Some Answers

Hi everyone, sorry for the slow response. I’ve gotten crushed with multiple crises the last few days. If you are interested in having a real peak at my world, search Ritchie Capital and Polaroid. You’ll see a press release we put out Monday in response to a battle we have lost with a niche online hedge fund trade that wrote an inaccurate story on a lawsuit and refused to correct it. Complex stuff, for extra credit (that’s a joke, I have no power over your grades) I’ll let you guys see the actual complaint filed against my client, Ritchie Capital. That’s a whole case on its own.

Since I have limited time but wanted to respond, I’m just going to be efficient and address all the questions I saw between both sections in random order.

A general comment first – in the real world where every dollar spent must return a profit AND resources are always stretched, especially in this environment, you have to become comfortable with the idea of triage. Simply put, triage is the process that MASH units go through prioritizing which wounded soldiers get medical treatment first. We have to do the same thing. It would be great to have unlimited resources and budgets but one of the many things that makes a PR person successful is that ability to deliver the most bang for the buck -- Choosing the tactics that most efficiently and effectively achieve our goals. It’s also critical to make sure the client or your boss understands this when they are evaluating you.

So, let’s look at questions represented across postings from both sections:

How about an event?

Events are tricky because they are expensive and to justify them, you need to be able to guarantee participation. High risk for the PR guy, moderate gain. However, Webcasts can be effective. Our challenge is that the topic is not top of mind yet. We need to reach a sort of critical mass before we can attract people for any event. PLUS John is already speaking at a range of events and that’s working well.

Ethics at River, have we come across questionable situations?

I’m happy to say that we work with great clients whom I regard as decent, honorable people. We have turned down or even “fired clients’ in the past if we felt they were shady. This is a great topic and I can’t do it justice here. Let’s discuss when I’m back in class.

How does advertising fit into the M3 plan?

I’m a bit shocked Mark that so many PR students are raising advertising as a tactic! Print, Web and other advertising are all effective, but expensive. Generally, we do the advertising and media buying for clients. Huge clients like State Street have individual firms for advertising, direct marketing, web design and PR. At that level it’s a different ball game.

Measurement – outside research & business trends

As discussed in class, measurement is tough because again it’s time consuming and expensive. Regarding the research journals, we already know which media hits our targets because it’s all we do. We review updated media kits and other background but we are immersed in this world. And John continually provides feedback on meetings, business leads and other metrics informally.

How are River teams organized?

River has basically two silos of business. Jim Tobin, our founder, and I basically each head one of the silos and have a similar role. I am the main client counsel, strategist, and relationship manager. Behind me are 1-3 people whom I manage. I set the general direction and goals and they execute. I edit most content that goes to clients. My team is expected to contribute to creative, tactics, ideas etc.

Web advertising, snail mail

Snail mail is still effective but it’s costly. It probably costs $500 or less to create a good email. It costs $5,000 or more to create a good snail mailer. That’s the bigger driver on decision making here.

‘M3’ as a communication mishap vs the full name – great point (Shoemaker?)

Love this thinking. Truthfully, M3 is just a short hand that we use. We always use the proper name at least once in any form of communication. But you make a good point. It’s possible people are searching for M3 and not finding them – I’d love to have that problem. Right now, not enough people know either version of their name let alone the general category!

Daisy – go younger.

Oh Daisy – you need to take another look at our target audiences and then think about it. Who has enough money to be a client of M3’s? And those old rich people, do they trust a young 25 year old to manage their money? Nope, they want advisors with decades of experience. Some of the web ideas you have are good, but going younger will not hit our audience. (I like that you threw the gauntlet down though)

M3 blog

Mark knows I am anti-blog (and I generally loathe social media, texting, chat, email, etc) both in my personal life and professionally. But I recognize they can be useful marketing tools. I don’t read blogs, I give blogs no credibility relative to regular media (they have no standards), and I’m shocked that traditional media will use bloggers as sources for real news. Baffling to me. That said, a blog could work, but it’s very time consuming to do it right. It’s not practical now, but down the road yes, we’d consider this for M3.

Focus Groups

Too expensive – but in effect, we have done something similar. I speak with John’s clients quite a lot and pull direct feedback from them. In fact, we are working with five advisors currently to create ghost written articles for them in their local markets that mention M3. If they get business, M3 gets business.

Chat rooms, bulletin boards

Similar to blogs, these are important channels, but really time consuming to manage. Down the road, we’ll be able to dedicate more time to it but still are working on the fundamentals.

Google analytics.

GA is really for tracking web traffic to your website, not so much the media. It’s effective and valuable. However, M3 gets fewer than 25 unique hits per month. We’re working on it, but it takes time for something so niche. The webmaster gives us similar data on the site and let’s us see who visits. This is useful in tracking how well a presentation, an email, or a news story works. Plus we can see what people spend the most time looking at.

Ron Brounes

M3 paid Ron to write a story about a month before they started working us, and then I believe mention M3 again in a later piece. Ron is a free lance writer for hire who has some connections to editors. Effective but expensive = not enough bang for the buck in this particular case. However, I think it was money well spent at the time for M3. How much? I think it was $2,500 or $3,000.

Researching the coverage of the topic

We have and continue to do a lot of monitoring of tax stories and related topics. It’s crucial for developing stories, pitches and identifying reporters who are good targets.

Website was unappealing

Geez, tell me what you really think… Look and feel is all a function of cost. We explored making some moderate upgrades in Nov/Dec. Even basic changes were going to cost $10,000. We decided not to spend that in this economy. Once M3 hits a certain critical mass, we’ll probably start with a clean sheet and re-do the entire thing. That project will probably cost $15,000-30,000. By the way, we inherited the website. We rebuilt all of the content and some navigation but were stuck with the look.

Reaching out abroad, Europe, Asia…

Love this thinking, BUT remember this is a service for saving investors on paying taxes – in the US. The tax game for international investors is a completely different ball game and not something M3 is offering. Good thought though.

Sorry if I missed anything. Hit me again and I’ll try to cover everyone’s questions.