We're returning strong! In this episode Stella interviews Lucy Hart, Executive Strategy Director at The Romans; the most awarded PR agency in the industry.

Often in PR there can be too much focus on media and not enough on the public. That's why this interview is so inspiring. Lucy talks about her passion for social anthropology and you can tell she means it. Its clear that her deep curiosity in people and the psychology of minds is one of the reasons her agency's campaigns make such an impact.

Lucy explains how The Romans global team work with their clients to make the magic happen. She explains their ideation process and the tools and data that feeds each of their award-winning strategies.

This is a special insight into an agency doing things differently.

Special Guest: Lucy Hart .

Gary is the founder of CoverageBook, AnswerThePublic and the new (free) PR measurement tool ‘CoverageImpact’.

We discuss how the last 15 years of working together in marketing and the last 10 years of Gary being a successful software founder in the PR industry has led to the launch of this new PR tool.

In a time when PR budgets are being cut and in-house teams are admitting its often down to lack of confidence in measurement, Gary believes its time for a step-change in the way the industry showcases PR activity outcomes. He also believes this should be accessible to everyone and not just those that can afford high-level measurement and analytics support...

Could this new free graph-generator tool that showcases PR outcomes be the answer to the PR industry’s biggest problem? Listen this interview and make your decision!

www.CoverageImpact.com

Special Guest: Gary Preston .

In this fascinating podcast chat Steph and I explore why this is; from pivot table and design skills to senior management experience being involved, we delve into what PR measurement needs to be a success in 2024.

Steph Bridgeman is the founder of ‘Experienced Media Analysts’. As well as help many teams win PR measurement and AMEC awards, Steph helps arm agencies and in-house teams with outcome insights that help them prove value and retain and grow PR budgets.

As well as win the awards Steph is also on the board of AMEC (association of measurement and evaluation of communications) so its safe to say, she in totally immersed and in the know on measurement!

She shares her opinion on where we’re at as an industry, but also gets practical on what we can do to improve processes, including;

Providing clear examples of what outputs and outcomes are and the difference between metrics

Exploring the word ‘Impact’ and what should and shouldn’t be included as a metric there

Steph shares how teams should review technology and how to cut out what’s not needed

And finally how to find hidden gems of skills around your organisation that can help analyse and visualise results.

Special Guest: Steph Bridgeman.

I have enlisted the help of PR powerhouse Stephen Waddington to help us do exactly this. So grab a coffee and listen to this 30 minute episode of the PR Resolution to set your 2024 off to the best start possible.

Stephen Waddington (AKA Wadds) is the Founder and Managing Partner of Wadds Inc. which is a professional advisory firm that helps agencies and communications teams with planning, strategic decision making and execution.

He is fully immersed in the UK and Europe PR industry; he's been the President of the CIPR, has held senior positions at global PR and marketing agencies Ketchum and Metia Group. He is the co-founder of Socially Mobile, a not-for-profit PR school and is also a current PhD research student at Leeds Business School investigating the contribution of public relations to management.

It's safe to say Wadds has a clear view on the state of play in Public Relations and what could happen in this year, 2024.

In this interview, we look back at 2023 and how the economy and government decisions affected the industry.

We talk about marketing and PR budgets, how we responded and how agencies were affected.

Wadds talks about the alignment we have as an industry with senior business leaders and the areas that hold us back; including truly understanding business and how PR communicates success. As well as highlight the issues, he also explains what we can do to improve these areas.

Wadds highlights PR talent, diversity and inclusion as an area that did move on slightly in 2023 but also needs a lot of work within teams and as a collective.

As well as some 2024 predictions, our conversation outlines areas of focus that will help you individually and as a team to aim high, better sell success and as an industry raise credibility a more senior level in 2024.

Special Guest: Stephen Waddington.

They talk about FTSE 100 businesses and the lack of PR expertise in executive leadership teams and on boards in the UK.

Alastair and Stella explore the reasons for this; including reputation management being viewed as a ‘when it happens’ scenario right through to senior opinions on the financial value of PR.

Alastair Shares examples of what can happen when PR and reputation isn’t being considered at board level and the risks businesses face financially.

This episode is relevant to PR people in all sectors. It’s full of advice from Alastair and the CIPR on what you and your team can do to raise awareness of the importance of corporate reputation management in your organisation and with your clients.

