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Why does PR matter as part of your marketing strategy?
4 Plays2 years ago
Welcome back to the Onya Mic Podcast! In this episode, your host Ashley Monk interviews Casey Cawthon, Vice President of Marketing Communications at the Indy Chamber, an organization dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs, small businesses, and enterprises across the nine-county Indy region. Join us as we explore the significance of public relations (PR) within your marketing strategy.
In the face of marketing downturns, many businesses often overlook the importance of PR and prioritize other strategies they perceive as more effective. However, this mindset is a common misconception that can hinder their overall marketing success.
During this episode, we dive into three key aspects that will help you understand why PR matters and how to leverage it effectively:
Sell your story amidst challenging situations: Learn why you need to craft and communicate your brand's narrative during difficult times, enabling you to maintain a strong presence.
Important PR metrics to quantify: Make informed decisions by knowing which measurements matter.
PR Tactics you can take advantage of: Explore practical strategies and tactics that can amplify your PR initiatives, elevating your brand's visibility and reputation.
Listen to this highlight episode of the Onya Mic Podcast Season 2 and make the most out of your marketing. It is time to get your business out there.
You know your potential. Let us take you there.
Get in touch with Casey Cawthon via her social channels and get a conversation rolling.
Instagram: @CaseyNCawthon
Twitter: @CaseyNCawthon
LinkedIn: Casey Cawthon
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Transcript
Introduction to Anya Mike Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Anya Mike podcast, a podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of marketing, running a business, and tips and tricks the industry may just not be telling you, but we will.
00:00:14
Speaker
If you're looking for inspiration on exactly how to grow your business with ambition, innovation, and confidence, while creating maximum impact to influence your clients like never before, you're in the right place.
00:00:26
Speaker
Grab your AirPods, pen, paper, or laptop, and let's get on your mic.
Meet Ashley Monk: CEO & Host
00:00:31
Speaker
Get set and grow.
00:00:33
Speaker
And now, here's your host on the mic, CEO Ashley Monk.
00:00:39
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All right,
The Critical Role of PR Today
00:00:40
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everyone.
00:00:40
Speaker
Well, I am thrilled because so many of you have been asking about PR, where to begin.
00:00:46
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And especially with the climate right now, I think PR is one of the most important areas that organizations should be focusing on.
Spotlight on Casey Coffin
00:00:53
Speaker
And so today on the show, I have the incredible Casey Coffin with us.
00:00:57
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She currently serves as the VP of Marketing Communications with the Indie Chamber.
00:01:02
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She actually recently celebrated her 10th year as an associate faculty at IUPUI.
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She serves on the board of directors at Pattern Magazine.
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She's an advisory board member for the Indiana Fashion Foundation and create just to name a few.
00:01:16
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And there are many more, but for the sake of time and space, I admitted them.
00:01:20
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And even in 2021, Kothin formed her own business, CNC.
00:01:24
Speaker
So Casey, welcome to the show.
00:01:26
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:29
Speaker
I'm thrilled to be here.
00:01:30
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Well, you offer a breadth of expertise over decades of experience.
00:01:34
Speaker
And so before we dig into some of the nitty gritty questions that I know our audience will have about PR, I would love to just hear a little bit about your background and how you arrived at where you are today.
00:01:47
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:48
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Well, it was an untraditional journey, that's for sure.
00:01:50
Speaker
I did my undergrad and my master's
Casey's Journey in Marketing & PR
00:01:53
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back-to-back at IUPUI, did those as a single mom, and they were both in communication.
00:01:58
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My master's in applied communication, specializing in business media.
00:02:01
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And so I never really knew what I wanted to do.
00:02:04
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My career was the journey of doing more of what I loved
00:02:07
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and less of what I didn't like.
00:02:08
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And so I spent a good stint with the City of Fishers, doing a lot of marketing public relations there, especially before the City of Fishers really popped.
00:02:17
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Then I spent a few years in agency world and got just really deep in a breadth of industries and experiences.
00:02:24
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And now I'm with the Indy Chamber and thrilled to be here.
00:02:28
Speaker
I love that so much.
00:02:29
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And I think it's so unique too.
00:02:31
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I love that you have both the experience of one helping put Fishers on the map.
00:02:35
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So kudos to you.
