy, and how you can create one.

Why Invest In Influencer Marketing?

Hearing about the advantages of a product or service first-hand is one of the best ways to effectively boost brand awareness.

With social media taking over the digital world, word-of-mouth publicity has evolved into influencer marketing. Influencer marketing involves collaborating with carefully selected social media influencers in an effort to get more people to notice your brand on a myriad of social media platforms.

Is it effective? Yes.

Is it a more lucrative investment compared to traditional marketing? Well, it depends on what industry you are in and how you leverage influencers that complement your brand.

One thing is for certain, though. Compared to more traditional marketing tactics, social media influencers are considered more credible. Influencers are great brand ambassadors because they tell people what they honestly think.

If you team up with an influencer that loves what you offer, he or she will be able to authentically sell your product or service.

Social media influencers introduce their whole following to your brand. This can make it easier for you to reach a new target demographic.

If a well-loved influencer gives your brand the stamp of approval, then your business will automatically have more credibility in the eyes of that influencer’s following.

The Perks Of Influencer Marketing

It’s Affordable

Apart from email marketing, influencer PR marketing is one of the most cost-effective PR tools. If you have a set budget to work with, you can collaborate with influencers that are in line with the amount of compensation you can offer.

Up and coming influencers who are still finding their feet are a great option for brands that want to spend their marketing budget as efficiently as possible.

It Begins A Conversation

Consumers are tired of traditional and digital adverts. In general, conventional ads are viewed with skepticism and as closed-off, one-sided conversations.

However, with influencers, you have the opportunity to start a conversation on a particular topic. Your brand isn’t the main focus of the conversation. Instead, it can feature as an add-on or a solution to a specific problem that is mentioned in the conversation.

Most influencers will only endorse products that they have used themselves. After all, they also have a reputation to maintain. Moreover, they share a strong connection with their followers, making them a trusted and credible ally to have in the marketing sphere.

Influencer Marketing Allows You To Track Your Return On Investment

Unlike traditional marketing efforts, the success of influencer marketing is a lot easier to track. In the past, the success of traditional PR campaigns was mostly guessed through the impact they had on sales. But it was never an exact science as monthly sales were subject to a myriad of factors.

However, the emergence of digital marketing has made it possible to accurately measure the success of PR campaigns. A variety of metrics can be used to measure the performance of a social media influencer campaign. These include metrics like brand mentions, social media likes, referral traffic, click-through rates, and revenue.

Creating Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

If you have set your sights on creating your own influencer marketing strategy, we have the action steps to get you started.

Create a budget. A well-thought-out budget is the first step to figuring out how much money you can allocate to influencer marketing. It will also help you to monitor your spending and see what marketing avenues are truly lucrative for your business.
Outline your unique goals and brand message. Knowing what your goals are will help you to focus on your unique brand needs. This will enable you to find the right influencer.
Determine your target audience. You have to invest time and effort in various research initiatives that will allow you to hone in on your target audience. At first, you can target more widely, but to see results you will have to narrow your reach. The more intentional you are with your marketing initiatives, the more successful you will be.
Identify potential influencers. You need to build long-lasting relationships with influencers who align with your goals and target audience.
Measure your campaign results. Unique hashtags, affiliate codes, tracking links, and revenue are great ways of monitoring your marketing efforts. Be sure to use all of them to determine the effectiveness of each of the influencers you collaborate with.

In Summary

With the right influencers by your side, you can take your brand to the next level. By doing your research, monitoring the effectiveness of your campaigns, and collaborating with people that believe in your brand, you will be one step closer to achieving success.

Leeza Hoyt

How To Promote Your Luxury Day Spa With Public Relations

Luxury day spa offers customers a chance to indulge and unwind. These pamper parlors are often so dreamy that one may assume that these establishments simply promote themselves.

This, however, is not the case. Even top-class day spas need a great public relations strategy to stay ahead of the competition and win over new clients in the consumer lifestyle category.

Below, we have carefully selected the most relevant promotional tools and PR tactics that will help to put your luxury spa on the map.

3 Best PR Strategies To Promote Your Luxury Spa

Reward Loyal Customers

It may sound simple, but by rewarding both new and old customers, you can incentivize them to return more regularly to your day spa. If you are looking for a way to show your customers that you value their support, then now would be the perfect time to implement a spa loyalty program.

In general, spa enthusiasts like to be pampered on a regular basis. By rewarding your customers whenever they support you, you can become their new home away from home. All you have to do is give them even more reason to return to your day spa whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Your loyalty program can allow customers to earn loyalty points whenever they pay for spa products or services. These loyalty points can accumulate until your customers qualify for a free treatment or product. You can also give people extra loyalty points for referring their friends to your spa.

A loyalty program can make your customers feel seen and heard. With each point you award them, you are essentially saying that you see and value their support. Most customers would rather shop at establishments that make them feel included and reward them, rather than support businesses that don’t value them.

Cultivate a Strong Online Presence

In this day and age, creating a strong online presence for your brand is no longer optional. Most reputable PR firms have broadened their horizons to include online marketing in their strategies. This is largely because, during the last decade, more and more people have been finding and purchasing what they need online.

Firstly, you’ll need a website. If people are curious about your spa, then this is likely the first place they’ll go to research your company. Your website is one of the first impressions your brand will make on new customers. So, be sure to cross your T’s and dot your I’s.

Among other things, your website should be SEO-friendly and easy to navigate. It should list your services, products, and prices, and provide valuable information to all your customers. The easier you make it for potential customers to navigate your website, the more likely it is that they will book a day spa treatment.

Also be sure to list your day spa on various listing websites, starting with Google My Business. This will help to improve your local SEO ratings. Moreover, it will let people know how they can contact you and what your operational hours are.

Lastly, don’t forget about investing in your social media presence. Whether you prefer Facebook or Instagram, make sure you post regularly on all your social media platforms. These platforms can help you to communicate with your audience and make real connections with your brand followers. Further, it helps to boost brand awareness and drive more people to your luxury spa.

Partner Up With Local Businesses

The day spa industry is all about inner and outer wellness. As such, it is the ideal establishment to take hands with other similar businesses. By partnering with other companies that share your ideals and values, you can both benefit when it comes to boosting sales.

Of course, it wouldn’t be ideal to partner with another day spa. There are plenty of non-competitive options out there, like hairdressers, dietitians, chiropractors, and even nutritionists.

By partnering up with local companies, you could help to promote each other. This could increase brand awareness and up the revenue of both your spa and the company you’re partnering with. It really is a win-win situation and would require very little effort on your part.

By simply displaying each other’s business cards, or mentioning each other on both of your websites and social media platforms, you could significantly help boost each other’s brand visibility.

Alternatively, you could also write creative content and mention each other on your respective blogs. There is also the option of running a promotion together. This urges your combined customer pool to support both businesses.

There truly are numerous ways that partnering up with another local business can help to promote your luxury day spa.

In Summary

Whether you are a day spa marketer, owner, or manager, these PR strategies can help to boost your brand visibility. They can lead more people to your website and ultimately ensure you are fully booked all year round.

By investing in your online presence, rewarding your customers, and partnering up with other businesses, your day spa can get the marketing traction it needs to really thrive.

Leeza Hoyt

Does Your Beauty And Skincare PR Strategy Need A Makeover?

The beauty and skincare industry is changing. Not so long ago, women couldn’t wait to visit their favorite stores to purchase their must-have beauty products due to the pandemic. Now, however, more and more people shop online.

These types of changes in consumer behavior mean that your beauty brand’s old marketing strategies may not be as effective as they used to be. If you feel like your cosmetics brand could do with a PR strategy makeover, then look no further.

We’ve outlined PR strategy tips and tricks below that can help to elevate your beauty and skincare brand to the next level.

3 Effective PR Strategies For Beauty And Skincare Brands

Invest In a Well-Crafted SEO Strategy

Today’s typical customer wants products to be accessible and readily available. The beauty and skincare industry is no exception. With just a click of a button, customers are expecting to find all there is to know about the products they are interested in.

By not meeting these customer expectations, you could potentially damage your beauty brand and have your customers flocking to your competitors. Rather, give your customers the information they want with the help of a well-crafted SEO strategy. This will help you remain top-of-mind whenever someone wants to invest in their physical appearance.

When sticking to a great SEO strategy, you will ensure that your beauty brand soars above your competition in online search results. For example, whenever a potential customer is looking for a new face cream or mascara online, your site will be one of the top beauty brands that Google recommends if you offer that product.

Great SEO can help your brand to become more visible, which will drive more traffic to your website. It’s all about targeting the right keywords and knowing what your customers are currently searching for.

Staying on top of beauty trends and knowing which topics will be great for evergreen content is a sure-fire way to catch your demographic audience’s attention.

More visibility equals more eyes on your content, which will drive more sales and content engagement. SEO may be a long-term investment, but it is definitely worth it when done right.

Paid Marketing Campaigns

SEO is a great tool when it comes to ranking high in organic search results. However, even if you have a great SEO strategy, it may take up to six months to see results. While you are waiting for your website’s search engine ranking to pick up, why not invest in paid marketing?

Customer pay-per-click campaigns can help to boost the visibility of your beauty brand. Paid ads in search engines are usually displayed right at the top of the page, which means you automatically outrank the competition.

This means your ideal customer will not have to scroll down or go to the next page to find your brand. And seeing that most people only click on the first three search results they find, your paid ad will be able to generate a lot of traffic to your website.

You can use PPC adverts for sales and to feature some of your products. Most importantly, your PPC campaigns should work hand-in-hand with your organic search efforts. This will enable you to see a bigger return on investment in a shorter amount of time.

From display ads to remarketing and Google shopping ads, the sky’s the limit when it comes to promoting your beauty brand with PPC campaigns. The added bonus is that you can measure the effectiveness of every advert and only keep those that work.

Creative Content That Converts

Your ideal customers are probably already deeply invested in their own physical wellbeing. This means they are on the lookout for beauty and skincare tips that will truly blow them away. By providing them with engaging, interesting and educational content, you can show them why your beauty brand is truly worth investing in.

By featuring articles that link back to your website on sites that your target audience already visits on a regular basis, you can increase your website traffic. It also helps to build trust with your brand following and increases the chances of your audience actually purchasing your products.

Moreover, creative, educational content can also help to build your brand’s authority when it comes to skincare and beauty. Educational content doesn’t have to come in the typical box we’ve always put it in. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with a beautifully worded article, but these days it’s more about who is doing the telling.

By getting influencers, celebrities, skin experts, and even product reviewers to try out your products and then to share their own personal experience with your audience, your brand will look more authentic. This will also help to widen the reach of your brand and to promote brand loyalty.

In a Nutshell

Your beauty and skincare PR campaign doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective. By adding the above strategies to the mix, you can start building a better brand reputation and increase your brand awareness.

Nick Luvera

Public Relations For Restaurant and Food Brands

The food and restaurant industry is evolving at a rapid pace. With consumers being quite adamant in understanding where their food comes from and how their purchases can affect social issues, climate change, and overall wellness, it is now more vital than ever to tell your brand’s story in an authentic way.

Below, we delve into tried and tested PR tactics that can help place your restaurant or food brand on the map.

3 Key PR Tactics For Food And Restaurant Brands

Allow Customers to Experience Your Brand

People rarely stay spectators if they see something fun they really want to participate in. Why not grab this golden opportunity to transform your food brand into the next experiential treat? After all, foodies are all about enjoying and truly indulging in each and every culinary experience.

So, how exactly does one do this? There are numerous ways to get your customers actively involved in your brand. Events, competitions, or even food tours can all allow your target market to devour your food and beverages.

This is also where digital marketing comes into play. Social media is one of the greatest and most effective tools when it comes to creating brand awareness. If you are planning on launching a competition or organizing an event, then be sure to spread the word on all your social channels.

By uniquely presenting your food and beverages at these events, people will start posting about it on social media.

Why not create a unique brand hashtag? This will help you to spread the word about your brand. Your target market will share, retweet, or repost content relating to your products and services.

In a way, each and every potential customer can become a brand advocate. It really just all depends on your willingness to give your audience the experiences they truly crave. If it’s worth doing and it’s Instagrammable, then brand hype will be inevitable!

Partner With The Right People

When just starting out in the restaurant or food industry, it can be hard to gain traction on social media and to reach your ideal consumer.

Not only does it require knowing exactly how to optimize your social media ads, but it also means you have to know what your ideal customer wants or needs.

Figuring all this out is an important part of the branding process, but it can be time-consuming and is usually done over a number of months.

The best way to get around this roadblock and to really propel your brand into fame is to form partnerships with other brands or influencers. This will allow you to position your brand in a certain way so you can target the people you think will really enjoy your brand.

You don’t necessarily have to team up with companies that are also in the restaurant and food industry. A better way to form partnerships is to partner up with brands that will truly complement yours. Ideally, it should be a mutually beneficial relationship that will benefit both parties.

When picking an influencer, it is best to choose people that fit right into your brand’s lane. Remember, it’s not worth it to compromise your brand’s integrity for five seconds of fame.

Although social media platforms are the ideal choice when it comes to hosting partnerships and collaborations, you can also opt for more traditional marketing mediums.

Print media, TV ads, and even radio ads work phenomenally well when it comes to featuring brand collaborations. It all just depends on what your end goals are, and if you would like to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.

Content Is Still King

Immortalizing the essence of your brand on camera and broadcasting your brand’s voice through articles, blogs, recipes, and opinion pieces is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness.

Yes, content is still king, and without it, you won’t be able to show how your food or restaurant business is making its mark in the industry.

High-quality brand content allows you to tell your company’s story in a fast and effective way. As such, it should be a vital part of your PR and marketing strategy.

The best way to create content is to do it in such a way that it can be used throughout multiple traditional and digital marketing platforms. By doing this, you can maximize the return on your marketing efforts.

In addition to creating versatile content, you should also be creating evergreen content. This is content that stays relevant so that you can use it over and over again. The key to generating great content is to work smarter, not harder.

In Summary

Your PR strategy for your food or restaurant brand should be supported by high-quality content creation, partnerships and collaborations, and experiential opportunities that specifically cater to the wants and needs of your customers.

By implementing these three marketing tactics, you will create lots of brand awareness and allow your brand to speak to your ideal consumer in a personable and authentic way.

Leeza Hoyt

Public Relations and Marketing For Plastic Surgery Practices

The plastic surgery industry is becoming more cutting edge by the second. With more and more talented surgeons entering the field, plastic surgery practices have to invest in more PR to build credibility within the industry.

PR can help to establish your brand, which is why it’s best to incorporate it into your overall healthcare marketing strategy.

In this article, we are shining a light on how plastic surgery businesses can benefit from utilizing a public relations firm.

3 Ways Public Relations Can Benefit Your Plastic Surgery Practice

PR Can Help To Boost Your Website’s Google Ranking

In today’s digital age, you have to ensure that your online content is discoverable on search engines. How exactly does one do that? The answer lies in investing in your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).

There are plenty of ways in which you can improve your website’s overall SEO ranking. First, you have to write content that is both intriguing and informational. After doing some keyword research, you’ll know exactly what your audience wants to read about. You will then be able to get more organic traffic by simply providing information that’s already in high demand.

Another way of boosting your website’s SEO ranking is to write guest blogs on other health care websites that link back to your website. Each backlink gives your website more credibility and will increase your website’s Google ranking. This means your website will have a higher chance of being noticed, which will increase organic traffic to your website and ultimately get you more clients.

A great PR firm will help your website to climb rankings by making sure your practice is consistently building online authority and trust. This will help to establish your online presence and turn any press opportunity into potential customer acquisition opportunity.

PR Drives Long-Term Online Results

Compared to traditional advertising, a well-written, evergreen editorial can drive more long-term results. Why is this? Because a traditional advertisement is only utilized once and placed on one specific platform for a limited amount of time.

An editorial, on the other hand, can be published on more than one platform, can be reshared multiple times, and allows for online discussion. The ripple effects of a compelling editorial are, quite frankly, never-ending.

However, this is not the only benefit that PR content has over traditional marketing. PR allows you to build connections within the media industry. For example, once a journalist has worked with you, they will keep your contact details on file for any future stories. However, for this to happen, any interaction with journalists needs to be positive and professional in nature.

By hiring an experienced PR firm, you can be sure that you will always have marketing materials readily available for journalists. This means that the entire process will run smoothly, which will entice them to work with you again. This could lead to additional free exposure on a long-term basis and send more clients to your door.

Establishing Brand Credibility

Brand credibility is vital, especially in the health sector. However, getting your brand to be perceived as the go-to place for plastic surgery in an unbiased way takes time.

How people feel about your brand can make or break your practice. As such, it is crucial that you get the right type of exposure.

A lot of people think that by implementing an expensive advertising campaign you will get the brand recognition that your practice needs. While this is true to an extent, an elaborate advertising campaign can also be perceived as biased self-promotion. This means that when it comes to building authentic brand credibility, advertising may not be your best bet.

PR, however, relies on third-party endorsement from news anchors, local columnists and bloggers, and even media houses. In other words, PR allows a trusted media house to put their stamp of approval on your medical practice. Seeing that lots of people view journalistic reporting as accurate and unbiased, they tend to put a lot more trust in what the media has to say about businesses.

This method of getting your brand’s name out there can easily establish you as a specialist in your field of practice. Whether you prefer to give your two cents on a new plastic surgery fad or you would like to comment on a popular surgery technique or pro bono work your practice has been doing, the media can provide plenty of ways to get your brand’s story out there.

In Summary

With an experienced PR company at your side, there are lots of ways that your plastic surgery business can benefit from tried and tested PR practices.

Whether you want to boost your website’s Google ranking or establish your brand in the medical field, PR can ensure more brand visibility and get more clients to knock on your door in no time at all.

Leeza Hoyt

Public Relations Tips and Strategies For The Banking Industry

Competition in the banking industry can be fierce. With numerous financial services companies to choose from, one has to go the extra mile to retain and acquire more clients. This is where public relations comes into play.

