Media Frenzy Communications

Women Sports Fans Are Just As Die Hard As Men

Lahne — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:59:42 +0000

In a recent survey of conducted by Media Frenzy Communications, women from all walks of life overwhelmingly said they were die hard sports lovers with more than 93 percent claiming a favorite team and that it had nothing to do with men.

The survey, conducted in January during the NFL playoff season found 69.9 percent of respondents claim watching football as their favorite event. This compared to more than 12 percent who claimed hockey as their favorite sport to watch. Whether or not the NBA lockout had anything to do with it or not, only 5.2 percent claimed to be basketball fans with nearly 7 percent claiming baseball as their favorite sport. Compare this to the 6.9 percent who aren’t that interested in sports, but would rather spend a night out on the town for date night.

Out of those die hard sports lovers (more than 60% of respondents), more than 50 percent said they live in households earning more than $75,000 a year and 75 percent of these women work full-time. They also aren’t afraid to spend their money on their favorite sport – more than 60 percent of these die hard sports women spend more than $250 a year on sports compared to just 33 percent of those who actually answered that they liked sports because it’s a great way to hang out with the guys. Overall, 46 percent of respondents said they spend more than $250 a year on sports – a big win for those who want to market to women who enjoy sports.

Where will you find the die hard sports female fan? At home. Nearly 63 percent said they watch their favorite team play at home because they don’t want to be bothered during the game – doesn’t seem like a great way to meet men, then, does it? More than 20 percent take it even a step further and buy season tickets to see their favorite teams play in the flesh. Still, 17 percent of the die hard sports fan claimed to be more social and watch at their favorite sports bar.

These findings support that women do enjoy sports just as much as men – and since football and hockey were the top two sports of respondents – it seems that a physical smash mouth game is even more likely to be a favorite.

“For companies wishing to break into these markets, I think it’s important to understand the female fan and their interests. Many companies just make their product in pink and think it will appeal to women,” said Lahne Mattas, President of Media Frenzy Communications. “Companies need to dig a little deeper and figure out what really makes women tick when it comes to sports. There’s a huge market here that in my opinion still hasn’t quite been tapped.

“From what I can tell online, while there’s now ESPNW, women want to read what men read, not something fluffy and light about their favorite sports. In the survey, women said they turned to NFL.com and their favorite teams websites for news while following sports reporters on twitter and facebook for breaking news,” she adds. “The key is to not treat women differently but to recognize that they like sports just as much as men.”

Six Unbeatable Reasons to Hire an Independent PR Practitioner

Lahne — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:40:32 +0000

As a senior-level, highly experienced, results-oriented public relations professional, and a member of the Washington Metro area’s Independent Public Relations Alliance (IPRA), I know the value I bring to the table.

IPRA is an exceptional resource for corporations, businesses, associations, full-service public relations firms, advertising agencies, government entities, and nonprofit organizations. Whether you work with an individual “IPRA indie” or the boutique agency option offered by IPRA members, it makes good business sense to choose an IPRA member. Here’s why:

#1 Results. IPRA members, with senior-level expertise in more than 30 industry sectors and hundreds of media markets nationally, deliver results based on solid planning, research and evaluation. Members have solid track records in such top practice areas as strategic planning, media relations, issues management, internal communications, social media, collateral development and more than 60 others. It’s no surprise that IPRA members each year win prestigious Silver Anvil and Thoth awards from PRSA and its National Capital Chapter.

#2 Experience. With 22 years of experience on average and nine years as independent practitioners, IPRA members know PR – both strategy and tactics. Our members have held executive-level positions in corporations, businesses, agencies, nonprofits, associations and government. Now, as small business owners, they understand business challenges and bring their years of experience and business savvy to each client project.

#3 Flexibility. When it comes to flexible arrangements, the independent PR model can’t be beat. IPRA members serve as freelancers or consultants,as team leaders who bring interdisciplinary expertise to each project or campaign, or as virtual boutique agencies that scale up or down to match your requirements and budget. When you are embarking on a comprehensivenew campaign or need a full-service agency of record, an independent practitioner can line up a top-notch team of specialists that meets your communications needs. If the job is smaller, an IPRA member can seamlessly join your team and serve as an extension of staff.