00:02:36
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And we love partnering with the city as well.
00:02:38
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But you bring the experience of working both with an agency, both with a brand and now working with so many different organizations with the Chamber too.
00:02:46
Speaker
You're just the perfect person to talk about this topic because you've got all of these experiences from small to enterprise level organizations.
Why Do Companies Neglect PR in Downturns?
00:02:55
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And so
00:02:56
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Speaking of all of these organizations, I think, and tell me if this is true or not, but I think a lot of organizations really neglect PR during economic downturns.
00:03:06
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And I see it with marketing.
00:03:08
Speaker
I think marketing is another area where people look for easy line items on their budget to cut.
00:03:13
Speaker
And I think that this is a terrible idea and we'll talk about that later, but I'm curious on if you think that this is true and why organizations neglect PR during economic times that are maybe more challenging.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, I absolutely concur with you, Ashley.
00:03:29
Speaker
I actually was just talking with a client and we were talking about this exact topic.
00:03:33
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And so I've got the data top of mind.
00:03:35
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Pew Research actually did a study coming out of the 2008 pandemic that 69% of Americans were having increased use on the Internet during the economic recession.
Maintaining PR Budgets During Recessions
00:03:46
Speaker
and they were doing so because they were looking for whether it was resources or coping mechanisms or just looking to understand the actual economics that lead to a recession and and what their recommendation was in this this scholarly article was your first inclination is going to be to cut marketing and that's maybe what you think you should do but it's actually the very last thing that you should do especially because coming out of a recession which we know
00:04:11
Speaker
they're unpleasant, they happen, but they do eventually end.
00:04:14
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We know that spending is going to elevate and resume again.
00:04:17
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And so public relations, digital marketing, strategic communications, I exist in kind of the trifecta of all of that.
00:04:24
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And the trifecta of all of that is also where you can see the most realized opportunity if you don't cut your marketing budget in a recession.
00:04:32
Speaker
So I think everything you're observing is absolutely correct.
00:04:36
Speaker
The tale of business success will be what people do with it in real time.
00:04:41
Speaker
It's so true and it's perplexing and it may look like a line item, but there are so many critical damages when these companies go.
00:04:48
Speaker
So I mean, I think about tech as an industry and as a whole right now and with the layoffs.
Storytelling in Tough Economic Times
00:04:54
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And one thing that I'm sure that you'll touch on too is when you're eliminating PR, I mean,
00:04:58
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You're letting the world dictate your narrative.
00:05:01
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You have no control over the tailspin.
00:05:04
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And so I think especially for the industries that are hurting, the ones that are being challenged or maybe seeing more effects of the climate than others, that is the time that you need to be telling your story and that you need to be staying top of mind.
00:05:18
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Because if you don't,
00:05:20
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People buy from people more than they buy from brands or they buy from stories and organizations that they connect to.
00:05:25
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And when you break that connection and you stop telling that story and you leave it to your competitors and the rest of the world to do that, I can think that it's just so damaging.
00:05:34
Speaker
So I would love for you to speak more on maybe some other factors on why it's just critical for organizations to keep showing up anyway, even in the midst of bad news, layoffs, things that maybe they're not wanting to share, why organizations can and should continue to invest.
Crafting a PR Strategy & Measuring Success
00:05:50
Speaker
I honestly actually I think you just covered some of it.
00:05:52
Speaker
I mean, I would say the first reason is, is because we know that it's important that you have a presence.
00:05:58
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If more users are online, you completely obliterate your presence, then you're fighting an uphill battle with your channels after that recession has ended or that economic downturn has ended and you're reengaging.
00:06:09
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And so that's one reason.
00:06:11
Speaker
I think your point about brand awareness is very well taken.
00:06:14
Speaker
I mean, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the tipping point of, you know, social and racial unrest that we saw, we saw what happened.
00:06:23
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And so I think if you're not paying attention to your brand, you're not
00:06:27
Speaker
you know, continuously cultivating that story and find ways to tell it in meaningful ways, then I think you're missing opportunities to connect.
00:06:35
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And honestly, it's more about connecting in ways that drive action, whether you're selling something B2B or B2C or you're just encouraging people to buy into your company values or your mission or hiring and retention.