In this article, we will be discussing PR tips and strategies that support the brand growth of banking and financial services providers.

4 Public Relations Tips and Strategies For The Banking Industry

Invest in Social Media

Social media is a wonderful marketing tool that can foster direct communication between your brand and your customers. In other words, it effectively opens the door for quick and honest feedback and gives your company a chance to immediately address any concerns that your online audience may have.

Why is this important? It shows that you value what your customers have to say.

By giving your customers a platform where they can feel seen and heard, you not only have the opportunity to build more brand awareness, but you can also connect with your online audience.

With so many social media platforms to choose from, it’s best to research what each platform can help you to achieve. Facebook fosters a sense of community, while Twitter helps to spark conversations. No matter what platform you choose, be sure to always include LinkedIn as it will help to establish your bank’s expertise and professionalism.

Empower Your Customers

A lot of people are struggling to manage their money in a way that will benefit them in the long run. Not everyone has a degree in finance, but most people are interested in learning how to manage their investments and savings. By identifying where your customers fall short, you can be their guiding light.

Through various PR initiatives, you can appoint trusted and recognized financial services executives to educate your brand’s audience on how to manage their money properly. While doing this, you can shine a light on the various services your company offers. Show how you can help your customers achieve their financial goals.

Whether your bank wants to start a blog or you want to invest in other forms of digital content creation, there are numerous ways that you can provide financial resources for your customers.

Traditional PR, like TV interviews or articles in finance magazines, can also help you to empower more people in managing their finances.

Establish Your Brand’s Credibility

Would you trust an unknown bank with your money? Probably not. People want to be able to put a face to the companies they do business with. The more you know about a brand, the more likely you’ll be to trust them. Trust, especially in the financial services industry, is key when it comes to ensuring company growth.

So how do you build more brand awareness and foster trust and credibility in the process? You need to share your opinion on relative matters. If you want to establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry, you need to be a great conversationalist – both online and in traditional media outlets.

Your brand’s voice can earn you lots of positive media exposure. By sharing some tips and tricks via news websites, radio shows, and interviews, you can establish your company’s credibility. At the same time, you can also build more brand awareness. In the long term, this can help to boost both client acquisition and retention.

Develop an Actionable PR Plan

For any PR strategy to be effective, it needs to be actionable. To really get a headstart on any of the PR ideas you have for your financial company, you need to develop a long-term PR plan. This will help you to organize your action steps and to make the most of your PR budget.

To start, you can decide on the following:

the platform you want to utilize
the topic you want to cover
the angle you want to try
and the team member that will speak on your chosen topic

You can also consider the media outlets that you’d like to target and the budget you have for each month.

Your plan doesn’t have to be intricate to be useful. As long as you take note of everything that can help you to organize your PR event, then you should be right on track.

You also don’t have to think of a PR strategy on your own. By building connections within the PR industry, you can regularly ask for tips and tactics from PR professionals.

You can also expand your network to include marketing and media house professionals. The more people you befriend, the better your feedback will be on what you have planned for the year.

In a Nutshell

By forming a coherent PR strategy for your banking company, you can successfully grow your brand. It can help to establish your company within the financial industry, allow you to connect with your customers, and lend credibility to what you specialize in.

Leeza Hoyt

Media Relations Strategies For Law Firms

The legal industry in the U.S. is very competitive. It can be challenging for new law firms to stand out among the crowd.

This is where tried and tested media relations strategies come into play. You can build trust with prospective clients by raising your firm’s visibility, showcasing your success rate, and tying your brand to high-profile cases.

To help you out, we’ve outlined four top media relations strategies for law firms below.

Four Media Relations Strategies For Law Firms

1. Reach Out To Media Publications

No matter what area of law you specialize in, it is essential to proactively reach out to various media houses. Bloggers and journalists from esteemed publications can portray you as a thought leader in your respective field. They will also be able to share your firm’s valuable insights regarding everyday matters.

Whether that means writing a monthly opinion piece for a national magazine, or providing a quote in a local newspaper, every bit of positive brand awareness counts. You might even want to take it a step further and do on-camera interviews. These allow people to put a face to a name and form a real connection with your firm.

Many law firms are wary of media attention because they don’t want to comment on cases they are actively involved in. Because of this, they miss out on all the excellent advantages that positive media coverage can bring their firm’s way. Instead of fearing media publicity, think of it as a tool that can help you to benefit both your firm and your local community.

Your firm can provide helpful tips for law students, talk about the do’s and don’ts when it comes to drawing up contracts, or simply give great insight into other high-profile cases. The important thing is to decide what you are comfortable talking about and create a media strategy that will guarantee positive brand exposure.

2. Put Someone In Charge Of Your Firm’s Marketing

If you have an established firm, then you are probably receiving quite a few media inquiries on a monthly basis. If you are struggling to stay on top of all the media opportunities heading your way, it’s probably best to appoint an experienced PR firm, like The Hoyt Organization. Not only will a PR firm be able to identify the best media opportunities, but they will also be able to prepare and coordinate interviews.

This is also true when it comes to speaking engagements. Talking about a specific legal topic that you specialize in will allow you to demonstrate your expertise and help to establish your firm’s credibility. An experienced PR firm can help identify relevant speaking opportunities and take care of all the administrative arrangements.

When it comes down to it, having an extra set of hands around to take care of your marketing affairs will allow you to do what you do best.

3. Display Your Firm’s Achievements and Ratings Online

If your firm has won legal awards or has garnered top-level ratings from previous clients, then it is time to put them on full display. Legal industry awards and high ratings can really help in establishing your firm’s credibility and, in doing so, get more clients to knock on your door.

In today’s digital age, most prospective clients research a law firm before contacting them. This is why it is so crucial to proudly display your awards or other achievements online. If you haven’t yet submitted any cases for award consideration, now is the time to apply. It may be a time-consuming process, but with an established PR company at your side, you won’t have to worry about any of the clerical duties.

This is also relevant when it comes to your firm’s online ratings. You have to make sure that your firm is listed on multiple websites, search engines, and other online locations so people can voice their opinions about your firm. Not only will this bolster confidence in your firm’s capabilities, but it will also boost your website’s overall SEO rating, which will make you more discoverable online.

4. Proactively Manage Crises

Whether your law firm is just starting out or has been in business for years, any business can fall victim to a PR crisis. Whether it is a negative review on a search listing or a high-profile case that could harm your firm’s image, you need a mitigation strategy for any potential crisis.

The best solution is to appoint an experienced PR firm to deal with any hiccups before they happen. This will not only give you peace of mind but will also allow you to protect your firm’s reputation should the worst come to pass.

In Summary

Becoming a great lawyer takes years of dedication and commitment. Don’t let your law firm’s accomplishments go unnoticed by failing to implement stellar media relations strategies.

Getting your firm noticed by prospective clients can be easier than expected, especially if you have the right PR firm to help you out. Connect with The Hoyt Organization today.

Leeza Hoyt

Public Relations In 2022: What Will The Future Bring?

Most people will agree that seeing 2021 in the rearview mirror is a good sign. Although it’s been a difficult year, we’ve seen compassion, growth and resilience throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. The public relations industry itself has seen a great deal of change as well. Here are a few things that our crystal ball is predicting for 2022:

The ESG movement will continue to grow. Companies that embrace ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) policies and dedicate their corporate culture to supporting these environmental and social measures will set the stage for good stewardship of not only their own company but the world at large. I believe a company’s ESG score will become a defining factor for many of their audiences moving forward, and those that want to remain on the cutting edge better keep an eye on it.

The needs of the workforce will continue to change. Employees are now interacting with five generations in the workplace, each of which has its own set of factors that define their work style. While millennials have dominated the more recent conversations, Gen Alpha — those who are now between 11 and 25 years old — are now moving into the prime of their work years. Their viewpoints are quite different from millennials and they bring a different definition of how they view the work world. As a result, employers will continue to need to determine how best to engage the various generations given their different work styles, needs, desires and views on work-life balance. As the generations shift, this need will continue moving forward.

The workplace isn’t a place; it’s a mindset. With the “work from anywhere” moniker, I believe companies will continue to grapple with how company culture can be defined. Can there be a company culture when much of the interaction is now on a screen? Many employers have implemented various strategies that range from full work-from-home to hybrid schedules and some demand traditional in-the-office workplace routines. One thing is for sure: This will continue to evolve and the companies that dedicate their corporate culture to trying to figure how to evolve with these shifts — whatever that looks like for their company — will thrive.

Technology will continue to be a strong driver. The link that has allowed the workplace to evolve is technology. It’s now acceptable to have Zoom meetings, and there is a wide variety of communications tools that have increased our ability to communicate. These include Slack, email, text, WhatsApp and many, many more. As if that weren’t enough, social media platforms — Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and others — are also tools that are available to reach specific audiences. With that comes the overarching challenge of deciding which channels are important to the audiences our clients need to reach. This makes the public relations professional all the more valuable as the trusted advisor who can design a program using the right channel that pushes out the right brand message.

PR itself continues to evolve. While public relations originally sprouted from the news side of the industry, today the communications wheel includes everything from company newsletters, news releases and articles, advertising, sponsorships, brand layering, social media, influencer campaigns, crisis management and more. A campaign today can include a variety of earned, owned, paid and shared media. As a result, PR agencies are morphing into blended services in order to provide a holistic program for their clients and to capture a larger portion of the campaign dollars. There is no doubt that this trend will continue moving forward.

Public relations has always been an evolving industry. It shapes our world, changes our perceptions and drives things forward. There is no doubt that it will continue to evolve as our world changes. Here’s to an amazing 2022!

This article was originally published on Forbes, here.

Leeza Hoyt

Social Media Marketing For Healthcare Providers

The entire world has realized the power that great social media marketing can give to a brand. The healthcare industry is no exception.

Competition within the industry is getting steeper and patients are demanding faster response times when it comes to sharing critical medical information. Luckily, healthcare social media can help providers to stay on top of their tasks.

Whether your practice prefers Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, social media can give you ample opportunity to educate, inform, and stay in constant contact with your demographic audience.

Below are the top healthcare social media marketing tactics for the healthcare industry.

6 Social Media Marketing Tactics For The Healthcare Industry

Educate Your Followers

The people that follow you on social media are already aware that a healthy lifestyle is important. You can use this to your advantage and reel them in with informative content. Educate your audience on health, fitness, the repercussions of unhealthy habits, and the tell-tale signs of certain diseases.

The key is to be the voice of reason in a sea of online noise to help guide them in living healthier lifestyles.

Remember to not only create self-promotional content when speaking to your audience. Give valuable knowledge away for free to establish trust with your followers. Afterward, you can mention the healthcare options your practice provides as an added bonus.

Making Your Healthcare Practice Stand Out

It is critical that you establish your brand as a leader in your respective field of healthcare. Competition can be fierce in the healthcare industry, which is why you shouldn’t give prospective patients an opportunity to add other healthcare specialists to their speed dials.

Broadcast every win for your company. Whether you place the spotlight on your highly trained, dedicated employees, or show off your advocacy efforts – every opportunity should be fully utilized on social media.

You can also use your social media platforms to be more transparent and personable. This can help you to connect more deeply with prospective patients.

Keep One Ear on the Ground

Social listening is a gold mine in today’s digital world. It allows you to keep track of what is being said online and use this knowledge to foster relevant conversations with your audience. Social listening can also help you to get a better understanding of people’s feelings toward your staff, practice, products, and services.

Want to scope out what people like about your competition? Keeping your eye on what is being said online can also help you to do that.

If analyzed properly, social media banter can also help you to form new communication strategies. And lastly, it can help you get a sense of how people are responding to emergent health issues.

Counteract Misinformation

Social media gives ample opportunity for misinformation to be spread around. However, the opportunity to counteract these rumors can allow your healthcare practice to shine. The answer lies in grabbing the bull by horns and becoming part of the online conversation.

There are numerous ways in which your organization can combat this and use social media to reinforce the facts. And it doesn’t have to be a boring task at all. From quizzes to questionnaires and even competitions, you can make sharing the correct information on social media fun for your followers.

Harness the Power of the Hashtag

When it comes to Instagram and Facebook, the hashtag remains king. This little social media staple has become indispensable over the years. It gives healthcare businesses a real opportunity to stand out.

Not only can hashtags help you to target your ideal audience, but it allows you to start a movement or label your latest digital marketing campaign.

Hashtags give your audience an opportunity to join in the fun and to share your company values with the world. From healthcare-specific hashtags to hashtags that promote and extend your content’s reach, your content can travel further with them by your side.

Support Those in Need

A small section of your audience may include vulnerable individuals that are in need of support. So, use your social media platforms to share valuable resources and support groups to help them out.

Even by spreading awareness of a specific disease, you can help some people not feel so alone on their health journey.

If your healthcare practice already has resources in place, such as affordable classes, webinars, seminars, or free phycological support, then now is the time to spread the word.

You can also support local charity organizations or causes that align with your practice values by giving them a shout-out online.

Conclusion

There are ample ways that your healthcare practice can use social media marketing to connect with your audience. From spreading awareness about causes that you believe in, to providing quality, informative content to your patients – the online world is your oyster!

By putting the needs of your patients before your own, you can build your brand to new heights in record time.

Contact The Hoyt Organization for a consultation about healthcare public relations.

Leeza Hoyt

Persuade Public Opinion With The Right Attitude

Public opinion can make or break your company’s brand. So how exactly can you persuade public opinion to better understand your company? The answer lies in having the right attitude.

How you treat your customers and how you handle both the highs and lows that your company experiences say a lot about the kind of company culture you have.

Below, we explore what public opinion is and how having the right attitude can influence how your customers engage with and perceive your brand.

Public Opinion and Brand Perception

Public opinion can be defined as the view of a sum of individuals on a specific issue. Public opinions regarding a particular business can be formed in multiple ways. Word of mouth, brand interactions, or witnessing how a brand treats its customers can all influence the public opinion of that brand’s target demographic.

Ultimately, public opinion affects how a brand is perceived. Brand perception has to do with what customers believe a product or service represents. Notice that brand perception has very little to do with what you say about your brand. Rather, the emphasis is placed on what your customers think or feel.

Why do public opinion and brand perception play such a critical role in any company’s success? Well, if you have a very negative brand perception that’s fueled by public opinion, then conventional marketing practices won’t get you very far. Even if you shout your company’s honorable values from the rooftops, it will do little to sway public opinion.

So, how can you create a positive brand perception? It all starts with your brand’s attitude.

How Your Brand’s Attitude Affects Public Opinion

A brand’s attitude can radically affect public opinion. It all comes down to confidence and what you sell and how you sell it. You can boost confidence in your brand in a myriad of ways. Below, we touch on the four pillars that support brand confidence so that you can sway public opinion in the right way.

Social Validation

People want to fit in, and because of this, they tend to follow the crowd. According to research, people generally become more certain of what they believe in when they think that others share their opinion. This is known as the attitude consensus effect and is the reason why some things become popular and other things don’t.

This could be beneficial to your brand if your customers already hold a desired opinion towards your products or services. You should then aim to reinforce those positive opinions regarding your brand by showing that it is widely shared.

Of course, you can also show that your brand is well-loved by posting online reviews and surveys on your website and social media channels. When it comes to sales, you should always try to reinforce any endorsements – whether it’s towards your products or services or your brand as a whole.

Repetition

There is a well-known rule in marketing that any message you send out generally has to reach your target audience seven times before it becomes effective. However, repetition is also very effective when it comes to people expressing their own opinions.

Not only does it increase people’s own certainty regarding their stance on something, but it increases their willingness to promote, defend, or act on it.

Marketing teams should use this to their full advantage and encourage stakeholders, customers, and even employees to express their positive opinions about your brand. You can even reward people for doing so, which will give them that extra motivation to speak their minds.

Easy to Understand

Research shows that if you can easily form an opinion on something, the more confident you will be that your opinion is valid. Therefore, it is important for brands to simplify the marketing material they present to their demographic audience.

Easy-to-read fonts and simplified graphics can easily persuade your customers. In turn, your customers will be more certain of the validity of the message you are trying to convey.

In other words, don’t overcomplicate what you are trying to say. Instead, focus on making it as easy as possible for your target market to understand what you are trying to convey. Sometimes, less is more.

Defending What You Believe In

In general, people tend to defend what they believe in. According to research, people also feel more certain of their opinions after defending them.

When people already like your brand, then it won’t take much for them to come to your defense. The trick lies in giving them the opportunity to do just that. It can be as easy as asking the right questions on your social media platforms and letting your customers do all the talking for you.

Creating these opportunities where your customer base can defend your brand can help you to effectively build confidence, support, and loyalty towards your company.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to persuading public opinion with the right company attitude, you have to get your loyal customers on board. Authentic public opinion holds the most votes in the marketing world, which is why you should create opportunities for your brand’s followers to speak up.

Leeza Hoyt

Planning Your Public Relations Healthcare Strategy

An effective PR healthcare strategy makes use of both digital marketing campaigns and traditional marketing methods. In order to really set your healthcare brand apart from its competition, you have to stay on top of the latest PR trends. This involves analyzing what works and doing away with what is not adding value to your marketing efforts.

In this article, we will be taking an in-depth look at how you can plan a practical yet successful public relations healthcare strategy.

How To Plan Your PR Healthcare Campaigns

Determine the desired outcome

If you want to effectively measure the effectiveness of your PR efforts, you will have to define the outcomes of all your marketing campaigns. Whether you want more brand awareness, reach a different demographic, or simply increase sales, you can effectively measure your success by setting goals.

The results garnered from traditional marketing channels can be difficult to keep tabs on. However, it is not impossible. For instance, simply asking a potential client how he or she heard of you will give you plenty of insight into the effectiveness of your traditional marketing channels. By doing this, you can actively determine if you are achieving your traditional PR goals.

When it comes to digital marketing, setting and measuring the success of campaigns are much easier. This is largely because most of your digital platforms will automatically provide you with campaign analytics.

If you want to maximize your success, you can set SMART goals for each campaign. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound.

