PR For Attorneys
Not all that long ago a debate about legal marketing would have been unthinkable, but after the Supreme Court ruled that antitrust law prohibited the American Bar Association from regulating how lawyers run their businesses, things changed. The legal field was dragged – kicking and screaming – into the business world. Attorneys who traditionally had been ill-prepared to function in the business world suddenly found themselves in the unenviable position of taking a hands-on crash course in business survival.
For years, in the legal world, apart from being perceived as vulgar, marketing was considered unnecessary. It was assumed that clients would automatically and miraculously come forever. As a result, attorneys erroneously believed they were sheltered from the demands placed on other businesses. But that is not the case. Marketing is essential and, of all of the forms of marketing available including advertising, direct marketing and Internet marketing, an effective public relations campaign remains the most effective form of marketing available to attorneys. Media relations is the only form of marketing that can reach a target market and offer credibility and validation. Think about it, if you were to read an ad for an attorney in a newspaper, or read an article about that same attorney discussing a specific case and being interviewed as an expert in the field, which would grab your attention.
As with physicians, it’s important that attorneys pay close attention to how they are going to present themselves to the public. Different forms of advertising and marketing can serve their purpose, but only PR has the ability to offer credibility. An attorney who is featured in the media is the news. He or she is featured as an expert in the field.
Today, savvy attorneys and law firms view public relations as an integral component of their business strategy. They are learning that they must change their perceptions to remain competitive. Our PR firm has placed attorneys in a wide range of media outlets, including 60 Minutes, CNN, NBC, Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and various other media outlets. Depending on the situation, we have focused on specific cases that an attorney was working on, having him or her address that case; or had an attorney discuss a topic that was currently in the news. In this way, the media gets its story, our client is presented as an expert on national and or local media and the public, is educated on a specific case or point of law.
Public education is a key factor; to be effective in the media attorneys need to view themselves as educators. PR, the law and the media have a symbiotic relationship. The media and the public need experts to discuss legal issues and attorneys need the media to reach their target market and position themselves as experts in their fields. After all, we live in the information age and no profession, field or practice can avoid its effects. Professionals who understand the process and actively take control of the information are the ones who will succeed.
Writing a Public Relations Plan – 5 Steps
Public relations can be defined as the practice of managing the information exchanged between an organization and those who are interested in – or potentially affected by – that organization. Effective public relations can be carried out by an organization’s own internal PR team, or it can be entrusted to an external agency. In any event, it is wise for an organization wishing to conduct public relations to devise a solid plan before acting.
An effective PR plan is one that satisfies the needs of both the organization and its various “publics” (i.e., those who are interested in and/or stand to be affected by the organization and its future actions). The organization itself benefits from a PR plan because the plan can help organize its thinking and actions related to how to best get their intended message out. Meanwhile, the intended recipients of the campaign’s message – and often many unintended recipients as well – stand to benefit from the process by being better informed about something that matters to their lives.
Whether your organization chooses to conduct its own PR work or to be represented by a PR firm specializing in the field, it is important to start with a solid plan.
Here are 5 tips for writing an effective public relations plan:
Step #1: Determine what message you want to convey, and to whom: Every organization has its own challenges in terms of public perception. Some are looking to get more exposure, while others are looking to influence or change the public’s pre-existing perceptions. Still others want to highlight recent achievements in order to gain the attention of prospective investors, partners or customers.
Your public relations plan needs to start with a clear sense among the members of your PR team as to the nature of the message your company wants to convey. Then, your team needs to clearly define whom you would like to receive that message. For both items, be as specific as possible during the planning phase: they set the tone for the rest of your campaign.
Step #2: Gauge the current public opinion about your organization: It is very important that your plan include your conducting of some formal or informal research about the nature of public opinion vis-?-vis your organization as it stands today. Rather than making assumptions about how your stakeholders – as well as your prospective investors, customer and partners – view your firm, it is important that you find out more about what they actually think. This type of research can take the form of secondary research such as reading opinion polls or articles about your firm, or it can take the form of primary research such as via interviews, surveys and focus groups. The bottom line: you need to know where you are now in order to know where you are going.
Step #3: Set a budget: Effective PR can be done cheaply or even for free in some cases. However, as a rule you should anticipate some level of expenditure for your campaign,. Budget concerns are an important factor. Since your PR budget has a strong effect on the resources you can afford to put behind your plan, be sure to carefully set an appropriate budget by including all of the relevant stakeholders. Tip: if your CEO (or equivalent organizational leader) can be convinced of the potentially wide-ranging financial and reputation-related effects of the issue you are trying to convey to your publics, he or she will be much more likely to earmark the appropriate funds for your PR initiative.
