Here are three Marketing Communications (MarCom) articles that caught my attention last week. If you’re a small business, they should peak your interest too. The headlines concerning the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis and Wounded Warriors (The Wounded Warrior Project) fiscal management media coverage, hold significant PR lessons. Putting them into perspective, a post on Everything-PR, describes why public relations is an essential marketing component. These articles underscore the values of being proactive, transparent, and having a marketing mix that includes PR. Below you’ll find brief excerpts.
Michigan Governor Hires PR Firm to Help Flint Water Crisis (Finally)
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has been under a #PRFail cloud that makes Winter Storm Jonas look like a cottony, billowy cloud of nothing.
And so, he did what most people do when it’s too late –he hired a notable crisis communications and public affairs firm. Enter into the very icky and baneful fray, Mercury Public Affairs.
However, two things that stand out to most PR professionals about this hire:
1.Mercury Public Affairs has 19 offices (17 in the states, 2 internationally) and not one in Michigan. The state is already shopping for bottled water out of state. Now, PR.
2. What is it with the deluge of minerals here? Lead (in the water) and Mercury (on the ground). Just a little iron-y there. Okay, should have stopped with one.
Read the full article at PRNewser.
Wounded Warriors Project in Crisis After Claims of Improper Spending
The Wounded Warrior Project is in hot water. Recent reports from The New York Times and CBS alleged that the nonprofit has been misspending its donations on lavish conferences and unnecessary business trips for employees.
However, the Wounded Warrior Project has responded to the crisis by posting to Facebook a letter that was sent to a CBS executive director demanding the network make retractions to its original story.
Regardless of the many ways in which financial documents can be interpreted, the Wounded Warrior Project’s brand is undoubtedly going to suffer from these revelations. In a time when it’s hard enough as it is for nonprofits to generate donations and media coverage, this kind of high-profile bad press can push more supporters away from the nonprofit and its partners.
For businesses partnering with nonprofits, this episode serves as a cautionary tale for not only properly vetting nonprofits, but also keeping up-to-date with them, especially when they grow as fast as the Wounded Warriors Project has.
On the one hand, part of the organization’s problem is today’s media landscape. Everyone is under the microscope and can be subjected to intense scrutiny if things don’t add up.
Read the full article at PRNewsOnline.
Public Relations: A Key Marketing Component
To understand the important role PR plays within the mix of your marketing efforts, you should learn how effective an image can be for your consumers, their prized product(s) or their favorite services. General impressions and reputations have an influential power over people, so you should take measures to preserve your business’ image.
It affects the bottom-line…
Millions of dollars are spent for PR labor and intervention yearly, so the work by many professional publicists is truly proactive for your marketing results. These professionals separate your efforts from larger brands if you don’t have an agent of your own. This means your brand can be left in the dust and forgotten. No business owner wants that to happen, nor can they afford it.
Setting up the image you want to portray as a brand or business is an important factor in creating both awareness and loyalty. Awareness will come with an informing emblem or stance on a matter that informs people. Loyalty will come as consumers and clients recognize the services or products only you can provide.
PR can have a profound effect on productivity…
Not many businesses can paint a healthy picture of themselves when looking from the inside out. They’ll need another person to do it. No one should do this alone. Collaboration is a prominent aspect for why professionals manage your PR in a forwarded marketing campaign.
Read the full article at Everything-PR.
For more information and best practices, take a moment to review these posts:
What Your Small Business Can Learn from a Big PR Crisis
You Can Do This! Public Relations, Part 1
You Can Do This! Public Relations, Part 2
What MarCom articles caught your attention last week? Feel free to share them in the comments section of this post.
GB O’Brien
LGK Principal
PS: For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest.