News & Opinion

By Chris Huppertz, Vice President, Communications   Data. It’s everywhere. It’s around us, between us, connecting us. And with each passing day, the amount of data generated increases exponentially. IBM, for example, says that 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years – that’s 2.5 quintillion bytes of data a day! But until recently we haven’t done a great job of monitoring it, let alone knowing what to do once we have. That’s especially true in PR, where many will call it quits once they’ve gathered a few basic stats like story counts and potential impressions. Be warned: change is coming. In fact, it’s already here. The lines between PR, Marketing, and data-scientist are quickly blurring. And whether you’re a seasoned PR pro or a budding star, just understanding data will no longer cut it. To be a compelling storyteller, you need to know how to use data. How to create data. And how to make data talk. In fact, I would say that data should be the golden arrow in every PR pro’s quiver.So what do I do with data, you ask? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for what data can do for you. But there are a few places every communications professional should look before kicking off their next campaign: Reporting (more than just coverage) One of the easiest – but often overlooked – ways to show off your fancy data skills is in your reporting. Here, the data you gather is just as important as the story you tell with it. I think everyone reports on the number of story placements they’ve secured – but what does this really mean for your client’s bottom line? If coverage volume is only concern, then simply counting stories might be adequate. But looking deeper, you’ll likely uncover trends in what stories and pitches working best, which outlets cover you’re the most, if your message is sticking and what needs improvement. Tell your story with #s Anyone can say they’re the “leader in ________”… but how do they back it up? Data is the key to substantiating a claim – but it also helps paint a bigger, more meaningful picture. Or it can paint different picture altogether. The important thing is that your data (and claims) have been properly researched and are intellectually defensible. The last thing you want is to lose credibility or be perceived as disingenuous. Create your own news In today’s internet-connected, tech-driven world, almost every company is sitting on a goldmine of proprietary data. And it’s just waiting for a PR savant to tap into it. When facing a lull in hard news, consider exploring your data for new trends or insights to pitch media. For example, maybe you have a trove of info on purchasing behavior, device usage or consumer frustrations. A quarterly data dump can position your executives as true experts and thought leaders in their field. And if you don’t have data already, you can always generate some at a nominal cost by creating your own consumer survey. Comment on others’ news Rather than creating a news story of your own, consider using your data – and expert opinion – to weigh in on others’. We’ve had tremendous success positioning our clients as authorities in their fields – it just requires a unique and relevant data point, and a compelling point of view to explain what it means. Have some thoughts on Facebook’s new feature? Have some data that relates? Pitch it to the folks who cover Facebook most, and soon you’ll become the go-to source for any Facebook related commentary. PR is changing… and that’s a good thing. But don’t get left behind in the days when press releases were physically mailed, or when social media was “just for kids.” Let data be your secret weapon to a winning strategy and you’ll soon become a more compelling storyteller.

By Roxanne Leone, Director, Marketing & Communications You can either work at developing a company’s culture, or leave it evolve on its own. The problem with allowing culture to take its own course is that it can go drastically off course!In my experience, a positive culture always stems from leadership. At Bob Gold & Associates, a boutique-sized PR and marketing agency, we have leadership demonstrate our values through action rather than words. In fact, our company’s culture has earned us the honor of being names in the Work Culture List for Community Connections by Cablefax. Our fearless leader is Bob Gold. He sets the tone for the agency and when he’s smiling, we’re smiling. Aside from being the PR guru that he is, he’s the individual that sets process and policy to stay on course. Yet, he also makes unique perks available to build camaraderie. The office opens at 8:30am and after servicing our clients’ immediate needs, distributing news releases, and screening high-priority emails, the staff meets in the lounge at around 9:30am for our ‘productivity’ walk. The office line is forwarded to a mobile phone, and we are off on a quick jaunt to Peet’s Coffee just two blocks from the office and the beach. There’s no better way to demonstrate respect for your colleagues than by being a good listener, helping problem solve a client issue or discussing a new biz opportunity, and it’s an expense that hits the BG&A tab!Our VP, Communications, Chris Huppertz, has ownership of hiring, training and mentoring employees. Huppertz has been able to build trusting relationships with our team, has formalized training, and created an environment where collaboration and teamwork are crucial for success. To keep our creative juices flowing, one of his favorite team-building initiatives was hitting the beach for some sun and bodysurfing. Huppertz is an amazing role model and was the recipient of both a Bulldog Award and PR News Rising PR Star Award.At Bob Gold & Associates we all share a growth mindset. We invest in nurturing our team members personally and professionally, so we’re able to pull together our unique talents and deliver impressive results for our clients while sharing some laughs. After spending countless years in corporate communications roles for Fortune 500 companies, I can tell you this - don’t hire an agency, hire a culture. Understanding our core values including collaboration, innovation and proactivity will help you gauge what kind of partnership we will have.

