• Employees - if you give them the information specifically designed for them to pass on to their friends and family, they are more likely to do so; if you work for a larger organization don't forget the internal clubs like book clubs, wine societies and so on. Get them involved as volunteers on special projects so that they have a more vested interest. Managing volunteers can be time consuming but if you select one of them to be in charge it works like a dream.
• Franchisees or licensees - they have their own businesses and are linked with your company for the benefits of being associated with your brand, product or service; many of them have their own PR, marketing and communications teams or use PR agencies, both of whom are usually more than willing to incorporate your overall messages or information on a specific activity - they just need to be given the details; organizing an annual or bi-annual get together of PR and/or marketing representatives from these businesses often serves to get them more involved and excited about supporting you.
• Government bodies - local, regional and national departments representing your industry or business sector (e.g. Department of Agriculture or Department of Economic Development) or your city (e.g. Seattle Convention & Visitors Bureau) or region (King County 4 Arts Fund) often have marketing departments and money to spend but don't always know what the needs are. Creating a relationship with them will encourage use of your product or service in their activities, and give you more of an opportunity to obtain available grants, depending on your organization.
• Members and Boards of trade or non-profit associations - very often, particularly in smaller organizations, materials are not provided to these crucial people in a format that encourages them to forward the information to their peers, colleagues, friends and family; they are busy people with other lives so the less work they have to do the better. Put the tools in their hands! For special events, ask them to invite a certain number of people to attend, and provide them with the invitations, postage or an e-vite etc.
• Membership organizations to which you or your company belong e.g. professional bodies such as PRSA, industry associations, service clubs like Rotary or Kiwanis, Chambers of Commerce, sports clubs and so forth - this is an area that is often ignored, leaving the opportunity wide open to people who think about using them. They often agree to do mailings to their members, publicity on their web sites, presentations to their members, involvement in their events, referrals by their members etc. A question to ask of your management is to which organizations they belong and the contacts so that you can approach them, if it makes sense. A couple of examples:
  • PR people are often involved in organizing events - so you should be targeting them if you're in the beverage, event planning, hotel, restaurant, printing business for example. The best way to do this is through the credible professional associations - offer one of your people to be a speaker on a relevant topic - not a sales pitch!
  • Chambers of Commerce and service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary are always looking for speakers so they will be delighted to include you provided your subject is interesting and can add value to the audience.
• Contractors and Suppliers - if you do well, they will do well. Provide them with information and materials that they can use in their marketing and communications activities. Ask them to do a mailing to their customers, if they can. This sector is particularly important if you're launching a new brand identity as they can help you get the logo and tagline out to your audiences without a major financial investment through their newsletters, website and so forth. You do need to have guidelines for use of logos and taglines but otherwise there is usually little or no cost involved.
• Event partners - speakers, presenters, celebrities and others who are associated with an event you are producing should be asked to include their presence at the event on their website and in other publicity materials that they put out. If you're working with a charity, then be sure to check that they include your information in all their materials and use their patrons' mailing list to spread the word. Ensure they spell the name of your organization correctly!
• Sponsors - very often, people neglect to ask sponsors to include information on the event, activity or topic in their own internal and external communications vehicles, such as websites, intranet, cafeteria boards, and newsletters; if you're a sponsor, don't forget to ensure the same from the company or person receiving your sponsorship - do not give anything away without knowing what coverage or in-kind service you will be receiving in return. Barter arrangements work really well in this category.
• Friends, family and neighbors - depending on what you are promoting, don't be afraid to get them involved - word of mouth is the best and most inexpensive form of marketing.

• At the World Travel & Tourism Council, a global coalition of Travel & Tourism industry companies, our role was to promote the economic importance of Travel & Tourism worldwide - a very macro message to disseminate! Rather than attempting to do this in isolation, we focused on ensuring that the heads of communications for all our Fortune 500 company members understood what the messages were and had the materials available to include in their communication tools e.g. we wrote articles for their newsletters, provided information and logos for their websites and sent them a regular e-mail brief of any upcoming issue. We also worked through them to get to key media, who might not have otherwise listened to our story.
• After identifying the importance of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau (NYC&Co.), both to promoting Long Island wine and Long Island Wine Country as a destination, we built a relationship with its international marketing team so that Long Island wine became the wine of choice used at its events both locally and internationally, and was represented on NYC&Co's stands at international travel exhibitions.
• When the Long Island Wine Council teamed up with charities for its major events, it became clear that we had similar goals but different priorities - the Council's primary goal was to raise awareness of the wine industry through its events; the secondary goal, although important, was to raise funds for the charities with which it worked. On the other hand, the charity's primary goal was to raise funds and secondarily to raise awareness of its cause. Both were important but they put a slightly different angle on what each partner was looking for. As we developed the plan it was essential that we satisfied both needs.
• When the Washington Wine Commission launched its integrated branding campaign, with a new logo and tag line: Washington State - the Perfect Climate for Wine, retailers and restaurants were encouraged to use the logo; the wineries and regional associations were also asked to include the logo on their case boxes, in printed materials, on websites, as e-mail signatures etc. By capitalizing on their partners they were able to spread the message far more quickly than if they had relied on getting the new brand out solely through traditional sources.
• The Auburn Symphony Orchestra tied up with the City of Auburn Arts Commission's Bravo! Series. By doing so, they were able to obtain funding to pay the musicians and to be part of the City's publicity activities to promote the series. They would not have had the financial wear-with-all to do it otherwise.

If you have links, comments or information pertaining to the editorial you would like to share, please feel free to email me at info@workinpr.com. Space permitting, I'll include them in the next newsletter.