Every brand has a unique story to tell, but this story needs a strategy to tell it!
A public relations strategy is important to have in place to manage the reputation of your brand. Without it, you won’t be able to fully support your business vision, values and objectives or demonstrate the value and return on investment PR has.
The strategy needs to be integrated with marketing to really help drive brand awareness, reach and engagement with relevant audiences and media outlets. The campaigns and stories, which support the strategy, must be authentic to achieve coverage. So, there is a lot to consider!
Our team are strategic, commercially-minded thinkers, as well as talented, creative writers with an extensive range of media contacts. We’re here to support you in the development of your strategy to ensure your reputation is managed in the right way, media coverage is achieved and ROI delivered.
Understanding audiences and how to influence them, online and offline, is at the heart of what we do. We work with brands both large and small, to create compelling content that engages people and gets them talking. Our imaginative storytelling and creative writing skills, coupled with extensive media experience, means we can deliver your message across a wide range of traditional and digital media outlets.
Our team can:
Copywrite content of all kinds! Including press releases, white papers, blogs, features, articles, social media, website copy and internal communications
Seek proactive opportunities for your business
Provide a quick and responsive service when news hits
Develop media lists, build new relationships and sell-in stories to obtain coverage for your business
Identify and work with influencers and brand ambassadors to reach new audiences and extend messaging
Provide an external press office function to handle incoming media enquiries
A real strength of ours is that we work in an integrated way with other Chalk & Ward departments – creative, digital, and marketing – to produce carefully considered, original work, which resonates with target audiences, extends reach and achieves results.
Creative content
Delivered with passion, enthusiasm, and originality; our content is crafted to ensure you stand out from the crowd!
We collaborate as a team to develop content for our clients. We don’t see it as solely a PR or social discipline; instead, a meeting of creative minds to come up with ideas that differentiates brands, grows audiences, and drives engagement.
With 25 years in developing big picture campaigns that pack a punch, we can amplify your profile and social to an even greater level!
Crisis communications
In the digital age, a social media crisis can spark from very little – and the flames can blaze at an alarming rate.
An Instagram or Facebook post on an apparently trivial matter can go viral within minutes – spelling potential disaster for the organisation concerned. But a crisis can also follow a more traditional route – from a fire in a warehouse to a company director embezzling funds and any number of other scenarios.
We have the expertise to plan for any crisis – and the skills to help you cope when the unexpected happens.
The reputation of any organisation can stand or fall on the quality of its spokespeople.
The opportunities to give interviews to the press are many and varied – but thorough training is required before venturing near a microphone.
We offer a detailed programme of practical training aimed at helping to transform even the most reluctant interviewees into seasoned performers.
PR events
A dramatic stunt or a witty advertising slogan can be the cornerstone in launching a memorable PR campaign.
We have many years of experience in creating a truly memorable event. Our creative, digital, marketing and PR teams work seamlessly together in creating events that will be the talk of the town – and attract widespread media attention.
Our marketing services
We are a full-service marketing agency which means we have all the skills and knowledge in-house to deliver across the mix, however, some notable services include:
Explore a selection of our projects below, to see how we demonstrate our commitment to delivering dynamic solutions that drive growth for our clients.
Testimonial
“Chalk & Ward helped raise the visibility of our business, both on and offline. They generated regional and trade coverage, leveraged our award wins and helped to build our online community via impactful engagement strategies. We have converted sales on the back of their PR input.”
Well-executed Public Relations is one of the most cost-effective and successful ways of communicating with your target audience; but, in order to give real context to your message, you need great PR and that starts with a PR strategy.
A strategic approach to PR is one which is grounded in research and planning, without this level of thinking PR can create noise but with very little results!
This is not to say that ad-hoc communications aren’t valuable – in fact, there should be business agility to respond to the national mood, the media, unexpected changes to the company or the environment it operates in – but this alone cannot form the basis of a strategic PR plan.
PR strategy components
A PR strategy should spell out how it will contribute to achieving a client’s overall and specific goals. In other words, the purpose, focus and direction of the communication strategy should be laid out.
We consider the following core components when developing a PR strategy:
We research your company; we look at current messaging and target audiences. This includes identifying stakeholders (both internal and external) and assessing the quality of existing relationships and perceptions.
We define measurable communication objectives that support and help to drive the business vision, mission, and purpose.
We consider content creation and storytelling that contributes directly to the communication objectives.
We select appropriate media (on and offline) for the distribution of content.
We plan original campaigns that drive your purpose and will engage target audiences.
We undertake horizon scanning to identify potential issues and risks and prepare relevant crisis communications. This exercise also identifies opportunities for the business.
We put into place monitoring and evaluating programs to measure ROI.
Reputation management
A reputational crisis can strike at any time and it’s crucial that companies are prepared to respond at a moment’s notice. But knowing exactly how to respond and what to prepare for, is not always straightforward. This is where a crisis communications strategy comes into play.
Social media and the era of digital news, means that news – particularly bad news – is shared quickly across a large audience; therefore, it’s essential to get an accurate response to the media prior to a crisis breaking.
The key to managing any crisis is to take control. This means ensuring all internal and external communications are carefully considered prior to, and during, a crisis. We can help you to take control by managing the reaction to the crisis in the best possible way, mitigating any potential reputational damage.
Our PR experts are former journalists, so they know how the media will report a story and what sources they will look to for information and comment.
Crisis communication planning
A PR crisis can happen to any business, new or experienced. From a serious customer complaint or allegation, to a product recall, accident, or an allegation of misconduct becoming public news. We can swing into action to sort out an immediate problem, but we prefer to protect your interests before things go wrong, with a considered crisis communications plan.
One of the first steps in preparing for a crisis, is identifying a crisis communications team. These are staff members who will take responsibility for making internal decisions quickly and effectively should a crisis happen. It’s important to have a chain of command should a crisis unfold and staff need to know who the designated spokespeople are; basically, who says what to whom and when.
Our PR experts can undertake thorough horizon scanning, identifying potential crises and highlighting issues within your business. In addition, we can help clients prepare effective holding statements or pre-scripted messages. These can be delivered to staff, stakeholders or the media by designated spokespeople when necessary, should a crisis unfold.
Managing risk
Being proactive in times of crisis is the best way to get out in front of negative media coverage and to take control of the media narrative. Robust systems and communication procedures enable you to respond swiftly, accurately and effectively, setting the media narrative from the beginning.
We can help you to monitor media coverage and to respond to reports where necessary or appropriate. We can also get inaccurate reports corrected and mitigate negative reactions on social media.
It’s important to remember that not every issue is a crisis, but not responding to or dealing with issues in the right way can increase the potential for reputational damage and turn the issue into a PR crisis.
Media training
We also specialise in media training, from general media awareness for employees who may come into contact with journalists on the telephone or via email, to advanced media training for senior executives/spokespeople that may need to perform live radio and TV interviews.
Our media training will be tailored to your company’s needs, providing your employees and senior management with the skills they need to confidently deal with media enquiries.
We also provide crisis media training, when your company may be asked to respond to a comment or a situation whilst under the mounting pressure of an unfolding crisis. In these circumstances, there’s little time for calm reflection, clearing facts with colleagues, or for planning your response. The media will be demanding information and the public may well be too.
Using role play, we can help you to manage the demands of the media during a crisis from dealing with constant phone calls to putting together a statement or organising a press conference.
