Abbie Fink and Adrian McIntyre talk about the crucial role that public relations professionals have a within a well-integrated communications team.

They discuss how PR has evolved in response to technological advances in AI and automation, highlighting its importance as a strategic component in modern business.

Abbie shares her journey from journalism to PR and reflects on the historical focus on press releases, while Adrian underscores the need for strategic communications that align with organizational goals.

They also point out that effective communication involves collaboration among various departments, including marketing, internal comms, and customer service. Ultimately, they stress that a truly integrated communications team is vital for addressing challenges and achieving business objectives.

Read the transcript and notes for this episode on our website.

Key Takeaways

• Public relations has evolved from a tactical exercise of distributing press releases to a strategic discipline crucial for organizational communication.
• Strategic communication requires integration between various functions like marketing and internal communications to effectively align with executive goals.
• PR is pivotal in addressing diverse business issues, from crisis management to branding and employee engagement, necessitating its presence at the executive table.
• Effective communication strategies involve advising and collaborating across disciplines to ensure cohesive messaging and brand alignment.
• Executives should view PR professionals as trusted advisors who can help to guide organizations through complex communication challenges.

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Credits

Copper State of Mind, hosted by Abbie Fink and Dr. Adrian McIntyre, is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, a full-service public relations firm in Phoenix, AZ.

The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a strategic communications consultancy for PR agencies and marketing firms, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.

If you like this podcast, you might also enjoy PRGN Presents: PR News & Views from the Public Relations Global Network, featuring conversations about strategic communications, marketing, and PR from PRGN, "the world’s local public relations agency.”

The press release is not dead and public relations isn't either. Now, there's a lot more to say about press releases. We'll probably have to do a whole episode about this in the future.

But public relations in the era of AI and automation and all kinds of innovation is still thriving. And it's not what people remember about the old fashioned discipline of PR. Abbie, what's on your mind?

Well, I was having a conversation earlier today with a client. We were talking about how we got into the businesses that we are in. And I was talking about when I was in journalism school and had to make the decision about which version of journalism I was going to go into. At the time it was either editorial or public relations or photography. I was terrible at taking pictures.

I didn't really want to write for a newspaper that left public relations as the default. And if I had to guess, the textbook that we use was probably 95% how to write a news release or a press release as it was called then.

Maybe a chapter on special events, maybe a chapter on crisis communications. And that was basically what the definition was when I was in school. And that's what we all did. We wrote press releases all day long. We put them in the mail. That will tell you how old I am. And waited, hoping that a reporter would call us back. And then if they didn't, we would get on the phone and start calling and asking them if they got our press release. Were they interested in what we had to talk about?

Well, we still use press releases, news releases, and they are still a valuable component of what we do. But they are not a strategy, they are a tactic, an important tactic. But there is so much more to what public relations is and continues to be that it's really in my mind right now this idea about how do we take this discipline and remind our clients and our prospects and our businesses that this is a very important and very strategic part of any business that needs to think about how to invest in what you are communicating internally and externally.

I mean, I think you just said the two keywords that have to get tied to this topic, which is "strategic communications." That's the parent discipline, if you will, that public relations falls underneath, along with marketing communications, internal communications, many other forms of communicating.

I mean, look, human beings are communicating all the time. We talk to ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other. But being strategic about our communications and really aligning communications with executive priorities, with the mission and the values of the organization, with the need to engage commercially, in many cases, in a viable way, bring new products to market, change the perception of the public. I mean, this is like, I guess this sort of like Merlin to King Arthur. I mean, no matter who's leading the Knights of the Round Table, you need a little wizardry in the mix to make it all work out.

And what I'm seeing, tell me if this rings true for you, is that there are some business leaders, some executives, some marketing leaders who maybe devalue public relations because they think some of the other shinier objects are more interesting or more compelling. And there are a lot of interesting and compelling things out there. But PR in a classic sense has a seat at the table.

Well, it should have a seat at the table. It doesn't always, but sure, you know, and it's come up in the last couple weeks pretty predominantly in some conversations as we're talking with businesses, we're preparing responses for specific projects. Even the words that the clients are using for what they want versus what they're actually asking for are not, you know, correct or they are using interchangeably advertising and public relations, or they're using interchangeably public relations and marketing. And they all have by definition, potentially the same outcome: awareness building, bringing attention, reputation management. How you go about it might be a little bit different.

And we have always believed in how do all of these things play well together. And they need to play well together. Gone are the days of operating in our own lane and staying put and just doing what we're supposed to do. There needs to be conversations that happen, especially if you bring together a variety of partnering organizations or internally, someone with a title of chief communications officer, with a chief marketing officer, with a director of advertising. All of these individuals need to be talking and sharing and being part of the conversation.

We may come at the project in a different way because of what we are trained to do and educated to do. But the end result and what we are all trying to do for the good of the organizations we represent needs to be considered in all of these different categories. And certainly there are other elements of the communications environment.