World Wrestling Entertainment was my entire world as an adolescent. Little did I know then that I was learning invaluable lessons that would prepare me for my future career in PR.   Growing up attending a Catholic grade school, I was always told pro-wrestling is a sin and the staff urged parents not to let us watch. In fact, our teachers once thought they could eradicate our fascination with wrestling by informing us it wasn't real. Au contraire… we would incorporate the storylines during morning prayer. "My cousin Steve (Austin) was hit by a car recently, and I just want to ask that he have a speedy recovery." Pretty soon we all had a cousin “Steve.” Luckily the teachers never caught on – they just thought our families had horrible luck.   At the time, I didn’t think that watching wrestling would prepare me for the business world, but after working with our client, Anthem Sports & Entertainment, which owns Impact Wrestling, it’s clear to me that I’ve been applying lessons learned long ago.   Although the action-packed fights, larger-than-life personas and drama-filled storylines aren’t real, the lessons learned, however, are practical. Here are the top three lessons I learned from watching WWE that have helped me in my public relations career. Be prepared to accept failure (and grow from it) My first phone pitch was a failure. The reporter asked me a minor detail about the client I was pitching him and I stumbled…badly. The reporter smelled blood and told me if I can’t explain the value to his readers in 30 seconds or less, why was I wasting his time by pitching him. Instead of letting this experience bring me down, it drove me to come in well prepared for all future calls. Adapt or perish Like a wrestling match, working in PR requires you to react quickly and confidently, otherwise you’ll get knocked down. One of the first media interviews I set up for a client wasn’t going as well as planned – the reporter was going off topic, asking hard-hitting questions that the client clearly didn’t anticipate, and I had to react quickly to pivot the conversation, highlighting recent wins in order to keep the conversation positive. It takes teamwork to make the dream work Working in a collaborative workspace is very similar to tag-team wrestling because no matter what kind of beating work hands you, there’s always someone in your corner to have your back. For example, I was recently tasked with compiling a dense report on a very quick turnaround.  Although the task was daunting and somewhat overwhelming on my own, my colleague had my back and not only assisted with the report, but also gave me tips to speed up the process while improving the quality.   These three life lessons have shaped me into the professional that I am today. Professional wrestling is more than just oiled up actors wearing speedos in a reality-tv drama fake-fighting in a ring. It's a way of life and taught me very “IMPACT-ful” lessons along the way.    

Bob Gold & Associates (BG&A) is a results-driven, boutique-sized agency headquartered in Southern California with a trusted global PR network supporting international campaigns. The BG&A team specializes in public relations and digital media to craft persuasive communication strategies that ensure your message is delivered accurately, at the right place, at the right time. With more than a 20-year history of relationship-building, our agency brings instant credibility to your business and provides unparalleled services to tell your story and generate results that you’ll be proud of. Whether you are a start-up, Fortune 500 firm, or content creator, we will enhance your unique brand story and secure more buzz for your budget. BG&A is proud to announce that we have been named by Clutch as the 4th best crisis communications PR firms and 3rd boutique PR firms in the Industry. These rankings come from their 2019 report in which they featured only the highest performing companies on their platform. Clutch is a B2B ratings and reviews firm that ranks companies according to a number of criteria including how well they’re reviewed by their past clients, market share, and ability to deliver. The web platform at Cluch.co is intended to allow users to see how businesses and solutions compare in a specific market and discover industry insights from thought leaders. This recognition carries a heavy weight, as we have achieved a position in the top 15 firms out of over 800 on each list, thus placing us on the Clutch leader’s matrix. The leader’s matrix is based off of a company’s ability to deliver and industry focus. Ability to Deliver includes the company's client reviews, past work, market presence, and prestigious awards. Focus is a company's level of specialization in a given service. Of all the methods used to evaluate a company, Clutch places the most emphasis on conducting verified interviews with former clients. These reviews take place over the phone to ensure the integrity and honesty of responses. Once the clients share their feedback, Clutch Analysts compile the information into a clear and concise fashion and then publish the review to the company’s profile page. This type of feedback helps our team identify what our clients appreciate most about our work, or in other words, what practices we should continue in our daily processes; and what behavior needs improvement. Our reviews have been positive so far; however, we are excited to see what our clients will share with us in the future and are eager to improve our methodologies. Our team is thankful to have a platform like Clutch to help promote our business and convey our competence and honestly to potential clients. We’re excited to receive more constructive feedback with every subsequent review published on Clutch and our team will continue to operate with complete transparency to ensure your success!  