By setting these specific goals, you can constantly check on the progress of your PR healthcare strategy, and tweak certain aspects of your marketing campaigns if needed.

Create engaging content

Content is still king. This is unlikely to change anytime soon, which means your public relations healthcare strategy should center around quality content. What does this mean exactly? It means that your content should be of real value to your audience.

It’s not just about which graphic catches your audience’s eye. You have to really know what your audience wants, and then you have to give it to them. The golden rule is to provide your audience with 80% free, valuable information that will benefit them. You should only be promoting your brand roughly 20% of the time.

Quality content is not a sales pitch. Instead, it gives a voice to your healthcare brand and helps you connect with your audience on a deeper level. If your content is engaging and thought-provoking, it will get more engagement on social media. This means your healthcare posts will get shared more readily with other people, which means you’ll be reaching a wider pool of potential clients.

Choose your PR channels for distribution

One may think that digital PR channels are more effective when it comes to getting your healthcare brand’s name out there but this isn’t necessarily the case. Just because the effectiveness of traditional PR marketing campaigns is harder to track, it doesn’t mean it’s not working.

PR firms that specialize in traditional PR are more likely to have a lot of contacts within the industry. This means that healthcare brands that decide to go the traditional route are more likely to advertise on ideal traditional platforms. If the demographic you are trying to reach is older in age, then traditional media may be the perfect avenue to guarantee more sales.

On the other hand, if you are trying to connect with a much younger audience, then digital PR channels are your best bet. Seeing as digital platforms are the local hangouts of most people under 40, it would make more sense to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, or even TikTok.

Another factor to consider is the cost of advertising on each distribution channel. The cost of TV and radio ads can get quite expensive, especially if you want your ad to be featured during prime time. However, these costs can vary from network to network.

Review the performance of your campaign

Each campaign you run, whether traditional or digital, has to give you a proper return on your investment. In order to determine whether your campaigns are working, you will have to measure the success of each campaign.

With digital campaigns, this should be done throughout the lifespan of each ad so you can tweak it if needed. If you use traditional PR platforms, be sure to check if sales increased during the duration of the traditional ad campaign.

Alternatively, you can also ask potential clients where they heard of your healthcare business. This will allow you to see if your traditional marketing efforts are successful or not.

Conclusion

Planning a public relations healthcare strategy is easy if you have a professional PR company that can help you reach your marketing goals. By establishing your PR goals, creating killer content, and choosing the right channels to distribute your marketing message, you will reap the benefits of your hard work in no time.

Leeza Hoyt

What You Need to Know About PR as a Tech Startup Company

As a tech startup company, there are certain mistakes you cannot afford to make. One of these is underestimating the importance of establishing your brand on the media landscape. A winning public relations strategy can be (and often is) the difference between success and failure.

With only 56% of startups making it through to their fifth year, don’t make the same avoidable mistakes as many companies have before you. How your company is portrayed to the public is incredibly important. As such, you need to adopt a PR strategy for your business that is structured and thought out.

Below, we outline the most important things you need to know about your tech startup’s relationship with the public.

5 Things To Know About PR As A Tech Startup Company

These tips should help you navigate how to choose a PR strategy for your company.

Start Small

Remember: you are a business, not a celebrity. More is not always better when it comes to attention from the press.

Going out guns blazing in the press without a media strategy can be detrimental to your brand. Make sure you have a carefully staged plan for your release in the media. First impressions are important so make sure you control yours.

In the early stages, you want to make sure your social media channels and website are ready to go with the image you want to portray of your business. By the time you increase your media coverage, your website and social media should be developed to the point where you look professional and attractive to customers.

Focus on Your Customers

What do your customers need or want from your business? Focus on that. While a good PR strategy should lead you to investors, it should not be the target of your PR strategy.

Investors are important and they will come. Don’t lose sight of the people who will keep your company relevant. Take the time to engage with your customers or potential customers across every platform.

Interacting with customers is part of creating a brand that people trust. Listen to their criticisms and praise. At the end of the day, you are building your product for them.

Build Friendships Not Connections

The ultimate goal is to have great connections with media outlets. This is a goal that requires a lot of work and effort, but it is very important. Connections with the media are invaluable for your business.

Instead of approaching every outlet asking them for a mention, start by engaging with the media on their various platforms. Reply to their posts or comment on them. Start slowly building relationships with different outlets by getting them to notice you.

If you are in this for the long run, you will need media personnel on your side. The establishment of relationships with journalists is only going to benefit you. You should start founding these relationships as early as you can.

Choose the Right Journalists and Media Outlets

It is easy to identify the biggest names in the media and try to get mentioned by them. But, a better strategy for startups is to identify and narrow down your target market and then choose your media outlet.

If you know your target audience well enough, you will know which channels are best to reach them. It may not sound as glamorous as being mentioned by the big tech media outlets, but it may be the best source of leads for future customers or investors. You will also have a better chance of being mentioned by less mainstream channels.

Keep Your Messages Consistent

Consistency is really important when it comes to public relations. Your PR strategy needs to account for both short-term and long-term strategies. The long-term strategies need to focus on building relationships and establishing a presence in the media.

If the messages put out from your tech startup brand on various platforms are consistent, it is easier for people to understand what you’re all about. It helps consumers and investors see the value in what you are doing.

It may seem tedious and slow, but the more people hear about a brand, the more trustworthy it becomes. This comes from a long, consistent journey in the media. If you keep putting your brand out there, people are going to get curious and see what you’re offering.

Conclusion

Presence in the media for companies today is vital for success. While you may want to hit the ground running in the media, there is great value in sticking to an incremental yet methodical PR strategy.

Focus on your long-term media goals and ensure you really build relationships with various media channels. These small steps will pay off in the long run when you have a well-developed and trustworthy brand.

Leeza Hoyt

Public Relations Planning Tips For The Holiday Season

The holiday season is almost upon us which means it is nearly time to take a well-deserved break. But just because you are planning on taking things slow, it doesn’t mean your business should do the same.

Now is the time to start planning ahead so your brand can continue to benefit from effective holiday PR campaigns during the holiday season and beyond.

Below are some tips on how to make the most of your PR strategy during the holiday season.

5 Top PR Planning Tips For The Festive Season

Launch a Charitable Campaign

If you really want to grab the media’s attention, then a charitable campaign is the way to go. Charitable campaigns not only tie in nicely with a corporate social responsibility mandate. They also give you the opportunity to mingle with other stakeholders.

By choosing a charitable campaign that your company really believes in, you can do some good while ensuring positive media coverage for your brand. This will allow you to incorporate the holiday, feel-good theme into your campaign which will guarantee ample brand awareness.

Keep The Content Flowing

The holiday season usually has lots going on with lots of events to attend and many family and friends to visit. Even though people tend to be quite busy during this time, most of them actually frequent social media platforms more over the holiday season.

This means it is the perfect time to capitalize on increased user activity by ensuring that your content calendar is packed to the brim!

By planning ahead and preparing lots of content for all your social media platforms you can effectively increase user engagement.

Make sure everything goes to plan by scheduling your content on each platform ahead of time. This way, you can sit back and relax while the content keeps streaming in on all your social media platforms.

Remember to update your cover photos, background photos, and your company’s profile picture on each platform. This will help you to reflect the festive spirit of the holiday season.

Create Relatable Campaigns That Appeals To All Customers

The holiday season is a celebratory time that shouldn’t exclude any cultures, religions, or alternative ways of life. Instead, you should aim to celebrate all the differences within your customer demographic.

Be sure to post content that will appeal to the various segments of your customer base. One way to do this is to let your employees help get your company’s festive message out there.

If you have a large company that employs a large variety of people, then each of them can share a holiday greeting with your customer base. Each greeting can be representative of that specific employee’s heritage, culture, nationality, or native language.

This way, your customers will be able to see that your company really values them. A campaign like this one will also be able to establish your company as an international employer. Spread the festive cheer and be sure to involve as many customer demographics as you can while doing so!

Invest in New Holiday Packaging

Whether you have an online shop or your products are typically found on store shelves, new packaging is a sure-fire way to grab anyone’s attention. This holiday season is the perfect time to add some festive cheer to your packaging’s design, so go all out!

You can pair your new packaging with a marketing campaign that features recipes and different angles to highlight your brand’s features and benefits.

You can also consider collaborating with another brand to increase the exposure of your new packaging. Try to pick a brand that will truly complement what your brand brings to the table. This way, both companies can come out victorious.

Go Big With a Holiday Giveaway

Competitions attract lots of attention, both online and in-store. By launching a massive giveaway during the holiday season, customers are even more likely to interact with your brand’s social media pages.

Everybody is looking for that perfect gift to give to loved ones, so be part of the solution and help your customer base to tick off items on their to-buy list.

The best thing about online giveaways is the conditions you can set for people to enter the competition. You can ask them to subscribe to your company’s newsletter, to like and follow your social media pages, or simply to interact with your social posts. You can also advertise in media outlets to spread the word about your giveaway even further.

By launching a holiday giveaway, you will ensure a win-win situation for both your company and your loyal customer base.

In Summary

The holiday season is the perfect time to maximize your brand’s reach and capitalize on user engagement. Whether you want to launch a competition, invest in new cheerful packaging, or give back through a charitable campaign, now is the perfect time to start plan

Leeza Hoyt

7 Things Everyone Should Know About PR Professionals

Any public relations firm in Los Angeles will tell you that PR professionals wear many hats. The PR industry combines best marketing practices with strategic communication, editorial, and brand management skills.

A great PR firm can help to build brand credibility, increase sales and improve customer and client relationships. Most people have some idea of what PR professionals actually do. However, there is still some confusion regarding their skillset.

To shine a brighter light on this topic, here’s a list of seven things everyone should know about PR.

7 Important Things You Should Know About PR

PR And Advertising Are Not The Same Thing

People often contact PR agencies with the idea that PR professionals can meet all their advertising needs. Although there are some things that PR and advertising have in common, they are not the same thing.

Where advertising normally utilizes only paid media, PR typically focuses on more organic positive interactions between customers and your brand. In other words, PR focuses more on building trust with your audience. However, both advertising and PR base their promotional approach on thorough market research.

The Skills of PR Professionals

An experienced Los Angeles public relations agency will largely focus on maximizing earned media opportunities.

Aside from writing press releases, newspaper articles, or thought leadership content, a PR professional will also be able to research target markets and personas and create compelling pitches.

They are experts at organizing appearances at social events, writing public speeches, and managing public company crises. Lastly, PR professionals can also track and analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and adjust where needed.

Should Public Relations Experts Use Social Media?

While social media alone cannot offer your brand everything that a PR expert can, it is still an invaluable tool for connecting with your target audience.

Where possible, PR experts should use social media as an amplifier to broadcast your brand story. It is one of the best channels through which you can communicate with your audience in a clear, fun, and relatable way.

Most public relations firms in Los Angeles are experts when it comes to leveraging each social media platform to its full advantage. An experienced PR professional will be able to tailor content so that it captivates your audience on every social media platform.

PR Is Rooted In Strong Values

All public relations firms in Los Angeles are required to act ethically and according to strong moral values. They need to understand your company’s vision and values so they can strategically communicate with your target audience.

Not only are PR professionals required to win the trust of your customers. They should also earn your trust by being open and honest about your brand and communication strategy. This helps to prevent any future crisis from getting worse and creates the necessary room for your brand to grow and flourish.

PR Is All About Building Positive Relationships

A PR expert’s main job is to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with existing and potential customers, clients, and other key stakeholders.

By fostering these relationships, a PR expert can help you to effectively grow your company. It will also help to open the door to new marketing opportunities. In turn, this helps to boost your brand awareness and company credibility.

PR Can Benefit All Industries

Unlike other forms of marketing, PR has the potential to benefit all industries. This is because PR helps to boost brand credibility and influence the perception that customers have of your company. An experienced PR firm is also an invaluable asset during a PR crisis.

No matter your industry, your brand perception can make or break your company. As such, investing in PR is always a good idea when wanting to stay ahead of the competition.

PR Campaigns Is Measurable

We all want to know that the resources and time we invest in our marketing and brand awareness campaigns are worth it. The good news is that a PR expert will be able to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns with online tools.

In turn, this will give them the information they need to adjust their marketing efforts where needed. This means that you won’t be guessing when it comes to reaching your target audience. Rather, you can be more strategic and feel more confident that your campaigns will leave a lasting, positive impression.

Conclusion

There is a lot to know about public relations agencies and how they can go about getting your brand the recognition it deserves. By measuring their success, building positive relationships, basing their communication approach on strong ethical values, and incorporating tried and tested advertising tactics, there is little that PR experts can’t do.

To elevate your brand’s reputation to higher levels, consider hiring an experienced PR firm to help you out.

Leeza Hoyt

How Content Marketing and PR Are Similar

Are you wondering if you should invest in a Los Angeles PR Firm or maybe just increase your content marketing efforts to get your brand’s name out there? Many may not think it, but content marketing and PR are actually quite similar in a myriad of ways.

Both fields can be an invaluable resource for companies when it comes to brand awareness, crisis management, and online marketing.

In this article, we explore the similarities between content marketing and PR and how they can benefit your business.

5 Ways PR is Similar to Content Marketing

Research-Based Marketing Strategies

Both PR and content marketing professionals base their campaign strategies on thorough research.

When it comes to PR, both formal and informal research is done to create a two-way street of communication between a company and its target audience. This research allows a brand to engage with its audience in a relatable way. As a result, it helps to foster trust and sustain new relationships.

Thorough research gives PR professionals a well-rounded understanding of the science behind human behavior. Because of this, they are well equipped to give advice on marketing strategies. Moreover, they are able to nip any crisis situation in the bud.

When it comes to content marketing, it is critical that you understand your target audience. This is key to success. It also involves conducting research on content channels, trendy topics, and digital advancements. This way, you get maximum use out of every article or email.

A Love of Language

Whether you prefer a Los Angeles PR firm or a content marketer to help your business out, both industries require perfect grammar. A love of language is simply a must, as well as attention to detail and an interest in marketing.

Seeing as both PR and content marketing revolves around communication in all its forms, many rounds of edits are conducted before publishing any content.

It may seem like content marketers are more focused on marketing communication and that PR firms are best at protecting a brand’s public image. However, in reality, the duties of both fields tend to overlap a lot.

A brand’s story, no matter which angle you approach it, is one of the most powerful tools to pocket new clients with. Because of this, all content marketers and PR professionals are experts when it comes to telling a brand’s story using the written word.

Know Who You Are Marketing To

Fully understanding who you are marketing to is essential if you want to make a great first impression on your niche market. In order to create impactful content, both content marketers and Los Angeles PR Firms need to have an in-depth understanding of their buyers’ personas.

This data is usually based on a company’s target audience and gives great guidelines on how to reach new clients.

Both PR professionals and content marketers spend hours poring over demographic data and customer surveys. This enables them to fully understand their ideal demographic and adjust their marketing campaigns based on their findings.

Because the data is always changing, this is usually an ongoing process. However, it’s completely worth it. This is because it allows for the retargeting and fine-tuning of current and future marketing campaigns.

Building And Nurturing Relationships

Traditional PR is known for creating and sustaining mutually beneficial relationships with clients. In the past, this was mostly done through magazine articles, public addresses, and other forms of traditional marketing.

Today, lots of Los Angeles PR firms are more readily investing in online marketing. This is largely due to the world becoming more tech-driven. However, it is also because it better enables you to track the success and impact of each marketing campaign. All marketing efforts, whether traditional or digital, aim to strengthen and nurture client relationships.

Content marketing has skyrocketed in the digital age. It relies heavily on creating or sharing articles, videos, podcasts, as well as other media. This helps to attract, engage with or retain a target audience.

When it comes down to it, both PR professionals and content marketers launch strategic marketing campaigns. The goal is the same: to sustain long-term communication with a targeted group of people.

Know Your Way Around Digital Media

When it comes to brand and reputation management, PR and content marketing efforts go hand and hand. Both fields must know their way around digital media in order to better target their audience.

Paid media, articles, press releases, videos, and other forms of digital media all play a vital role in building a trustworthy, relatable brand.

This is why both content marketers and PR professionals are experts when it comes to online content creation and a wide range of digital tools.

In A Nutshell

If you are still on the fence about choosing a Los Angeles PR firm or content marketer to help your brand out, just remember that they have a lot of skill sets in common. When it comes to digital media, brand awareness, and content creation, both PR professionals and content marketers are equally qualified to put your company on the map.

Nick Luvera

Practice Active Listening

The goal of any PR firm is to help clients craft messaging and then clearly communicate. But what is the most important way to prepare empathetic, and relatable communication? Active listening.

By really listening to what your clients’ target markets are saying, you can effectively position brands into market segments.

In this article, we will dive into what active listening entails and how it helps you to better understand what your client base truly needs.

What Is Active Listening?

When it comes down to it, active listening requires you to be genuinely interested in the everyday concerns, wants, and needs of your target audience.

It enables you to look at your brand from another vantage point and objectively analyze your shortcomings. More importantly, it also enables you to truly understand what your audience thinks about your brand and why.

This allows you to weigh the opinions of others against what your business stands for and then respond in a relatable, meaningful way.

All brands have a story to tell. The question is, do you truly know your target market? Or do you have preconceived notions that cause your brand story to fall on deaf ears?

How Does a Company Practice Active Listening?

As companies grow, it might be tempting to gear your communication style to achieve monetary goals. While this isn’t wrong, it is still important to follow these next steps. This helps to ensure that you stay in touch with your target market on an emotional, practical, and intellectual level.

Invest in industry research. By keeping up with the evolution of your target market, you can tweak your communication style to provide solutions for their current problems.
View dissatisfied customers or clients as opportunities to learn and gain invaluable information.
Proactively work to prevent or resolve mistakes rather than denying their existence.
Make every customer feel heard by opening yourself up to honest critique. Apologize where it’s needed and create open lines of communication within your company.

Why Does It Matter In Public Relations?