Together we can raise the profile of PR at a senior level where it belongs.

Special Guest: Alastair McCapra.

In this episode of the PR Resolution Podcast, Stella and Bev discuss a current campaign that is making change; Bev shares how the ‘Stop TUI from profiting from dolphin cruelty’ emerged as an issue, how the content is reaching a wide audience and how the result of audience engagement is encouraging a major corporate to make change to their products.

Bev also shares how her global team works with media. How they have adapted processes to work with modern media change & their dedication to responding to animal news and journalists requests in less than 60minutes.

They cover the campaigns that have made the biggest impact and have helped save animals, the components and how the team measure them, especially when the biggest KPI is often changing international tourist trends.

Bev also shares her insight on the challenging financial climate for charities right now and how World Animal Protection are making efficiencies that all PR teams can take inspiration from.

Special Guest: Bev Boyle.

If your agency finances are feeling like a challenge right now you’re not alone.

Research has confirmed that PR budgets are being reduced. Data gathered in June 2023 from the world’s 100 most powerful communicators (Provoke 100 research) found that there has been a drop in public relations investment in the past 12 months of more than $1bn, from $4.8bn to $3.7bn. 

Although agencies can’t control client budget decisions, there are efficiencies that can be made in how fees are managed and how agency finances are protected.

To help guide you through this tricky time, Stella is joined by agency Chief Finance Officer Simon Collard. With over 30 years experience as an Agency CFO, Simon is an expert as safely guiding agencies to larger margins and consistent profitability, whatever the industry climate may be.

Stella first met Simon at digital PR and marketing agency Propellernet. Alongside a talented management team, Simon lead the agency to triple margin, quadrupled the revenue and generated 10x more profit. All without pressure on staff; the agency won Best Place to work in the UK 8 years running during this period of growth.

In this interview Simon shares his wisdom on;

• Pricing and fees; Should PR be time or value priced? Or should we charge by output and outcome bonuses?
• The importance to demonstrate the problems you are solving for your client, always.
• Resilience; how to build it and where conscious over-servicing fits in.
• ‘Profit vampires’ and how to deal with them.
• Why the profit and loss sheet is a lagging indicator to an agency’s health & noticing negativity in the P&L means it could be too late
• Numbers; The % of revenue you should spend on people, and cost per person
• And the golden key in all agency profitability; time and resourcing and the best ways to manage it.

Special Guest: Simon Collard .

The music artist.

How does the involvement of a track in a PR campaign, advert, or TV show affect the artist?

What does it mean to the target audience?

Can it make or break an artist?

In this episode, Stella Bayles interviews Jelena Grozdanich, director of film and television at Columbia Records to find out.

Jelena explains how, just like brands, artists also have audience objectives & how the right partnership can be very powerful for both parties.

She shares the benefits of working with new artists and how finding a match of niche interest points between both parties can be mutually beneficial as often ‘niche interest points’ = a passionate and very engaged audience.

Jelena explains the changes to her role as the music industry has changed and what she expects to see emerge in the next 5 years.

Whether you’re a music PR or are interested in having music as part of your marketing strategy this episode is for you.

Timestamps
3:44 - Do you have an audience strategy for your artists?
7:29 What kind of difference or impact have you seen by placing an artist on a particular show or a particular game?
10:33 How important do you think it is for a brand and artist to be aligned?
15:27 Use of music on TikTok and Instagram
17:23 How do you measure whether a partnership has been successful?
26:00 Where do you see the industry developing in the next 5 to 10 years?
29:00 What do you do to maintain the work and life balance?

Special Guest: Jelena Grozdanich.

We talk about the moment Martin made his career-defining decision and why he and the charity have never looked back.

We cover the changing media landscape and how Martin’s journalism background and skills have shaped the way his team operate as a newsroom.

Martin shares the Cancer Research UK overall objective and how that flows into his team’s strategy and KPIs.

He also talks about the importance of budget scrutiny in the charity sector and the work his team does in-house in order to make the most of the donations made to Cancer Research

Martin also shares some of their memorable campaigns that PR delivers so well; educating and raising awareness of prevention and treatments to help people live longer and better lives. And ultimately Beat Cancer.

Special Guest: Martin McGlown.

