Working in PR, you’re constantly tasked with getting your clients targeted, exciting and highly relevant media coverage.  We work with a lot of print and online publications. But, one of the most exiting “hits” – for both the agency and the client – is the broadcast placement.  Not only does broadcast itself garner tremendous visibility for your client, it often extends to online and sometimes print coverage.

How can you achieve this type of placement? There’s no doubt that airtime is competitive.  Having a great, timely announcement or product launch will certainly help your chances, but there are also some best-kept secrets that go a long way in grabbing the attention of a show’s booking directors.

Here are the top 5 tips for pitching and landing a broadcast hit:

1. Make sure your pitch is brief and to the point – no more than a paragraph.
2. Include video. TV bookers want to know that the person coming to speak on the show is good at speaking in front of a camera. Take out the guesswork and include a link to a YouTube video or a video on your company’s website.
3. Tie your pitch to a major event or trend. If you’re pitching a travel package, tie it in to upcoming Spring Break or summer vacation trends.
4. Pitch 3-4 weeks in advance. If it’s a fit, the show will want to secure a relevant interview timeslot a week or two in advance.
5. Do your research and pitch the right person! Pitching the person who actually assigns the stories can make all the difference. If your pitch winds up in an inbox of someone who doesn’t assign stories, it will go unnoticed – and most likely be deleted.

Kelsey Rodenbiker
Zer0 to 5ive Strategist
Twitter: @KRodenbiker

Whether you are dealing with a product failure or recall, a lawsuit or a crime committed by an employee – all crises have in common the potential to damage the reputation of your Company (or your client’s company). You rarely see them coming. But, the good news is that there are things you can do to be prepared and minimize the damage.

With this in mind, we’ve put together a short list of tips:

Have a Plan

With the immediate nature of today’s news cycle, the first hour is the most important in any crisis. It is critical for companies to be prepared before a crisis hits, with a crisis communications plan.

At a minimum, the plan should include:

• List of potential crisis scenarios relevant to the Company
• Appropriate steps that must be taken, with a timeline
• Protocol for communications (who will be the spokesperson, what are the steps)
• List of crisis communications team members (internal legal counsel and head of corp. communications are mandatory)
• List of communications targets, including employees, media, local community, board members, etc.
• List of communications channels available and which will be used

Get the Facts and Prepare Your Response

Quickly gather information on the situation from all available sources and draft the materials you will need to respond. Do your best to understand what the key concerns are and how you can address those concerns directly. Determine what will be kept confidential and what will be shared.

Create the materials you will need:

• Detailed Q&A
• Media statement or press release
• Key messages/talking points documents for spokespersons

Be sure that your response addresses the following key questions:

• What happened?
• How did it happen?
• What is the current situation?
• What was your initial response?
• What is your long-term response?

Respond Swiftly and with Sincerity

With your spokespeople and response in place, it’s time to communicate to your targets, which may entail one or all of the following:

• Issue a communication to your board, customers, partners
• Issue a memo to employees
• Issue a press release or a statement
• Grant interviews to the media
• Post information on website and let media know of its existence
• Communicate through your Company’s available social media channels

Be sure to provide updated information as often as possible. If answers are not immediately available, it is important to highlight the actions being taken to obtain these answers. Always tell the truth and never speculate.

Remember that is it often the response to the crisis, rather than the crisis itself, that determines perception. So, in the unfortunate case of a crisis, a little planning can go a long way toward a positive outcome to a crisis situation.

Post by Jen Moritz
Zer0 to 5ive Managing Principal
Twitter: @j_moritz
Image courtesy of iStockPhoto

Earlier this year, we worked with Airclic to reposition the company as it transformed itself into a SaaS-based mobile logistics products provider. This included developing a new logo, product architecture, corporate and product positioning and messaging, and brand identity. We also took the opportunity to create a new website for Airclic (www.airclic.com) that reflected its updated brand.

It didn’t take long before the site started turning heads. Since the launch, traffic has increased by nearly 20 percent each month, the time spent on the site has increased by nearly 20 percent and the bounce rate has decreased by more than 5 percent. The total page views have also increased, and website visitors have a 70 percent conversion rate.

Each year, Crain’s BtoB, the industry-leading marketing publication, compiles a list of the “10 Great Websites”. This year, we’re proud to be a part of that list with Airclic.com. The site was recognized along with industry leaders Accenture, iStockphoto, SAS and Tyco for its clean design, seamless interactivity and ability to engage visitors with social media, blogs, live chat and live call functionalities.