By actively listening, a PR firm can help a company to confirm its approach to its target market. In the long run, this can help a business to examine a situation from multiple perspectives.

Active listening can also help PR firms to come up with proactive local media relations campaigns. This can aid your brand in taking control over the narrative and allow you to tell your brand’s story in a compelling, authentic way.

Active listening can help your PR team in strengthening your existing messaging, identifying communication misunderstandings, and even inspire new product ideas or identify an entirely new customer base

The Advantages of Active Listening In PR

There are plenty of advantages that active listening can offer your company. With the help of an experienced PR firm that knows how to correctly apply the principles of active listening, your company can benefit in the following ways:

Better understand the communication style of your target audience.
Better understand the fears, hopes, and dreams of your target audience.
Create a communication strategy that will resonate with your customer base.
Keep you up to date with trends or fads that your customer base finds appealing.
Help you to objectively analyze the shortcomings of your company.
Help you to lead your audience towards a solution that will benefit both them and your company.
Be proactive when it comes to communication misunderstandings.
Help to minimize the financial losses arising from lawsuits.
Clearly communicate your brand’s story and message.
Help you to structure thought leadership articles that your audience wants to read.
Help you to identify new customer bases or inspire new product development.

When it comes down to it, actively listening starts with empathy. If you can successfully place yourself in your customers’ shoes, you have a better chance of understanding what they need.

The idea of really listening and opening yourself up to criticism can be daunting. However, it can also help you to build a more successful company. When you put it all in perspective, it’s a rather simple practice for ensuring future success.

Final Thoughts

By hiring a Public Relations firm to help you actively listen to your target audience, you can create a more relatable, empathetic, and meaningful brand. With so much digital noise bombarding customers on a daily basis, this is a sure-fire way to stand out above your competition.

Make sure your brand is heard by taking the time to listen to what your customers have to say.

Leeza Hoyt

Moving Through a Most Difficult Year: Communications Makes a Difference

COVID-19 and now the Delta variant continues to impact our world. It’s not news that it has changed the way we work, socialize, and shop and more. While things have improved since spring 2020, we continue to grapple with the new normal. As a result, what is crucial to moving forward is how we manage our communication.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve been through this. From the Spanish Influenza of 1920 to the economic crisis in 2008, if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that bad things will continue to happen. That said, it’s important to realize that every storm will eventually pass. The difference between how we view something retrospectively lies in the way that the issue was communicated in the first place. It’s important to remember that good communication builds trust, eliminates panic and allows for teamwork to effectively solve a problem.

As a result, communications should be at the front line for every company. Using a communications strategist to craft key messages that are presented to your stakeholders and publics in a timely and transparent fashion is crucial in upholding both business and reputation. These processes are designed to clearly present top-line messages, convey the right sentiment to the right audience at the right time.

Five Key Elements to Successful Communications

If you’re looking for a fast easy way to do this, there isn’t any. What you can do is build a framework that will allow you to build as you move forward. Here’s five things you won’t want to overlook.

Focus on the Message. Before you send anything out, remember what the purpose is. Does it resonate with your audience? Is the writing appropriate for this group?

Use the right channels for your message. There are many ways to communicate to each audience. Given the wide variety of channels that are currently available – everything from a social media channel such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram – to a news release to an internal memo for employee communications and more — choosing the right channel is critical. It’s the best way to make sure that what your communicating is reaching the right audience in the right way.

Remember, communications is a continuous process. Covid has changed everything. To build a brand, its not a ‘one and done’ thing. Not sure what to say? Consider an update on company activities. Profile one of your key employees or clients. Be proactive and find ways to reach out to customers and clients, as well as employees and other audiences. It lets them know you’re still there, engaged and actively working. It also sets the stage for information and news in general which includes good and perhaps not-so-good news.

Be relevant, transparent and authentic. In today’s communications, compassion and understanding are paramount. How is your company responding to the Delta variant? Has the supply chain been impacted and what does it mean to deliveries? If you’ve been impacted by a natural disaster, how is the company moving forward? All of these elements come into play to make the company seem responsive, human and real.

Be engaging. This means talking directly to your audience in the most appropriate manner. Remember to set the right tone. Even bad news can be framed in an effective and more positive note. This alone is critical to how your audience receives – and processes your message.

Crises will continue to happen and companies will survive and move forward. For that to happen, having an effective communications strategy in place will set the stage – and the roadmap for success. Those companies that have this will have a roadmap for success.

Leeza Hoyt

How Can PR Help My Architectural Firm?

Architects are great at drawing up building plans, but most aren’t experts at marketing their own firms. This is where PR comes in. Highly specialized PR firms can help you to stand out from the Architectural crowd.

Not only are they essential to getting new clients, but they can also help boost brand credibility and authority. In this article, we list the top five ways that PR can help your architectural firm.

1. Find Common Ground With Your Clients

Why should potential clients hire your architectural firm to design their next building? With so many other architectural firms out there, it can be hard to land your next client. The trick lies in finding common ground with potential clients. There are many ways to do this, but one primary way is by relaying your brand values through your marketing endeavors.

Every leadership piece, networking opportunity, influencer connection, or social media post gives you an opportunity to tell your brand’s story. By knowing what your company values are, potential clients can find common ground with your brand. This means you’ll attract clients that believe what you believe, and want what you want.

Not only does this make working together much easier, but it also helps to cultivate trust. If your clients really trust you, it will open the door for future collaborations.

2. Strengthen Your Community Ties

Your brand’s reputation can either hinder or boost the success of your company. One thing that an experienced PR firm will be able to help with is strengthening your community relationships.

It is essential to form new connections and build new ties within your local market. This can be done by designing a building for charity, getting involved in local architectural groups, or helping other causes related to your firm.

The more active you are in your community, the more you’ll cement your brand presence. Public relations can also help you to form new relationships with influencers that speak to the community. This will enable you to get your brand message across, establish authority, and make new connections.

3. Enhance Your Online Presence

Building a brand in this digital age can be both extremely rewarding and taxing. Nurturing your online presence is a full-time job and can be difficult to manage without any help.

PR agencies will be able to support your online endeavors and guide you in the right direction. Should things go south and disaster strikes, they can also step in and preserve your company image.

Social media, website SEO, advertorials, press releases, and other digital content all play a vital role in establishing a positive company image. The importance of instant client communication that’s both authentic and professional cannot be overlooked. All of this forms part of marketing communications, which is one of the roles that PR professionals excel in.

To really give your online presence a boost, you should also have great connections with publicists and online journalists. This way, you can share your content on other online platforms and link back to your website. This will ensure a better SEO ranking for your website and increase your overall monthly website traffic.

4. Generating New Leads

Getting new leads that actually turn into clients is not as easy as it once was. Back in the day, traditional advertising proved to be extremely successful in growing your business.

Now, people – especially millennials – are distrustful of obvious advertising methods. Instead, they prefer authentic recommendations. This doesn’t mean that traditional marketing can’t be successful, it just all depends on your target market.

The recommended approach now is to make use of a myriad of advertising avenues to guarantee success. Effective PR can help your architectural business to thrive by tapping into every available advertising resource.

PR professionals are also trained to communicate both authentically and effectively. In other words, by making use of a PR firm, your brand message is more likely to resonate with your target audience.

5. Boosting Your Credibility

If well-known and respected traditional or online media titles start publishing articles that promote your brand, it will help to boost brand credibility. Not every architectural firm gets the opportunity to be featured in high-end publications. In other words, if you were chosen among a sea of companies, then you are definitely worth mentioning.

Readers of these prized publications know that only the top companies get featured. This is why getting published on the right platform is such a big deal. With a great PR team at your side, this is a definite possibility.

As more and more people read and hear positive things about your architectural firm, more business will come your way.

Final Thoughts

Getting the right marketing guidance is essential if you want to build a thriving architectural brand that will last for years to come. By investing in an experienced PR firm, you can acquire more leads, build credibility, and enhance your brand’s online presence.

Nick Luvera

5 Tips To Grab Major Public Relations Media Attention

In order for your brand to get the recognition it deserves, you’ll have to get creative. Media outlets, journalists, and news agencies won’t just give anyone the time of day. They are looking for the next big story that will really be worth their time. Below, we will be looking at five tips that will ensure lots of public relations media attention.

5 Expert PR Tips For Attracting Media Attention

Mingle With The Right Crowd

Networking opportunities can take up a lot of time, but if done right, then it is definitely time well spent. Of course, if you hired an experienced PR firm, then you might not have to attend events on a regular basis. However, the point can also be argued that one can never have too many mutually beneficial connections.

When attending conferences, there are usually multiple opportunities to rub shoulders with journalists, influencers, academics in your field of work, and other speakers. Not only will this allow you to tell your company story, but you might just meet someone that can help introduce your brand to future clients.

Events are especially important to attend or even host when your company is launching a new product, feature, or after reaching an important milestone. The bigger your contact list is, the more people you can invite. If the right people show up, then your event will definitely make front-page news.

Remember to always have a great photographer on standby so you can make the most of each event. The more quality event coverage you have, the better you can supply journalists with all they need to make your event the talk of the town.

Use Social Media To Build Connections

One thing PR firms are really great at is initiating communications with customers and media members on social media. However, if you or your brand are really well-known, then you can certainly also give it a whirl.

Whether you are looking for traditional media coverage or digital media coverage, it can be hard to get a journalist’s undivided attention. This is where social media can help you out. Twitter and Facebook allow you to casually meet people by simply initiating a conversation.

Granted, you may have to comment, retweet, share, and like a few posts before you get a reaction. But, consistency usually pays off in the long haul. Building a solid relationship online takes time. However, if you are successful, your company could get more media attention and you could be one media connection richer.

Research Your Story Ideas

Before pitching a story to a media house or news agency, it is important to do your research. You should know the ins and outs of your topic, industry, target audience, competitive landscape, and who you should pitch your story to. With great PR support, this entire process is usually quick, thorough, and fun!

Your brand should have a third-party analysis, along with plenty of factual information like stats and data to support your story idea. By knowing what has already been published in recent months, you can ensure that your pitch or story angle is unique.

It is also a good idea to comment on industry trends and give a new perspective on a specific topic. This way, your brand voice stays relevant and you’ll have a greater chance of being published in multiple outlets.

Word Of Mouth

Word of mouth can be a pretty powerful tool, especially if the right people start talking about your company. Who exactly can create that kind of buzz? Influencers!

By collaborating with industry influencers, you can build brand credibility. If a relevant or popular influencer backs your company, their entire audience base will know your brand’s name. If they like what they see, the word will definitely spread.

By connecting with influencers that are compatible with your brand, you could indirectly be targeting future customers.

Focus On Creating Engaging Content

Your audience has questions, and you could be the one that they look to for guidance. That is, if you are creating engaging, high-quality content that answers all of their questions. Content will always be king!

It could be a blog, company website, advertising or social media post. The important thing is that all your content is shareable and that you have a click-worthy heading.

If your audience likes what you write, they will automatically share it with everyone. In other words, great content can turn your audience into brand ambassadors. Oftentimes, this is exactly how something ends up going viral.

You don’t necessarily have to engage on all the social media platforms available to you to get your content out there. Choose the ones that make the most sense to your brand and that will generate the most brand loyalty.

In a Nutshell

The great thing about grabbing public relations media attention is that you don’t have to do it alone. If this process seems a bit daunting to you, then you can always turn to a professional PR firm to help you out.

Nick Luvera

Building Your Healthcare Brand With Public Relations Strategies

Need a more strategic approach to growing your healthcare brand? By investing in an experienced and reputable PR firm, you can really zero in on your customers’ wants and needs.

By communicating in a clear, relatable way, your brand can build patient trust and increase customer satisfaction. In this article, we are focusing on different public relations strategies that can help to put your healthcare brand on the map.

Why Healthcare Brands Need PR

Most healthcare brands are promising the world to potential customers. But, do these healthcare providers really care about each individual’s physical health? And if they do, how will they be able to convince you of that?

People are being flooded with marketing material on a day-to-day basis. So, it’s crucial that your brand’s message stands out and is both clear and personable.

Building a trusted, well-known brand doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires strategic planning in order to capitalize on each opportunity that comes your way.

This is where reliable PR firms really shine. They can help your healthcare brand to establish thought leadership by ensuring your brand stays in the spotlight on a multitude of traditional and digital platforms. PR firms have plenty of publishing tools at their disposal. However, knowing when and how to use those tools is the actual key to success.

Of course, you could try to juggle all of these marketing responsibilities yourself. But remember that mistakes in the marketing world can be costly. Luckily, with a PR professional at your side, you can address complaints head-on and keep your brand’s name clean.

How do PR firms accomplish all this and what strategies do they rely on the most to build a successful brand? Well, we have more than one tip hidden up our sleeves!

4 PR Tips For Building Your Healthcare Brand

Personalize Customer Communication

Truly understanding your audience is key when you want every communication opportunity to be effective. PR firms will establish who the ideal customers are that you are trying to reach and then research their wants and needs.

A well-informed, strategic communication approach almost guarantees resonating and relatable interactions with potential customers.

Furthermore, PR firms can also help their clients to personalize their communication approach by developing a key messaging platform. Of course, this is done after they’ve identified the most effective ways to reach your target audience.

Proactively Protect and Boost Your Brand’s Reputation

The healthcare industry is definitely not without its hurdles. An experienced PR firm can protect your brand by being proactive when it comes to crisis management. How do they do this? Simply put, PR professionals are always on the lookout when it comes to negative reviews, new healthcare trends, or regulatory changes.

By constantly researching and staying in the loop, we can help to advise your next steps. By knowing what lies on the horizon, you can plan an expert response or be prepared for any industry changes. Knowledge is power, and in this case, it’s definitely true.

Seeing that healthcare organizations are particularly vulnerable to crisis situations, an experienced PR firm will definitely be able to help you navigate any stormy weather.

Increase The Reach Of Your Brand’s Publicity

A great PR firm will have the right industry-specific connections on hand to optimize any publicity opportunity that your brand lands. PR professionals have extensive digital PR strategies in place that extend the reach of coverage opportunities. This means you will likely be able to reach more people than you would when trying to build a name for yourself on your own.

From organizing third parties to share your content online or get other well-known businesses to link back to your website, there are plenty of ways PR firms can put the spotlight on your brand.

This doesn’t just pertain to digital marketing though. PR professionals can also arrange the strategic publication of thought leadership articles so you can maximize your brand’s reach.

Establish a Publishing Strategy

Ever wondered what people really want to read about in your industry? PR professionals know the answer to this question and can help with the layout of articles so you hit all the right notes. This can be geared towards thought leadership, or simply stating your opinion regarding a new trend or healthcare topic.

The bottom line is that health-orientated individuals want to know what the industry experts are thinking.

With the guidance of a PR expert, your brand can become a very relevant voice in the healthcare industry. The great news is that PR experts will not only help you with the layout of your article but will also get it published at the optimum time.

In Conclusion

By investing in a solid PR firm, you can better build your healthcare brand with effective strategies that will help you to stand out from the crowd.

Nick Luvera

How The Hoyt Organization Can Assist Residential Brokerage Firms

Attract People Outside Your Geographical Area

Selling homes to existing clients is one thing, but getting new clients on a regular basis is another venture entirely. Real estate brokers don’t always have time to do some of the public relations heavy lifting necessary to stay competitive.

By hiring an expert PR firm that can guarantee more exposure for your business, you can focus on more important tasks.

If you have big listings that will appeal more to people outside your local geographical area, the Hoyt Organization can help you out. By leveraging social media, traditional publishing outlets, and other advertising avenues, we can get a more diverse pool of clients to come knocking on your door.

Get New Clients

Some residential brokerage firms are struggling to find new clients. The Covid-19 pandemic may cause people to think twice before buying or selling right now. So how can the Hoyt Organization assist you in finding new clients?

The key lies in convincing new clients that your organization is better positioned to meet all their needs.

Our PR experts can help to build your brand to do just that. By communicating with new clients on their level, you are more likely to pique their interest.

What do your client base and potential clients want and need right now at this moment in time? And what is the best way to help them get it? Our experts have years of experience under their belts and can help your residential brokerage firm to figure it out.

Make Sure Your Realtor Events Are Well Attended

As a brokerage firm, you have to make sure that events regarding new launches, events, or listings are well-attended. However, keeping everyone in the loop with what’s going on can sometimes feel like a full-time job.

How can the Hoyt Organization assist with this? We know exactly what media coverage you need and where you will get the most traction.

Furthermore, we can also arrange for photographers and experienced media professionals at each event. This way, you can rest assured that your new listings are getting the best exposure. If more people know about your events, then more people are likely to attend them.

Attract The Right Buyers

Any interest is great for business, right? Well, not always.

If you have a multi-million dollar listing, but you are constantly attracting the wrong buyers, then it’s not exactly a win-win situation.

The Hoyt Organization can help your brokerage firm to cater to the right demographic for each new listing. This means you will actually save on advertising costs because you’re refining your advertising strategy.

Sometimes, it is more about working smarter than working harder. With the Hoyt Organization, we can focus on getting you the right leads, so you can close the deal.

Get More Online Traffic

A lot of the time, a brokerage firm may not garner the attention it deserves simply because people don’t know enough about the company. How can you fix this? By giving people the answers they are already searching for.

By implementing proper SEO techniques, content marketing, Google ads and other paid marketing techniques, you can increase your online traffic.

Why is this a good thing? Essentially, it means you can give everyone all the information they are looking for in one place. This will not only save your brokerage time but will also allow you to meet people where they are at in their buyer journey so that you can know exactly what they need and when.

Make The Most Of All Communication Opportunities

Whether you need to manage a crisis, or you have a press release to attend, you have to know how to communicate properly and clearly. The Hoyt Organization can help you to stay on top of all your engagements, press releases, and functions.

Knowing what to say is just as important as how you say it. At the Hoyt Organization, we can help you to navigate sensitive situations with ease. We understand that retaining your existing clients can be just as important as getting new ones.