00:06:48
Speaker
There are so many spinoffs
00:06:51
Speaker
to this to this challenge and so i think those are those are just a couple but i also offer a solution you know it's it's not enough to say keep going keep spending even though the economy is going downhill and budgets need cut i think the alternative is we play and by we i mean marketers communicators digital strategists we play in this agile space now where the the premise of social media and google ads and things like that are adaptability
00:07:18
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flexibility, cost effectiveness, and really ease of start and stop.
00:07:23
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And so by becoming more targeted with exactly what we want our campaigns to do and achieve and having that strategy that's just hyper-focused in a way that maybe it hasn't had to be before, that's an opportunity for us to spend our dollars a bit smarter.
00:07:39
Speaker
I think that's also an opportunity for us to
00:07:41
Speaker
you know, hopefully, if we're doing it, right, have a circular experience where we're spending
Aligning PR & Marketing Strategies
00:07:45
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these monies, we're tracking how they perform, we're reporting that value upward.
00:07:49
Speaker
And then hopefully, if we're doing all of that, right, we're driving more monies, right.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so all of this is about creating a circular journey of impact that's able to gain momentum and really scale.
00:08:01
Speaker
That's so true.
00:08:01
Speaker
And it's so important because your point, I think the organizations that really are struggling are the ones that I'm hurt.
00:08:07
Speaker
It just makes me want to curl up in a ball when I hear these set it and forget it strategies.
00:08:12
Speaker
It's just a buzzword that I don't know about you.
00:08:15
Speaker
It's one that gets under my skin because it has to be hyper custom.
00:08:18
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It has to be hyper focused.
00:08:20
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It has to be individualized.
00:08:21
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Marketing is not one size fits all.
00:08:23
Speaker
It's never been one size fits all.
00:08:25
Speaker
And especially during times like this, it is critical.
00:08:28
Speaker
to have be telling that in a unique way that is specific and I think that's really where the ROI is and the companies that struggle are the ones that maybe forget that or are just trying to cut costs in certain ways so I think your point is spot on and so I'm sure this is a conversation that you've had relatively frequently but to the marketing leaders the c-suite leaders the PR leaders that
00:08:53
Speaker
maybe are listening to us communicate and say, wow, actually, Casey, that's great.
00:08:57
Speaker
How is this reinforcing to the bottom line?
00:09:00
Speaker
What are maybe some of those tangible examples or proof that you would push back and challenge them when they're maybe wanting to cut and saying that it doesn't support the bottom line?
00:09:11
Speaker
This is a question I geek out on, and I think I geek out on it because depending on your industry and what your objective is, there are so many different answers.
00:09:20
Speaker
So I'll give a few, but also knowing that this is a pretty specific question.
00:09:25
Speaker
And so I would love to continue engaging with folks that are interested.
00:09:29
Speaker
But I would say first and foremost, it's about...
00:09:32
Speaker
For me, and I wear a hat where I'm constantly taking off a communications hat, putting on a marketing hat, taking off a marketing hat, putting on a PR hat.
00:09:39
Speaker
And so I'm shifting hats all day long.
00:09:42
Speaker
But the number one thing I'm worried about when we talk about cutting our budget is internal and stakeholder communication.
00:09:49
Speaker
Do our people know what they need to know?
00:09:51
Speaker
Are my board of directors going to be listening to WFYI in the morning?
00:09:55
Speaker
And are they going to hear the messaging they need to hear about us?
00:09:58
Speaker
Or is that just going to be a blank space where they don't hear about us and they can't connect to that work in the community?
00:10:03
Speaker
So I think that internal communication stakeholder coordination piece of it is really, really important to look at.
00:10:10
Speaker
In my line of work, I report monthly.
00:10:14
Speaker
I do media reports with my team where we're looking at media metrics.
00:10:18
Speaker
We're looking at social media engagement.
00:10:20
Speaker
We're looking at email marketing and we're looking at website.
00:10:23
Speaker
And we're taking all of those metrics each month and keeping an eye on them, but we provide quarterly analysis.
00:10:29
Speaker
And I think that's what my biggest recommendation would be to marketers or PR people or comms folks that are looking to communicate this value is you have to create a process where this becomes a standard topic of conversation.
00:10:43
Speaker
And in industries like mine, where we're a membership driven organization, I'm able to do journey mapping and I can create trackable links and trackable experiences.
00:10:51
Speaker
So I'm able to show from the work of my team
00:10:54
Speaker
this is how much revenue we're converting in membership retention or membership sales or event ticket sales.
00:11:00
Speaker
But not everybody's going to have that.
00:11:01
Speaker
So then you have to scale out to what I call the tier two, the tier two deliverables.
00:11:07
Speaker
And those include those brand awareness pieces.
00:11:10
Speaker
And maybe they're not the most quantifiable, but you can quantify your media coverage.
00:11:15
Speaker
You can quantify the sentiment of that coverage.
00:11:17
Speaker
You can quantify the zip codes that you're reaching or whether you're getting a super suburban or super rural population with that coverage.
00:11:25
Speaker
You can look at key message resonance.
00:11:27
Speaker
And so there are a lot of ways that you can splice and dice that.
00:11:32
Speaker
But I think all of it goes without saying that if you're not tracking who's telling your story and how it's being told, someone else is telling it for you.
00:11:40
Speaker
And I think that's a pretty dangerous thing to leave on the table for someone else to have ownership of.
00:11:48
Speaker
Casey, there's so much there.
00:11:49
Speaker
I mean, there's so much there to unpack.
00:11:51
Speaker
And I love that last line too about if you're not telling your story, who is?
00:11:55
Speaker
And you're leaving it up to other people.
00:11:56
Speaker
But one area that I think is so important on that I know is really imperative to my work, our organization, organizations that we partner with, and I'm sure in your world, and that's reporting.
00:12:07
Speaker
And I think so often...
00:12:10
Speaker
Because I always, especially in marketing land, always hearing ROI, how does it go to the bottom line?
00:12:15
Speaker
Let's focus on prioritize more of our budget toward demand generation and efforts that we can track.
00:12:19
Speaker
But to your point, number one, there's a lot of money left on the table when you focus solely on that minimum of the funnel and just on conversions, like, and arguably sometimes can do more damage to your brand.
00:12:30
Speaker
I mean, we could talk about the cost of that.
00:12:32
Speaker
Sometimes we put too much on the ROI, but let's talk about the cost of not doing something.
00:12:37
Speaker
What is...
00:12:38
Speaker
Not having that brand awareness PR strategy doing to your brand.
00:12:41
Speaker
What is that costing you when you're asking for people to make purchases all the time?
00:12:45
Speaker
But the other point that you brought up that is so critical is having some type of reporting cadence or accountability metrics.
00:12:53
Speaker
And I think organizations, whether they outsource any form or component of PR or marketing,
00:13:00
Speaker
whether they are hiring an employee to come in or a team and an entire team.
00:13:05
Speaker
I think a lot of times organizations just try to throw money at the problem and think that by hiring the marketing board PR partner or by hiring a team and expecting them to create metrics and to be able to fix it, there's no alignment in what is being measured and in those outcomes.
00:13:23
Speaker
It's a core belief of mine is that if it's not being measured and there's not
00:13:27
Speaker
consistent meeting and alignment between both parties on what the outcomes that need to be driven are and consistent meeting and reporting on those outcomes.
00:13:36
Speaker
To me, it's not a priority of the organization if they expect somebody else to own it completely because this is just not a problem that you can throw money at.
00:13:44
Speaker
And I think the regular reporting
00:13:47
Speaker
is just so important for alignment on those outcomes.
00:13:50
Speaker
I think it can solve a multitude of problems because you can change metrics.
00:13:55
Speaker
Obviously you can adjust metrics types of campaigns.
00:13:57
Speaker
So I'd be curious on in your world in PR, what are maybe some of the most important metrics that you're quantifying and you're reporting back regularly on during this season?
Outcome-Focused Reporting Over Metrics
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, mine always comes down to location of media coverage, especially because, you know, we're a regional chamber, we have 2000 members.
00:14:15
Speaker
And one thing that's critically important is that we're looking at where we're getting that story told well and effectively, but also where we're not getting it told so well and so effectively.
00:14:23
Speaker
And so being able to look at the geography, the zip codes, really drilling down into that is incredibly important.
00:14:29
Speaker
I would say the other piece of that is, and these are metrics that are maybe a little bit more behind the scenes.
00:14:35
Speaker
I think they're less common than the big three, which I'll talk about in a minute.
00:14:37
Speaker
But the other piece of that that I'm always drilling down to is media coverage by department.
00:14:43
Speaker
So if you look at my organization, you know, if we're a circle, we're cut in all these pies because we've got regional economic development, we've got local economic development.
00:14:51
Speaker
through our indie partnership and our develop indie teams we have business advocacy work we have business equity for indie we have an entire business ownership initiative and women's business center and i still haven't covered about three or four that come to mind and so what's important in my line of work is looking at
00:15:07
Speaker
how those stories are intersecting and being told so that not only are we talking about this incredibly strategic and collaborative work, but we're talking about it in ways that reflect all of the teams that have collaborated on it.
00:15:19
Speaker
So if you look at last week, we had our Central Indiana Women in Business retreat, which we have every year.
00:15:25
Speaker
and we honored a winner that got some funds for her business who happened to be not only affiliated with the Central Indiana Women's Business Center, but the Hispanic Business Council.
00:15:34
Speaker
Ensuring that both of those groups had a seat at that table for storytelling, that's really important.
00:15:40
Speaker
The big three, like I said, I'd come back to almost always comes down to total media coverage, like the amount of features, total media value, so that's the average value you'd be paying for that media if you were buying it outright,
00:15:53
Speaker
and media reach.
00:15:54
Speaker
And that's the amount of potential viewers that have laid eyes on your media.
00:15:57
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, those are really important.
00:16:01
Speaker
I would say those are more of the vanity metrics.
00:16:03
Speaker
If you really want to get into those metrics that verify your work, that's when you're looking at sentiment.
00:16:08
Speaker
You're looking at, you know, you're auditing the coverage by geography, by location, by service.
00:16:13
Speaker
You could even be auditing the coverage by type of outlet.
00:16:16
Speaker
You know, are you doing more broadcast or print or TV?
00:16:19
Speaker
And so
00:16:20
Speaker
You know, media metrics are just like social media metrics.
00:16:22
Speaker
And that's like, once you dive into that pool, you're kind of sinking in quicksand.
00:16:26
Speaker
You've got to figure out what you want to be tracking.
00:16:29
Speaker
And, but if you don't know, that's okay too.
00:16:31
Speaker
I mean, start with the big three.
00:16:33
Speaker
And if you got five pieces of media coverage in Q1, great.
00:16:36
Speaker
Can you get six in Q2?
00:16:37
Speaker
I mean, it really doesn't have to be something where you're scaling 140% year over year, although we were fortunate enough to do that at the chamber this year.
00:16:46
Speaker
But it really can be baby steps along the way.
00:16:50
Speaker
That's such a good distinction on those baby steps and congratulations on all that growth.
00:16:55
Speaker
And you know, you raise an important point on vanity metrics because at the end of the day too, and I'm sure you all are in agreement and have this set up in place too.
00:17:02
Speaker
Sometimes I think people place and organizations place too much focus on only KPIs and reporting.
00:17:10
Speaker
not on outcomes because your point we could create we can measure six to ten media placements all day long and try to increase and increase but as we know quality exceeds quantity and there are not all coverage and not all marketing is created equally and i can think from us as an organization alone there was
00:17:29
Speaker
I think we only did, we don't focus, PR is becoming more and more of a focus of ours, but last year, I think we pitched our organization on one or two stories and it was not a, I mean, very, very small amount of coverage when you look at how aggressively many organizations go after PR, but the two placements that we went after were very highly calibrated and we knew that our market was there and the exposure we were to get.
00:17:52
Speaker
And sure enough, the ROI,
00:17:55
Speaker
came probably 12 months down the road.
00:17:58
Speaker
So if you're like most marketing directors or CMOs, it's usually if you're making 90 day to six month decisions in that window, sometimes that's too short of a period where sure enough, many of them may have looked at that data and cut that.
00:18:10
Speaker
But right around month 12 or month 13, that our
00:18:13
Speaker
article had been given enough exposure to where a couple of our larger deals came from that, you know?
00:18:19
Speaker
And so I think so often, I'm curious if you have any kind of outcome reporting cadence that you recommend, because I know for us that can be just as, if not more important, is focusing on those outcomes instead of just hitting all of these placements just to hit the placements.