Public relations is a cost-effective way to bring awareness to a brand and insert key voices into industry-shaping conversations. This can be invaluable, especially for startups or smaller-sized operations that may have less capital. However, success cannot be achieved with a cookie-cutter methodology. Instead, it requires creativity and constant momentum; otherwise, you might find yourself treading water with wasted wire distributions and misplaced news.   To help you tap into your full potential and build momentum, here are some tips to ensure an effective PR strategy: Make the most of your news: If you have ground-breaking news, great! Additionally, it’s also ok to praise newly appointed associates and promote a solid company culture with news releases, but these types of announcements should be augmented by tying them into key messaging, themes and objectives to make the biggest impact. The idea is to create engaging content while tying in your key messages, so they relate to your target audience’s interests. Pitch your news: If you want attention for your brand, it’s not enough to post news solely on your company blog or social media. Make sure you’re distributing news to the proper media channels. Stories such as a new client, a fresh case studies, or even just a product update can be of interest to the right journalist. Find the right journalists: Unless you’re Google, Amazon, Facebook or a similar giant in your industry, posting on the wire alone won’t get you beyond the “press release” feed of local broadcast station landing pages. To ensure your news is seen – and covered – it’s critical that you directly engage with the key journalists covering your industry. Simply reading the news, and knowing who is saying what, will help you find the most appropriate journalists and guide you into the right conversation. Synergize PR & marketing: Marketing content like a white paper, byline or case study can create useful website and social copy and help PR secure coverage at the same time. Therefore, it pays to have your marketing and PR teams operating in sync, so everything comes together, your company news is fresh to reporters and your messaging reaches a broad audience. Leverage original data: Reporters can’t get enough data, and if it’s exclusive, it’s that much more newsworthy. If you don’t have your own in-house generated data, use a platform like Google Survey or SurveyMonkey to generate new data. This could place your company at the epicenter of a developing conversation, and you may see your name quoted a lot in citations.    Developing an innovative product or service is not enough. You must find a way to communicate to the public and maintain momentum. Follow these tips to develop a well-rounded PR program, and if you don’t see the success you think you deserve, reach out to a reputable PR agency, such as BG&A, to leverage industry connections.  

By Roxanne Leone, Director Marketing & Communications   Mentoring is a two way street. If you’ve already made your decision to become a mentor to a college student, a new employee or other aspiring professional, I would recommend you put yourself in their shoes to ensure you are filling their needs as well as your own. I’ve chosen the top 5 tips that helped my mentor and I be successful and grow my career. Assess your own skills. Identify your skillset and which skills you feel your mentee would benefit most from. You don’t need to have experience with every skill your mentor may need – or want – but you must be willing to grow and learn with them. Take time to analyze how you started in your own career and document the guidance that you found the most, and least, helpful to you as you moved up the corporate ladder. Set goals jointly.  It might seem like a small task, but setting up the logistics of when, where and how often you’ll connect is very important. My mentor put the needs of his sales department first, as most VP’s do, so our mentoring time was set weekly between 5:30-7:00 pm after sales were closed out for the day. Set expectations for the mentoring relationship from the get-go. By understanding your mentee's goals will show your commitment to the relationship and his or her professional development. A goal may be narrow in focus or on overall career progression. For me, it was critical to get more comfortable in front of an audience. By being a more effective communicator I could strengthen my leadership skillset. I joined Toastmasters International, a local public speaking club, during evening hours and my mentor, also my manager, planned all of my corporate presentations first thing in the morning to lower my anxiety. I spent 2 years in the program and then became the founding member of a club within our own organization. Listen I’ve seen mentors so excited to help a mentee that they make decisions for the individual instead of listening to what they want. Sure it’s a difficult ask, but do your best to stop what you’re working on, focus and listen. And if you can meet outside your office and in a common area like a conference room that may work out best. The more you listen, the more you discover and your colleague may just surprise you. My mentor chose to mentor me after we attended an industry trade show. He said his issue with me was that I was all business. But after a week on the road getting to know me on a personal level he felt I had the creativity, confidence and passion to drive my success. Be professional. Trust and respect is of the utmost of importance to any professional relationship. It’s also critical to make your mentee feel safe and that what you choose to discuss will remain confidential. Both of you should have the comfort level to have dialogue to work through issues without passing judgement. With my mentor’s 30 years of experience in the industry I was new to, he served as a role model with very high standards for professionalism in the workplace. I was also the second women to join a team of 30 white men. One of his management goals was diversity and inclusion and growing our staff to include more women and people of color. Share your network. I think one of the most valuable things you can pass on to your mentee is your professional network. People across the globe are expected to communicate and build camaraderie to get the job done, and done well. Working on a professional network takes years of practice and is always ongoing. To prepare your mentee for the long road ahead, introduce your mentee to relevant contacts that can be valuable resources for them today or in the future. In addition, ensure your mentee participates in professional development programs such as the Intrapreneurship Academy (IA) to strengthen leadership skills and grow their network. The Cable Center’s IA Program has a robust training program suitable for people in the cable industry or any technology industry driving innovation. One of the most worthwhile networking opportunities offered to me was managing my VP’s public relations interviews with the trade media. I was able to plan and attend speaking opportunities, professional meetings with the press, meals with high-level colleagues, customers and partners. Keep your mentee’s interest at heart through laser-focused attention on opening doors of opportunity.

