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PM Forum - New York
PR/Media as an Inexpensive Way to Increase Your Profile
PR veterans Tom Mariam and Janet Falk spoke to the Forum in March in New York, where they focused on the professional services field, using examples from their work with law firms.
“Most of all, PR is strategic,” said Mariam, the president of Mariam Communications in New York. “To be successful, PR has to support your business. The two have to be in sync.” He pointed to the good publicity gained by the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where he had been Director of Marketing & Communications, after it adopted a year-round business-casual dress code. Mariam got involved at the start in planning the new policy, which included a donation of lawyers’ unneeded business clothes to a charity. The policy and the donation angle won the firm positive visibility in the legal press.
He also noted the value of linking practices with related causes, such a healthcare practice and cancer research, and with clients. Another law client, Pennie & Edmonds, held a Denim Day internal promotion with client Lee Jeans to raise money for cancer and other research. The New York Law Journal ran a photo of Pennie & Edmonds staffers wearing the client’s products.
Mariam recommended that marketers set phased plans to raise the profile of clients. An individual lawyer, for example, could use his area of expertise to become an available, quotable source for the media, then write by-lined articles and give speeches. The total impact: “Get in early on the action. What trends can you bring to life? You want to own the story.”
Janet Falk, of Falk Communications and Research (www.janetlfalk.com) in New York, has advised Wall Street firms, law firms, corporations and not-for-profit organizations in her career. She called this a time of “so much nervousness” that is creating opportunities for companies with a clear idea of what they want to communicate to audiences such as the media, employees, vendors, stockholders and government entities.
“If you’re not talking about yourself, your competitors are,” she said.
Falk urged listeners to connect communications tools such as press releases, bios, blogs, fact sheets, events and newsletters, “to make them interlace and work together.”
She described media relations as a sequence of moments that can build to have a long-term impact. One lawyer client was an expert on the backdating of stock options. When that topic gained media attention, the lawyer published an article that was reprinted several times, and the lawyer then got quoted in the press.
“That led to several speaking engagements,” she said – and ultimately to two new clients. “The process grew organically and led to the best possible outcome. To know that public relations actually led to new business is exciting.”
Van Wallach
RSM McGladrey
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