00:18:35
Speaker
I mean, to your point, for us, it usually just comes back to we're looking at it every three months or every month.
00:18:42
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:18:42
Speaker
Every three months we're doing that quarterly analysis.
00:18:45
Speaker
And so I'll be honest, I've only been able to do that for about a year.
00:18:49
Speaker
I've been with the Chamber just shy my two year anniversary is next week.
00:18:52
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's still new enough that I think we're getting to that place.
00:18:57
Speaker
I also think our our line of business is just a little different.
Building Trust with PR in Challenging Times
00:19:00
Speaker
So I really salute companies like yours that are doing this because I think
00:19:05
Speaker
It's incredibly important to be looking at that and also looking at it's not all just the quantitative data.
00:19:12
Speaker
Like when you did those, when you got those two placements, how many people were commenting on them?
00:19:17
Speaker
How many people came back to you and heard it organically without it going through you?
00:19:21
Speaker
And so some of that anecdotal feedback is equally as important as all those numbers and charts are.
00:19:29
Speaker
And to your point, it's just, I think it's reinforcing the need for strategy because not every organization is created equally.
00:19:35
Speaker
Depending on our client or deal size, our sales cycle could be a lot longer than another organization.
00:19:39
Speaker
And now it's going to play a huge factor in the scope and capacity.
00:19:42
Speaker
And so all of those questions, I think, are...
00:19:45
Speaker
for, I mean, in all of those factors really just reinforce the importance of having a really strong strategy during the season.
00:19:52
Speaker
And it may look different than what it had been in the past as a result of the economy.
00:19:56
Speaker
And I think that's one thing that I would love for you to even add more depth to Casey is just how does PR reinforce trust during this climate?
00:20:05
Speaker
Again, I think people are just always like,
00:20:08
Speaker
What can we eliminate?
00:20:09
Speaker
Let's just focus on the ROI driving campaigns.
00:20:12
Speaker
But I would love to hear a perspective on why it's so important, especially during strange and challenging climates to really force trust.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's such a good question.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it's so, it's so, it's fun to be on this side of it and to get questions like that, because prior to the pandemic, the answer would have been very different than it is today.
00:20:31
Speaker
I think the pandemic was an exercise for me as a PR practitioner.
00:20:36
Speaker
At the time I was working with two healthcare clients in Indiana and big healthcare clients.
00:20:41
Speaker
And what we went from a space of
00:20:44
Speaker
their website or their emails being almost a necessary obligation to boom, we're in the midst of the pandemic and their communication is the ultimate source of truth.
00:20:53
Speaker
And so I think what PR does in turbulent times across the board is it gives companies a space to have a direct voice with their target audience.
00:21:03
Speaker
And I think that's an incredibly powerful thing to have.
00:21:07
Speaker
And think about what happens when you either aren't respectful of that or misuse that or abuse that, right?
00:21:13
Speaker
Like we've seen what happens when reputations go bad or interactions go wrong.
00:21:17
Speaker
And so I think in the midst of a pandemic, when people were looking for the ultimate source of truth, in the midst of a recession, when there's a great deal of uncertainty, where do you know you can get the most real time accurate data
00:21:31
Speaker
usually that's directly from the company's mouth.
00:21:33
Speaker
So things like social media, email marketing, website, interactions with the media and stories that are told, whether that's again, broadcast, print, podcast, whatever, all of these multimedia channels become incredibly important extensions of customer service.
00:21:50
Speaker
Wow, Casey, I mean, you just brought up a factor that I didn't even think of.
00:21:53
Speaker
And it was really, can you imagine if the healthcare organizations that you were working with or people involved on the front line said it's too expensive or we're not going to see a return on our investment and they stopped communicating?
Communication to Sustain Trust & Relationships
00:22:06
Speaker
I mean, I just can't even imagine what the outcome would have been.
00:22:10
Speaker
And so my encouragement to the organizations listening to the ones in the industry, like this is the time for tech to step up and be able to raise your voice to some of these challenges like the financial institutions.
00:22:22
Speaker
This is your time to reinstate trust in the work that you're doing and the investments, the performance that you can get for your clients.