In Conclusion

As a residential brokerage firm, you have a lot on your plate. However, with the Hoyt Organization’s PR expertise, you can focus on what’s important to you.

We specialize in communication and marketing strategies and can help you reach new clientele. If you want to get the exposure that your brokerage firm deserves, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Nick Luvera

What We Can Learn From The Condo Collapse in Miami

The recent tragic condominium collapse near Miami showed once again how important being prepared for crisis management response can be. Tragedies happen. However, how we respond to them can be the difference between failed public relations and professionally crafted crisis management communication with government agencies, media and the public.

7 Things We Can Learn About Crisis Management From The Miami Condo Collapse

Let’s take a look at seven crisis management lessons that the condo collapse highlighted.

Be Proactive

Before any crisis occurs, it is best to act quickly to prevent the escalation of a potential problem. After the collapse of the Surfside condo, there was documentation that showed what state the condo had been in before its collapse. Various structures within the condo were in poor condition.

We cannot know for sure if these structural issues contributed to the collapse of the condo. However, the condo’s collapse could perhaps have been prevented had there been proactive steps taken that minimized structural risks.

The primary goal should always be to stop a crisis from happening in the first place.

Make Sure You Only Release Accurate Information

In any crisis, it’s important to handle information responsibly in order to refrain from causing more panic.

As with the condo collapse, authorities had to assess when to release important information regarding damages, injuries, and the death toll. By knowing when to release what, they were able to inform and console many loved ones during this tragic event.

By releasing inaccurate information too soon during a crisis, you could cause more public outrage. Although third parties may press for more information, it is better to ensure that the data is correct before releasing it. Not only will this improve your credibility, but it will also prevent a PR disaster.

Don’t Speculate

When a crisis hits, it’s tempting to compare it to similar disasters. Based on what happened during similar past events, one can easily speculate about what’s going to happen next. However, in the event of any crisis, you need to avoid speculation at all costs.

Wondering about the causes, effects, injuries, or tactics that may be used to solve a crisis is natural. But, by sharing your musings with the world, you could cause even more panic.

To keep everyone calm, you should always communicate responsibly. Rather than speculate, wait until you know all the facts before communicating with a third party.

Communication Is Critical

Crisis communication plays a vital role in managing any crisis effectively. How you communicate to your audience is very important. Avoid blaming anyone and don’t make any rash judgments. Instead, take your time assessing the situation and the outcomes of all your options.

If possible, it would be better to shift all the communication responsibilities to a firm that specializes in crisis management. This is exactly what the condominium association in Florida did after the condo collapse.

Be Transparent

In order to handle a crisis effectively, you have to be transparent. This can be hard, seeing as some of the details relating to a crisis can be upsetting. However, telling half-truths can not only damage your integrity but also cause more harm than good.

No matter how uncomfortable, the truth should be communicated clearly and tactfully. Once you have all the facts lined up, there should be no reason to not share all the pertinent information.

When the Florida condo collapsed, the public remained updated around the clock. This helped everyone come to terms with what happened.

Have A Crisis Plan In Place

No one wants to think that the worst possible disaster will strike their business. However, you still need to be prepared for anything. Not only will it help you to get back on your feet sooner, but it will also show leadership, thoughtfulness, and compassion.

Your company should have a crisis plan in place for every possible scenario that can affect your employees, customers, and your business itself. By having a crisis protocol in place, you can avoid panic and jump right into action mode when it’s needed.

When the condo collapsed in Florida, the condo association relied on many regulations and outside help to navigate the situation. Without a proper plan in place, it will take you much longer to get to the bottom of any crisis.

Be Flexible

Even if you are prepared, a crisis can still knock the wind out of your sails. In situations like these, you need to be flexible in how you manage a sticky situation. What would have worked six months ago may not work now. By objectively analyzing the situation, you will be able to make informed decisions much faster.

The condominium collapse in Florida triggered conversations about revising condominium regulations. To stay up to date with the latest requirements, you have to be flexible to accommodate changes in your regulatory environment.

Key Takeaways

The condo collapse was a tragic event that made worldwide headlines. However, we can learn from that loss and implement new crisis management protocols that will help prepare us to communicate more effectively with key stakeholders during the next disaster.

Leeza Hoyt

How to Market to Gen-N

If the Coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we need to adapt to survive. The world of e-commerce did just that by creating a contactless, convenient shopping experience. The result: Generation Novel or Gen-N. The evolution of an entirely new consumer from the introduction of conveniences like curbside pickup and click-and-collect.

But, the needs of Gen-N are ever-changing and, as such, your marketing techniques must change with them. In this article, we look at a few tips and tricks to keep your company ahead of the game. So, keep reading to find out more about how to market to Gen-N!

The Current Market Landscape

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, e-commerce saw growth equivalent to 10 years in just 3 months. The United States alone saw an increase in online transactions from 11% to 14%. This was a direct result of confining consumers to their homes.

Therefore, Gen-N (having evolved from a global pandemic) have greater expectations for companies and brands. They value how brands and companies react in a time of crisis. What this means is that while there is an expectation of constant digital improvement, transformation in line with society is also essential.

In other words, Gen-N places greater emphasis on the values and trustworthiness of a brand. So, businesses should not only provide a service but also improve on how they engage with and contribute to society.

How to Market to Gen-N

It’s clear that to compete in the current market brands must meet the needs of the Gen-N consumer. Below we look at 5 marketing tips that will keep your brand both relevant and competitive.

Emphasize your brand values

Covid-19 is teaching many of us to realign our values. While the digital market grows, our personal lives slow down.

People are spending more time at home with family, helping out in their communities, and giving back to the less fortunate. And Gen-N is starting to hold brands accountable and demanding they do the same.

Therefore, the success of your brand also depends on your role in society. For example, how do you help the environment? What are your social practices? Do you value your employees?

These are all important factors to Gen-N that help them to identify with your brand. Our newest consumer is all about spending money with a conscience.

Be transparent

Gen-N expects full transparency when it comes to your brand and its values. In this way, it’s not enough to simply align your business with certain values. Your consumers must see the difference your company makes in society. Showing Gen-N that you are genuine in your attempts to help others builds trust and brand loyalty.

Provide a good user experience

A good user experience is essential to keep Gen-N coming back to your brand. With most consumers confined to their homes feeling anxious or stressed, their digital shopping experience should be as pleasant as possible.

To achieve this consider doing the following:

Offer new ways to get existing products
Expand customer engagement methods
Offer new types of products and services
Make sure that your website is easy to use and that transactions are seamless

Further, a personalized experience is always a good one. Use data to get to know your consumer better and tailor product recommendations and blog suggestions to their needs.

Offer good service and support

Offering good service and support is key to establishing brand loyalty. A study by McKinsey shows that 75% of US consumers have tried different stores, websites, or brands during Covid-19. And 60% of these consumers would switch to these brands or stores at some point in the future.

This shows that as the digital market continues to grow, consumers are just one bad experience away from dropping your brand and finding another. But, by providing good service and after-sale support, consumers feel appreciated and will feel more loyal to your brand.

Be innovative

Gen-N is not made up of any specific demographic. It includes everyone from baby boomers to millennials. So, you can’t use a one-size-fits-all marketing approach.

To stay relevant, you must constantly improve your brand, product, and your online platform. Check in with your clients, ask for feedback, and improve their experience accordingly.

Brand innovation is also key to retaining customers. This is because an increasingly tech-savvy Gen-N will expect online conveniences even post Covid-19. In other words, consumer expectations will not change when the pandemic ends. If anything, the standard to meet will be higher.

Key Takeaways

It’s clear that for a brand to be successful and compete in the market it must do more than develop a great product. The digital-first Gen-N gets behind brands they can identify with and that contribute to society.

The marketing strategies you use can make a big difference to the success of your brand. So, to ensure your brand stays relevant, apply some of these marketing tips and watch your business grow to new heights!

Nick Luvera

How To Amplify Your Real Estate Development Brand with PR

One of the key factors for real estate developers to attract more customers is increased brand awareness. By investing in an experienced real estate public relations firm, you will be improve your credibility in the competitive landscape and position your business as an expert in the real estate development industry.

Below, we will look at five ways in which public relations can boost your real estate brand.

5 Ways To Enhance Your Real Estate Brand With Public Relations

Shine A Spotlight On New Developments

Whenever a new development is in the works, good exposure is crucial if you want to ensure maximum profits.

So, you want to make sure you use PR techniques to promote your new developments. Highlight the entire construction and sales process to keep potential buyers interested and invested in the development.

Having a PR firm here is very beneficial. They know exactly what mediums to utilize to relay your brand’s unique vision behind each project. This way, you can boost awareness of your projects and brand.

A property PR firm will know exactly what type of coverage media houses will want, whether it’s photos or press releases. Most PR firms have great connections with other media outlets. As such, they are experts at ensuring your brand gets the recognition it deserves.

Make Your Voice Heard

People tend to listen to experts in any given field. Information gleaned from a reliable source is worth its weight in gold. Why not become that trusted voice to your clients?

Your real estate development brand can make a name for itself by providing regular commentary on market-related affairs in respected media outlets. Together with property PR, you can decide on a media outlet that will best suit your brand and build your business profile.

When new legislation impacts the housing market, your brand could be the voice that potential investors turn to in order to make educated decisions. Transparency breeds trust, which is why property investors tend to trust undiluted, logical insight. By becoming the voice of the real estate development industry, more clients will come knocking on your door.

Write About Your Buyers

Buyers are always keen to read about the experiences of other buyers that are in the same boat as them.

So, ask your buyers if they would want to feature their buying experience as a case study on your website. By telling their story, you can showcase how your business is uniquely qualified to help meet clients’ needs.

Furthermore, you can also use their story as a testimonial, which could help in landing even more clients. Just be sure to get their written approval before using their story on any platform.

Your PR firm can also feature your buyers’ stories in traditional media publications if you have permission to do so. The best bit about hiring a PR firm to write about your buyers’ stories, is that you get to focus on what you love while all the marketing is taken care of by experienced PR professionals.

Get On The International Bandwagon

Seeing as property investment is an international business, it is a good idea to secure coverage in real estate magazines within select markets. A PR agency will be able to get your property developments in front of the right buyers.

PR firms can target international investors by securing coverage in key global publications. In fact, there are quite a few estate investment titles that will accept articles on different regional markets.

The great thing about PR firms is that most of them have a wide network of close editor acquaintances on speed dial. This makes getting published in these esteemed global publications a lot simpler.

Become A Social Butterfly

Most real estate developers will agree that they have very little time to engage with potential clients on social media platforms. However, when hiring an esteemed PR firm, this is easily taken care of.

By making sure that a regular stream of quality content is released on a monthly basis, you can effectively build a loyal brand following. Guides, press releases, and case studies can all form part of your content calendar and effectively lead potential clients to your website.

Whenever your PR team arranges for an article about your business to be published in a well-known publication, that media house will likely also share the article on their own social media platforms. By doing this, your brand’s audience gets amplified. As a result, you could round up even more potential clients.

Final Thoughts

When it comes down to it, there are a lot of ways in which to amplify your real estate development brand with PR. Not only can PR shine a spotlight on your new developments, but it can also help to build your brand through social media and by securing article

Nick Luvera

The Best PR Can’t Replace Real Leadership

By Andy See – Perspective Strategies | June 28, 2021

At its core, PR is all about reputation management with stakeholders. People and brands rightly expect PR professionals to help them connect with important stakeholders, build meaningful relationships and effectively communicate the right messages to them.

However, many make the mistake that PR can help them solve a real leadership and business problem especially when it comes to a crisis. In fact, many think communication can substitute leadership.

The reality is, while PR can mitigate communication-based problems, it will never, ever be able to solve fundamental organizational and brand issues. It would be like taking pain killers without diagnosing and addressing the root cause of the medical condition. Resolving a problem or crisis requires real leadership and this often involves making tough decisions and most importantly, taking the necessary actions.

Indeed, no amount of PR, no matter how great, can build on what isn’t really there in the first place. Embarking on a PR exercise to “put a positive spin” on things will only make things worse if brands and organizations are not already walking the talk. It is just a matter of time when “spin” will come back and haunt the brand or organization.

Jumping on the bandwagon

For example, many organizations are eager to jump on the green and sustainable bandwagon to showcase their “purpose-driven” brand story. But how many actually mean it? A study in the UK by The Opinium Research found that 60% of communication professionals believe clients are too eager to jump on the bandwagon talking about the climate crisis but often don’t take meaningful action.

In fact, at a recent interview with PR Week, Google’s global marketing VP, Marvin Chow, warned that brands should not fall into the “purpose parade” trap which will eventually create “purpose fatigue.” He was also quoted as saying that brands need to have a consistency of commitment and start with a core set of values.

The fact is that communication without leadership is nothing but empty words. Important issues, such as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) cannot be just all talk – it requires people and organizations to take real actions to make it work. Instead of superficial exercises, purposeful leadership must involve fundamental programmes and initiatives including reviewing the brand’s value chain, carbon footprint, sustainability practices, and many more.

“Spinning” stories about a cause without taking meaningful action is hollow. People will see through it eventually. This is a major reason why PR has gained a somewhat unsavoury reputation among some quarters, because there is this misconception that we are “spin masters” trying to cover up wrongs or incompetence by painting an unrealistic or even false picture of things.

That could not be further from the truth of what PR is about or what PR professionals with integrity stand for.

Authentic leadership

It is easy for people and brands to talk about having purpose, but it is not an easy journey to make it real. It takes guts and grit to manifest brand purpose and values into the real world, especially in bad times or during crises. And that requires authentic leadership, not just talk.

Of course, I may be oversimplifying by saying Communication is Leadership to make a point. It is true that communication is an integral part of leadership. But to think that communication can replace Leadership is a grave mistake. You can even say the two are symbiotic – one cannot exist without the other especially in today’s digital marketplace.

Another obvious example of this is when organizations and leaders talk about people being their greatest asset. Yet, it is often the case that the staff are often one of the first “costs” to be cut when things become a little more challenging than usual. But a company that truly values its people will base its decision on people’s well-being – especially during a crisis.

Indeed, it is during a crisis that a leader’s mettle is revealed. It takes a lot of leadership for companies to talk to stakeholders, including their staff, to explain the true situation and articulate a solution that truly values and honors their greatest assets. It is not just communicating either. Leadership must be demonstrated by accountability, responsibility and empathy to others.

When leadership action is in place, PR and Communication can play a great role to clearly articulate these values. Good communication practices by trained professionals can help smoothen the communication process and mitigate any backlash that may arise from difficult situations.

Perhaps it is time communication professionals “PR our PR” and reclaim our reputation as behind the scenes supporters who help make GOOD leaders GREAT. We need to let stakeholders know that the world needs authentic leadership more than ever in these difficult and uncertain times, and there is no way PR can spin poor leadership.

This article was originally published on the Public Relations Global Network, here.

The Hoyt Organization

Using Data and Analytics To Increase Brand Awareness

Data analytics tools have become an increasingly important instrument in a brand’s arsenal. With such a wealth of data online, it would be a waste to not leverage it fully. Effective analysis can give brands the edge they need to reach their target audience.

So, let’s talk about some techniques companies can use to increase their brand awareness online.

5 Ways to Boost Brand Awareness With Data and Analytics

Manage Social Media Channels

Utilizing your social media pages is a great way to boost awareness. Not only do these platforms have enormous reach, but they also provide a wealth of built-in data and analytical tools. These tools enable you to track metrics, such as engagement and reach, so that you can gain deeper insights into your audience and how they interact with your brand.

However, platforms attract different demographics. Consider how Instagram’s user base differs in age from LinkedIn’s and how that affects the way they interact with you.

Collating data helps to identify which audiences are interacting with your company. In turn, this information can be used to find the channels that work best with the content you’re producing.

Boost Email Marketing Performance

It may seem outdated, but email marketing is still one of the most effective channels of communication. This is because practically everyone in the world has an email address that they use regularly.

The problem many companies face is that it can be difficult to measure the success of their email campaigns. Data from email service providers, like Mailchimp for instance, can help with this problem. They give companies the tools they need to properly track customer engagement metrics and set KPIs.

How many people are opening your emails? How often are your newsletters being reported as spam? What is your click-through rate?

Being able to answer these questions allows you to fine-tune your email campaigns. This way, you can ensure you provide relevant, interesting content to your target audience or audience segments. As a result, your brand will become more recognizable to your target audience thus boosting your brand awareness.

Focus On Personalization

Personalization has become increasingly important over the last decade. Customers are more likely now than ever before to switch brand loyalty when personalization is done effectively.

You can use analytical tools to understand the needs of individual consumers and automate advertising to target them specifically.

This practice has proven itself in the e-commerce and streaming industries. Brands like Amazon and Netflix have perfected curating individual content feeds based on a consumer’s behavior.

So, with effective personalization, you can boost your brand image among your target audience.

Create and Curate Effective Content

One of the many challenges facing marketers planning out new campaigns is deciding on the direction, tone, and positioning of the marketing content. Fortunately, data can help lead the way.

For example, companies can gather information through surveys or by measuring various metrics, such as traffic to their web pages. This helps to illuminate what kind of content their audience is looking for.

Using this information will help you understand your customer’s needs and how you can address them with your content. In doing so, you make your content and website more discoverable – thereby boosting your brand awareness and credibility.

Detailed Reporting

Data is nothing more than a long string of numbers that on their own don’t mean much. It needs to be interpreted using analytical tools to form usable information. This then provides you with the metrics you need to measure performance.

Another advantage of broad-spectrum data analysis is that it provides businesses with a holistic view of their performance. You can see where exactly your strengths and weaknesses lie.

By analyzing reports generated through analytics tools, like Google Analytics, you can easily evaluate your online presence. This will enable you to see where you can improve your brand awareness strategy.

Using Data to Boost Brand Awareness

So we know all the areas that data can be used in to boost awareness, but knowing exactly what to do with all that data is just as much of a challenge.

The first step in this process is planning. Before starting any PR campaign or measuring performance metrics, you need to know what your goals are. Knowing beforehand what the intended outcome of a campaign is will inform which metrics you keep track of.

