If you’re reading this article, you know that running a law practice is about as competitive an industry as there is. How competitive, exactly? Try 1.3 million lawyers in the United States today, according to the American Bar Association. Couple that with the Princeton University study that placed lawyers among the least trusted professionals in […]
These days, the marketing discipline of public relations is increasingly stepping into the spotlight. With growing social media platforms and new generations of audiences, the looming wave of cancel culture is keeping a close eye on every single decision your brand makes, and for a good reason. As we discussed previously, the slightest misstep in […]
First Impressions Have Lasting Impacts Have you ever watched a talk show and noticed a guest fidgeting with their hands so much that you forgot what they were even talking about? How about a politician with a blank stare who appears to be reading from a cue card or a CEO who refuses to answer […]
If there is a big news story in banking so far this year, it’s the failure of the 16th largest bank in the United States, Silicon Valley Bank out of Santa Clara, California, that took place on March 10, 2023. The SVB collapse, which took place over the course of roughly 48 hours, reverberated through […]
Public relations touches all facets of marketing. Gone are the days of traditional earned media practices, so how are professionals supposed to succeed in an ever-changing landscape of increased expectations and noise? The only solution is to stay on top of technologies and trends and constantly innovate and evolve. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, […]
Now that it’s 2023, it’s time to discuss this year’s new social media trends! Social media environments have drastically changed in the last year, focusing on short-form videos, viral video views and the utilization of influencers of all sizes; however, 2023 will continue to shake up social media and how we interact with brands and […]
Whether helping homeless individuals, providing a safe place for stray animals or feeding the hungry (the list goes on and on), nonprofits do great work for our communities in countless ways. While they may have different missions, many nonprofits fall short in the same area – their presence on social media. There are many reasons […]
You already know the importance of trust but are you thinking about this important form of capital the right way? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll explore brands looking at trust as something to be built rather than just simply something to protect. For many years trust was viewed as something individuals or groups […]
Practicing reputation management and using reputation management software is nothing new. Millions of service-oriented companies like medical and dental offices, law firms, restaurants, retailers, roofers, and more have benefited from improved reviews and ratings by surveying customers and clients after each touchpoint and enabling them to quickly and privately address complaints as well as encourage […]
Inflation is everywhere, mortgage rates have increased by more than 2.5 percentage points this year, there’s a shortage of housing inventory, and the housing market is cooling off quickly. We’ve all seen the headlines, and it does paint quite a picture, but it isn’t time to liquidate your mortgage marketing and lead-gen strategies just yet. […]
It seems like we are always being introduced to important new business acronyms. We’ve got Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Then there’s Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), CMOs are now CROs, and the alphabet soup goes on with CRM, CX, UX, CTR, CPC, SEM, SEO, and so on. However, one […]
Influencer marketing is here to stay. Let me repeat this one more time for the people in the back. Influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere. We all probably thought that influencer marketing was a fad at one time. We saw social media influencers first start on Facebook promoting products, then came the thousands of long-form reviews […]
Community is a multifaceted word. There are hundreds of touchpoints where your firm can connect with and do good for your local communities. Every day the phone rings or something arrives in the mail with a new suggestion on how your firm can help and give back to your community. In today’s Plain Talk article, […]
Let’s be honest. The last two years have been brutal. The COVID-19 pandemic continues, a lot of us haven’t seen a majority of our co-workers in person since 2020, and many businesses continue to cut back, not by choice but as a result of the hard hit they’ve taken to their bottom line. What, if […]
What to Expect in 2022 As we head into 2022, it’s time to refresh your social media strategy and make sure you are up to date on the latest social media development and management trends. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’re diving into five popular and influential trends to consider including in your New […]
While the COVID-19 pandemic continued to prevail in 2021, we were able to restore some sense of normalcy. Our team returned to trade shows for the first time since 2019, swapped the sweatpants for slacks for the occasional in-person client meeting, and we were finally able to limit the number of times we had to […]
Several years ago, a marketing professional from a large company told me trade media simply wasn’t worthy of their marketing plan. Talking about their product in trade media before it was available to consumers didn’t make sense to them. They had a sales team to handle getting the word out. No offense to their team, […]
According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, there were roughly 9,400 business-to-business trade shows in the U.S. in 2019. These trade shows by some estimates represented a $15 billion industry that was forecast to exceed $17 billion in 2021. More importantly, these shows routinely represent critical sales opportunities for businesses of all sizes. Then […]
When I was a kid, my near-scratch golfer dad spent a lot of time trying to teach me his passion. There were many steps on how to approach the ball. And there were corrective instructions for most practice swings, but when it came to the actual swing, there were only two things I was told […]
In today’s hyperconnected, digitally focused world, reputation management is a 24-hour job. With countless social media platforms available for both fans and foes to say anything anytime about your brand – like that they found fish tails (well, shrimp) in their box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch – these posts can easily influence a company’s success, […]
When we think of online influencers, it’s easy to instantly think of a celebrity or someone on Instagram with a blue checkmark by their name and one million plus-followers; sharing their favorite makeup or facial cleanser – but in reality, these types of influencers aren’t what’s driving the high user engagement rates – rather their […]
Brands globally worked to build or upgrade their websites and online stores in response to the pandemic, which is no surprise with the closures of brick-and-mortar businesses. However, what many brands did not prepare for was the impact that skyrocketing internet use had on the relevance of their digital image and video asset library. In […]
You know that a healthy flow of great content is an essential way to inform and stay in touch with existing healthcare patients, and it’s also a way to help bring in new ones. However, you also know that the best content often comes from our healthcare professionals, physicians and experts who have never been […]
This year has been unlike any other. From trade show cancellations to public relations crises, we’ve rolled with the punches that 2020 threw and wanted to highlight some of the exciting things we’ve worked on this year, even during a global pandemic. Our team breaks down 10 of our favorite projects. Hershey – National Hot […]
In 2020, typical communications strategies took a back seat amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses quickly pulled all marketing efforts during the start of COVID-19, evaluating how to best handle this crisis and still get key messaging to the public without appearing tone-deaf to what was happening in the world around us. But while […]
A casual reader looking at spirit sales numbers for 2020 might think it’s a pretty good year. After all, in July Nielsen indicated a 52-week rolling sales increase of 5.1%. But those numbers do not tell the whole story. Overrepresentation in sales increases by the larger, high awareness brands and well known value brands, and […]