How PR can level up your marketing strategy?

Have you ever wondered how PR can level up your marketing? Perhaps your curious to find out what it's like to work with an agency? 

In this episode, we welcome Caroline Fletcher and Lee Simpson from Fourth Day PR. 

Fourth day provides PR consultancy for tech companies, charities and nonprofits across the globe. From London all the way to Brisbane, Fourth Day's team are experts in using storytelling to cultivate healthy relationships with a brand's audience.

For Bright, Fourth Day is vital in helping us build brand authority in the competitive world of tech and digital asset management. 

So listen on to discover what goes on behind the scenes of PR, what challenges you might come up against in your own campaigns, and how exactly do you attack a PR strategy?!

Credits:

Interviewer: Amy Burchill  https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-burchill-64b53361/

Guest speakers: Lee Simpson https://www.linkedin.com/in/leemaxwellsimpson/ and Caroline Fletcher https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinefletcherfourthdaypr/

Fourth Day PR https://www.fourthday.co.uk/

Podcast produced by Let’s Talk Video Production: https://letstalkvideoproduction.com

Transcript

A very big hello and welcome to the Big Bright Podcast. My name is Amy and I'm the marketing executive here at bright. For today's episode we are going to be exploring the exciting world PR, and what better way to do this than with our very own PR agency Fourth Day.

Fourth Day provide PR consultancy for tech companies, charities and nonprofits across the globe. From London all the way to Brisbane, Fourth Day's team are experts in using storytelling to cultivate healthy relationships with a brand's audience.

For Bright, Fourth Day is vital in helping us build brand authority in the competitive world of tech and digital asset management. So today, I'll be interviewing Fourth Day's, Lee and Caroline about what goes on behind the scenes of PR, what challenges you might come up against in your own campaigns, and how exactly do you attack a PR strategy.

So without further ado, hello, Lee and Caroline.

Hello, Amy. Thank you very much for having us on.

So, to start, if you could introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to work at Fourth Day?

Lee: Yeah, sure. So I'm an account director of Fourth Day. I've been with the agency now for about two years. Obviously, one of those years has been slightly strange - if we take COVID into account. Prior to this job I was working in-house. So client side as a content strategist. So mainly my background is kind of around content, creating content. And that was for a martech business as well, actually. So I know the Martech world quite well. Caroline, you've been with us now for just over a year. Is that right?

Caroline: Yeah. So I'm an account manager at Fourth Day. I actually joined in March 2020. So quite a strange time to join a company. So yes, so a very interesting way to start. It's been really good. Actually, it's been an interesting way to sort of learn get to know everyone, but everyone made me feel really welcome. So, despite the fact I kind of joined virtually, and prior to that, I ran my own eCommerce site. And prior to that, I was an account manager for several years with an online dating provider, Guardian Soulmates.

Just going back to the COVID thing. We can't really get away from it. How have you seen that shift in the last year? Has it made PR and the work you do more difficult?

Lee: I think, in our industry, and particularly in tech, and we work mainly with b2b tech businesses, I think we've actually been really lucky with COVID, to be honest, because as an industry generally, I feel like it's been relatively well protected. But I suppose fundamentally, in the day to day, the main thing is not being with colleagues and not being able to have those kind of creative brainstorms that we like. I think replicating that virtually or digitally is quite difficult. Now that we're kind of back into a hybrid way of working between the office and remotely, it's working well, but also being able to ring up journalists and speak to people. And that's a big part of what we do. So, it's made it quite difficult. But I suppose, as I say, we've been quite lucky with our clients and also we were using zoom anyway.

You mentioned that you've worked with Mar tech and tech before, how does that differ from some of the other areas that you work in? I mentioned in the introduction, that you work with nonprofits and charities. What are the main key differences about tech and some of the challenges?

Lee: Tech is such a broad catch-all now for lots of different types of businesses. So for us, we've worked with a theatre company, a tech company. But then also we've got clients in the Martech tech space and in lots of other areas of tech as well. So really, it's a broad sweep of clients within that industry. I suppose for a client like Bright, for example, working in Martech and marketing technology, you're up against 1000s. I think over 6000 different Martech businesses. So really, publishing and share a voice within that market is something that we're really trying to do for Bright, and that definitely has its own challenges.