#4 Affordability. Independent practitioners are not saddled with expensive overhead, which allows them to offer senior-level services at rates that are typically 40-60 percent less than rates charged by a medium- or large-size agency. A majority of IPRA members don’t mark up third-party vendor charges, unlike large agencies that charge a 15-20 percent markup. This all adds up to more affordable, cost-effective service for you.

#5 Service. IPRA members provide exceptional, personalized service in more than 60 practice areas.There is no “bait and switch” with an account handed off to a junior level staff once the account is won. In fact, some IPRA members left large agencies and their pressure to bill each hour specifically to better serve fewer clients as independent practitioners.

#6 PRSA-NCC Membership. All IPRA members are members of PRSA and PRSA-NCC. We are active leaders and members of the NCC board and many committees. IPRA is a section of PRSA-NCC and we are proud to be a sponsor.

Hundreds of businesses, organizations, associations and government entities have already discovered that hiring an independent practitioner is a smart decision that brings results. To search for an IPRA member by industry or service, please visit www.ipralliance.com, or contact 2012 IPRA chair Shawn Flaherty at Shawn_Flaherty@creativestratpr.com.

Putting Your Organizational Loyalty in Context

Lahne — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:43:59 +0000

Many of my clients want more sales. Sure, that’s a very good goal, and one I think we agree on.

Where we sometimes don’t agree is how to get there. They like to see action with a direct result a sale transaction.

Sometimes that happens.

But my goal usually is before the transaction. I want their customers to feel like they are valued and not like just a simple transaction.

My goal is transforming a few of my clients from product-focused to being a truly customer-centric organization. In their business, loyalty is important and because they are big purchases, people really go back to the old adage of “doing business with those we like and trust.”

Companies that do great in Organization Loyalty share some characteristics, for example:

Use data - transactional, behavior and preferences – about their customers to create customer-specific insights.
Create organizational-wide strategies, including segmenting their customers based on existing and potential value (Life-cycle of a customer) based on insights.
Focus their retail or service offering from the insights: merchandising, pricing, new product or service offerings, operations, marketing and customer experience.
Align company’s business operations to serve the right customer segments.
Incorporate customer-based metrics as a measure of performance.

This also requires a strong commitment from leadership. You can’t integrate a customer-centric strategy without buy-in from the decision makers. Once that strategy is in place, it needs to permeate all functional areas of the organization. The end result is worth it though.

By placing your focus on the customer, you create emotional bonds between the organization and the customer that drive long-term customer loyalty.

Turning Strategy into Reality: Tips for Effective Internal Communications

Lahne — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:10:09 +0000

It’s a common problem – senior executives meet and decide on an organizational strategy. They leave the meeting and then nothing happens. Then you have leaders asking why no one is implementing their strategy and employees look like a deer in the headlights. The problem? They forget to communicate to employees or have small one-on-one conversations and no one really understands what’s expected or what their role is.

It’s that simple. If employees don’t know where the organization is headed or how their work fits in, how can they possibly be expected to help an organization move forward?

This miscommunication can easily be changed.

Put it in writing. Let the senior executive meeting vision serve as a strategic framework that everyone in the organization can work from.
Put it in context. Share the framework, the operating environment that created the vision, and ask employees for feedback.
Make it relevant. Use feedback and information to help the employee understand what is important, what is expected of them and why.
Communicate often. Use all channels of employee communication to reinforce the framework. Highlight milestones and efforts to implement the strategy so that it becomes familiar and everyone not only understands their role, but the bigger picture.

Sometimes information is viewed as power and leaders don’t like to communicate. However, they do themselves a huge disservice because gaining buy in from the employees who are actually doing the work gives them an opportunity to have pride in their work and see how they contributed to the success of the organization.

Penn State failed basic crisis communications

Lahne — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:25:19 +0000

As a Penn State grad, watching the events over the last few weeks has been very difficult – both personally and professionally. But I write this post specifically from the PR professional perspective. Everyone and their brother has opined on whether or not PSU should have football, if there’s been a major coverup of a heinous crime, and what Joe may or may not have known. I won’t even begin to touch those subjects, but will look at this from what could have been done different from the PR perspective, and why Erickson and Ketchum are making good choices now.