“The execution of the design is clean and the interactivity is seamless. The site’s vast content is organized by industry to help simplify meeting the users’ needs. The site actively uses social media and technology to engage users on various levels. Not only does it offer a blog, RSS feed, site search and LinkedIn group but it also offers both live chat and live call to allow users to interact with the site on multiple levels.”
- Bill Rice, president, Web Marketing Association

by

Nicole Maziarz

Being a graphic designer, there are many essential tools that I can’t live without. Outside of a computer, design software (Adobe Creative Suite), books (always filled with valuable literature and great sources of inspiration), pencils sketchpads, printer, and scanner, here are a list of “must have” tools for today’s graphic designer:

Lorem Ipsum
http://www.lipsum.com/
This dummy text is great to use in a design when the final copy hasn’t yet been approved by the client. It can give your internal team and client’s alike a good idea of what the finished product will look like even when the content is still in development. This can help speed up the client approval process.

Smashing Magazine
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
This site is filled with great articles, design tools and tips,  from today’s most innovative designers. Whether you are looking for a specific CSS3 question or just some inspiration, this site can be super handy. Be sure to favorite this site to stay up-to-date on today’s best design practices.

Psdtuts
http://psd.tutsplus.com/
If you want to practice and improve your Photoshop skills, this site/blog has incredible tutorials that take you step-by-step in creating great graphics. The site is filled with detailed tutorials, free guides and more. Designers should be constantly improving their Photoshop skills and this site can be a fantastic tutor.

Art Directors Tool Kit
http://www.code-line.com/software/artdirectorstoolkit5/
Just recently, my creative director introduced me to this amazing design tool. It was so helpful and saved me a great deal of time when searching Pantone swatches for color palettes I was creating for a new logo design.  It includes swatch libraries, layout tools and many other solutions for all the hurdles designers are expected to leap each day.

These tools can help you grow as a designer, share this with your team  and creative coworkers today and stay tuned for more tips on making the most of your creative projects.

Nicole is a Graphic Designer at Zer0 to 5ive

Zer0 to 5ive recently added another award to our extensive list of accolades. This time it was the industry coveted PRSA Silver Anvil! Considered the icon of best public relations practices, the Silver Anvil is awarded annually to organizations that meet the highest standards of performance in the industry. Symbolizing the forging of public opinion, the Silver Anvil recognizes successful programs that incorporate sound research, planning, execution and evaluation.

0to5 won this year’s Silver Anvil in Integrated Communications in recognition of their work on CashEdge.Inc’s innovative “Popmoney” campaign.

The campaign was a tremendous success exceeding all goals and ultimately resulting in tremendous media coverage, seven new customers and a pipeline of hundreds of prospects. The campaign achieved more than 250+ million media impressions, including more than 150 articles, 25 interviews, 5,000+ release postings, 85+ tweets and retweets.

Our special thanks goes out to CashEdge Inc. and everyone who helped make this campaign such a smashing success!

By the Zer0 to 5ive Team

by Marybeth Sheppard

Congratulations to our client, Airclic, for the recent launch of their new website and corporate strategy.

Airclic develops mobile software products that dramatically improve the performance of an organization’s supply chain, logistics and field services operations. Airclic’s products save time, money and improve customer satisfaction.

Earlier this year, Airclic saw the opportunity to take advantage of SaaS-based solutions to further drive adoption of mobile software. Their recent launch includes the first of several SaaS-based products.

This marks a major milestone for Airclic and will be an instrumental element for building and sustaining considerable growth and success. With Zer0 to 5ive’s help, Airclic was able to create a new and engaging brand image, promote their core technology to multiple markets and tell a more compelling story.

See for yourself at www.airclic.com

Marybeth is a Principal at Zer0 to 5ive

Image courtesy of OraSure Technologies

Before you clear the last thing off your desk, attend the holiday party and hop on the plane to Barbados, remember to add that one last item to your December check list: employee holiday donations. Despite the tough economy, millions of people are planning to donate during the holiday season and many of them could be employees sitting right under your firm’s roof. It only takes a few quick steps to recognize these altruistic individuals within your company.

I recently worked with a client that had several employees actively involved in a local community event. We quickly discovered that spreading the “good word’ about holiday donations is a fantastic way to strengthen corporate morale, improve your firm’s reputation within the local community and help some truly deserving individuals during the holiday season. And it is fun for your employees! Here are five tips for spreading the good word about your employees’ holiday donations:

1. Ask around the office – Find out if your employees are planning
to participate in any holiday drives. If nothing is planned, suggest a local organization for your company to participate in. There are a myriad of deserving holiday charities to choose from. A quick Google search can help provide some options. The local United Way chapter and other volunteer organizations usually post the details of their holiday drives to their websites.