For example, if you want to boost your share of media coverage, you need to use data to tell you where you currently stand. Then you can set reasonable KPIs for your campaign, and use the same analytics to tell you how you performed.

Final Thoughts

In this digital age, brand awareness is crucial as it establishes trust and credibility with consumers. If you want your brand to perform well, and more importantly, outperform your competition, use data analytics to drive you forward!

Nick Luvera

5 Critical Crisis Management Skills

When a crisis happens, companies in the greater Los Angeles area often look to a California public relations agency to manage the situation promptly and professionally.

Managing difficult situations after a crisis arises demands providing expert communication with media, government entities, customers, and company employees when a sticky situation arises. To handle any crisis properly, businesses must possess the following five critical management skills.

5 Essential Crisis Management Skills To Handle Situations Well

Anticipate

The first rule for Los Angeles Public Relations agencies is to be honest about the facts and to anticipate what’s to come when a crisis occurs. This means that you have to be mentally prepared, keep calm, and effectively relay your communications plan to the entire team and all stakeholders.

Initially managing their anxiety and being the voice of leadership and reason will calm the situation. Avoid being reactive or blaming others for the mistake. Also, be humble. An arrogant attitude can be extremely toxic in a crisis and won’t be conducive to solving the problem.

You need to anticipate what the media response will be ahead of time and favor a logical, analytical approach instead of being emotional. In doing so, you will prevent misinformation . You can establish the narrative before the media has a chance to run away with the story.

Communicate

The ability to communicate clearly, especially when dealing with a crisis, is a skill that can only be mastered over time. This includes being able to communicate with your employees as well as customers and the general public.

When a crisis arises, you need to communicate clearly, concisely, and in a timely manner. This helps to prevent panic and provide pertinent information to all the parties that need it.

Not communicating with all the people that will be affected by a crisis, will likely lead others to come to their own conclusions. This is never a good thing when trying to contain the situation.

Make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to new developments. Release internal communication before anything is announced to the public. Finally, make sure that you provide everyone with updated action plans.

Listen

Before jumping headfirst into managing a crisis, it is important that the public relations agency you hired fully understand the crisis at hand. This means that you have to be willing to first listen to what your PR agency has to say and then listen to what the wronged party has to say.

This process will require you to actively listen, not only to what is being said but also to what is not being said. To truly make everyone feel like they are being heard, you need to first know what you did wrong and why this is so upsetting. Empathy and listening to understand, rather than to respond, will go a long way to achieving this goal.

Learn

Any Los Angeles public relations agency will tell you that managing a crisis gets easier the more you do it. In other words, there is a lot of room to grow in this area and to learn from your mistakes.

If it’s possible, take the time to learn from other businesses in similar industries to see how they handle sticky situations. By learning from other’s mistakes, you can avoid making them yourself.

However, if you find that you didn’t manage a crisis effectively, it’s not the end of the world. Just be sure to learn from your mistakes. Analyze your decision-making process and determine where exactly you went wrong.

Any Public Relations agency worth their salt will tell you that this is a learning process. So, don’t be too hard on yourself or your employees.

Lead

As a business owner, your schedule is probably full. However, when it comes to managing a crisis, your employees will still expect you to take the reins and control the situation effectively. This means you have to be proactive and not be afraid to call in help when the situation calls for it.

By hiring a great PR agency, you can keep any crisis from escalating and make sure that everybody stays on the same page. In situations like this, it is vital that you explain the reasoning behind your strategy to your employees ahead of time. This helps you gain their backing and their support.

Key Takeaways

By mastering these five critical crisis management skills, your business will be able to impress your employees and retain your clients during any crisis. And, with the expert help of a California public relations agency, you never have to be caught off guard when a less than ideal situation unfolds in the public eye.

Nick Luvera

How To Improve Your Brand With Networking and Pitches

When it comes to improving your brand, we cannot emphasize the importance of building solid business relationships and delivering great pitches enough. This rings true for businesses in all sectors and niches. In order to be successful in your sector, you have to be willing to establish and maintain healthy connections. This is where good networking and pitching skills are essential.

Here are some networking and pitching techniques that can help improve your brand.

Learn To Truly Listen

To perfect your networking skills, you have to get to know the people and culture of the company that you want to approach. After all, you are doing business with people. So, you have to know how to make someone feel at ease and form a connection with them. People will sometimes forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Making people feel truly heard is very important. This shows that you are not just interested in what they can give you, but that you prioritize their story above their success. How does one do this? By asking the right questions.

Instead of waiting for someone to finish their sentence so you can reply and shove your business card in their hand, listen intently to what they have to say. Base follow-up questions on what that person said. Truly try to understand why they do what they do, what you have in common, and how you can benefit them.

This approach will not only help you to network more efficiently but will also allow you to turn your pitches into in-depth conversations, rather than awkward monologues. Once you have business acquaintances that feel heard, understood, and valued, your pitches will come naturally and have a much higher success rate.

Be The Solution, Not The Problem

A lot of companies use networking events as opportunities to find solutions. Don’t be that person that views potential connections as your next meal ticket. Instead, always give more than you take. Try to offer value and solutions to other companies and prioritize them above yourself. Know their story before you dive into yours.

People crave authentic connections. By always asking for favors but not being open to helping others, you will actually frighten potential business partners away and be counterproductive. So, don’t start your conversation with business matters. Instead, start by getting to know the person standing in front of you.

Yes, at the end of the day you also want more publicity for your own brand. However, by being a resource to other companies and business contacts, media coverage will be a natural byproduct. So don’t force it but rather just do your part, be authentic, and wait for the free publicity to come to you.

Invest In The Right People

By knowing who your client base is and what connections you still need to form to get your clients where they want to go, you can fortify relationships with the right outlets and influencers. In contrast to popular belief, trying to reach and work with everyone in your industry is simply not a practical way to build and maintain lasting professional relationships.

Instead, you should buckle down your efforts and only focus on a select couple of outlets and businesses that you really want to collaborate with. Making sure that you collaborate with people and businesses who have the right target audience. This will have a stronger impact than if you choose collaborators based on the size of their reach.

By tightening your circle, you will also have more time on your hands to focus on the work and maintain the professional relationships you already have. Remember, it is important to not spread your networking efforts too thin if you cannot maintain extra relationships.

The Perfect Pitch

The secret to the perfect pitch is that you have to ditch the traditional pitching format. Apart from being able to properly introduce yourself and show how you have benefitted your clients, your pitch should be less about the work and more about portraying your passion and evoking curiosity.

How does one do that exactly? Start by telling your company’s unique story. What led you to start your business in the first place? Mention the success that your clients or customers have achieved thanks to your help.

This will let people know that you really love what you do and that you view your clients’ success as your own. Furthermore, they will also be wondering how you managed these successes, which will lead to more questions. Before you know it, an exciting conversation will ensue – which is exactly what you want!

The Takeaway

When it comes to networking and delivering that perfect pitch, people crave authenticity. If you want to stand out from the crowd, really listen to what they have to say. Remember to aim for a meaningful conversation rather than pitching an unsolicited idea. This will help you to strengthen your brand as you will come across as more authentic and trustworthy.

Nick Luvera

Healthcare PR Strategies As Covid Rules Change

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc in all industries but has made life especially difficult for those in the healthcare sector. This is especially true when it comes to conveying accurate medical information to the public. The rules surrounding the pandemic constantly change!

In this article, we explore the various PR strategies that your healthcare firm should implement during this trying time.

Back to the Basics

Media outlets rely on trusted and respected medical experts to convey accurate information regarding COVID-19. Public relations firms also need to follow the science and guidance provided by the medical community in order to develop strategies about messaging. Conveying accurate information that evolves rather quickly about COVID-19 on a timely basis is a big responsibility.

Accuracy and Sensitivity are Key

Although mortality rates differ across the world, one thing is for certain. A lot of people have lost loved ones to COVID-19. This pandemic causes not only physical strain and emotional trauma, but also financial burdens to millions of families.

PR firms need to provide communication compassionately and clearly. It’s important to convey statistics and other relevant information while keeping the reality of this pandemic’s destruction in mind.

Statistics regarding infection and death tolls are always changing. As such, health industry communication requires greater accuracy compared to other industries. So, when it comes to PR, you need to fact-check your information thoroughly. This ensures that what you are saying is up to date and accurate.

Abide by the Rules

All healthcare facilities adhere to strict protocols. These are regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), and other healthcare agencies.

You need to abide by certain rules and regulations set forth by these institutions. Any promotions for treatments or medicines are usually prohibited. Or, there are often significant restrictions placed on these products with regards to what you can claim they do.

Understanding the medical terms as well and the science behind them helps demonstrate your firm’s expertise. Having a point person in the organization to lead the communications processes will also help you to better convey technical medical terms to the general public.

COVID-19: Adapting Your PR Strategy On The Fly

Communicate New COVID-19 Policies to Healthcare Staff First

The COVID-19 onslaught comes in waves. As such, frequent policy changes are being made to help manage the effects of the pandemic. The more we learn about the COVID-19 virus, the more accurately we can mitigate its effects. But, this also means that nothing is set in stone.

To keep track of all these changes, healthcare facilities need to regularly distribute updated internal communication strategies. It is important to do this before any outside communication takes place. This ensures that all healthcare workers are always on the same page regarding protocol.

For this to happen, it would be best to adopt a multichannel internal communication strategy. This way, you can incorporate various tools like mobile and desktop alert apps. You can reach your staff in numerous ways and help to transition your entire workforce to new policies seamlessly.

Allow Employees and Patients to ask Questions

Employees, like patients, often have a lot of questions. It is important to address inquiries regarding employment, vacation, sick leave, and other internal policies. If this doesn’t happen, ignored questions can often lead to fear or panic within an organization.

If possible, communication teams should have a dedicated channel to address internal concerns surrounding the pandemic. This will enable a rapid response to important queries that could affect the health and wellbeing of your workforce.

In a similar fashion, patient queries should also be attended to as fast as possible. Patients often have questions about protocol when it comes to testing, symptoms, and vaccinations. By having strong communications both online and in-person, healthcare workers can reassure their patients and clearly communicate protocol.

Create Informative and Interesting COVID-19 Content

Relate to your audience through story-telling techniques. Create informative, accurate, and interesting content about COVID-19 on your website and social channels. This is one of the best ways to keep the public educated because they will want to engage with interesting content.

By uploading this content to your own online platform, you can update it whenever you need to. This means that it will stay relevant. And, you can add to it as time progresses and new developments arise.

In Conclusion

Being in the healthcare industry is no easy feat during a pandemic and it’s easy to neglect PR. But, as COVID-19 rules continue to change, you need to focus on your strategies to keep both the public and your workers up to date.

Nick Luvera

Design and Architecture Public Relations

Design and architecture go hand in hand. Each architectural era features a slew of new building designs with interesting design interiors. Many construction projects garner media attention, which is great news from a public relations perspective.

However, very few design and architecture firms leverage the business value that more recognition and media attention can bring to the table. Read on to learn why public relations play a critical role in this industry.

About Public Relations For Design and Architecture Firms

By investing in public relations, design and architecture firms will benefit not only their own companies but also those associated with the project.

Construction workers, builders, contractors the architect and the people who will eventually occupy the building will all get credit for their great taste in architecture. When it comes down to it, the ability to build a great reputation over years of experience in your specific industry is a sure-fire way to get to the top.

Designing a beautiful building opens up multiple PR opportunities for both designers and architects. It gives them a chance to portray what their company is all about and communicate with potential clients.

Here are a handful of ways in which your company can do just that:

– Media coverage throughout various stages of your project development.

– Press opportunities in trade publications if the project in question serves a particular industry.

– Recognition through awards if the building stands out in terms of energy conservation or certain environmental benefits.

– Reuse of project photography on your company’s website or social media channels.

– The creation of case studies that can be issued to future clients and loaded onto your website.

The traditional structure of design and architecture firms doesn’t often lend itself to in-house PR roles. So, hiring an external PR consultancy would be your best option. PR professionals can help to ensure that the above-mentioned publicity opportunities are taken advantage of. This will allow you to concentrate on what you truly love to do.

Why Design and Architecture Firms Need PR

No man is an island, and with all the help available to you, you certainly shouldn’t be! With a PR professional at your side, you will finally be able to ensure that your company gets the recognition that it truly deserves.

Here are three reasons why your design or architecture firms need to hire a PR professional.

Stand Out From The Crowd

A PR professional who has been in the media game for a while will be able to pinpoint what differentiates you from the competition. This might seem like a trivial detail to you, or you might think that it is obvious. However, it is how you leverage this fact that will help you to truly stand out.

To a lot of people that don’t know your industry as well as you do, one industry firm might look identical to another. If you are able to explain to potential customers why they should choose your firm, you are more likely to win over clients.

How does one do this? By telling your company’s unique story every chance you get and making an emotional connection with your audience.

Become a Thought Leader in the Industry

A great PR firm can help your company to position itself as a thought-leader in the architectural and design industry. This is a prime place to be. Clients often seek out who they perceive to be the best in the business to ensure a high-quality end product.

Remember, every client is unique, but they still have their similarities. In the end, they all have a problem that needs fixing. A great PR firm will be able to convince them that you are the answer to that problem.

Blogs, awards, interviews, social media, and press releases can all point to your company’s industry knowledge. This will help you to establish trust with potential clients. Transparency is key, especially if you factor in the completed successful projects you’ve completed in recent years. When it is time to select an architectural firm, you will be the first firm they call!

Crisis Management

As with any company, media crises often arise at the most inconvenient times. When hiring a PR firm, you can rest assured that they will be more than capable of handling any crisis that can potentially harm your reputation and brand.

From lawsuits to misunderstood commentary, an experienced PR professional will be able to craft sincere responses that accurately portray the heart and soul of your company.

Not being prepared if a crisis should strike is a risky situation that most long-standing companies simply won’t take a chance on.

In a Nutshell

All design and architecture firms should have an experienced and reliable public relations team on hand. Not only are they great at leveraging media opportunities, but they are also able to calm raging storms should a crisis arise.

Nick Luvera

5 Technologies That Will Change How You Do Public Relations

Technology is evolving all the time and affecting all of the industries that rely on it. The world of PR is no exception.

Anticipating how technology will evolve in the years to come and how to leverage various technologies in your PR strategy is crucial if you want your brand to stay relevant. Below are 5 technologies that will change how you approach public relations. These should be on the frontline of your strategy if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

Social Networks

Social media’s growing popularity has been one of the primary tools that PR professionals use worldwide. There are no inclinations of it changing anytime soon.

With some platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, experiencing some declines in recent years, the gap has been filled with new giants, like Snapchat, Reddit, and LinkedIn. However, the distribution channels of these platforms have evolved over the past decade and so have the PR departments that rely on them.

In general, there has been a major shift from organic to paid content. This means PR professionals have to regularly revise their budgets allocated to paid media.

The rise of social media messaging tools has given the PR industry a whole new channel to reach potential customers. This trend will likely become a crucial PR strategy as 62% of millennials feel more loyal to brands that message them on social media.

In addition, PR professionals have started using social media as a way to monitor brand reputation and news. Social platforms are an effective way of connecting and communicating with your audience. As such, monitoring social media helps PR professionals to get an idea of what people think about a brand so that they can adjust their strategy accordingly.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that aims to mimic what humans do, think, and say. It is anticipated that AI will have infiltrated every industry and aspect of society in 30 years’ time. This means that the PR world will also need to adapt and probably use AI for various purposes.

For example, you could use AI to leverage millions of gigabytes of data in real-time to write insightful copy and target audiences in a much more sophisticated way – without human assistance.

Analyzing Information

The rise of AI is deeply intertwined with the development of big data. Big data refers to the minefield of structured and unstructured information that is available for organizations to comb through for valuable insights.

For companies to intimately know their audience’s needs, wants and preferences, they will need to use AI tools to comb through large amounts of data and provide highly targeted content to users.

Since PR relies heavily on expertly crafted communication, this ability will become quite crucial in any PR strategy. Today, big tech companies, like Facebook, are already doing this. They target users through ads and content that are tied to their likes and dislikes. However, in a few years’ time, we will likely see this trend in PR around the world.

Email

Compared to other platforms, email has seen little innovation in recent years. However, certain future advancements will keep this platform relevant.

In the next few years, we can expect increasing personalization and targeting through the use of big data. This will enable PR professionals to send highly targeted emails to potential leads and recurring customers.

Email will also become more interactive, featuring highly clickable elements, which will boost engagement. Increased automation is also on the horizon, with greater leveraging of information and natural language processing.

This will take much of the monotonous work off of the hands of PR professionals. It will allow them to focus their energies on problem-solving tactics and industry analyses.

Video Content

Since the emergence of Web 2.0, video content has ruled on the majority of social media platforms. According to research, 60% of millennials prefer to watch a video rather than read a newsletter. Additionally, 56% of consumers believe that if a company has a website, it should have a video.

Many businesses and organizations have had immense success communicating via video, particularly by producing video news releases (VNRs) and brand journalism videos.

With live streaming also gaining popularity, audiences now have the opportunity to tune into events as they are happening. They can experience raw, unfiltered imagery of the topics they are interested in.

So, for PR professionals to stay relevant, they will have to leverage these cutting-edge technologies. This will help them to accurately communicate their organization’s PR content more effectively.

In Conclusion

If PR professionals want to continue in their quest to reach and retain customers, they will have to form their strategy around the technologies available to them. This also entails keeping up with the evolution of the tech industry and using innovative ways to tell your brand’s story.

Nick Luvera

The Hoyt Organization Announced as a 2021 Local Excellence Award Winner by UpCity!

For more than a decade, UpCity’s mission has been—and continues to be—to help businesses find B2B service providers they can trust. The UpCity Recommendability Rating was developed to determine a service provider’s credibility and recommendability, giving UpCity the confidence to recommend them to the more than 1.5 million businesses that visit their site.