I interview David Fraser, the Founder & Managing Director of Ready10, who are a consumer agency, best known for creative digital PR for the likes of McDonald’s, Paddy Power, Flora and Brewdog. However it's the launch of their for-good arm ‘Ready to Help’ that we cover and specifically their (no-fee) project with Save a Child and Magen David Adom, that saw them helping to evacuate a group of children from Ukraine.

David shares the full account of how one phone call turned into the most complex but rewarding project the agency had worked on

How the whole team (with other clients understanding) pulled together to help Save a Child and Magen David Adom 

How David’s past crisis management experience came into play

And importantly whether it was a success and how the children are now

David also reveals how the agency survived COVID, didn’t accept UK government furlough grants, paid bonuses and managed to carry out this amazing project on zero budget.

This story is an inspiration.

Special Guest: David Fraser.

We delve into the research results including the types of business that see this success, the PR approach needed to gain these results and specifically how important a CEO or founder can be in the process.

This conversation is fascinating, not just because of the correlation the research found between PR and financial funding but because both Darryl and Richard have so much experience in this area of PR work (b2b and reputation) and importantly how to measure it.

Darryl is the MD and Co-Founder of performance-driven marketing and comms consultancy, Hard Numbers.

Richard is the co-managing partner of evaluation firm CARMA. He’s been awarded CIPR President’s medal for his service to PR, he won the AMEC Don Bartholomew Award and of course was also the chair of AMEC between 2016-2022 too.

Together they share wisdom and practical advice from their own experiences throughout the interview.

We cover;

• How they researched 64 startup unicorn businesses & analysed over 65,000 pieces of coverage
• We look at the sectors that have the most potential for funding
• Darryl shares tips on how best to work with busy senior leaders & why a ‘Get to text’ approach is best
• I challenge correlation vs causation in the results and Richard shares brilliant wisdom in how we can all apply these lessons to our own measurement plans.

Special Guests: Darryl Sparey and Richard Bagnall.

I interview global head of data and analytics - Allison Spray alongside PR Agency One MD James Crawford.

James and I co-wrote two chapters in a recent PRCA paper; ‘Data literacy in PR’. We looked at how to use tech to build confidence and improve data use as well as a chapter on how to build a ‘data culture’ in your team. It was the latter chapter that Allison Spray’s team at H&K was noted as a great example of hiring in data expertise alongside training PR practitioners.

In this interview, we go behind the scenes and get into the detail.

I find out how Allison has increased confidence in data across all H&K teams

We reveal the data team’s interesting recruitment process and the mix of skills and sector-specific backgrounds Allison looks for.

Allison and James share how they work with clients to gain the data and tech they need upfront

Allison also shares tips on how to get started, whether you’re a small team looking to up-skill or planning to to build a data team within an agency

Since the H&K data and analytics team has developed and established the agency has won the most amount of awards ever in a year. Coincidence? or does increasing PR confidence in data work? I’ll let you decide…

Special Guest: Allison Spray.

Held in November its the perfect time to learn and refresh your approach ready for new KPIs in a new year.

There are just over 4 weeks of events and content releases from AMEC (Association of Measurement & Evaluation) members and most are available for free to all.

In this special episode of the PR Resolution Podcast I interview the Global Managing Director of AMEC; Johna Burke.

• We share the best of the month and what not to miss!
• Johna explores common PR measurement challenges you might be facing and directs you to the best resource to fix it
• Johna shares the trends in measurement & highlights from AMEC award entries this year

For the full calendar:
https://amecorg.com/measurement-month/measurement-month-2022-events/

For further help on measurement go to:
https://resolution.coveragebook.com/

Special Guest: Johna Burke .

From humble beginnings of group of 14 dads getting together for a play date with their kids, ‘Dad La Soul’ is now a globally recognised Community Interest company that connects over 2.5k dads through art, tech and music events & in turn helps them beat loneliness, and live happy lives.

Dad La Soul attributes a lot of its growth and success down to PR, and specifically their PR & social impact report that has become popular among funders, partner stakeholders and volunteers.

In this podcast interview Dan shares;

• How PR has helped build their network, attract new funding and sign up volunteers
• Why Dad La Soul was recently namechecked in parliament
• How proving social change from PR coverage for non profits and charities is essential
• How a PR report can be adapted into a heavy-hitting social impact report

This podcast is essential-listening for anyone working in-house at agencies specialising in charity, non-profit or community interest movements.

