Illuminate Communications | PR Company
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New client! Clayton Littlewood
New client news for April 2012:
We are going to be working with Clayton Littlewood and help proudly launch his second book 'Goodbye to Soho' which is out from 10 May 2012. More about this soon.
Top Tips on winning PR pitches
PR Moment asked me why some people consistently win pitches - are they just lucky? Here's what I said, featured alongside some excellent tips from the larger agencies too...
http://prmoment.com/963/some-top-tips-on-winning-PR-new-business-pitches.aspx
Helen - 15 March 2012
Thank you to my PR clients
A warm thank you from Illuminate Communications to my clients past and present...
...Why?
Well I've been voted by my clients as one of the top 50 freelancers in the UK in a poll by The Drum magazine: http://www.thedrum.co.uk/
The list appears in print later this month. I really appreciate this, it means a lot.
I aim to expand my PR business within the next year and this kind of recommendation is a great boost to me and the company.
Helen xx
13 March 2012
The Secret Box
One of the most inspiring aspects of having your own company is sharing ideas with other entrepreneurs.
A welcome visit today, incidentally on International Womens Day, was from Lynn Collett who is a successful female business owner at 'The Secret Garden Team'.
In the process I received a beautiful rustic box full of seasonal plants. It totally made my day and we discussed the opportunities around this beautiful miniature garden which can be updated for the recipient by professional gardeners as a perpetual gift.
The Secret Box brings her team's gardening skills to those with and without gardens and because it is replenished by the team is does not lose its lustre as the seasons change. I am very optimistic about the future of this little box and look forward to hearing more ideas from Lynn and other friends with businesses as we all continue to grow our companies.
Helen [tweeting at: @helenjbeckett]
8 March 2012
The Shy Connector
Even the most confident of us have off days. I love this set of slides about being a 'shy connector' for two reasons:
1) The hand-drawn style and tone of voice is a refreshing change from the slides we see in most offices. Instead of 'switching off' I wanted to see the next slide because it doesn't feel like work
2) The message is not just relevant to shy people, the idea of making it 'easy for strangers to talk to you' is much better way of networking than being the shouty person in the room:
3 year celebrations and very much open for business
At Illuminate Communications we celebrated our 3rd birthday last month and signed a new client, Netcopy. Over the last 3 years we've worked with some great freelancers and really interesting technology, financial and charity clients across private, public and third sector. At the moment we are actively looking for a charity client or two - definitely missing the aroma of Ecover washing up liquid and fairtrade tea in the charity clients' offices.
We've always found that having a balance of clients across the sectors is a happy mix. Do feel free to get in touch if you have a charity project needing some PR advice. At the moment we don't have capacity to work pro bono on charity PR but we do offer reduced rates for charities so please don't be shy to ask.
Helen, 27 Feb, 2012
Comment over on my Twitter account @helenjbeckett OR email me helen@illuminatecomms.com
Welcome, come in, take your shoes off and have a cuppa
So welcome to my new site.
I'll put the kettle on. What music shall we listen to?
While I'm doing that, have a think about this:
I've been working for myself for 2 yrs and I'd love to talk to others who are doing the same. I'm looking to create an informal group of people who can help each other out with projects, motivation and have some fun too. I'm currently reading this crazy book called 'the brand you 50' by Tom Peters. It's full of all these motivational ideas, (very american but actually rather good) hence my inspiration.
If you'd like to meet up either virtually or in real life do get in touch or join the Freelance PRs facebook group I've started.
Speak soon,
Helen
A time to think…
I recently moved house and took several weeks off work to painstakingly pack many years worth of my own and (mostly) my partner’s belongings into various boxes and containers. The last night of packing became rather hectic when the washing machine flooded the kitchen and by the time we arrived in our new place, neither of us had had any sleep for two days. It culminated in such a stressful bank holiday weekend exchange with the estate agents that I was glad to return to work and to my clients’ offices on the Tuesday morning.
When I arrived home, my partner who had taken the day off work was looking very serene on the sofa and everything in the house, including the full boxes, was exactly how I had left it.
“What did you do today?” I politely asked, restraining myself from mentioning that nothing was unpacked.
“I was thinking.” He announced, very proudly. I dare not ask what about.
While this may seem like a very exasperating experience, it occurred to me how rarely most of us set aside time to think. I didn’t used to set much time aside until I was lucky to have a boss who encouraged me to stop and think about particular challenges and issues facing the team I was running. She’d be pleased if I went for a stroll or worked from home when I needed to plan and never chained me to a desk to do so. It really helped me, even if it did take me a while to get used to doing this without guilt. Where does the guilt come from? Is it because we associate working with running around noisily or sending lots of emails, writing lengthy reports and hammering the phones? And how do you quantify how long it takes to come up with a good idea or solution? Is ‘thinking’ just an excuse (by some) for being a slacker, thus spoiling it for all of us?