Advertising, marketing have all evolved and changed, and there are new things out there that they are deploying in their particular areas. And it's the same with what public relations brings to the table. It's all rooted in solid messaging, solid communication. Do we have something important to say? Where are we going to say it? Who are we trying to talk to? But how we go about it might be a little bit different or more evolved over time.

And you know, there are, we all know a situation or have heard a situation where it is said, oh, that company has a public relations problem. Well, they don't have a public relations problem. They have an operational problem that became a public relations problem because they didn't necessarily loop in to everyone that was going to have a part of this conversation. And what are we going to do if we do this decision? What will the ramifications be? What will the impact be?

We aren't perfect. I mean, we'd like to think that everything we suggest is the absolute right thing to do. But we are trained to think objectively. We are trained to be confident in our recommendations and our counsel and look at all sides of a particular issue and bring forth options. And I think being, being to the extent we are a voice of reason, but we're also there to say, this isn't going to work. This is why. This is our suggestion. This is why.

And we are better, we being public relations practitioners, we are better at what we do when we align with the others that are doing that same kind of conversation. And my challenge for all of us in that space is that we all need that same sort of counselor advisor role when we're thinking about bringing forth some strategies, whether it's selling a product, mergers and acquisitions, hiring new people, closing down a business. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to use communications, and it should be integrated and involving as many of those advisors as you possibly can.

So "integrated" is, you know, look, it can be something of a buzzword, but "integrated communications," really that is the goal. That is the ultimate goal. And if you're a leader of an organization, consider this. How many different specializations might you have that really need to be talking to each other, not siloed.

Who understands your audience, your customers, other stakeholders the best? Well, it's going to be a combination of your sales team, your marketing experts, your product people. Customer service probably has some of the most current insights about what people are dealing with with regard to your product or your service. Your internal comms folks and HR people know what your employees are saying that you may not want to hear, like our wonderful episode about internal comms and feedback discussed. So finding ways to bring these people together seems to me to make the most sense.

You know, there's been a — I don't want to say a revolution, that's giving these people way too much credit — but in the world of SaaS, software as a service or other forms of tech, it's become commonplace to talk about "RevOps," revenue operations, which is a new way of thinking about the bringing together of sales and marketing and growth and product and other things.

I think you need to think about "communication ops," getting these people together so that everyone can bring their specialty to bear on business problems. At the end of the day, that's what you're trying to solve. This isn't about, you know, specialization for specialization's sake. It's because you need to reach a targeted audience. You need to change a perception or point of view about something. Your government relations or lobbying people, if that's somehow involved, maybe you're dealing with issues around regulations or tariffs or local zoning laws or something. These are all communication problems. Everything that you are trying to make happen has a communication component to it.

Now, practically speaking, Abbie, you're running an agency. You're often considered the outside counsel. You may have in-house counterparts that you are working directly with. But we've talked in the past about how, you know, the ideal place is to have a seat at the executive table to be one of those inner circle of advisors. What does it take to make that actually happen? What do leaders need to know in order to trust and bring faith folks like you in? What do other people on that or around that table need to understand so they don't feel threatened? How do you create those conditions of alignment and integration?

Yeah, well, that's, that's the million dollar question. Right? So it's, it's. Yeah, yeah, good for you. If we can get the idea entrenched in organizations that we are all there for the same purpose, a successful organization, a successful business, a successful resolution to whatever we are working with, we all bring to that conversation different experiences. Either, you know, different lived experiences, different educational experiences, different talents that we bring to this conversation.

And each one of those is valuable. They may not be what is ultimately carried out, but the perspective of those individuals is important and should be valued.

And so as you would bring your attorneys in or your accountants in, or others to help guide your business from a financial and legal perspective, communication is critically important in that same way. And so part of it is executive leadership needs to understand the role that their communications teams play.

Then there's this part that has all of us needing to work well and play well with others. So it has to be about, you know, I know what I do, I know what I do well, I know what my team is capable of, what we can implement, how we want to do it all that strategy that goes along with it. And, but it might not be the resolution that's required for this particular project.

This might be more of a advertising strategy or of a marketing strategy. But unless we are all there saying for the good of the organization, here's my viewpoint, and recognizing that we bring that together to the organization, we will not get integrated and aligned. And we have, as an agency, we have areas of expertise, we have, you know, strategic tactics that we do on an ongoing and regular basis.

We have industries that we are known for and that we work well in. And there are times, many, many times where we say this particular element requires some additional support that is not currently part of what HMA offers. Who can I bring into that conversation?

What partners from other firms or from, you know, special contractors or whatever it is can I bring in and be able to solve this particular issue for a client? Because they are bringing, they are trusting me to bring these people in.

And fortunately we have this partnership with firms here in the metropolitan Phoenix area. We have relationships with firms around the world that says, you're better at this than me, but together we will be fantastic for our shared client.

And whether that's external community, you know, bringing it in from outside, or that's being done internally, recognizing the value of shared experiences and what together we can bring to our executive leadership and reminding them that this brain power, this team of individuals that you have, is an extremely powerful tool that you have at your disposal and to utilize them that way and think beyond the tactic and more to strategy and how the different elements of these individuals, the things that they know, play into moving you forward, whatever the situation happens to be.