Each year, UpCity creates a list of excellence award winners, analyzes and scores more than 70,000 service providers based on their UpCity Recommendability Rating and acknowledges the top national and local providers with an UpCity Excellence Award. The results are in, and we won!

We are ecstatic to announce that The Hoyt Organization team has a excellence award winner. We have been recognized as one of the top B2B service providers of 2021 in the Los Angeles area by UpCity!

The Hoyt Organization is a communications and public relations team that helps companies develop the right message for the right target audience. Through services such as public relations, media relations, crisis communications, digital and social media strategies, marketing and design, and more, the team at The Hoyt Organization helps companies ensure that trends, topical news, and current affairs in any industry are taken into consideration when developing the perfect message.

Thank you to UpCity for this prestigious award, and thank you to all of our clients who helped make it possible. We look forward to the opportunity to continue to create new and innovative ways for all of our clients to be successful!

The Hoyt Organization

Combining Digital Marketing and Public Relations For Success

Have you been wondering about the effectiveness of your company’s marketing strategies? In our ever-changing technical landscape, marketing techniques continue to become integrated. Digital media has become an essential tactic. Many businesses have found success combining public relations and digital marketing strategies.

In this article, we will show you how to combine the best of both the digital and traditional marketing world, so you can remain competitive and continue to grow your business.

Why Merge Public Relations and Digital Marketing?

In this day and age, your brand’s story is a critical asset. It should be conveyed on every possible marketing platform. With the help of public relations, the media’s representation of that story can play a big role in influencing public opinion of your organization.

When it comes to credibility, editorial platforms win hands down. This is because the content they provide is endorsed by a journalist or other third party. However, you can’t always control what a journalist will write about you. This is where digital marketing comes in.

Traditional PR deals with channels such as the printed press, niche print publications, TV, and radio. Digital PR, on the other hand, involves press relations conducted via digital channels like websites, blogs, social media, and influencer collaborations.

By making use of both PR strategies, you become your audience’s direct news source regarding your organization through blogs, articles, or press releases.

With social media, you can speak directly to your audience. As such, you can develop solid connections and credible relationships. By cutting out the third party, you are essentially bypassing the middleman. This is what makes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram so vital for connecting with your audience.

PR and digital marketing are closely related as they both involve connecting and building relationships with your audience. Digital marketing enables you to reach more prospective customers and reinforce your brand image.

So, by combining PR and digital marketing, you can both enhance your visibility while strengthening your audience’s view of your brand.

Combining Your PR and Digital Marketing Strategies

Content Marketing and PR

The whole idea behind content marketing is to create high-quality, engaging blog posts. These should touch on relevant topics or common issues and offer practical insight. But, before publishing all your blogs on your own website, consider pitching them as guest content to other websites.

This will not only allow you to create great content for other influential websites, but it gives you access to a whole other audience. As the post will link back to your site, it will direct interested leads to you where they will learn more about your brand.

Guest posting also gives you a leg up in terms of building lasting relationships with other businesses. As everyone always says, it isn’t always what you know but who you know that counts!

Each guest post that provides a link back to your website will increase your brand awareness. These inbound links from reputable sites also contribute to your website’s overall SEO. In turn, this improves your visibility in search engines so that you can reach more people.

Email Marketing and PR

Email marketing allows you to create a great impression and grab your audience’s attention by engaging them in a personalized way. Few other digital channels offer this same kind of instant communication with a brand’s following.

Your welcome email, for instance, should be sent to new subscribers as soon as they sign up to your mailing list. If done correctly, this email can make sure that you establish an immediate connection with your subscribers. When joining email marketing techniques with social media tools, you can get double the exposure.

For example, if you are planning on helping out your local community, you can announce your company’s event by sending emails to your subscribers. At the same time, you can also place social media sharing icons in prominent areas of your email. This can not only help to widen your reach with little to no effort on your part but allows you to leverage all the tools at your disposal.

Connect With Influencers

Traditional PR relies more on journalists for providing them with positive media coverage. However, the digital era allows us to take charge of our own story and company image. This means that you can use traditional journalists as well as marketing experts and influencers to get your name out there.

By taking the time to connect with influencers within your niche, you can offer your followers different perspectives on all your products and services. This can benefit both your company and your influencers.

Influencers also offer an easy way to:

target new audiences,
increase your brand awareness, and
increase traffic to your website.

In Conclusion

Digital marketing techniques and traditional PR strategies work really well together. If combined correctly, they can lead to a boost in brand awareness and increased traffic to your website.

Nick Luvera

Public Relations Global Network Elects Alexandra Dinita as President

The Hoyt Organization is the Los Angeles partner agency of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN). THO has the capabilities of an international PR agency, while maintaining the hands-on, specialized services that have made us a top Los Angeles area public relations firm. We successfully service local, national and international companies.

(PRGN) announced the slate of new officers for one of the world’s largest networks of independent PR and communications agencies. The appointments were announced during PRGN’s recent bi-annual Spring member conference, held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Following a vote from PRGN member agencies, Alexandra Dinița, general manager of Free Communication in Bucharest, Romania, stepped up to lead the worldwide network of 50 independently owned firms as its president for the next twelve months.

As the 30th president of PRGN, Alexandra Dinița follows the footsteps of former president Robert Bauer, managing partner of accelent communications of Vienna, Austria, who assumes the duties of immediate past president and chair of PRGN’s Advisory Board.

“Taking the lead of a global agency network in a year when the world is hopefully coming out from under Covid-19 is a true challenge of leadership and I like challenges as well as the opportunities that come with this unique situation,” says President Alexandra Dinița, an architect by training who turned a communications professional and agency owner, also an avid athlete and a mother of a 12-year-old son. “A quick survey among our members recently showed the resilience of independent agencies who landed more than 170 new client contracts in the first three months of 2021. This shows the outstanding quality of member agencies in PRGN and an ability to collaborate and exchange knowledge globally, which sets our tight network apart. Approaching the 30-year anniversary of the Public Relations Global Network in 2022, I am committed to grow the special spirit and values that PRGN can offer to its members and their clients on all continents.”

Other PRGN officers elected by owners of member agencies include:

President-elect
David Fuscus
President and CEO
Xenophon Strategies, Inc.
Washington D.C., United States

Treasurer
Amanda Hill
Principal
Three Box Strategic Communications
Dallas, Texas

Secretary
Andy See Teong Leng
Principal Partner and Managing Director
Perspective Strategies
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Founded in 1992 by a group of visionary public relations leaders, with approximately 1,000 professionals in 54 locations, PRGN is one of the world’s largest international public relations networks.

PRGN partners are independent, local, owner-operated public relations and marketing communications firms that share expertise and resources, while providing broad-based comprehensive communications strategies to clients worldwide.

Companies or organizations interested in the services of PRGN’s local agency network can visit the Agency Directory or contact PRGN’s executive director Gábor Jelinek at gabor.jelinek@prgn.com for more information.

Independent agencies interested in joining the network can visit the member recruitment section of the PRGN website for more information or email its membership chair, David Wills, Senior Vice President of Media Profile at david.wills@mediaprofile.com

The Hoyt Organization

How Social Media Can Increase Donor Prospects For Non-Profits

During the last year, non-profit organizations as well as many other philanthropic sectors, have faced tremendous financial burdens. The pandemic has led to an increased demand for their services, which has depleted their resources. Numerous lockdowns and social distancing restrictions have also limited their ability to raise funds.

Thankfully, all is not lost! Many social media platforms now have the potential to beckon in a new wave of donors.

Below, we will explore how you can use this effective marketing tool to grow your donor pool.

Why Use Social Media?

Audits and surveys of small and mid-sized companies reveal donor retention to be a serious issue. However, this is not the primary problem. The real issue is that far too many groups are not focusing the fundraising efforts on wide-scale donor acquisition efforts. In turn, this leads to stagnant yearly returns and increasing declines.

In previous years, list acquisitions and swapping mailing lists would have gotten you out of this conundrum. Today, however, there are much more time-effective and cost-effective ways to yield higher donor returns.

In order for your non-profit to truly thrive, you will have to embrace the new digital tools available to you. This will help you to increase returns and keep your donor retention consistent.

Social media platforms are an excellent way to do this. Each platform can target different audience demographics and gives you an opportunity to show another side of your non-profit.

Furthermore, the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 make digital advertising and educational initiatives one of the best options in reaching your ideal customer personas. In other words, social media may be your best bet yet!

How Social Media Ties Into Your Marketing Funnel

Knowledge is Power

A lot of non-profit organizations don’t capitalize on their website analytics. Going over each month’s data can provide valuable insight in terms of how many people actually visit your website. In turn, you will be able to determine the number of uncaptured leads you have.

As they say, knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you can adjust your social media marketing strategy. This will help you to make sure you unlock your overall marketing strategy’s full potential.

Targeting Donors Through Social Advertising

A lot of social media platforms allow you to create specialized paid ads that target specific customer demographics and locations. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can all drive traffic to your website.

Social media ties into the first phase of your marketing funnel. Because of this, it is more geared towards brand awareness and enhancing relationships with your customers. Non-profit organizations should capitalize on this fact to establish new relationships and maintain those they already have.

By doing this, donors will be more inclined to visit your website to see what your organization is all about.

Turn Visitors Into Donors

Once a donor visits your website, your goal should be to reel them in so that they eventually sign up to support your cause. Although some donors sign up immediately, this is rarely the case.

More often than not, you need to develop a website roadmap that interests and engages your online visitor. It should eventually lead him or her to the end destination of signing up.

There are several ways to do this. Surveys relating to your cause, online petitions, product distribution, and call-to-action buttons are all sure-fire ways to pique interest.

Crossing The Finish Line

The process ends by pursuing your donors online through content marketing strategies geared towards reminding them of your organization. The goal is to convey your brand story, your future goals, and how your potential donors could really make a difference by supporting you. The ultimate aim of this marketing funnel stage is to convert leads into donors.

In the end, none of this would be possible without social media. It plays a pivotal role in creating brand awareness and reaching potential donors.

What Social Media Platform Should You Choose?

Each social media platform has a specific age and content-specific demographic that it caters to. The idea is to do market research to determine which social media platform your ideal donor most likely uses. With this knowledge at hand, you can then formulate a social media strategy with that specific platform in mind.

For example, if you want to target video ads, then YouTube would be your best bet. A community-orientated marketing approach fits Facebook. Lastly, a more lifestyle-orientated approach would work best on Instagram.

In a Nutshell

There are multiple marketing avenues to choose from when it comes to reaching potential donors. Social media is fast becoming one of the most time-effective and cost-effective ways to streamline the process.

By implementing a well-thought-out social media marketing strategy for your non-profit organization, you can easily aid both donor acquisition and retention.

Nick Luvera

The New Chapters You Should Add to Your Crisis Communications Handbook After Covid-19

By Natalie Ghidotti – Ghidotti | April 12, 2021

Crisis communications as a public relations practice stands out not just in the execution of high level strategies at an amplified pace, but because every crisis communications scenario serves as a stress test for that organization. Whether that crisis plays out in the headlines or gets managed internally, everyone immediately recognizes what worked… and what didn’t. While few organizations could have fully prepared for this past year of Covid-19 and the pandemic response, as companies look forward, they should first look back and take some of those hard lessons learned to heart. If you haven’t taken that hard look inside your organization yet, here are a few new chapters you should consider adding to your crisis communication handbook.

Your Crisis Communications Response Must Be Mobile… All The Time

How mobile is your crisis communications team? Can you easily gather all the information you need, spin up a media response and secure any necessary approvals or review if your lead decision maker is stuck on an airplane? Or maybe, if we can tempt fate for a moment, your Internet service fails or there’s a power outage. That’s right. Kiss that cloud storage backup goodbye for a moment. Will you still have access to necessary assets, templates or be able to reach someone else who can post to your social media accounts? Remember Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Many public relations practitioners have felt those words hang heavy over the past year and not just because of Covid-19. While it’s impossible to prepare for every possible eventuality, we can prepare so that roadblocks that hampered our work in the past do not derail our efforts in the future when they inevitably happen again. A crisis handbook will help.

So, what does this mean for your communications team and decision making leadership? It means you develop redundancies. If everything hinges on one person’s approval and they’re in the hospital having a heart attack, decide who can step in ahead of time instead of the heat of the moment. If you’ve experienced a power or communications outage that lasted more than two hours over the last year, maybe someone should consider an old fashioned landline at home versus their VoIP service or ensure your key communicators have an alternative power source for their smartphones. Set up emergency conference call numbers where key decision makers can connect quickly versus playing phone tag and make sure everyone who needs it has that number saved on speed dial. And as for that cloud storage, ensure you have a download of everything you might need on you, whether you’re stuck at home during a pandemic or alongside the road in the middle of nowhere. As communicators, we love to focus on the message and the strategy, but now is the time to also develop your organization’s crisis communications infrastructure and put plans in place before the next crisis strikes.

Listen Before You Speak in a Crisis

While we must retain the ability to respond quickly in a crisis, a year of the Covid-19 pandemic also provided us with ample opportunities to listen. How are our peers and competitors responding to a situation impacting us all? What do our customers or clients expect? For example, it may not be appropriate for every tech company to weigh in on public health policy during a pandemic, but they could have a significant role in setting expectations for their employees and modeling appropriate responses for their customers. For many of us, the pandemic wasn’t the only crisis we faced this past year either. In a time where it may feel like a constant race to be the first one to Tweet on a given topic, we must remember the value of listening before we speak.

Even in a crisis situation where a swift response is key, there is room to listen. What is a reporter really asking? Who is really covering the news? How are our customers responding on social media? What is the tenor of those conversations and how could our response impact those conversations, either positively or negatively? Listening gives us the room to develop perspective which can guide any and every following response. The last year has provided plenty of time to listen closely, but how we use that perspective still lies with us.

Align ALL of Your Communications, Not Just What You Say to Reporters

It goes without saying these days that a corporate statement on an issue is no longer the only way that organization can be seen as responding to a crisis or really any situation. Once again using Covid-19 as an example, your company can speak all day about following health and safety protocol to protect your employees, but if your leadership shows up on social media or the front page of a newspaper shaking hands, violating health guidelines at a dinner party or doing any one of a thousand other things people were asked to stop doing during the pandemic, all of your other work is immediately undermined. Same thing with your employees. If your company took a hard line on health safety and social distancing, but someone keeps posting photos of employees hanging out in the office without masks, no level of strategy could correct that perception.

Now, more than ever, is the time to ensure your organization speaks with a single voice all of the time, not just in the midst of a crisis. That means taking steps to make sure your media relations and social media teams speak regularly, not just when something goes wrong. It means establishing clear internal communications channels so your staff understands social media protocols and what is or is not OK to share. It also means speaking with any member of your staff that engages with customers or the public to make sure they are just as aligned with your communications strategy and brand voice as the members of your public relations team are.

Learn to Prioritize During Crisis Communications

Finally, this past pandemic year reminded us that it is not only possible, but actually quite likely that you will have to deal with more than one crisis at a time. One may be larger than another or you could face a tsunami of challenges striking all at once. These are the moments when disciplined communications professionals rise to the challenge and lead organizations through a crisis. Even the most exceptional teams may be stretched thin when dealing with multiple crisis situations at once, but they get through by prioritizing one crisis at a time, managing the others and quickly working through the list. And the time to develop that discipline and hone those skills is before the next crisis strikes.

The Hoyt Organization

Public Relations Strategies For Your Architectural Firm

Running a successful architectural firm requires more than simply constructing a great business plan and hiring highly skilled individuals. It all comes down to attracting the right clients. By investing in a solid marketing strategy that allows you to establish a strong presence in the architectural industry, you will be able to rub shoulders with more high-paying clients.

Establishing a PR strategy that goes hand in hand with your marketing plan is crucial. It will ensure that your architectural firm makes a great first impression on prospective clients.

4 PR Strategies For Architectural Firms

Here are 4 proven PR strategies that can help put your architectural firm on the map.

Establish a Strong Presence

In order to really be noticed, you have to be present on the right platforms. You also need to target the right people through a myriad of advertising strategies.

A great website is a good starting point. But, to stand out from your competitors, you also have to invest in social media, blogs, newsletters, and print publications.

Aside from utilizing all the platforms available to you, you have to be willing to get up close and personal with the brand’s history and story. This means that you have to communicate with your audience in a way that resonates with them.

The way you think about architecture might not be the same as how your clients think about it. So, you need to have a great PR strategy in place that caters to your clients’ needs and tells your unique story in the right way. This will help you to attract and retain the right people.

The key is to position your company as the forerunner or thought-leader in the architectural industry. Although all your clients may differ, in the end, they all need the same thing. They need to know that they have hired the best architectural firm in the business. With a great presence in the industry, you can convince them of that and more.

Invest in a Great Photographer

The architectural industry is a very visual industry. Because of this, you should have someone on hand that can showcase what your firm has achieved thus far.

By hiring a great photographer, you will have great visual material to present at meetings, gatherings, and networking events. What’s more, you’ll have a great visual aid that tells your story for you. In other words, this allows you to show people how great your work is – not just tell them.

Not only can a great photographer bring in new clients, but it can also help with digital marketing on various platforms. At the end of the day, this financial investment will pay for itself – especially if you hire a seasoned professional that has been working in the architectural industry for years.

A great PR agency may be able to connect you with the right photographer so you can show everyone why they should hire your firm.

Networking is Key

A lot of times, skilled individuals in the architectural industry know a lot about the technical side of the work. But, they may not know how to convey that information in an interesting or articulate way.

Your PR strategy should definitely include lots of opportunities to communicate with the community. However, in order to do this effectively, you should invest in some public speaking training.

More often than not, people want to engage with you face-to-face and hear what you have been up to straight from the horse’s mouth. This can be done during speaking arrangements, media opportunities, or when pitching ideas for potential new clients.

By conveying an idea or past project in an alluring way, you can halve the time needed to network and still land the same amount of new clients or projects. If all the people in your firm acquire this skill set, just imagine the vast number of business opportunities you could land!