Certainly one of the big challenges for us is we sell digital asset management software. And that's not a very well-known term, or it's not a very well-known piece of software. The challenge for us is to get in front of new audiences and build our Bright brand. When you first started working with us, what were the key things that you started with, in order to build that strategy?

Lee: One of the fundamental things that we do for Bright, as you just said, is the education elements and trying to get them the marketers who we are trying to target aware of what Digital Asset Management is. I think broadly speaking about tech, you know, there's a lot of sometimes quite technical language that we need to breakthrough. And sometimes in marketing as well, some jargon that we need to try and translate and a big part of what we've been doing throughout the time that we've worked with Bright, which is just over a year now is trying to educate people about what that means. And also just broader brand awareness as well and commenting on other things that aren't necessarily to do with your product and Digital Asset Management. So whether that's to do with HR policies, brand values, your approach to the hybrid home office, learning whatever it might be, those are the kind of areas that we've tried to dig into as well as talking and educating about the product itself.

Caroline: Yeah, I think as Lee just said, a lot of it is to do with education. And, you know, those kind of jargony terms such as Martech, you know, being kind of a bit of a learning curve as well, just making sure that everyone that we speak to understands exactly what we're trying to say. And it's quite a fine line as well, I think between, you know, doing some work on brand education, and just making sure the message isn't too salesy. And that's sort of where the beauty of good writing is, good content, and also the way that we position those stories and those thought leadership pieces.

Yeah, exactly. It's good to get a fine balance between those things. Touching on that as well, when we first came to about over a year ago, I know that we weren't entirely sure what to expect from a PR agency, we just wanted to get featured in the press and get our name out there and stuff. So for people listening who might be in a similar position, what kind of things should we be giving you in order to help you, help us?

Lee: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think that really, if you think about it, the world of PR has actually really changed, particularly in the past 15 years. So it's not a surprise, really, that a lot of people might not know exactly what a PR agency does, or also what they want it to do.

The most important questions for agencies to ask a new prospect or potential client and for me, really PR works best when it's really aligned to the marketing strategy. So that's always what we try and dig into as best as we possibly can, understanding what it is that you want to achieve, whether that's ABM that you're running, or lead gen or whatever it might be, and then really thinking about how we can position PR alongside that as a channel, really in marketing. And I think that then that will help determine what we propose as an agency and what that might be. So it could be speaking at events, or it could be broader brand awareness. But some people will obviously think that it includes things like programmatic advertising, or paid opportunities and advertorial I mean, there can be occasions where we might be able to manage a paid campaign for you. But generally, what we're trying to do is establish using thought leadership, establish your credibility and build that brand awareness through content and through media relations. And through events, for example. So it really, it's important, and that discovery call at the beginning is really important as well. And just to ask loads of questions to your agency and say, can we do this? Is this okay, is this what PR is? And just establishing a really honest, open dialogue really, between agency and client.  And no question is a stupid question. And mentality, I think is really important.

Caroline: As Lee mentioned, the discovery call is also just a really good time to check that you know, how the relationship is how the chemistry is between, you know, the client and the potential PR agencies, just to make sure that that relationship, that partnership is there when you think it's going to work? And you can fire off each other as well.

I suppose PR is all about building relationships. And if it's not working between you and your client, then I guess it's a no-go. Have you had any occasions where you just think it's not going to work, and you have to turn people away?

Lee: Not in my experience, but I think that there are challenges, sometimes, if there's potentially a lack of communication between clients. The ideal situation for us is really, I mean, not to sound too cliched about it, is to really be seen as an extension of the marketing team, or the communications team, whichever team is kind of managing the PR relationship. That is when it really works really well. And the idea of the kind of moving towards this strategic partnership, as opposed to it being purely working as a supplier, that's really important. A lot of that has to do with building up those personal relationships.

And, as I said before, having an honest conversation between each other and saying, you know, actually, sometimes something might not work, in which case, that's fine, we need to discuss why it didn't work, and then make a plan to move forward as a result of that. And that's okay. And if we can try to get to a stage where we both have an honest, trusting relationship with each other, then that works very nicely. And also here, at Fourth Day, we're a small agency and a boutique agency. And I think that's what our clients really love about us. Because they do have that personal one on one contracts with quite senior members of the team. And I think people like that approach.