Its has useful tips for anyone targeting parents, and its also definitely an episode for all the dads out there!

Also see:
The measurement webinar: 'How to prove social impact from PR results'


Stella is joined by data analyst and communications measurement expert Kristian Foged to find out how to prove PR efforts contribute to overall charity objectives. Whether you are trying to increase donations, source funding or attract volunteers through PR, this webinar will give you the tools you need to tell your success story. Follow Stella on Twitter @stellabayles

Special Guest: Dan Flanagan .

Links:

• The Dad La Soul social impact report

So, in this episode I catch up with the original founder of our PR tech; Gary Preston to share the details with our listeners first!

We start with our journey; our agency pasts, and the measurement and reporting experiences that led to the birth of CoverageBook.

Gary shares his aims for the second version of the platform; making every PR practitioner ‘an accidental analyst’ and how he hopes confidence in measurement will return with credible metrics and simple reports.

He talks about industry measurement as a whole and compares to his experience in digital marketing. And why some PR software claims of attribution and artificial intelligence is having a negative effect on measurement learning and development.

Yet with the right confidence, he believes by 2023 digital marketing teams will be coming to PR to learn how to showcase and measure their work in a credible way….

Listen now to find out more ;)

Special Guest: Gary Preston .

If you thought using infographics in PR activation had its day, think again. Brian and his team recently helped a NBA player secure a $64million deal by reshaping the way the US media thought about him, all through data visualisation.

It doesn't end there; Now Sourcing only use infographics to secure coverage for their clients on the biggest US news sites every week and they drive awareness, SEO impact and big organisational impact.

I ask Brian to share their secrets; how they win the attention of journalists, how they secure links and what metrics they use in reports that keep client stakeholders wanting more.

I also find out where Brian believes visual comms is going and if PR and SEO still has some relationship building to do...

Special Guest: Brian Wallace.

In this episode I interview Effie Kanyua, the Director of PR & Comms at publisher 'Hearst UK' which includes Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health and Women’s health, media titles many of us sell-in to!

I ask Effie about her journey from agency consumer comms to her in-house role at one of the world's largest publishers and the flip of objectives in helping to grow media, rather than target it.

We discuss;

• How media consumption has changed in the last year
• How Hearst media titles have had to adapt & change business objectives
• What it means to drive readership to media
• The importance of internal comms right now
• And how the Hearst UK PR team measures multi-media PR for a diverse set of stakeholders

Effie’s honesty and insight is fascinating. Whether you work agency or in-house this episode is for you.

As always, let me know what you think @stellabayles on Twitter.

Special Guest: Effie Kanyua .

Hayes Initiative, a certified LGBTQ-owned and operated public affairs firm, was recently recognized with an honorable mention at the 2021 PRWeek Awards for “Best in Public Affairs”. This was for their work with Time's Up, a charity that supports victims of sexual harassment, and specifically those involved in the Harvey Weinstein case.

Anthony has worked with charities, presidential candidates, members of the U.S. Cabinet, governors, elected officials, law enforcement officials, and high-ranking health and legal professionals… It’s safe to say he has experience in high-pressure and controversial comms.

Anthony shares how PR professionals can bring crisis techniques into every strategy and how to ensure we, as an industry, are not known for fake-news or misinformation.

This episode is for everyone in PR.

Special Guest: Anthony Hayes .

It has been an on-going challenge in Public Relations to understand the true volume of people arriving on news sites due to publishers' secrecy on traffic figures. There was further focus on this topic recently, when UK news site, The Guardian reported that The Telegraph online is planning to link journalists’ pay to traffic and popularity of their articles.

So, in this episode, I interview digital communications consultant Andrew Smith on his research into publisher traffic.

We discuss:
-How readers arrive at news stories
-Where the traffic comes from and how they interact on-site
-Publisher traffic growth strategies
-How the ‘pay for views’ model could work and the problems that could come with this
-Traffic and data tools available to journalists and PR people

No matter what country or industry you practise PR in, this episode is relevant to you all.

Special Guest: Andrew Smith .

It’s impossible to influence and change opinion without a full understanding of who you are talking to and how they feel. And with more data available than ever before, where on earth do you begin that kind of research?