Media Mindset

Investing in traditional and digital media coverage couldn’t be more important in the digital era. Whether you want to invest in print, magazine, website, or blog coverage, it could all lend more credibility to your firm.

You should also try to get on people’s mailing lists so potential clients are constantly reminded of what you have to offer.

Remember, coverage online has a longer shelf life than print publications and can also be shared with other people. When it comes down to it, there are a lot of options to choose from. So, you should try and invest in the media platforms that your client demographic most enjoys and engages with.

Final Thoughts

No two PR strategies will look the same – even if the strategy caters to the same type of business. In the end, knowing your unique architectural business and your potential client pool really well will help you to better strategize around key business opportunities.

Nick Luvera

Social Media Series: How to Best Leverage Your Facebook Business Account

Did you know that Facebook has 1.56 billion daily active users? If you’re looking to build your customer base and grow your business, it is essential to have a solid Facebook presence. This will allow you to reach existing and potential customers. Keep reading to find out how to best leverage your Facebook business account.

Post Consistently and Generate Quality Content

It is recommended that businesses post consistently and generate quality content on all social media platforms they use to promote their brand. As mentioned in our previous blog post on how to leverage your Instagram business account, it is crucial to create a posting schedule so followers know when to expect new content. You should also craft posts that resonate with your target audience in order to keep them interested.

Foster Engagement

Facebook favors active engagement and private content over passive viewing and public content. This means that there will be more posts from personal connections in one’s news feed than posts from businesses. To work around the Facebook algorithm, businesses should foster engagement by asking and responding to questions. This will promote two-way communication with their target audience and make customers feel heard.

Analyze Your Results

It is just as important to analyze the results of your social media efforts as it is to post relevant content and create engagement. By using Facebook Insights, you can gain valuable insights and improve your Facebook strategy. Not only can you view detailed analytics for your Facebook business page, but you can also learn more about your audience.

To access Facebook Page Insights, click “Insights” in the top menu of your Facebook page. This will take you to your “Overview,” where you will see metrics for various things like “Actions on Page,” “Page Views,” “Page Likes,” “Post Reach,” “Post Engagement” and “Page Followers.” You can pull these statistics on a monthly basis to track growth.

In addition to these metrics, Facebook Page Insights offers information regarding the reach and engagement for your five most recent posts. In order to reach the most people and generate the most likes, comments, and shares, you should determine which post was the most successful in terms of reach and engagement and create similar posts. This will ensure that you are creating posts that your audience wants to see.

You should also keep an eye on your competitors. Facebook Page Insights allows you to choose which pages you would like to keep tabs on in the “Pages to Watch” section.

There are many other tools Facebook offers to measure the success of your efforts. For example, Facebook Audience Insights can help you understand who is viewing and engaging with your brand. We recommend that you take time to explore everything Facebook Insights has to offer so you can create valuable content.

We hope these tips help you leverage your Facebook business account. If you have any questions or are looking for more ways to use social media to grow your business, feel free to send us a message.

The Hoyt Organization

How Public Relations Can Help Healthcare Providers

Expert public relations is a much-needed service in the healthcare industry. Not only does it lift the burden of marketing and press off your healthcare providers’ shoulders so they can do what they do best.

Doctors, surgeons, practitioners, psychologists, dentists, and various other healthcare providers can all benefit from top-notch medical PR services. Join us as we delve into all the benefits that a PR agency can offer healthcare providers.

What is Healthcare Public Relations?

To know how a great public relations strategy can benefit healthcare providers, you need to know exactly what PR is all about. PR refers to a strategic communications strategy that cultivates a positive relationship between your company and the public.

Public Relationship agencies assist individuals, organizations, or companies by helping them craft a messaging and media plan.

They convey the company’s story, services, and products in a positive light through unpaid or earned media. These media channels can include social media, traditional media, press releases, public speaking or other channels.

Why PR is Important in the Healthcare Sector

In this digital age, brand perception relating to vital services is extremely important – especially in the healthcare sector. For modern healthcare providers to provide top-notch care for patients, they need to have positive relationships with their clients. Articulating a clear message to a target audience about service specialties, special announcements, crisis communications or expansion plans can all help build or restore public trust.

Your reputation is often built through word of mouth. But, if you truly want to grow your practice, you should also pursue other advertising avenues. This can include things like online reviews and digital advertising.

Ultimately, who your patients say you are and what they believe about you matters a great deal.

In the ideal world, your perceived reputation should match the outstanding work you do on a daily basis. However, healthcare providers seldom have the time to manage the external reputation of their practice. They are too busy fostering the relationships they have already established and caring for patients. This is exactly where the professional services of a PR agency or firm come into play.

How Healthcare Providers Can Benefit from Public Relations

Healthcare providers can benefit from professional public relations services in the following ways.

Cultivating Your Brand

Every healthcare practitioner knows that their reputation decides a big part of their own professional fate. Having someone that can offer professional PR services can help you to build your brand around the values most important to their practices.

By understanding and adequately utilizing all of the media channels available to you by means of articles, statements, reviews, and interviews, you will be able to create positive publicity around your brand.

PR professionals often have lots of great connections in the media industry and know how to work with them in order to promote the message or campaign. This can help to put your brand on the map, garner interest in what you offer, and allow you to keep up with your competition.

Growing Your Business

A strong brand is one that:

educates its patients
provides reliable information about what is happening in the healthcare sector
and has a solid reputation

These characteristics make it easier to attract new customers and nourish existing relationships.

For this to happen, there need to be good strategies in place. These need to be integrated within your healthcare practice. This can be time-consuming. But, it’s well worth the effort as it can lead to a bigger revenue in the long run.

Ultimately, growing your business is key to appointing more people and making a bigger impact in the industry. It will also help you to connect your services to those that really need them.

Greater Credibility

A lot of public relations announcements published by news media organizations are conveyed as news pieces. Potential patients usually view these news snippets as highly credible largely. This is because the story in question is being elevated by the reputation of the presenter or news companies themselves.

Commercial publicity, such as direct mail or conventional advertising, is usually not as convincing in terms of its credibility. One’s audience is usually less receptive to the overall message you are trying to convey if they don’t place a lot of trust in the source it comes from.

So, hiring a PR firm that can tap into credible platforms in the medical or healthcare field is highly beneficial.

In a Nutshell

When it comes down to it, professional public relations services are important for healthcare providers. So, it’s important to leave brand management and PR to those with years of experience under their belt and let your healthcare professionals focus on what they do best. This will help you embark on a winning strategy that will benefit both your patients and your employees.

Nick Luvera

SPAC Attack – What They Are, Why You Should Care and How Communications Plays a Role

By Brianne Miller – Landis Communications Inc. (LCI)

You can’t swing a unicorn these days without bumping into a SPAC conversation (sorry, bad Silicon Valley joke). In days of yore (pre-COVID), the technology PR world would hum with conversations about IPOs, vesting schedules and year-long plans for going public. Like everything else, things are different today. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. (Do I get bonus points for a bad joke and a Ferris Bueller quote in one paragraph?)

What is a SPAC?

A Special Purpose Acquisitions Company (SPAC) is a shell company specifically set up by investors to raise money through an IPO and eventually acquire another company.

For example, SPAC Hedosophia Holdings bought a large stake (49%) in Virgin Galactic before taking the company public in 2019. SPAC companies have no existing business functions at inception and have two years to complete an acquisition or return investments to funders.

Communications’ Role

A SPAC can accelerate a pace, but what it can’t do is build awareness – at least not without a little outside help. This is where strategic and professional communications come to the table. Not every SPAC has a spokesperson like Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), so making noise about the product/service/company that will eventually be listed on an exchange is vital. For SPACs to fly (Virgin Galactic pun intended), they must make some noise. Early. Before the SPAC files its intent to list an acquired company.

Hiring a trusted communications partner to create and implement an outbound program can provide the runway needed to make sure a SPAC is spun.

A Little Advice on Choosing a Communications Firm if Considering a SPAC

Stories must be told. Find an integrated agency that will work with you efficiently to take one initiative and package that into content for media, social media, blogs, thought leadership and digital.
Foundations must be strong before shining a light on your company. Ask agencies you are considering about their work in messaging, media training, target market segmentation and positioning analysis.
Start early. It takes time to build that awareness leading into a financial event. The longer the runway, the smoother the take-off.

How to Start the Process

Do your research. Ask contacts who have had successful experiences to refer you to an agency.
Check for chemistry. This relationship is a partnership. Make sure you feel confident and “click” with the team.
Make sure you’ve got both PR (public relations) and IR (investor relations) functions covered. You’ll need both, and more than likely they’ll be two separate companies. It’s always a good idea to find resources that work well in a team environment.

This article first appeared in the blog series of Landis Communications Inc. (LCI), PRGN’s member agency in San Francisco, California.

This article was originally published on the Public Relations Global Network, here.

The Hoyt Organization

5 Ways To Improve Your Non-Profit Website Performance

Managing a non-profit is very challenging. To succeed it requires dedicated staff, fund raising skill and a high level of focus on organizational detail. Having an optimized website helps alleviate some of the load.

By improving your website performance, you will attract more visitors through organic search and referrals from offsite social assets. This will help to raise awareness, increase engagement with those seeking your service(s), volunteers, and help you establish meaningful partnerships with donors and thought leaders.

How You Can Boost Your Organizations Website Performance

Here are five ways in which you can improve your non-profit website performance.

Use Social Media Platforms

To grow your organization’s audience and to let people know what you are up to on a monthly basis, it’s important to stay active on popular social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all great platforms to connect with donors and reach more volunteers. Furthermore, these platforms are a great way to share and link back to your website’s content.

By maintaining an active blog, you can regularly share articles, photos, and other information with your online audience through social media. This shows that your organization is dynamic and up to date with the times. Not only this but it’s also an essential part of convincing future donors to partner with you and boost your cause.

To go about this properly, you will have to develop a comprehensive social media strategy. This should cater to your specific online audience. Your online strategy should tie in with your overall organizational strategy. This way, you can continue to work towards your specific goals.

When done correctly, social media can help to boost brand awareness and donations. It can also increase your overall website traffic.

Captivate Users with Powerful Imagery

By incorporating powerful imagery on your landing page and throughout your website, you can captivate users from the moment they set eyes on your website.

Compelling visuals that are not overused, serve a purpose, and convey your brand accurately can have a big impact on engagement. All non-profit websites should make use of powerful imagery.

Images enable you to show your audience how you are changing the world instead of just telling them. By strategically placing your visuals, you can effectively evoke emotion in your readers. This can compel them to become emotionally invested in your cause.

In the end, great imagery is not just pretty. It can truly serve your organization well if used effectively on your website.

Implement Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for any business.

There are many factors that affect SEO. These can include things like mobile optimization, website speed, the use of SSL certificates, and the correct use of tags. Image optimization also plays a significant role as does your website’s infrastructure.

All in all, your SEO strategy allows you to get more organic traffic to your website. This traffic builds exponentially over time as you target more and more keywords. When done correctly, it can position your website in search results and help you to reach your target audience.

Optimize Your Website With Mobile in Mind

Another important consideration to boost your non-profit website’s performance is to be sure it is mobile friendly. When it comes to website traffic, mobile users make up the majority of online traffic. In fact, about 60% of searches are from mobile devices.

Because of this, you should ensure that your website is fully functional across browsers and devices. If your website is not optimized with mobile in mind, your visitors will have difficulty accessing and reading your content. Ìn turn, they might get frustrated and leave.

Your web pages should be adaptable to fit any screen, no matter the platform. Additionally, mobile forms and pop-ups should be scalable for mobile platforms as well.

Searchers expect websites to load fast, be responsive and easy to navigate. Your website is an extension of your business. Ensuring a great user experience will lead to engagement and conversions.

Start an Email Newsletter

Email marketing can significantly boost communication when it comes to interacting with your audience on a monthly basis. It helps to deepen donor relationships and can help you to achieve your fundraising goals.

Non-profit organizations can also take advantage of email marketing. This can help you to:

recruit volunteers
reconnect with lapsed donors
and communicate important organizational and industry updates.

If done in an engaging manner, email marketing can increase online traffic to your website. It can help you to shine a light on what your non-profit is up to and why people should get involved.

In a Nutshell

When it comes down to it, there are many factors for improving your website performance. From email marketing and utilizing social media to implementing SEO and captivating your audience with powerful imagery, there are several important considerations.

The important thing to remember is that all of these methods should integrate with your organization’s overall marketing strategy. They should reinforce your organizations mission and your primary cause so that people know exactly what you’re about.

Nick Luvera

How to Find Micro-Influencers That Match Your Brand

By Lauren Reed – Reed Public Relations

Working with influencers is like braving the wild, wild west. Without any specific guidelines or code of ethics, each brand-influencer partnership is unique and can result in really great coverage, really awful coverage or something in between.

With each passing year, influencer trends shift dramatically, too. The of-the-moment Instagram star is the micro-influencer, a social media personality with a small (1k – 50k) but highly engaged following. Every follower is part of a community and has chosen to be there. Followers are either highly interested in the topic the micro-influencer covers or strongly invested in the influencer’s life. Compare this to celebrity influencers with 1MM+ followers—the influencer-follower connection isn’t as strong.

Micro-influencers can cover niche topics (for example, see @jesskidding for Disney-focused content and a pastel aesthetic or @amillionlittlepages for endless book recommendations and reviews). They can also be regular people sharing a glimpse of their daily lives. Micro-influencers are cost-effective due to their smaller followings, but most importantly, they’re often easy to work with and willing to share content that suits both parties.

Guaranteed engagement, authentic content and trust amongst followers make micro-influencers an excellent choice for brand partnerships. So, how do you go about choosing the right micro-influencer for your brand?

Hashtags are the best method for influencer discovery. Start with general queries. For example, if you’re a Nashville restaurant looking for a micro-influencer to dine in and post about your food, start with #nashville. You can refine your search from there—for example, try #nashvillefood, #nashvillefoodie, #nashvilleeats, #nashvilledinner. Scroll through the populated images and develop a list of potential micro-influencers for your partnership.

Once you’ve found a few prospective micro-influencers, peruse their feed posts to discover others with similar interests. Scroll through comments and look for accounts that interact with your micro-influencer often. Influencers build real friendships on the platform, so by paying attention to the conversations occurring in the comments section, you’ll likely find additional micro-influencers that are good fits for your brand.

Once you’ve developed a list of micro-influencers with 10-15 options, consider the following criteria to find your perfect partnership.

Does the influencer’s authentic voice match your brand’s voice?

Start by reviewing your website and marketing collateral. Do you employ a casual, conversational tone, or are your marketing materials drowning in jargon? Do you select formal language or use a specific dialect?

Make sure the micro-influencer you partner with is comfortable using the style of language your brand employs. This is critical to ensure posts about your organization or product are a natural fit on the feed. Content that’s overtly “sales-y” leads to minimal engagement.

Does the influencer’s aesthetic match your brand’s aesthetic?

You can pull directly from your brand standards to determine your organization’s aesthetic. Do you use punchy, in-your-face colors and graphics? Or do you stick with a neutral palette? Influencers spend a lot of time and energy curating their feed’s aesthetic. You won’t have much luck asking an influencer who posts all black-and-white images to promote your brightly colored product.

Does the influencer’s following reach your target demographic?

Once you’ve narrowed the field to your top five, take a look at the micro-influencers’ followings. Read comments on feed posts to get a sense of who’s following along and why.

The micro-influencer’s age can be a good indicator of the type of follower he or she attracts. It will also help to review previous brand partnerships and the types of products this individual has successfully promoted.

Many industry leaders have predicted micro-influencers to be the top marketing trend for 2021. Stay ahead of the curve and diversify your influencer partnerships sooner rather than later. Don’t be surprised when your partnerships yield double or triple the expected dividends!

This article was originally published on the Public Relations Global Network, here.

5 Steps To Recover From A PR Crisis

Analyze The Damage

Communicate With Stakeholders & Investors

Plan Your Media Communications Campaign Strategy

Be Transparent

Adjust Your PR Strategy

Conclusion

Nick Luvera

Related Posts

Why You Need To Form An Emotional Identity With Your Customers

3 Tips For Establishing Your Brand’s Emotional Identity

Be Original

Identify Your Customers’ Emotional Motivators

Tell Great Stories

In Summary

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

What is Telehealth?

How to Promote Telehealth

1. Create Value In Your Content

Make it Visually Appealing

Keep it Short and Sweet

Use Patient Testimonials

2. Make Telehealth Easy To Access

Create a Dedicated Landing Page For Your Telehealth Services

Have A Call-to-action On Your Site

Send Email Blasts To Patients Promoting Your Virtual Care Offerings

3. Build Trust Through Telehealth Success Stories

Use Paid Advertising

Final Thoughts

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

Public Relations During The Pandemic

Educating

Informing

Assuring

3 Key Lessons Healthcare PR Agencies Learned From the Pandemic

Flexibility Is Key

The Importance Of International Communication

Re-Evaluate Crisis Plans

Final Thoughts

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

Create Awareness

Identify The Messages You Want To Communicate

Develop Creative Content

Engage Key Influencers

Track Results And Adjust Course As Needed

Shift Perceptions

Establish A Clear Narrative

Build Relationships With Key Stakeholders

Read Information From Reputable Sources

Generate Support

Organize Events

Launch A Social Media Campaign

Engage Key Decision-Makers

Provide Resources

Final Thoughts

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

What Is The Metaverse?

How Can Brands Prepare For The Metaverse?

5 Tips For A Long-term Business Strategy In The Metaverse

1. Embrace Parallel Marketing In And Out Of The Metaverse

2. Create Immersive Experiences

3. Make Collectables

4. Engage With Leaders And Promoters

5. Continue To Experiment

Final Thoughts

Leeza Hoyt

Related Posts

The Connection Between PR And Digital Marketing

Why Is Digital Marketing Important In Your PR Strategy?

How Digital Marketing Can Boost Your PR Strategy

Analytics Improves Performance

Creative Content Creation

Links To Drive Traffic

Key Takeaways