PR Insights Blog

This article defines the purpose of copywriting as a vehicle to win customers' interests in products and services through strategic wording that demonstrates how that product or service will relieve their pain point by satisfying their needs and wants. It instructs the would-be copywriter in how to think like the customer by providing the necessary guidelines, such as writing in the second person, showing empathy, and appealing to interests.

CommunicationsMatch announced today its partnership with Ken Jacobs, ACC, CPC, to provide leadership coaching and development as a service to corporate and agency public relations, advertising, communications and marketing leaders and executives.

Despite new research questioning whether practice makes perfect for violinists, Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule is as relevant as ever for the PR, marketing, and communications industry. Being an expert takes work and time. Driven by the behavioral science concept of "scarcity", many are tempted to claim expertise, rather than invest in achieving it. For agencies, consultancies, and freelancers, the 10,000-hour rule is a reminder of the effort required to master skills in a changing landscape. For client-organizations, evaluating the claims of expertise is the key to ensuring that when the curtain is drawn back the emperor is wearing clothes.

Why do we do things that may well not be in our best interests? In an exceptional podcast by Social Scientist Shankar Vedantam of NPR's Hidden Brain some of these behaviors are explained by "Scarcity". The idea is when we want something badly enough we develop tunnel vision. At these times we can no longer see the wood from the trees. In an article published by SpinSucks, "Is Tunnel Vision Impeding Your View of the Sales Funnel," I put this in a communications context.

Drawing on social science research this article explains why we make bad decisions when we are chasing money and ways in which which we can improve decision-making by recognizing when are in a tunnel driven by scarcity. By furthering an understanding behavior and tunnel thinking, and highlighting the benefits of stopping, looking up and moving into a funnel to broaden perspective, we provide communicators, entrepreneurs and business leaders a simple model to avoid behavior traps.

How do Fortune 1000 companies and large non-profit associations conduct agency searches? How do they grade agencies in the hiring process and those they've hired? Insights from our new research conducted with RFP Associates and Researchscape, with the support of the Institute for Public Relations and industry leaders, offers a path to achieving better search outcomes and longer relationships.

Researchscape's new ResearchStory™ artificial intelligence-powered survey tool helps companies evaluate quantitative and qualitative survey responses, and provide results reports in hours. With this new product, CommunicationsMatch™'s research partner continues to break new ground.

Even in the age of smartphones, Tweets, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, and content creation, media relations still drives public relations. Our CEO asserts that media relations still is the most important service PR agencies should deliver.

Our research into the hiring practices of Fortune 1000 companies and large non-profit associations, conducted with the support of Researchscape, the Institute for Public Relations, and communications industry leaders, offers takeaways for client-organizations looking to hire agencies. Here are six.

Larry Weber, Chairman & CEO of Racepoint Global (the Weber in Weber Shandwick), shared a key takeaways from his new book Authentic Marketing at Capitol Communicator's PR Summit D.C. On the sidelines, I caught up with him for the latest Communicators-to-Communicators 3-minute video. He shares key takeaways - the importance of corporations having a moral purpose and the role of technology in communications.