Step forward Alex Judd, Alex is the head of Impact and Planning at Clarity PR. Alex is passionate about combining the art of communications with the science of research and data.

In this episode we discuss:
The difference between researching B2B and B2C audiences
What we can learn from advertising audience segmentation
How avoid looking for insight in an echo chamber
How to get buy in from stakeholders
How to get started in you’re an audience insight beginner

Special Guest: Alex Judd .

Brendon shares his experience in setting up and running a completely remote global PR agency, not because of lockdown restrictions but because their ‘PR without borders’ strategy truly engages local markets and delivers the best possible results for clients. 

As we start 2021 with most PR agencies around the world working with pandemic-led restrictions, Craigie shares Tyto’s challenges but also huge successes in serving their global clients with a team of professionals located in 12 countries. 

From team practicalities to VR client meetings, this may just be the PR agency structure of the future.

Stella and Brendon discuss:

• The deeper audience understaning of always leading comms on the ground of the location you're targeting
• The danger of communications existing in an echo chamber
• What technology and processes it takes for a completely remote global PR agency to work
• How Tyto hired, manages and motivates a remote team of comms professionals

Special Guest: Brendon Craigie .

Stella and Sarah explore representation in Public Relations, from an inclusivity perspective on the communicators side but also our responsibility in truly understanding, connecting and relating to the public.

As well as curating the FuturePRoof books, Sarah Waddington is managing director of Astute communications, an agency in the north of England. Sarah also led the CIPR's gender policy for many years, improved social mobility within the UK PR industry and is now on the advisory board of The Blueprint, which is part of BME PR Pro mentoring scheme.

The discussion explores:

• Diversity and representation in Public Relations
• How organisations can attract, retain and nurture diverse talent
• How PR can truly connect and relate to the public
• Ethics in communications & how much responsibility lies with practitioners vs. media and social platforms

Special Guest: Sarah Waddington .

With 20 years' experience working in emergency services communication, Amanda Coleman is the former Head of Corporate Communications for Greater Manchester Police. During that time, Amanda managed the public communications during significant crises including the Manchester Arena terrorist attack in 2017 and riots in 2011. Public feeling insights were key to build the stages of communication.

In this episode Stella and Amanda discuss;

• Why exploring risk is the best crisis preparation

• Understanding how your communication is landing with the public during a crisis and post, in recovery

• Who should be responsible for crisis communications

Crisis comms is now arguably the most important area of PR in 2020. Whether you have your plan in place or just beginning to explore, Amanda’s advice is gold-dust.

Special Guest: Amanda Coleman .

Whether it’s uncertainty, mistrust, frustration or comradery, understanding the way we, the public are feeling has never been so important in Public Relations.

In this episode I speak to Stephen Waddington. Wadds is an advisor and consultant on communications, he has led the CIPR and authored multiple PR books including #BrandVandals, ShareThis and Brand Anarchy.

He has spent over 25 years understanding the public and the most effective way organisations should understand and interact with audiences, build trust and grow by improving techniques and technologies.

Wadds and I discuss:

• How PR has understood target audience
• How to understand the public, and not just the media that influences them
• How it is possible to track public feeling
• Where surveys, social and search listening fits into this

This is the first podcast in a series I’ll be running on public feeling insight. Get in touch with thoughts and ideas @StellaBayles @Wadds

Special Guest: Stephen Waddington.

Share of voice is worked out very differently in Public Relations in comparision to other areas of marketing. This is mainly down to earned, owned and paid media all having different data and what we're allowed access to.

At the end September 2020, Mark Ritson wrote an article for Marketing Week, which pitched why 'share of search' could be a better alternative measure of how popular a brand is among consumers.

When I read the article, it struck me as a more sensible integrated way of looking at marketing success. However, I needed the help an expert to learn more!

In this episode I interview marketing attribution expert, Russell McAthy, founder of Ringside to help us learn more.

We explore:

• What 'share of search' is
• How it considers consumer view over the brand marketing teams!
• How all of the marketing activity affects it
• How PR teams can explore it

If you do PR for a brand that also has lots of owned and paid marketing activity, this episode is for you.

Special Guest: Russell McAthy.

Cole is the author of the best-selling book, ‘storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals’ and, through her courses has helped thousands of people around the world tell better stories with their data, but what does she think about PR data?