00:22:28
Speaker
man so important for people to be stepping up and i to your point it's what is the cost of not doing this like what is silent i mean sure there's always some risk in stepping out and during uncertainty but wow what is it costing organizations when they're when they're not using their voice and they're not and and two i mean what does that even say about the longevity of your clients your customers your patients that when you are present for them i mean how much more will they will they show up for you so
00:22:59
Speaker
So I would love to get tactical for something.
00:23:04
Speaker
I think large or small, there are so many different, I think PR can kind of seem nebulous for certain organizations and it can encompass a lot of things.
00:23:15
Speaker
And I think people can get overwhelmed or not sure.
00:23:18
Speaker
So I would love to know what are some of those grassroots PR tactics that people could be taking into?
00:23:25
Speaker
advantage of, maybe even overlooked areas that there's so much, or even areas that maybe I know I'm thinking of examples from marketing and I know for us, we usually focus on digital, but like one that's been coming back has been sending like care boxes or marketing boxes to people because they're so not used to seeing physical mail.
00:23:43
Speaker
So I'm curious if there's under saturated components of PR that you think are really effective right now, or just some of those tactical areas that organizations could be looking at during the season.
Grassroots PR Tactics in Economic Challenges
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, two come to mind and neither is fun as getting a tactical or getting a box of goodies to enjoy.
00:24:01
Speaker
But the first is really, for me, it's stakeholder communication.
00:24:05
Speaker
And it's making sure that that my core group of champions, read ambassadors, read brand ambassadors, that they know and for some that's employees, I guess I should say, that they know how to talk about the things that we have going on and build that organic following.
00:24:20
Speaker
And so what that looks like for me is typically creating stakeholder digital toolkits
00:24:24
Speaker
so that they have social media, they have canned assets that they can use, and they can be talking about, for us as a chamber, it's usually talking about our events or strategic happenings, things like that.
00:24:34
Speaker
But I think having that social media toolkit is a great way to engage a larger number of individuals so that everybody's rowing in the same direction.
00:24:42
Speaker
And bonus points if you're able to create one that lives on a private page of your website and create traffic links so that you actually understand what that journey looks like and how that utilization is going.
00:24:54
Speaker
The second piece of it, though, is it's a little more tactical, but it's a little more tactical behind the scenes.
00:24:59
Speaker
I cannot tell you how many people, companies I've worked with, I've met, I've talked to just in passing that have separate marketing versus PR calendars.
00:25:09
Speaker
And maybe they have teams, maybe they just have one or two people, one in marketing, one in PR, but having those in an aligned space is
00:25:16
Speaker
It's a whole separate podcast episode, so we'll leave it for another day.
00:25:20
Speaker
But the integration of marketing and PR has already happened.
00:25:23
Speaker
If you're thinking that it hasn't, you've probably already missed it.
00:25:26
Speaker
And so making sure that your marketing and PR teams are talking to one another and executing in a fashion where things complement each other is a great way to elevate those campaigns where you are spending money, but also to optimize the performance of those campaigns, leveraging some of those PR tactics that, quite honestly, aren't always costly outside of time and resources.
00:25:48
Speaker
oh you nailed it it is a whole yeah we'll have to have you yeah right at some point i mean because yeah we've definitely been seeing it and with influencers and with a vet i mean there's so much intercept promoting thought leadership i mean to anyone that's got silos in their organization let this be your encouragement or your nudge to really start trying to break down those silos and barriers so that there is more alignment and more frequent meeting because they they have to be intertwined and i would
00:26:15
Speaker
argue there's one way to get money back into your budget over the long term is if you can get those teams working together effectively, you'll be able to accomplish so much.
00:26:23
Speaker
So any other tactics or trends that people in PR, I mean, my question to throw kind of a curveball about you, any trends that you foresee over the next six to 12 months that has people, I mean, the intersection between marketing and PR is a big one that if you're
00:26:39
Speaker
you're behind, it's time to get on the bandwagon.
00:26:41
Speaker
But any other trends that you foresee or predictions over the next six to 12 months that our audience can be on the lookout
Future PR Trends: Influencers & Apps
00:26:46
Speaker
for?
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, maybe.
00:26:48
Speaker
I think there's two that I always have my eye on.
00:26:51
Speaker
I think influencer marketing is going to change soon.