You know, I was thinking about how closely in some people's minds the idea of public relations is tied with that old-fashioned idea about the press release. And as I said at the beginning, I think we really should do an episode on the new life press releases are finding in this digital-first and AI-focused era. So we'll have to bracket that for the future.

But I was thinking about what are some things that leaders might not realize their communications experts can help them to navigate. And I came up with a few. One is this idea of an employer brand. So how do you attract top talent?

What are you known for by the workforce such that you are able to bring in some of the best people? I mean, the competition for excellent talent is never been more fierce.

And I'm hearing this from the trenches, from professional services firms, law firms, you know, how do we attract the top junior attorneys to our firm, all the way through to big corporations, high tech and innovation companies trying to attract the best engineers. Well, building an employer brand is one way to do that.

There are legacy companies that have adapted to current or new emerging environments, but are still thought of in a, in a traditional way. Kind of like we're talking about the PR firm. So repositioning a legacy brand for the present or for the future is essentially changing the corporate narrative. That's a communication function.

Mergers and acquisitions. You mentioned that we have done an episode on our sister podcast for the Public Relations Global Network, really diving into some of those details. How do you communicate and when and with whom? You know, the internal stakeholders, the investors, the buyers, the employees.

There's a whole set of communication challenges and timing that you need to think about very carefully there. And then some of the things that we talk about more often, things like influencers, finding micro channels to communicate your messages.

Really this runs the gamut from all kinds of business outcomes, from the lead generation and sales end of the spectrum all the way through to internal functions, retaining people, attracting new ones. And then of course, we'd be remiss to not mention. Is that how you say that?

It would be remiss not to say that crisis communications remains one of the most critical ways in which a strategic comms function can help your company. I mean, you alluded to it earlier. We've talked about the PR Week and Cision report in previous episodes. It found that 96% of organizations have experienced a crisis in the past two years. Well, the crises happen. How you deal with them is what counts. So these are just a few of the probably eight or nine dozen ways that good comms could help a company.

Right. And in all of those examples that you listed and the others that are still out there to talk about, all start with a basic premise like we, we are a 45 year old company. We are known for X and Y and we'd really like to be known for Z. How do we, how do we get there?

Well, you're going to bring in your product development people who are going to say, well, we need to update, we need to do this, we need to do this. We're going to bring in your packaging people, whatever it all is. Well, it started with a statement that said we need to do this.

All of those people that you're going to bring in and have that conversation with also need to include whoever carries the responsibility for communications of any kind, marketing, advertising, digital, public relations, wherever it falls. Because when you don't bring those People in you will have a crisis problem. I mean, there's that. That is, again, they don't have a.

They don't have a PR problem. They have an operational problem. Right. They have a crisis because something along the way didn't work and which still happens.

But if you don't know and talk and advise and role play and figure out all the ways that this could go, good, bad or otherwise, you find yourself in this situation. And not everything will ultimately need a fully baked, comprehensive communication strategy. It might just be a simple reminder.

We need to update the website with the new logo that we all approved last month. How come that hasn't been done yet?

Well, because we didn't wrap in it and we didn't talk to, you know, so it's just a good reminder that these individuals on your team, again, whether that's internally or externally, are there to be those eyes and ears and to provide that advice and counsel.

And the tactics that if we go back to just what public relations does, does or can do, there's a variety of different tactics, and they've come and gone over the years and what's valuable now is not going to be and what was will come back. And I think that's what we're certainly seeing with the press release and that we're no longer writing a press release for the media.

We're writing the press release for the chat boxes and the AIs and the other things that are gonna find it from an authoritative source. Fantastic. We still need to write it. It still needs to have the key messaging it. It still has to align with the brand.

It still has to be factual and clear and all the other things. It's just being used for a slightly different purpose than it was before.

So if there is a resolution in this discussion around that PR as an industry isn't dead. The news release as a tactic is certainly not, but has evolved. The answer for me in all of this is smart.

Businesses, large or small, profit or nonprofit government, all have a responsibility to stakeholders, internally or externally. And how we get information to those stakeholders lands with your communications professionals of all kinds.

And so to be successful and to move in your audiences to make decisions appropriately and what you would like them to know about your organization means all of us that are responsible for getting that message out need to be part of the conversations throughout the process.

We will advise, we will counsel, we will challenge, and then we will develop and implement on that response and move through the idea to completion in a clear, concise, strategic way that ultimately brings forth what we sat at that table to do in the first place.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Copper State of Mind. If you enjoyed the conversation, please share it with a colleague who might also find this podcast valuable. It's easy to do. Just click the "Share" button in the app you're listening to now to pass it along. You can also follow Copper State of Mind in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app. We publish new episodes every other Friday.

Copper State of Mind is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, the oldest continuously operating PR firm in Arizona. The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona. For all of us here at Speed of Story and PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening and for sharing the show with others if you choose to do so. We hope you'll join us again for another episode of Copper State of Mind.