In one of my favourite interviews to date, Cole and I explore;

If naturally right-brain people can tell great data stories

We cover the Barcelona Principles 3.0 updates & how it’s possible to communicate outputs & outcomes visually

Why getting to know your report readers is SO important

And why starting with data is actually the wrong place to begin your measurement journey..

Special Guest: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.

It’s been predicted that during the pandemic Amazon has experienced sales of $10,000 every second, day and night!! wow.

Just before the pandemic was announced, I met Jim Hawker, co-founder of agency PR & marketing agency, Threepipe to find out about a new growth area for them; Amazon optimisation.

It’s not a common skill-hire or PR service we talk about in the industry so I was keen to hear more.

In this podcast interview Jim explains why
Threepipe built a whole department just to focus on Amazon activity for their clients

• How their PR tactics adapt in an Amazon strategy
• Why Amazon is the new Google for FMCG brands
• Where brand reputation comes into play in a new way
  
• Why being bold IN TRYING new techniques doesn’t just build your clients business it can build an agency too

This podcast was recorded just before COVID-19 hit in the UK and US, yet the insights Jim shares couldn’t be more relevant right now.

Special Guest: Jim Hawker .

In this episode I interview Shanna Apitz, the Executive Creative Director and head of innovation at Hunt Adkins, a paid media specialist agency in Minnesota.

Having developed her career in the paid media space, Shanna has helped hundreds of US brands grow their business through interactive and integrated campaigns.

I wanted to find out how a leading paid agency approach earned media, where Shanna thinks paid and PR fit in the marketing mix, how the two specialisms should work together, and how powerful an integrated campaign can be for a business.

Special Guest: Shanna Apitz.

Russell has been helping businesses attribute success (often revenue) to various lines of marketing for years. Without his insight into customer behaviour, millions in marketing budgets are likely to have been misspent.

The term 'attribution' has come up a lot recently in PR recently so, I wanted to get back to basics. Russell and I cover what 'attribution' means, how PR fits into overall marketing evaluation and how you can talk about it to your stakeholders.

Russell also tells me about how an update to cookie data happening in February 2020, that is going to make a MASSIVE difference to PR and paid, and we all need to know about it!

Get ready to learn.

Special Guest: Russell McAthy.

That was until I interviewed Rich Leigh and Will Roberts at Radioactve Talent in December 2019. After that meeting, the marketing mix completely made sense!

I went to their office to find out how they're bringing years of influencer and publisher knowledge from PR and merging it with Will’s expertise in online affiliate and revenue share deals.

If you haven't heard of affiliates before, don't worry. The guys explain exactly how the process works for agencies, brands and influencers.

Rich also also explains why, as a PR agency founder he is branching into this new growth area and why it's making their current clients very happy.

In this episode, I interview Jerrid Grimm, co-founder of Pressboard on an emerging area of marketing where PR meets paid and editorial stories can be boosted to a bigger audience.

Listen to find out how.

Special Guest: Jerrid Grimm.

In this episode, Stella interviews Danny on the development of TV and online video consumption, the change in brand involvement and how audience engagement is leading the change.

Special Guest: Danny Bell .

Katie shares her thoughts on why impressions are a misleading metric in reports and how PR teams can attribute organisational goals to social activity.

If social media is part of your campaigns this year, this episode is gold-dust.

Special Guest: Katie Paine .

In this episode, Steve shares how he and his and co-founder Gary’s experiences in the PR industry led to their decision to create Talker Tailor and how they have poured their learnings and experiences (good and bad) into the operation.

Steve shares his views on diversity in Public Relations and why its essential to build freedom into a team.

He also speaks candidly about where Talker Tailor is at now and where he and Gary aim to take the agency in the future.

If you’re looking for an insight into modern PR, want to hear some very real language and a have good laugh, listen now!

Special Guest: Steve Strickland.

Coming from a traditional PR background and now working in software whilst consultaing agencies, Iliyana is an expert in the techniques of Inbound PR. She believes this is more powerful for brands than traditional proctive media relations programs and

In this episode, Stella finds out about Iliyana's journey, why 'Inbound' can be powerful for brands, what activity it involves, how we talk about it and measure success.

Special Guest: Iliyana Stareva.