Should your ears be burning?

It’s one thing to be sending out press releases and newsletters and writing a blog and giving interviews and all the other things that you do to make sure that people find out about you – but how do you know if people are talking about you, and if they are how do you know what they are saying?

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to bug all the homes and offices in the country and have someone listening to everyone’s conversations – and anyone who has watched the live feed from Big Brother will know how mind-numbingly dull that would be if you could. But the wonderful thing about the media is that they are more than happy for you to see what they are talking about, in fact they actively approve of it.

The problem is of course that even between the weekly monthly and quarterly publications of the traditional print media there was more than one person could reasonably be expected to cover. And these days, add in online media, blogs, forum, comments, videos, and podcasts and the signal to noise ratio is so low that you would be better off looking for a needle in a haystack.

So my advice is to stop looking and save your time for more productive things – Of course I’m not advocating that you don’t try to track your profile in the media, I’m just suggesting that you leave the work up to people and programmes that can do it a whole lot more efficiently than you can.

1) Hire a cuttings agency -Somewhere, in a room, surrounded by piles and piles of newspapers, sits someone with a highlighter pen and eye strain, and unless you want that person to be you, then a cutting agency is invaluable. You let them know what key phrases, words and/or names that you want to track, and they send you an envelope of cuttings every week (or day, if you want) to stick into your scrapbook. These agencies charge by the search term, and sometimes by the cutting too – it varies from agency to agency. But if you just want to know when your company or product name appears in print then they are invaluable.

2) Google is your friend – Google works by indexing everything that it comes across on the web, they then do compliated things with that information to work out what people are looking for when they search for things. Those nice people at Google thought they could do even more with all this data and so they launched Google Alerts. Essentially these do the same thing as the cutting agency, but thanks to the wonder of technology they do it without the risk of eyestrain to anyone, and they cover the entire internet. All you have to do to set up an alert is to enter the word or phrase to be tracked and google will e-mail you the results, at your convenience.

A word of warning though, Google Alerts is a completely free service, and you can set up as many alerts as you want. It’s all to easy to set up alerts for everything and anything that you are interested in, and the next day you come in to an inbox bursting to the seams with links and information. Use sparingly to start with, and experiment with seach terms until you are getting the volume and quality of information that you desire.

Japanese Demolition – two styles not to try at home

I’m loving this bottom up demolition method in Japan

it certainly appears to be neater than this DIY approach

The Wookey Hole approach to PR (and why it’s better than a bucket of water – in the long run)

I’m not suggesting that the best way to promote your business is to go and sit in a cave (although it did work for the Wookey Witch, so maybe I should be) but rather I want to emphasise the value in drip drip dripping little pieces of news to your customers and the media.

The Wookey Hole approach doesn’t need a huge expensive launch or a multi-million pound contract or a massive publicity stunt, it just requires you to find stories that will be of some interest to someone. It might end up as a snippet in the business section of your local newspaper, or on page 19 of the monthly trade press, or you might get lucky and hit a slow news day and get a call from a journalist wanting to write a 2 page feature spread.

Of course, if you just do this the once then it’s not going to be very effective – in fact it would probably have the same sort of impact as dropping a solitary drop of water onto a limestone slab. But when repeated over and over again, those little drops start to build up and create something significant, that elusive thing called ‘media presence’.

Individually these little stories aren’t that vital, so it’s not that important whether they are given high priority in the media, you don’t have to spend that much money or that much time trying to get your message across. The key is to be consistent and to keep drip drip dripping the information.

The alternative is to take as many of those drips as you can muster, gather them all up in a bucket and to hurl them at the media in an attempt to make a real splash. It might work, and when it does then it is money and effort well spent, but the thing about news is that it’s not predictable and your big story, your ace in the hole might find itself spiked in favour of some scandal, or disaster, or unanticipated piece of legislation.

And when you’ve emptied the bucket – what then? If you are lucky enough to have a running tap of money and fabulous news then you can just fill the bucket up again and keep hurling it at the press: congratulations, you don’t have to settle for Wookey Hole, you’ve got Norway and the fjords. But back in the real world most of us can’t be coming up with big stories on a regular basis, so all we are left with is a damp slab that dries in the sun. I think this metaphor might be getting away from me now.

The point is that most of us, especially in the current economic climate only have a certain amount of time, money and effort available to use for marketing and media relations, so we need to use it wisely. And while it’s nice to think that all you need to do is get a story in the paper and the phone will ring off the hook, it rarely goes quite to plan like that, so we need to keep at it, keep drip drip dripping away and build a picture, carve out a name.

It’s worth it in the end, really it is.

First manslaughter conviction for quick hitch death

Sad, but not unexpected news comes in from the courts where Digger driver Michael Roys has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of a fellow worker in September 2007.

Alwyne Parkinson died from his injuries after the bucket from the excavator being driven by Michael Roys became detached and struck him. A subsequent investigation showed that the safety pin designed to keep the bucket in place had not been used, a worryingly frequent occurrence with the use of semi-automatic quick hitches. In fact this was the last in a spate of 4 deaths from such accidents in just 12 months, a statistic that has prompted the HSE to look into the standards that quick hitches are designed to and issue a safety alert to reduce the likelihood of further deaths.

