Tag Archives: business

What to Expect from a PR Agency As the Pitching Pool Grows Shallower  

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Journalists are outnumbered. As the public relations industry has welcomed more communicators into the field, news outlets nationwide have faced massive layoffs that have vastly reduced the number of reporters and editors.  

Between 2023 and 2033, the public relations industry workforce is expected to grow by 6%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are now more than seven public relations professionals for every journalist and with some reporters receiving over 100 emails a day, finding a way to grab and keep their attention is critical for any pitching effort.  

It’s tough breaking through an already congested news cycle without the uneven personnel ratio making competition for attention even more difficult. This growing ratio should impact your vetting process when considering your next communications firm or in evaluating the effectiveness of your current agency.  

Consider the following questions when evaluating a PR partner or prospective partner:  

  • Do They Do their Homework? Relevance is the name of the game. Before any good media relations pro jumps into writing, they make sure the topic is relevant to the interests of an outlet’s readership and personalize the pitch to target the reporter’s specific beat. If a reporter sees a pattern of irrelevant pitches coming from your company, they will be quick to ignore outreach from your PR team, and potentially your company, in the future. 
  • Do They Know How to Tell a Story that Matters to Your Audience? Every pitch entering a journalist’s inbox needs to be concise, clear, compelling, nonpromotional and ideally speak to an industry trend or hot topic. Context is important, but the goal is to offer proof points about meeting the needs and interest of the audience not promoting the company or brand.  Working with an agency staffed with former journalists can help. 
  • Do They Work with Urgency? No one likes having their time wasted, especially a journalist on a deadline. You need a PR firm to position you as a ready resource for a reporter, not as unreliable or unprepared.  
  • Can They Build Relationships? If a pitch is compelling enough to break through the static and engage an editor or reporter, a good media relations pro should use it as an opportunity for relationship-building. If a journalist recognizes your company’s subject matter experts as reliable and relevant to their audience, it can open the door to future opportunities. After all, it’s about what you know in today’s media environment, not who you know. That said, rapport is still important. Your PR rep should be proactively identifying reporters relevant to your industry, talking to them with regularity to understand what they are working on, as well as offering introductory meetings to ensure your subject matter experts are on their radar for future stories.  

Public relations pros cannot change the media landscape, but the good ones are adapting by taking the time to understand the current state of journalism and recalibrating where needed. Business owners and leaders will want to make sure they are working with PR partners who get it. 

It’s called earned media for a reason, and while there is never a guarantee for coverage, these tips could help you find the agency that can make your company’s engagement with journalists stand out among a sea of mundane, irrelevant, promotional or just plain old uninteresting pitches.  

Brand Authenticity Requires Communicators to Play Lead Roles

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While brands have a voice in shaping their narratives, it is their publics who play an outsized role in holding organizations to their brand promise and reputation.

One of the best time-tested methods of ensuring adherence to brand authenticity is having a public relations or communications professional at the decision-making table from the start. Failing to do so runs the risk of self-inflicted reputational harm that is extremely difficult, and often expensive to dial back later.

In brands we trust

B2C as well as B2B consumers have vast resources to evaluate brands and a wealth of options from which to choose. Brands that consistently speak to the values and priorities of their consumers engender trust and an emotional connection. According to April 2024 data released from Shopify, 86% of American consumers say authenticity is a key reason they buy or engage with a brand.

Whether it is Red Bull, GE or Salesforce, these companies and others are great examples of organizations that use engaging storytelling, emotionally targeted messaging and brand authenticity to reach and connect with their audiences. We know Red Bull gives you wings. We know GE is focused on imagination at work, and that Salesforce positions you to manage success, not software. Their messaging goes beyond taglines, and their stories resonate with their publics because they meet a need.

What Ben Franklin said

Ben Franklin famously quipped, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” There are countless brands that illustrate Franklin’s point.

The example set by Target regarding its shifting DEI policies has put … well, a target on the Target brand with calls for boycotts and declining sales. Such inconsistent messaging causes brand audiences to reconsider the authenticity and trustworthiness of the organizations at issue. Consumers aren’t sure what, if anything, the brand stands for and repairing that damage will be a long and expensive undertaking.

On the B2B side, there is no more powerful example of reputational damage due to a lack of authenticity—as well as transparency—as WeWork. The company promoted a utopia-style revolution in how workspaces would evolve while leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs to work collaboratively. In reality, the company infamously misled everyone regarding its spending, profitability and stability, leading to a loss of trust among investors and business clients that ultimately led to the founder being ousted and a Chapter 11 filing in 2023.

The power of communications strategy

A chief communications officer with a seat at the leadership table can help organizations adhere to brand authenticity. These professionals are trained to assess the communications risks of any given action by an organization that plays out in front of its publics—internal or external. They help brands avoid unforced errors and plan for a range of responses from their target audiences.

Having that comms professional in the room from the start of major brand decisions can lead to important conversations and questions filtered through a public perception lens, such as:

  • How does this align with the public’s understanding of who we are and what we do?
  • What risks are we taking with this change, and what can we do to mitigate them?
  • Does this change align with our core values?
  • How should we communicate this change clearly to our audiences, and what are the best channels to do so?
  • What is the plan to measure the impact of this change on our brand reputation and perception?
  • What is the backup plan if this change is not well received, and what is the trigger to institute that plan?

Brand leaders are best served when their PR teams challenge group think and work to consider the reaction to organizational change among various audiences. This approach can strengthen and even improve the proposed changes, better aligning them with the brand’s reputation and perception and lead to a smoother introduction to its publics. However, making change better and more sustainable only happens if the communicators are in the room where decisions are made from the beginning. That is how you maintain brand authenticity, and it matters.

Keys to Boosting Brand Awareness in 2025: Embrace New Media

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While you contemplate adding extra protein and strength training to your weight loss plans for 2025, why not consider adding new media and video to your company’s communications strategies?

A turn of the calendar to a new year presents an ideal opportunity to not only consider weight loss and exercise, but to evaluate business strategies as well – both successful and failed strategies. In public relations, as with many other industries, this new year refresh or reinvention beckons us to consider the latest trends and undertake new initiatives to continually boost brand awareness in the year ahead.

This time of year is replete with industry experts offering outlooks on what we can expect in the year ahead. And while traditional PR tactics, like contributed articles to well-respected outlets continue to carry weight, we are increasingly seeing good PR pros encouraging industry pundits to take on new platforms or new features of existing platforms to share their views, including – LinkedIn Live, LinkedIn Newsletters, TikTok, and new X competitor Blue Sky, among others.

Depending on the audience targeted, each platform can yield considerable results for company leaders who offer original, valuable and educational content. Leaders who want to boost their brand’s visibility in 2025 should consider the following new media:

  • LinkedIn Lives – In 2025, we will continue to see savvy thought leaders connect with their audiences through LinkedIn’s event-hosting platform LinkedIn Live. LinkedIn Lives are becoming increasingly popular for the platform’s ability to host live events with a casual feel – with one or multiple speakers, while engaging and interacting with the audience through a live chat function.

The tool markets itself in many ways as the event can easily be promoted among LinkedIn followers of the company page or the individual hosting the event. Followers will receive notifications about the event, as well as when it goes live. Moreover, any form of video in social media tends to generate higher levels of engagement than written content alone.

In the insurance space, digital marketing and transformation guru Ema Roloff has seen tremendous success with this resource, gathering roughly 1,600 registrations for an insurance predictions and trends event in late 2024. She hopes to do the same and more this year ahead of her Insurance Trends to Watch for 2025 event Dec. 17.

  • LinkedIn Newsletters – As LinkedIn continues to flex its authority as the social platform for business professionals, its newsletter function has also become increasingly popular for sharing thought leadership and other educational, nonpromotional content. LinkedIn claims it has seen a 59% increase in people publishing newsletter articles and a 47% rate increase in engagement. The platform claims more than 184,000 newsletters published. Once published, these newsletters invite your connections and followers automatically to subscribe so they are notified each time you publish with an in-app and email notification. Another perk – the success of your content is easily measurable through LinkedIn analytics.
  • Tik Tok – While Tik Tok has primarily been a successful B2C tool, we are now seeing the platform used more frequently for B2B engagement. In fact, Roloff has told us, her B2B Tik Tok videos on digital marketing in insurance have attracted more than one million views. We’ve been hearing for years that video content is essential for business communications, and Tik Tok proves the point and should not be overlooked in 2025.
  • BlueSky – As some look to move away from X, the app Bluesky, which bills itself as “an open foundation for the social internet” has been gaining popularity. In fact, BlueSky just reported crossing the 15 million user mark. As audiences flock to newer platforms like Bluesky and Meta’s Threads, business leaders will want to take note to ensure they are meeting their customers where they are.