00:26:54
Speaker
And I don't know what that's going to look like, but I just, I think that we're seeing a lot of the hyper and micro influencer or nano and micro, I should say, influencers coming up.
00:27:03
Speaker
And I think those are really important, but I also think we're going to start seeing a shift in that soon.
00:27:08
Speaker
I think the big cities are already seeing it.
00:27:10
Speaker
And so I just encourage everybody to stay tuned to really button up your contracts because I think we're going to see a shift in that landscape soon that is going to make influencer marketing just a little bit more
00:27:22
Speaker
business centric.
00:27:23
Speaker
And I think that a lot of what we're seeing with the tax season and influencer marketing, I think the US government still figuring out what to do with those folks as well.
00:27:32
Speaker
The second piece of that, though, I think I don't think we've seen the peak of iPhone apps.
00:27:36
Speaker
I really, really think that there's recipes there.
00:27:40
Speaker
I think there's a lot more coming in the app space because that does allow back to that point coming out of the pandemic and talking about truth and trust.
00:27:49
Speaker
One of the best ways to have that truth and trust is one, to make it readily available, but two, to make it incredibly convenient.
00:27:56
Speaker
As a marketer, you know, I mean, what world does that open up for you when you have complete demographic information at sign up, right?
00:28:04
Speaker
I think apps and how we're marketing on smart devices is
00:28:08
Speaker
A lot's going to be coming in that space in the next couple of years.
00:28:12
Speaker
Oh, that's so good.
00:28:12
Speaker
I mean, the micro-influencers, we're already seeing it.
00:28:15
Speaker
Their level of engagement with their audiences, easier to work with for businesses too, can be more of an economical investment.
00:28:22
Speaker
And you can see a better return when they've really got a grasp.
00:28:24
Speaker
Some of those larger influencers, I mean, they've just lost, not in a bad way, but they've lost touch with their audience.
00:28:30
Speaker
It can be more of an investment.
00:28:31
Speaker
investment and then you try to go after a small portion or a small segment of the market and then it just flat.
00:28:37
Speaker
So we, yeah, I've seen that.
00:28:39
Speaker
And then goodness, as far as there's just so much
Investing in PR Strategies
00:28:45
Speaker
there.
00:28:45
Speaker
So goodness, for the sake of time, any other recommendations or final words of encouragement that you'd leave our audience with as they are really exploring what to do and how to prioritize PR in this next season?
00:28:59
Speaker
Well, if you're not already doing PR, try something and see how it works.
00:29:02
Speaker
I mean, I'm a big failure, whether it's PR specific or not.
00:29:05
Speaker
If you're going to fail, fail fast.
00:29:07
Speaker
Fail fast and learn from it and try it again the second time with what you learned from the first failure under your belt.
00:29:12
Speaker
So I encourage people to do that.
00:29:14
Speaker
I'm also very easy to find out there in the ether.
00:29:17
Speaker
If anybody wants to have one-off conversations, I geek out about PR.
00:29:20
Speaker
I love what I do.
00:29:22
Speaker
Like I said, I'm taking off, putting on hats all day long.
00:29:25
Speaker
So I'm always, always open to talking more about this stuff.
00:29:29
Speaker
I love that.
00:29:30
Speaker
And thank you, Casey.
00:29:31
Speaker
And where can everyone listening?
00:29:33
Speaker
What is the best way if they want to have that conversation?
Connect with Casey on Social Media
00:29:36
Speaker
If they've been inspired or intrigued by this episode, what is the best way for our audience to get in touch with you?
00:29:42
Speaker
Honestly, anywhere.
00:29:43
Speaker
I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Casey and Cawthon, C-A-S-E-Y-N-C-A-W-T-H-O-N.
00:29:53
Speaker
Amazing.
00:29:54
Speaker
Casey, thank you for such a fantastic interview.
00:29:57
Speaker
I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks and can't wait until the next time that you come on the show.
00:30:00
Speaker
Thanks, Ashley.
00:30:03
Speaker
Thanks for joining us this week on the Anya Mike podcast.
00:30:06
Speaker
We'd love to hear from you.
00:30:08
Speaker
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00:30:14
Speaker
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00:30:25
Speaker
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00:30:45
Speaker
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