One of the services I offer to my clients is facilitating brainstorms and ideas sessions with groups who want to spend some time thinking. We play games and do structured exercises to encourage creativity around a particular theme. Not only do we come up with good ideas on the day but we give ourselves ‘permission’ to think and encourage participants to hold regular sessions in the future, keeping the momentum up and the ideas flowing.
If you have a particular challenge facing your team, which a creative ideas session could possibly solve, then don’t hesitate to give me a shout. If you have the solution to a boyfriend who won’t unpack the boxes then please tell me quietly… I may build it into future workshops.
Don’t let them burn..
The phrase ‘never burn bridges’ is good advice and I have been surprised to ‘re-meet’ people I know in different circumstances as life unfolds. Particularly in the current economic climate not only are my contacts popping up in different types of roles than before but they are also getting back in touch, both professionally and personally. And in my non-work life I have even been lucky enough to attend the wedding party of a very dear ex-boyfriend who has married a fantastic woman. Re-meeting friends there was a peculiar feeling – like the film Back to the Future.
So, how do you ensure you meet and stay in touch with ‘the right’ people? I have previously read advice on networking that advises you to seek out the ‘useful’ contacts at events and move on quickly from those who talk for too long or who are not well-connected. This is all very well when you read it on a website or in a book and ok when you are in control but what if you find people doing it to you? I have had this experience for the first time this year and I would advise never to visibly snub someone at an event – it feels extremely bad…
It has happened to me this year because my partner is ‘somebody’ in the media. Instead of being the confident PR expert networker I am now often a ‘plus-one’ at a variety of fun events. This is great but unfamiliar and I find myself being snubbed by women and spoken to rudely by men who do not even ask what I do. I have been asked if I’m ‘just there for the food’, I have been ignored entirely and people have spoken to my partner as if I’m invisible or worse have made rude comments about our age difference. I can tell you it doesn’t feel good. I love networking in my own right and it comes naturally, but being a ‘plus-one’ is new and uncomfortable to me. I need to learn to use it as an opportunity and not be offended when people grab my partner’s business card and either do not take mine or do not offer their own.
However I have renewed my appetite for meeting new faces after a recent event. I was lucky enough to attend the first BBC Proms concert this year as the aformentioned ‘plus-one’. As described above, many people I spoke to at the reception were visibly more interested in getting my partner’s business card than mine. Having suffered 3 women grabbing my partner’s card and snubbing mine we made our way to the concert in the Royal Albert Hall. I clumsily walked backwards into a very tall man, as I made space for people to step into the row we were on the end of. ‘Oh Hello! How are you?’ Said the tall man, smiling at me… It was the Director General of the BBC. Would I have remembered me if I was him from my days at the charity Media Trust at which he was/is on the board? Maybe not but I admire him for remembering me and it renewed my appetite for networking and for remembering those who I may not immediately think of as ‘useful’. Tonight I am lucky to be attending a film premiere for a new action movie, not immediately a source of new clients but you never know. Now all I need to think about is what to wear…
Navigation and new beginnings
I’ve recently moved house and have been navigating the local area by foot, bike and car. I’ve figured out the good places to buy fresh meat, get my hair cut, have a pint. Also identified where the pleasant walks are and have said hello to a few of the neighbours. (As it’s not in London some people have even said hello back and been kind enough to share their supplies of recycling bags). I even received a free box of slightly unpleasant tasting tropical flavoured Fanta and a bottle of powdered milk from the Post Office as a moving in gift (all you need for a fun night in apparently).
This moving has led me to thinking about how to get the best from a new move, especially a new job. Where appropriate I’ve always begun a new PR job by sending out an email to my close contacts to tell them of my move (as I did last week to my mates in reference to my domestic move). I’ve found that the responses and encouragement have opened opportunities for conversations about the new client, led to useful meetings and enabled some ‘quick wins’ which reassure both the client and you as the newbie. Where appropriate it’s handy to send out an informal media release about your move, of course with the permission of the relevant people.
If you relocate to an office where there is no formal induction it’s still worth setting up a series of short coffee meetings with colleagues in different departments and, where possible, grabbing the chance to stand up in front of the department or company to say a bit about yourself before you lose the excuse of being new.