2. Draft a media alert and pitch to the local press – Draft a media alert with an event summary and send to local reporters. Writing an alert is a great exercise for creating content to later share with your company and stakeholders. Here is a sample media alert from a recent client’s employee involvement that summarizes the details in a “who, what, when, where, why” format. Offer up a time for interview and photo opportunities with your employees and local volunteer organization reps.

3. Take photos and videos – Go to the event and take photos or conduct video interviews to capture all the details. All this can be done now with a basic digital camera! It’s a good idea to label photos with names of employees when sending to the media. Be sure to add your photos to your company’s website or social media pages later on.

4. Write a summary email – The summary email is important for building corporate morale within your organization. Pull a summary from the media alert (attaching photos of employees who participated) and send in an email to members of your organization. Take a shot at sending a few summary bullets and photos to reporters for their newspaper’s community section or briefs.

5. Post a recap to your company site – Create a wrap-up summary and post to your corporate website. Include any relevant media coverage in your news section. Recap the event in your next company newsletter and be sure to share your holiday story by posting to your company blog, twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

These are some of the fun and easy ways to show the holiday spirit of your employees and solidify your company’s connection within the community. Follow the tips above and ensure your employee volunteers are recognized this holiday season!

Post by Mike Levey, Zer0 to 5ive Senior Strategist

It’s said that you are judged by the company you keep…and we keep some pretty hot company.

This morning, Datamation announced its list of 85 cloud computing vendors shaping the emerging cloud. Two Zer0 to 5ive clients — Appistry and Mashery — made the list (and rightly so…text below is from the Datamation article):

72) Mashery
A core concept in cloud computing is the Application Programming Interface, or API. Companies that allow access to their Web applications – say, for instance, to developers or clients – do so through an API, which is a portal to the infrastructure.

Mashery, founded in 2006, has built its business on the centrality of the API. The San Francisco-based company provides a SaaS infrastructure for supporting a firm’s API. Its management and monitoring tool allows a company to control details like who has access to its data via an API. Among other advantages, this enables businesses to form Web-based partnership with other online businesses – which is the core of cloud computing.

Mashery has garnered an impressive customer list, including Alcatel-Lucent, Hoovers, Netflix and Best Buy.

Notable: Mashery’s management team – here’s their blog – includes Oren Michels, CEO, who was president of Colt HR and Winebid.com; and Ajay Arora, VP of strategy and services, who held executive positions at newScale and Centrata. Mashery has so far raised $2 million in venture funding.

80) Appistry
Appistry’s flagship product is the CloudIQ Platform, which aims to make it easier for companies to use both public and private clouds. CloudIQ Platform incorporates the CloudIQ Manager, which was released earlier this year and makes it possible for enterprises to migrate existing applications to public and private clouds.

In July 2009, Appistry won an American Business Award as the ‘Most Innovative Company of the Year in Computer Software and Services Industries,’ and Gartner’s Massimo Pezzini has called their solutions ‘fresh, radical, and powerful technology.’

Notable: In 2008, Appistry reported 200 percent year over year growth and expanded its list of Fortune 500 clients, which includes FedEx, Lockheed Martin, General Electric and Northrop Grumman.”

We just completed another ChalkTalk for a new client yesterday where we went through our competitive positioning process.  Once again, having your client really think about their differentiators, market challenges and market opportunities crystallizes a competitive difference that has legs.  In this case, we identified a simple approach the client was using that was almost a give-away, not only as a differentiator, but as a new revenue stream and a “trojan horse” for sales.  You could feel the electricity in the air as the sales and marketing teams absorbed the impact of what we were doing and the potential it held.

Whether you call it positioning, competitive positioning, re-positioning, de-positioning, you-name-it positioning — at the end of the day it’s all about owning and differentiating your offering — and making everyone else’s offerings look less desirable.  If you haven’t done this for your company in a while, do it.  Who knows what you’ll find!

(Posted by Michelle Pujadas; image via Creative Commons courtesy of Jesus Solana)

Michelle and I are on the flight back to Philadelphia after facilitating a Chalk Talk to help a new client refine its message. Once again, I was witness to the power of how getting to the right message can inspire and inject excitement into a company.

Like others I’ve been a part of, this Chalk Talk was a definite high. We knew an hour into the session that we were on the right path and that the client knew they were on the right path, too. Even in raw form, you could see how the new message was creating a sense of excitement and possibility and getting them to think bigger about where their brand could go.

That’s the power of having the right message.