Step #4: Decide how you will get the word out: Good public relations work is a multi-faceted area of practice with a multitude of options available in terms of ways to communicate your message. For example, you may find ways to entice reporters to write special-interest articles written about your organization. Or, you might hold a public relations event, submit your organization for consideration for an industry award, or hold a press conference – just to name a few. The mode of communication you ultimately choose will depend upon many factors, including the nature of the message you want to convey, the current political climate around the issue (if applicable), the degree to which the issue is of general public interest, your PR budget, and other factors.
Step #5: Create a plan of execution, including a detailed timeline: Every good public relations plan must include a step-by-step plan that outlines the key milestones of your PR effort and fills in the specific details for executing the plan. An important element of your plan of execution is to assign each task to a particular person, along with a deadline; this creates a sense of accountability for each task. Of course, once the execution phase is launched and some time passes, you will likely find yourself needing to adjust your tactics to meet an ever-changing environment. Still, this need to make ongoing adjustments to your plan is no excuse for skipping the mapping out of the tactical steps ahead of time. During periods of relative chaos, you will be glad to have a plan to which you can refer in order to keep things on track.
Every solid public relations plan should be built upon the basic framework highlighted above. Whether you conduct your own campaign or entrust your PR campaign to an expert PR firm, your plan – and the thinking you go through to formulate it – will go a long way toward helping you reach your PR objectives.
PR for Musicians
Perhaps the most difficult question that a musician has to answer when it comes to public relations or marketing is – why? Isn’t having created the art enough? The short answer to that is no and particularly not now. If you want to reach your public and get your art exposure, you need to take control of your marketing and your career. This is particularly true in the music world. The industry has been turned upside down. The days of label launched careers are all but a memory. In truth, musicians should have always been involved in their marketing and promotion, but now, with the seismic shifts taking place, it has become a necessity The bad news is that if you want to launch a successful career you need to learn how to market yourself. The good news is that this is a whole new world and one in which you can have more control of your marketing, your image and your art than ever before. There are a myriad ways to promote yourself, from such old standards as flyers and postcards, to ads, public relations, online marketing and social media. For building an image and a personal brand, PR remains the most effective and validating form of promotion. Through public relations you become the news. It’s the only form of marketing that can reach your target market and offer credibility and validation. Think about it, if you were to read an ad for a musician in a newspaper, or read an article profiling that musician in the same paper, which would grab your attention? One is a paid ad the other is a news story. Which would you be more likely to believe? With the power of online marketing and social media, PR campaigns are more important than ever. Combined with a social media campaign, public relations takes on a whole new look. Most people see PR and social media as an “either/or” choice, where it really should be an “and” decision. Although YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace were very big Internet stories, they became global powerhouses because of traditional media coverage in such outlets as CNN, the Today Show, the New York Times, Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal. The myth is that it all happens online, where actually, it’s a sequential process. These stories start online. They grow and often grow in a big way, but the stories truly explode after the mainstream media covers them. The media coverage drives the online title wave. Others then try to replicate the phenomena on the Internet, not realizing that they are leaving out the most important element – PR, targeted media coverage on mainstream TV and in major newspapers and magazines. Because online marketing and social media are still relatively new and compelling, most miss the PR part of the marketing equation. But before you can jump to marketing yourself, you have to take care of the basics and learn the art of PR. Remember, you’re going to succeed by learning how the media thinks, not by assuming you know what they want. The following are some tips that can hopefully increase your P.R. IQ. Define your story and your career path. You can’t tell others about what you do until you fully understand it yourself. Write a short, clear and concise paragraph that defines what you do. Write it so that an eighth grader could understand it. You may be surprised. Define your target market. Think in terms of stories. People understand concepts best when told in terms of anecdotal stories. Write a clear, concise one-page press release. Study the various media outlets. Tailor your releases and your pitches to each specific media outlet. Less is more. If you’re thinking of sending out a huge press kit filled with reams of paper, photos and brochures, think again. Examine all of the available angles. Your first pitch may not work. Be creative. Learn patience, be persistent and prepare for success. This is the toughest concept to master. We’ve had campaigns that have hit a home run in the first week, but most take time and persistence. Public relations is a slow-building, on-going, cumulative process. If you are going to implement a P.R. campaign, make a commitment to stay with it for a minimum of six months. It will be worth it. Your career will be glad you did. Anthony Mora began his media career as a journalist for a number of publications including US and Rolling Stone. His company, Anthony Mora Communications, Inc., has placed clients in such media as Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and Oprah Winfrey. Anthony has been featured in: USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The BBC, CNN, Entrepreneur, Fox News, MSNBC, and His book “Spin to Win,” is a step-by-step guide on how to define goals and utilize the power of the media to achieve success in any field. Anthony Mora Communications, Inc. 323-874-2933
Lifestyle PR and the Obama Campaign
Environmentalists have used some very innovative media methods in major newspapers across the States and Canada to win over President Barack Obama to express their point about the Alberta’s oil sands. They have used romantic advertisements in the personals and compiled very cleverly worded messages in the ‘In Search Of’ sections to attract and draw public attention to the environmental issues in Canada.