With a simple Google search, any PR professional can find dozens of listicles, recommendations and tactics on how to successfully pitch a story to the media. So, why do most editors still say ALL the pitches they receive are bad, not useful, or an embarrassing display of awkward transitions? If you’re having a difficult time earning coverage for yourself, a client or a brand, it’s time to buckle down and commit to the following five core principals of pitching. If you do, you’ll improve your chances of earning the respect, attention and, most importantly, interest from reporters. Know your audience. We all know each reporter covers a different topic or “beat.” So, doesn’t it make sense to read their previous stories for an indication of whether they might be the right person to cover your story? Yes. The answer is yes. Give your story a chance to be heard by taking the necessary time to find the right people to pitch. And when you do, try incorporating a ready-to-use quote or stat to make things easier for the reporter, while proving you’re a valuable source. Pitch like a human. This is what separates us PR professionals from the animals…I mean robots. Machines can blast generic emails to media lists, but you? You’re better than that. Your pitch needs to be personalized to individual editors and publications as if…here me out…it didn’t come from an automated platform. Less is more. It’s time to parlay Marie Kondo’s method into your pitch writing. De-clutter your pitches and aim for one to two paragraphs. Be short, straight forward, and show value. Writers, editors and producers are generally so busy that the less information they must read, the better the chances that they’ll read it. Make sure to answer these two questions: What is exciting about this story, and how is it relevant to the readers of this publication? Do NOT attach. If you’re sending pitches with attachments and wondering why you hear crickets afterwards, it’s probably because your pitch ended up deep within the confines of a junk or spam folder. However, reporters love visuals, so be sure to provide multimedia elements by including a link to view or download them. For Pete’s sake, pick up the phone. Following up on a media pitch is as important as sending it in the first place. When I first begun pitching, I made follow-up phone calls a priority and guess what happened? I was able to build more personal relationships with reporters who later became future core contacts for entirely different clients. Just make sure to start the call by asking if it’s an OK time to talk – this shows you understand deadlines and respect their time. Follow these five principals and you’ll be pitching like a pro and building meaningful relationships in no time. Now repeat after me: “I shall not be flagged as spam once more,” and repeat.

In its annual 2019 report, Clutch selected more than 560 agencies as leaders across a variety of marketing and creative categories based on the companies’ thought leadership, the quality and breadth of their services, and their ability to deliver results to diverse clientele. Bob Gold & Associates ranks: #1 Crisis Communications #2 Boutique PR Agency#3 Online Reputation Management#4 Corporate CommunicationsView listing here.

By Roxanne Leone, Director, Marketing & Communications I’ve been a marketer for over 20 years…and in my opinion only a select few of former employers have managed headcount optimally. Therefore, I’d like to share one piece of advice that helped me along the way: align yourself with top performers across the entire organization. It’s the key to shortening campaign timelines and driving success. As a marketer or communications professional, you may agree that your role becomes critical only after other departments such as engineering deliver first -- like sharing new product benefits and specifications for you to develop promotional materials. Depending on others can mean days, weeks or months of waiting for assets, and by the time they arrive, you’re already expected to have results in hand. Whether you’re flying solo, or leading a small team, bandwidth is likely your greatest challenge… but it doesn’t have to be.I overcame bandwidth constraints by building camaraderie with colleagues across the entire organization that most resembled my perfectionist-like working style. As Morten Hansen documented in his best-selling book, Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More the people that outperform their colleagues are those that Do Less, Then Obsess. Based on his research, these people are able to set a few key priorities and do them exceptionally well.I agree with Hansen’s research and always kept my priorities in check. So, whether I was tasked to lead a new product launch or secure attendees for a special event, I knew that when I didn’t have my own staff, I would have to broaden my reach. Until I could build a case for new headcount, I nurtured long-lasting relationships with these individuals. I counted on my extended team to shorten my marketing timelines as they related to sales materials, advertising, website development, and media relations. By working diligently through this process I realized that securing headcount was not as critical as I had thought. By building relationships with mission-driven colleagues I was able to push off the immediate need for staffing, secure budget to grow the business and work my way up the corporate ladder.