To understand new media available to your business and what might be right for you, work with a communications specialist or agency that understands your business objectives, your audiences and the new media that can deliver on those objectives and audiences. Technology and AI are quickly changing how we do business, as well as how we communicate and interact with each other and prospects. Don’t get left behind.

2025: Do You Have a Communication Strategy? You Should

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As many businesses and non-profits begin to turn their attention to 2025 planning, one component that should not be overlooked as part of a success strategy for the new year is communication or comms planning. An effective public relations campaign can prove to be both an affordable investment in growing your organization as well as in deepening important reputational relationships that can help sustain for- and non-profit organizations in troubled times.

Here are five critical tactics for B2B organizations to consider when developing 2025 comms strategies.

  1. Highlight Industry Expertise. In the world of B2B marketing and communications, clients and partners look for actionable, tested expertise. By positioning your subject matter experts as thought leaders through authoritative content, you position your brand as a potential resource for your target audiences while demonstrating your deep understanding of, and vision for, the industry you’re in. That content can include contributed articles to respected trade outlets, white papers, industry reports, owned video content and feature-length broadcast interviews on hot topics or industry trends.
  2. Develop Authentic Messaging. Whether your audience is business or consumer, the public at large is tired of being sold to or fed boilerplate marketing messaging. Don’t sell. Instead, tell stories to highlight the purpose and values of your brand that address the concerns of your audience. No one looks for a sales pitch; they look for anecdotes, reviews and stories in which they recognize themselves or their priorities. Your audiences are more likely to turn to the sources of those stories or analogies when seeking solutions and opportunities.
  3. Focus on Data-driven Solutions. B2B audiences look for track records of success supported by hard data. Highlighting successful partnerships or projects supported by numbers and real-world outcomes creates a point of distinction and gives trade journalists something to work with when telling stories that can shine a light on your brand. This can also include information on lessons-learned and client testimonials.
  4. Be Prepared for Crisis Scenarios. From online review sites to social media platforms, the public-at-large can rapidly shape public perception of your brand in minutes or hours. By preparing for likely crisis scenarios and developing actionable protocols to deploy your response messaging, your organization stands a better chance in weathering whatever storms may come. Paramount to protecting your brand in a crisis scenario is developing messaging that is honest, authentic, empathetic and deployed with thoughtful speed.
  5. Pursue a Broadening Media Landscape. While rumors regarding the demise of journalism have been abundant in the past decade or more, the reality is the media landscape has broadened considerably. Where there once existed only print, broadcast and online, there are now podcasts, streaming platforms, vlogs, subscription-based email newsletters, audio-based social channels and even industry-specific Slack communities. The options are seemingly endless. Start by understanding the audiences you hope to reach and how they consume media. Then, plan accordingly.

If your 2025 marketing or business development plan lacks a clearly defined comms strategy, you are missing countless opportunities to convert the work you’re already doing into compelling storytelling that can move the needle for your brand. What’s worse, you may also be completely unprepared to defend your reputation if you find yourself facing a communications crisis. Make sure you have a 2025 comms strategy ready to go before January 1, 2025. And if you need help, Kimball Hughes Public Relations has nearly 30 years of expertise to help you make the most of the year ahead.

Navigating Conference Season: Take-aways from a Philly Cyber Risk Summit

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It’s conference season and this week I was fortunate to attend an industry event with a global draw – without hopping on a plane or train – in my hometown of Philadelphia. Insurance carriers, brokers, cyber risk assessment, breach recovery experts, legal, security, privacy professionals and more traveled to the City of Brotherly Love for three days of discussions on cyber risk hosted by NetDiligence®. For me, the event provided a valuable opportunity to learn about trends and challenges in the ever-evolving cyber space, to connect with clients, make new connections and of course check in with and coordinate meetings with trade reporters and editors on site.

As a public relations professional who has spent years working closely with the insurance industry, I know enough about cyber risk and cyber insurance to be dangerous. However, the speakers at the conference offered eye-opening insights on challenges in the cyber risk space, emerging risks including artificial intelligence, new technology and best practices for risk mitigation. Now, I know enough to keep me up at night.

