Monday, January 24, 2011

A Recipe for Success - Make Your Own News

Any company working with a public relations agency knows that keeping your name consistently on the minds of reporters and editors is a vital part of scoring meaningful media placements.

Despite technological advances, PR is still a relationship business. PR pros follow up with phone calls and emails, and are almost like ambassadors for various companies and organizations, getting the media to essentially like who you are and what you do. A good PR person ensures that in times of breaking news, your company is who that reporter thinks of first when they need a comment, a photo or video footage to complement their story angle.

But in times when you don’t have a new product, service or event to promote, PR pros serve as the idea factory you need to create news where it seems none exists. Here are two examples of creating news where CMA has been successful in the past.

Operation Kill-A-Watt (OKW)
CMA collaborated with client Public Energy Solutions, an energy services company that performs energy audits and lighting retrofits in the tri-state area, to create this initiative subsidized by Con Edison. In certain zip codes of New York City, building owners were eligible to receive free Compact Florescent Lamp (CFL) upgrades, ultimately lowering the strain on the city’s power grid and saving owners hundreds of dollars in energy costs. The public relations program to raise OKW awareness reached over 5 million New Yorkers and resulted in nearly 20,000 building upgrades over the course of two years.


Member Advocacy Initiatives
The National Association of Independent Broker/Dealers (NAIBD) is composed of the Main Street broker/dealers who are most likely to help the aging boomer plan for retirement than interact with the high stakes investments of Wall Street. New regulations from the government threatened to lump NAIBD members in with Wall Street big-wigs and unfairly label them as potential Madoff-like threats. Before the regulations were finalized, CMA worked with NAIBD’s Member Advocacy Committee to create a stir within the financial media to publicize the association’s proactive quest to include revisions to the law (what is now the Dodd-Frank Act). The governing bodies now have discretion over broker/dealer audits before initiating them – helping to save members thousands in unnecessary audit fees. In this case, the “squeaky wheel” got the attention it needed to effect change through the power of the financial industry media.

A few other initiatives are currently in the works for CMA clients. How can we help you raise awareness for your company or organization through PR?

Kaitlin Friedmann
PR Manager
kfriedmann@cmasolutions.com

Monday, January 10, 2011

Getting Online on Time


An active and accurate web presence is essential in today’s market place. CMA’s website development team recently worked with the International Vitamin Corporation (IVC), a global private label and contract manufacturing company producing vitamins, minerals and supplements, to get their website up and running quickly.

Formerly a nutritional supplement division of a larger company, IVC found itself without a website after the division was spun off on its own. The leadership at IVC turned to CMA to develop the design, content, and programming for their new website.

The site (http://www.ivcinc.com/) was developed for ease of navigation and new brand design. The contemporary design utilizes white-space accented by images of health, wellness and nature. The copy stresses the company’s comprehensive concept-to-commercialization capabilities including its true integrated supply chain of global partners supplying raw materials for IVC contract and private label projects for national pharmacy chains and big box home stores.

CMA worked within a tight deadline to get the website up and running. Both the design and content helped the newly independent company define itself in the industry.

The result was a website that the company’s sales team could use as a business development tool to grow the company.