What else? It’s handy to find something about yourself to help people easily remember you, whether it’s because you bring in cakes on your first day, make a good cuppa or help someone out who is drowning in photocopying. Don’t let yourself be remembered for getting horrifically drunk at the end of your first week or for wearing the most revealing outfits…
Managing your own internal PR can be the foundations for a successful career move and make work a lot more motivating. It’s usually a nerve-racking time, so try and ring a good friend or former colleague the night before your first day and get them to remind you of some of your big PR successes in the recent past, which will help remind you that you absolutely can do this and wow everyone with your skills. Which you will.
New York presentation by www.illuminatecommunications.co.uk
I recently presented to New York students (in London) on UK public sector PR. We looked at how to communicate when your audience is everyone. I’ll post up some of the key points below. My biggest challenge was talking to an audience from a country which I have never done PR in and who know little about our PR and our public sector. It was a long but fun 2 and a half hours… lots of two-way conversations and practical exercises.
How to Eat an Elephant: communicating when your audience is everyone (In this case ‘UK residents’)
- Do be realistic about expectations
- Do focus on the highest possible circulation (eg national news)
- Do segment your work into themes and audiences eg: motoring or women’s press; we targeted agony aunts with great success
- Do plan ahead 6mths or 12mths
- Do work with other departments to share/reuse/recycle info and ideas
- Do be innovative and don’t be discouraged
- Don’t forget to do your research:
what works? what customer research already exists?
- Don’t forget who your customer is (and undertake or refer back to stakeholder research)
- Don’t be afraid to piggyback on other people’s stories
- Don’t get sidetracked but DO be flexible
- Don’t allow tedious sign-off procedures to get in the way of creativity and big ideas
- Be accountable…keep your communications trails
- Be aware of data protection laws, propriety rules and guidelines (eg purdah) and procurement processes
- Factor in lengthy sign-off times
- Check all your facts…twice
These are some of the key points from our discussions. Someone pointed out that ‘purdah’ may be offensive to some people as it has religious meaning but I have not yet found another word to describe the period between when the election is called and election day, during which external communications almost shut down. If anyone has another word let me know and I’ll update future presentations.
HJB
How to write a pitch
A friend recently asked me how to write a PR pitch and so I started jotting down some notes. This is a quick ‘PR by numbers’ but of course the best pitches and projects are those that are not formulaic. Therefore, feel free to take these notes as a starting point if useful and then try to turn your pitch into something altogether different and new.
1) Where are you now?
Media audit – look at coverage and opinions also look at customer
research if available
Also look at current positioning statements and key messages
2) Where do you want to be?
This is a chance to re-iterate the brief and consider what success
would look like, you may wish to use examples of campaigns you admire
3) How do you get there?
Plot out your tactics, actions, timescale and creative ideas such as:
- Journalist contact
- Stunts
- Photography ideas
- Social media
- Celebrity endorsement
- Partnerships with media company or other commercial or charity partners
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Business-to-business profiles – including forward features
- Feature ideas for consumer publications
- Case studies
- Advertorials (if relevant although I’m personally not a big fan of them : ) )
- Research ideas including detailed reports as well as quick YouGov
type of research
- New launches eg products or new initiatives
- Statements from senior members of the organisation that set out a
new ideas and thought leadership
4) EVALUATION – how will you do this?
5) Costs
6) Timescale
7) Any questions?
Try not to use too many slides and be able to explain your idea without slides. Use pictures not words on any handouts and be comfortable going ‘off script’. Take some extra ideas up your sleeve in case you are challenged to suggest alternatives.
Good luck!!!
Crunch time
So this time last year I had been a victim of the ‘credit crunch’ and was bemoaning life with my colleague who had, despite her general brilliance and PR genius, suffered the same fate. It was cold, I was single, I didn’t have a job, and things could have looked pretty bleak. For some unknown reason it had the opposite effect on me. Now the ‘worst’ had happened I wasn’t worried any more and proceeded to get a job in a gift shop and begin a creative writing course. I loved my Sundays listening to jazz and swing and selling white-painted wardrobes and my once a week discipline of learning how to write a novel opening or create a setting for a book.
Come January I registered my company and have now been freelancing at Directgov for nearly a year. We’re about to launch a huge national TV campaign and have moved out of the ‘reactive’ mode into a proactive team making front-page news.
Perhaps to say that redundancy turned out to be ‘the best thing that could have happened to me’
might sound a bit strong and could sound insulting to anyone who has not had my luck. But when I met yesterday with the friend who shared my fate, she too has found life to be improved, she’s been promoted twice and bought a flat with her boyfriend. Oh speaking of which, the redundancy also helped me to find romance, but that, as they say, is a different story for another night…