For example, top cyber scams noted by Experian Head of Global Data Breach Resolution Michael Bruemmer included those related to fake news (particularly bad during election season), natural disasters, charities, sextortion (which can even include a photo of the recipient or their house) and QR codes. What I learned about QR codes maybe should have been obvious – it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between a legitimate and illegitimate QR code with the naked eye.

For businesses, the top risk, according to NetDiligence, remains business email compromise. As to why the risk remains so high despite corporate teams working diligently to implement safety measures and train teams to spot these emails, Bruemmer said it’s the smart pitches from the criminals that appeal to human weakness. They just keep getting more creative.

Outside the sessions, I spent time roaming the exhibit hall and making new connections. Representatives were on site to talk about their cyber risk technology, mitigation services, cyber data mining services, e-discovery and more. While the usual water bottles, pens, mints and cozies adorned the tables, a robot, like a modern version of Rosey from the old Jetsons’ cartoon, roamed the floor proffering champagne from exhibitor KYND for attendees.

Additionally, I had the opportunity to connect a few clients with attending media for background conversations. At Kimball Hughes PR, we encourage our clients to leverage their attendance at conferences like this for potential media introductions or onsite interviews. Not only can conferences bring value in terms of continuing education credit, new business meetings and client relationship building, meeting with media members, who are often on-site at these events, can pay dividends in establishing you as a trusted source for future articles or even in a conference wrap-up piece.

We often suggest our clients bring us along to conferences where media is attending for boots-on-the-ground support. This way, we can coordinate additional on-site meetings, assist in fielding questions, assist in bringing trending conference topics to the conversation and seek out opportunities to comment on articles currently in the works.

While I’ll be happy to trade my dress shoes for sneakers in the days ahead, this industry conference, like so many others, was a fantastic opportunity to learn, further relationships and build new connections.

Stay tuned for more conference round-ups as members of the Kimball Hughes PR team continue to round the conference circuit throughout the month.

Lacing Up for Good: Enhancing Team Communication, Collaboration by Giving Back

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This Spring, the team at Kimball Hughes Public Relations is lacing up our sneakers and tracking our steps to raise funds for those in need through the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s annual Step Up challenge.

We have found philanthropic activities like this not only support charitable causes, but they also enhance our employee culture, team morale, and bring us closer together. As professional communicators, we’re always striving to find the best channels for our clients to use to reach their target audiences. In a new age of remote work, channels of internal communications are changing and we’ve found one of the best ways to communicate and deepen relationships with colleagues is to work together for social good.

As we’ve all heard, giving back and volunteerism have become core tenets of businesses across industries in recent years. There is a clear business case for philanthropy, as the next generation of workers have a clear interest in working at businesses that back up their values with action. Further, recent studies have shown that customer loyalty may improve at socially responsible businesses.

We believe giving back and volunteering events that emphasize collaboration and bringing communities together find more engagement.

Our client Pennsylvania Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company (PLM) is also getting fit and having fun while building comradery among team members and raising funds for vulnerable children and communities. Each spring, employees form a team for the Insurance Softball League of Philadelphia, which raises money for local nonprofits while gathering regional insurers for friendly softball competition. Employees have the opportunity to get to know each other outside the office, get a little exercise and breath in fresh air while helping those in need.

With the IICF Step Up challenge, employees, friends and families in and around the insurance industry can form a team and compete with one another in a fitness challenge, measuring their steps, pedal strokes, sit-ups and virtually any other activity against the teams of other companies. Kimball Hughes PR is proud to have been a part of Step Up for the past five years and we have enjoyed learning more about each team member along the way – whether it’s a penchant for morning dog walks, an after-work jog, a Peloton ride or hike through the woods.

Consider reigniting company culture with a collaborative philanthropic initiative this Spring. We’re having a blast. Check out our progress so far here:

Insurance Society of Philadelphia announces new leadership

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Dianne Salter, Beth Graber Selected to Lead 114-Year-Old Non-Profit

The Insurance Society of Philadelphia (ISOP) today welcomes two new leaders: Dianne Salter who will assume the role of chair of ISOP’s Board of Directors on July 1, and Beth Graber who assumes the role of ISOP executive director effective immediately.