PSU failed to follow the basic Tylenol Model for crisis communications – a model that most PR professionals use in situations such as this. In this model, it’s standard to admit what went wrong and communicate the actions that will take place to correct the problem. Instead of 5 days passing before we heard anything from the University, the day that Sandusky was arrested former University President Spanier should have held a press conference. While there were likely legal reasons they did not do this, Spanier could have and should have acknowledged the grand jury report, let the public know that the University was working with the states attorney’s office and law enforcement, and made a promise to change the culture and hold those who have done wrong accountable. Granted, it would have been difficult to answer questions from the press because of those legal handcuffs, but that would have put the University in the proactive and put their messages out first, giving less time for news media to make up their own answers.

This basic failure in crisis communications ultimately led to the firing of both Spanier and Paterno by the Board.

Since Erickson has been named University president, and since Ketchum has been agency of record for this crisis, the University has been proactive sharing messages, communicating a 5 point promise, and working on changing both perception and the environment that allowed this situation to happen.

In “Linking Crisis Management and Leadership Competencies: The Role of Human Resource Development” authors Lynn Perry Wooten and Erica Hayes James say executives who enable their organization to recover from a crisis exhibit a complex set of competencies in each of the five stages of crisis. Those competencies include:

Building an environment of trust
Reforming the organization’s mindset
Identifying obvious and obscure vulnerabilities of the organization
Making wise and rapid decisions as well as taking courageous actions
Learning from crisis to affect change

Clearly, Spanier did not exhibit these competencies in how the situation was handled from the beginning. Erickson, with better counsel, is certainly making an effort to change the culture and manage the reputation of the University. If communications had been handled differently within those first five days, it’s probable that Joe Paterno would still be coach of the Nittany Lions.

Communications is a Partnership

Lahne — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:24:11 +0000

The best clients are not just those that pay you on time (joke), but those who really view the business-agency relationship as a partnership. Our philosophy for MFC is that we roll up our sleeves, learn your business, and truly become part of your team. But we can only do so much. It takes two. In fact, we need our clients support to do a great job. For example, a recent client situation came up with building an audience for their facebook page. We’ve been growing it organically over about a 3 month period, but the client has a database rich with information about prospective and current customers. The perfect audience to continue building a relationship with – where they already go – Facebook and Twitter. But as the agency, we don’t actually have access to their CRM. But that’s ok because we don’t need it. What we need is to develop the communications, let them know which audience to filter the communications to and go from there. This partnership should help them build a relationship with customers that they rarely have interaction with and who would benefit from learning more about the business. It’s a win-win. But the business needs to view the agency as a partner and recognize that together we can grow revenues and do what’s right – strategically.

Being “Social” is More Than Facebook

Lahne — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:06:15 +0000

We all know the statistics, Facebook is searched more than Google, it’s grown faster than any other medium and it continues to grow significantly. Every business now wants a Facebook page, and most should have one. But being social is much more than just having that Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or a even a YouTube page.

The idea, and I am not the first to say this, is to engage with the community where your business operates and where your customers live & work. Social media needs to be part of your overall integrated communications and marketing strategy. It doesn’t stand alone. It’s one slice of the overall pie.

When a firm work with MFC, they might hire us to fulfill something specific, but as expert counselors, our job is to share what the larger picture is and how what we do fits into that overall business objective. It’s not about money, it’s about doing what’s right. So often I see firms operate with just a social media focus and they are so focused on updating status’ that they forget about the listening and the engagement – taking customer service to the next level.

The bottom line is that people do business with those they like and trust and just having a Facebook page doesn’t put you in that category. There is still a lot of work to do to gain trust.

Communicating With Purpose

Lahne — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:43:01 +0000

Sometimes leaders in organizations say they just “want a press release” about something they feel is news. However, maybe a press release isn’t the best communications vehicle to get the word out. Today there is so much “noise” and so many ways to hear that “noise” that the target audience may not even hear the news if its not put into the right channel.

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether or not the press release is dead and we’re not going to get into that today, but we will say there is a role for a press release although not for everything. In fact, sometimes twitter or even facebook or both or a blog might be the best ways to communicate news.

It really depends on what the communications objectives are…and beyond the communications objectives, what are the business objectives the communications is supporting and who is the audience? When we communicate with purpose, we answer those questions when developing the strategy. This ensures that the news you want to share isn’t just lost in “noise” out there in the marketplace.

The press release has been traditionally used to get reporters to write about news so that customers (or a general audience) might know about the news. But today, there are so many ways to communicate directly with your audience that a press release just might not be necessary.

If you work with MFC, you will hear us talk about business objectives, communications objectives and communicating with purpose often!