One such message published in the personal was very deliberate in its choice of words, giving the public a very timely and poignant reminder of Obama’s words: “Patriotic, busy, Chicago-Hawaiian man, must like basketball and know how to do the fist bump. I saw you on TV. You said ‘Yes, we can’ and talked about a clean energy future. Meet me in Canada and we’ll sweep aside the world’s dirtiest oil, the Tar Sands, and make sweet climate-change solutions together.”
Other ads brought home the point of Obama’s pre-election promises to building a clean energy future for America, as they were aware that energy and climate change issues were to be discussed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada.
The Craiglist websites were running similar ads across North America, with a further full page advertisement in USA Today imploring Obama to look at clean-energy sources, rather than fossil fuels.
By making these ads ‘personal’ and yet undeniably directed at Obama and the government, the environmentalists are hoping to woo him over by taking a positive approach to looking at renewable energy sources and away from fossil fuels, in particular the tar sands in Alberto during discussions with the Canadian Prime Minister.
Canadians are also trying to make the point that although through Obama’s leadership North America will strive towards a new energy economy, Canada will be left behind.
Public figures and celebrities use lifestyle pubic relations as a way of appealing to the pubic interest and drawing themselves to the public’s attention. Portraying them as living within the manifestos they proclaim, their wishes and ambitions to change the way they are either perceived or would like to be perceived by the general public is frequently and effectively used by public relations representatives.
By combining both traditional public relations methods such as full page print ads and using the Internet as an effective media communication tool, these messages have reached millions of people across America and Canada in a very short space of time. Showing how lifestyle PR can be most effectively and successfully used to get messages out to wide audience targets.
Shrewd lifestyle PR agencies will take onboard the impact of successful strategies and tactics these innovative public relations methods can produce, by reminding the public of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Direct communication lifestyle PR is also becoming an increasingly popular way of grabbing the public’s attention. Obama has a Twitter account and other celebrities such as Stephen Fry are also joining the masses and using Twitter to communicate with his fans. And whilst it could be argued that Obama himself does not spend time responding to his Twitter community, Stephen Fry declares he does!
Pr – Approaches
The fastest approach to handling the difficulties that can occur in a client agent relationship – and this all comes from public relations professionals, keen to paint a world of the public relations career - is to take the matter up with the client directly. Tell the client that service has stalled, that the agency is not performing and that the client is not getting the value for which it is paying – that will be the sentence that makes them pay attention. This is usually enough to get things started, but not always.
If the client expresses surprise that the organization has been unwilling to work with the agency, there is a good chance that the client will break up the logjam. It is up to the agency to point to specific instances where the process has failed and to make sure the process is fixed. It is also the agency’s job to keep communication lines open and to point out to the client when matters are slipping again.
Sometimes, a client shows no interest in helping the agency sort out the problems that have come up and are stagnating the forward motion of the workload and the planned strategy that was sorted out at the outset of the client agency relationship. As it happens though, like with most things in life, there are indirect ways of getting the necessary elements of the service done. These, however, require hard work, creativity and persistence, the main skills needed to be a successful public relations officer.
There is evidence, for example, that companies in the past have gone on and sold ideas independently to different editors, then researched and written articles with minimal client input. These companies, following much advice and well-spelled out research results, use resulting clips to merchandise back to the client what can be done for the client. Opportunities must be seized as well to show what can be done if the skills of the public relations agency and the officers within are used to the best of their ability.