Salter takes the helm of ISOP as chair with more than 25 years of insurance industry experience, including her current role as executive vice president of Corporate Insurance Services for Thomas Jefferson University, Main Line Health and Magee Rehabilitation Hospital.  She also serves as President of Mountain Laurel Risk Retention Group and Five Pointe Professional Liability Insurance Company. Previously she was executive vice president, Insurance Operations for Jefferson Health System from 2002 through 2014 and also spent 17 years providing brokerage, risk management consulting and account management services to large healthcare clients in her role as managing director of Marsh USA Inc. She is a former board chair for the Vermont Captive Insurance Association and a current board member of both the St. Joseph University Academy of Risk and Insurance and ISOP.  Salter earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware and an MBA in finance from La Salle University.

Graber joins ISOP after three years of progressively senior-level risk management roles at Keystone Foods, most recently as the $2.5 billion global food supplier’s director of Corporate Insurance and Risk Management. Previously, Graber spent 20 years in claim management for a handful of organizations, most notably Chubb. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware and her MBA in business and marketing from Villanova University.

The outgoing ISOP board chair and current managing partner of Willis North America in Philadelphia, John Sherlock, said the new ISOP leadership duo will bring fresh energy and new opportunities to the 114-year-old association.

“I’ve had the great pleasure of serving on the ISOP board with Dianne [Salter] and I have the utmost confidence in her leadership and vision,” said Sherlock.  He added that ISOP’s executive committee engaged in an extensive examination of ISOP’s strategic objectives to ensure the continuity and relevancy of the organization before tasking Salter and Graber with leadership roles.

“We’ve had extensive meetings, productive discussions and selected Beth [Graber] who brings both the organizational aptitude and appropriate industry insight needed to take ISOP into the future” said Sherlock. “Putting two well-qualified, energetic and ambitious leaders like Dianne and Beth at the helm of ISOP is good for our members and bodes well for the continued leadership, strength and growth of our organization.”

Both Salter and Graber have already begun developing a number of programs and initiatives they will introduce to the ISOP board immediately following Salter’s official installation as board chair. Meanwhile, the new executive director is organizing her staff at ISOP’s new headquarters in King of Prussia and preparing new series of highly focused workshops and forums on a range of topical issues such as climate change, emerging risks and workers’ compensation.

Salter, Graber and their team will also focus on prioritizing expansion of membership and programs for the NextGen group within ISOP for young professionals. And while the leadership team is new, ISOP’s continuing commitment to professional development and education of all insurance professionals within southeastern Pa., southern N.J. and DE remains central to its mission.   

Marketing on the 9/11 Anniversary? Don’t

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“When in doubt, leave it out.”

This was the sage advice of one of my first journalism professors in college. It served me well in everything from sussing out facts for news stories to drawing up guest lists for family parties. It’s also good advice for brands and organizations to consider as part of their social media policies, and their approach to anniversaries of remembrance like Sept. 11.

This week – 12 years from the attacks of Sept. 11 – we saw far too many businesses using social media to remember the fallen while also making sure you remember their products.

On The Crisis Show, which aired on the anniversary of 9/11, I joined Shel Holtz and host Rich Klein to discuss these efforts. We highlighted some of the more thoughtless attempts to newsjack the 9/11 anniversary, as well as the reactions those efforts engendered. It’s a cautionary tale of how even the best intentions on social media can fail without sound strategy, planning and a crisis response plan.

What we saw on social media on this anniversary was how tone deaf some brands can be, and how few plan for all potential outcomes. The list of offending brands – both exploitative in their efforts and those just trying to mark the day as best they could while failing in the attempt – is too long to include here.

The best advice I can share is beautifully summarized in a short online article in The Atlantic. The writer, Derek Thompson, took a page from my journalism professor’s book and offered one simple rule for advertising on 9/11: Don’t. This rule applies equally well to marketers, social media practitioners and PR pros.

The events of that day still haunt us as a nation. So brands should consider honoring the day with a moment of silence, time off for employees to participate in the National Day of Service Congress called for in 2009 or by making a charitable donation. But don’t market such efforts or your products and services. Those who mourn don’t need to hear from brands on this day.

Next year, when we mark the 13th anniversary of our national loss, I encourage brand managers everywhere to follow the prescient advice of my old professor: When in doubt, leave it out.