Yeah, definitely. That's something that's very important to us here as well. So are there any things so for anyone looking to hire a PR agency, are there any warning signs that they should be looking out for, for them to know if the relationship's not going to work?

Caroline: As I mentioned before, I think chemistry is really important on that discovery call. But I think the other thing is, just expectations from both sides. And I personally would be slightly concerned if someone was promising the world because it doesn't quite work like that in PR. I think from my point of view thing goes to be a couple of red flags.

Lee: The way we work with Bright, for example, is in quarterly sprints. So coming up with objectives that we would try and reach and then at the end of the three-month period, review those objectives and I would say that it's important to make sure that those KPIs are continually being reviewed. And again, most importantly, just making sure that you've got really clear lines of communication with your own agency and you know that you've got that weekly or every other week, catch up call. Make sure your reporting processes are working, all of that sort of admin stuff is really important. And then you can just get on with all the good stuff really about that.

So I know that you work with some charities as well. And you have a charity that you nominate that you work with. Could you explain a little bit about that?

Lee: Really, the bread and butter or the main client base for the agency are B2B tech clients. But it's also a really important part of our DNA to work with nonprofits and with charities. So the model that we've adopted this year is slightly different from the way that we've worked in the past. So this year, we've worked with one nominated charity, which this year is the Running Charity. The Running Charity is based in Manchester and London, so works really nicely for us location-wise, because we have offices in both of those locations. And they work with young people who are homeless and inspire them to run really and to use running as a way to change their lives.

And what we will do for them is support through a couple of different events in the year that we're going to manage, and also some media relations as well. It's a really important part. I suppose other companies might have CSR policies, for example. But for us, it's really important to dedicate our time to be able to use our skills that we've got from a PR point of view for charity projects.

Recently, both Caroline and I have been working on a project, which is around the G7, which was a choir, which is singing a song for the G7 in June in Cornwall. So we were working on that which, which was an interesting project. And it's something that is very different from what we will be doing on a day-to-day basis with some of our tech clients. So it makes a nice change.

Taking that as an example, how did you start building that strategy? Where did you start? What were your expectations? And where are you with it now?

Lee: I suppose, with that, it's really thinking about what the end goal is, and what they're trying to achieve. This is probably quite an anomaly of an example because we're working with Sir Tim Rice, the lyricist who has written a song for the G7. And ultimately, the end goal is to try to get them to actually sing at the G7 summit. So, we're hoping that that will happen.
In terms of launching their song and the video that goes along with it. So, they were on radio four on Sunday, they're going to be featured on the Today Programme during the G7 summit. And they've had some nice broadcast coverage as well. So really, in terms of broad brand awareness, which is what we're doing for them raising their profile and trying to get people to sign up to sing this G7 song if you're in a school or different choirs around the country, that's really the goal for that, to spread this song to as far as we can get it.

The goal for that's quite clear, as pure, you know, brand awareness, we want to get the name out there as much as possible. And obviously, for some of our other B2B clients that might be slightly different. It might not be about brand awareness at all, it might be about being really super targeted to get 10 people to sign up to something. Yeah, it's nice. As I said, it's nice to do something slightly different.

Caroline: Just to add to that, as well. The other element to the Sing to G7 campaign is that it works on a local basis as well because it's Truro Cathedral Choir so there's been quite a bit of local pickup as well. And with the G7 being in Cornwall, it's been quite an interesting one as well on Twitter, because it's picked up a lot of the schools that have got involved because they're supplying education packs to schools and getting them to download the song, not just in the UK, but across the world. So it's got quite a reach as well from hyperlocal right through to global. But as Lee said, The end goal is to try and get them in front of the G7. leaders. So watch the space.

Yeah, we will do. So do you do a lot of work on social media as well?

If that's part of the marketing strategy, then yeah, we can support it with one of our online educational clients, then yeah, we do. We put together the social posts for that, and the social supports, and for a few other clients as well, as long as it sort of aligns with what they're trying to do.

LinkedIn is quite a big platform for a lot of our clients, particularly in the B2B world. So I know for a couple of clients, we manage their LinkedIn profiles for them, whether that's the corporate accounts, or whether it's personal accounts as well. So yeah, that is something that we do.

And do you work quite closely with your clients on that? Or do they kind of let you kind of go off and build like a LinkedIn strategy, for example? Or do you have to work quite closely together?

Lee: Again, I would say with all of these things, it works best when it's a real collaboration and a collaborative process. But obviously, it would be rare that somebody would hand over their LinkedIn passwords and say, you just go away and manage it for us, because most people like to have some element of control. The way that we work with any kind of content, and any client will be that it will be approved by the client before it was published anywhere.

So for anyone who perhaps can't, for whatever reason, hire a PR agency, do you have any tips for them to start their own campaigns? Like, where should they start? And where should they start looking?

Caroline: One of the things they need to really think about is positioning. So what are they trying to say and who they're trying to speak to. Where is their audience and obviously, that could be anything from trade press specific to B2B and tech through to you know, maybe National, you know, tech writers and freelancers within nationals. So, what we do like to do when we start with the client is as part of the onboarding processes, do a kind of messaging workshop and just try and work all that through and try and put together some personas of who they're trying to target. And where we'd find those people and put together media lists, very targeted media lists, as well.

Lee: So one thing I was going to add to that was the social media elements as well. And obviously, social media platforms are all mostly free. One thing you can do on Twitter, for example, is follow the #journorequest or #PRrequest, where journalists will be posting looking for comments for some features that they're writing, sometimes, really, really last minute. So if you've got something that you think you're qualified to talk about, and you want to add to the conversation, you can always submit that through Twitter. And that's something that you can do for free.

I would also urge a little bit of caution, though, I mean, depending on what level you're at, if you're a startup, for example, I mean, yes, social media is free, but I would say urge caution with how it's used, because it can also backfire. So that's something to just be to be wary of. And I think we've seen this a lot in the past, particularly the past five years. I know we're coming up to the five year mark of the Brexit vote. In the past five years, there's been such  huge and politically divisive stories. So if you're a CEO of a business, and you say that I would like to put my opinions all over my LinkedIn profile, and you think one particular thing, but actually most of your prospects or customers think something totally different that is quite polarising. So it's a tricky line to walk. And I think that it's just important to make sure that those social media posts have been run through some sort of third party or, or an approvals process, to make sure that that we're not going to be really offending people. So yeah, it's a tricky one, really. And I think, as I say, there's been a lot of divisive stuff in the past couple of years. So it's just urging some caution there.

So I guess it's easy for companies to make mistakes if they don't use a great PR agency, just like you. Have you seen anything, in your experience that's just gone totally wrong Any epic PR fails that you would advise people not to do?

Caroline: I appreciate it's not a company. But I think one of the best ones I've seen in recent times is the government-branded posters to retrain. So for example, as a ballet dancer. The arts industry was, was so damaged. And some of the stuff that came out of that was was just... what on earth were they thinking when they put this out? So for me, that's that sticks in the mind.

Yeah. And I guess as PR experts, yourself, you're probably just pulling your hair out looking at that, like, what are they thinking?

Lee: So just to build on that point that Caroline made about the government and their messaging, I think there's been a couple of times really, throughout the pandemic, that the messaging from them has been quite unclear. I mean, if you think right back to the beginning, when it was "go to work, don't go to work". And people didn't really understand what they needed to do. So I think in this case, it's really, really important to be really clear about what your messages are and what you want people to do. I mean, it couldn't really be more important. But, you know, that's also what we do with most of our clients, right at the beginning of our time working with them, we say, what are the key messages that we want to say, and to who in a messaging workshop, and then we're really, really clear about that.

In terms of other PR fails I mean, the most obvious is Prince Andrew from a couple of years ago, and that kind of car crash interview that he did on Panorama. The fallout of that, I think for him as obviously been bad, but more importantly, all the people who were involved has been very, very serious. So in terms of preparing people, from a media training point of view, it's really important to know what it is that you're going to be saying in an interview like that. And I think that whoever his PR people were really failed him. But.  most importantly, he failed himself.

Yeah. Agreed. So thank you so much for coming in today and talking to us. For anyone wanting to avoid a PR disaster in the future, how can they find you and how can they get in touch?

Yeah, sure. So we're on Twitter @fourthdayPR, or our website, Fourth Day.co.uk.

Thanks for listening to the Big Bright podcast. Make sure to subscribe to never miss an episode and check out our website at built by bright.com