The Public Relations Blog

A crisis communications plan protects and defends companies and organizations from a fallout in the public eye. These crises are caused by issues like a company scandal, an executive’s inappropriate behavior, or a product recall. Developing a crisis communications plan can help companies maintain their reputation. 

Companies task public relations agencies to design comprehensive crisis management plans that limit risks to their brands. We craft specific messages for employees, investors, customers, the public, and news outlets. Insufficient external and internal communications can cause the following:

• Operational response failure

• Stakeholders reacting negatively

• Public perception that the company is inept and, even worse, criminally negligent

• Sever impact on the company’s brand, reputation, and finances 

Why you should analyze every aspect of your competition

Knowing what your competitors are doing can put you ahead in your industry. Here are some things you can learn from your competitors:

Knowing inverted pyramid and the five Ws/H will set you up for success.

The first few sentences of your story are everything. They state the facts, set the mood, and grab your reader’s attention. When written correctly, they capture the heart and soul of your story and convince your reader why what you’re saying matters. When written incorrectly, the reader may leave your page, click on a new site, or possibly lose interest in your company’s work altogether. 

So what are these first few sentences, and how do you write them effectively?

Our founder and CEO, Jason Mudd, recently completed a pre-interview with a business TV news show. Although the interview doesn’t air for several weeks, here are some of the answers he shared during the initial Q&A.

When a news outlet, PR agency, strategic partner, or vendor requests your logo, you should send them your transparent logo(s) in high resolution and vector format. Why does this matter? Let’s explore each concept.

Here are the smartest content curation hacks to supercharge your marketing efforts.

Creating fresh and valuable content is an organic way to increase engagement. And so to make your company relevant and approachable, you must discover trending industry topics and strategize a well-rounded marketing plan. 

Content curation is a continuous process and can become tedious without the right content curation strategies. To be impactful, you need to retrieve content in effective and well-aligned ways. Keeping that in mind, let’s learn some quick content curation hacks. 

How Axia deep dives into clients’ brand, consumers, and competition

When creating a communications, PR, or marketing strategy for a company, it can be tricky to determine what the company needs help with and where and how it can improve.

Axia Public Relations’ strategic insights process is a tool we use for every client as a deep dive into the company’s brand, consumers (or buyers), and competitors. We start by asking the client three questions:

1. What are your top one to three business issues?

2. What are the one to three titles for your ideal target customers?

3. Who are your top three to five direct or largest competitors?

From there, we begin our initial research.

A simplified definition of PR

What is public relations?

I get asked this question all the time. If I’m being honest, I sometimes have trouble narrowing it down into bits of information that someone who knows nothing about communications and marketing could understand. 

The Public Relations Society of America defines PR as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” 

For those working in PR, you understand that no two days are the same. One day, you might be in a series of meetings with clients. The next day, you may be conducting research and sending out media pitches. And the day after that, you might be writing a news release and creating social media content. The list is never ending. 

A step-by-step guide to creating effective recurring meetings

Working with a PR agency requires regular communication and feedback. A good PR agency should strive to be an extension of your marketing team. It should keep you in the loop on marketing efforts to build awareness and brand identity for your company. But just how often should you be meeting with your PR agency?

Depending on the volume and urgency of a project, you might meet with your PR agency weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Every client is different. Larger programs or projects require more time and a higher frequency of meetings to strategize and coordinate.

You might meet more often at the beginning of your program to have your PR agency get familiar with your company and processes. But too many meetings can take up productive time that could be used more efficiently.

What to do if your executive/spokesperson/client isn’t fit to be the face of the organization

As public relations professionals, we’ve worked with a plethora of companies, clients, and spokespeople. Some are perfect spokespeople while others need a few spokesperson training sessions, and then there are the ones that shouldn’t or can’t be the face of the company. 

Finding a spokesperson for your company can be a daunting task, and having a conversation with a spokesperson who truly isn’t the best fit to represent your company is even more difficult. As an outside PR firm, having the conversation with a client about who the best spokesperson is can be easier than having the conversation internally with a superior. So how do you navigate that difficult conversation?