In an industry that needs to be so focussed on health and safety, the simple act of not inserting the safety pin is simply not acceptable – a fact reflected in the sentence handed down. Hopefully this will be the first and last such conviction.

HSE Sector Information Minutes (SIM) on the safe use of quick hitch devices on excavators.

The digger returns (and an impromptu special offer)

There’s one easy, sure-fire way to get featured in a trade publication like Demolition and Dismantling – and that’s to buy an advert . This one should be appearing somewhere in the current edition that is dropping through people’s letter boxes this week.

It’s one of the ironies of life that even a great PR company has to advertise once in a while, because when we’re busy doing a good job for our clients, you shouldn’t notice us at all. Wonderful for our current beloved clients, but less good for attracting new ones.

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in print, so I’m feeling generous… The first company to contact me to let me know what page the advert features on can have a free press release.

And even if you aren’t lucky enough to win the free press release this time round, there are lots of other special offers for NFDC members, just click the link at the top of this page to read all about them.

Congratulations Building Health

I must send out a huge congratulations to Nichola Elvy and the team at Building Health who have been shortlisted for Consultancy of the Year in this years CJ Awards. Apparently Contract Journal had a record number of entrants this year which makes the achievement all the more impressive.

The competition is tough, but as the UK’s leading specialist in health screening for the construction industry Building Health stands out from the crowd, and hopefully that will be recognised on the night of the awards ceremony.

Good luck!

Links
Building Health- occupational health provider to the construction industry
Contract Journal
CJ Awards

disclosure: Building Health are ABC (a beloved client)

Pushing PR in a nervous economy

I bumped into an old friend the other day and while we were catching up over a cup of coffee he said something along the lines of “Isn’t this a bad time to be trying to get people to buy PR? Businesses are cutting back at the moment, not looking to spend more.”  And he’s right, up to a point.

With the credit crunch being felt in all areas of business the amount of money a company has to throw around is becoming less and less, but that just means that they need to work smarter with what they have. And smarter can sometimes mean cutting back on one thing to pay for another, in this case, some PR.

Whether you call it a credit crunch, a recession or a market adjustment, the simple fact of the matter is that some companies are going to go out of business before things return to the boom days that we’ve rather got used to. You know that, I know that and your potential clients know that. That means that hiring a contractor, or specialist, or consultant or whatever becomes just that little bit more risky.  No longer does the client have to balance cost and quality, but they also have to figure in the chances of that contractor/specialist/consultant going bust before the end of the job and leaving them with a half finished project. No-one likes to take unnecessary risks, and in this situation it is on natural for the tendency to ‘buy IBM’* to assert itself.

So what’s a smaller company to do? You’ve done everything that you can to make sure that you can weather the storm, you’ve looked at where you are vulnerable and you’ve taken the steps necessary to lessen the risk. You know you can get the job finished without the risk of going under – as long, that is, as you get the job in the first place.

And this is where some well thought out PR can reap dividends. Get a couple of positive stories into the press and not only do you remind your potential customers that you exist, but that you are thriving in the current climate. Make yourself journalist-friendly and they will start to come to you when they need a comment on a story, rather than waiting for you to come to them. Post news from the business on your own site (or blog) regularly so people can see how you are doing and become the voice of authority in the area of business that you work in, or in just one tiny bit (smaller niches are easier to dominate, after all).

All of these things contribute to creating a picture in your clients mind that you are a company that knows what they are doing, and one that can be relied on to last the distance. It’s not about building egos , it’s about building trust – and that’s as true now it ever was.

*as in that oft repeated phrase “no-one ever got fired for buying IBM” – I’m not suggesting that they’d be any good for the safe demolition of a cooling tower.

Beautiful Tiny Buildings

It should come as no surprise given my love of the wonderful diggers by Elsie Marley that I am also totally smitten by these tiny buildings made from business cards, and wedding invitations.

The story behind the origins of Tiny Buildings is incredibly moving, and gives the buildings a real sense of meaning. But even without that back-story, they are beautiful works of art that would adorn any Christmas tree or table top.

Links
Tiny Buildings

Building Health sign up with Brick PR

Occupational Health specialists Building Health have just become the first name on the Brick PR beloved client list. If you are involved in demolition or tunnelling in the South East then you will probably know of them already, they have an outstanding reputation for providing health screening to the industry, and with their extensive knowledge of the issues that affect construction workers they are fast becoming the obvious choice when it comes to fulfilling the statutory health and safety requirements.

A great company, with a great reputation and a great service that people are required by law to have? That’s just a PR company’s idea of the ideal client.

Links
Building Health

Brick makes Contract Journal

Far be it for me to blow my own trumpet, but Brick PR has already managed a mention in the construction trade press, and that’s before our site is even up and running.

Contract Journal caught wind of the superb digger that we are using on our ‘under construction’ page, and they loved it so much that then stuck it on the back page in their Foreman section. Thanks chaps!

Here are the diggers mentioned (in case you are coming to this page in the future and we’ve got the site up and running) and if you fancy one of your very own then wander over to the maker’s site at elsiemarley.com.

Links
Elsie Marley – maker of toy diggers and other lovely things at etsy
Contract Journal