Author: Brian Lee

Best PR practices for energy and utility projects

Posted on by Brian Lee
Image courtesy of Dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Proposed power plants, wind farms and transmission lines are monumental public relations projects. That’s because they require working with many stakeholders (residents, businesses, elected officials, regulators), conducting public outreach (open houses, town hall meetings), changing public opinion (editorials, testimonials) and fighting misinformation (media relations, social media).

Here are five best practices to help you get your energy or utility project approved:

1. Say the right things from the start. Conduct a survey to understand what’s important to the public, and base some of your messages from the results. The general theme of your messaging strategy should explain need and reinforce benefits to residents and businesses. Media train all personnel–even engineers–so that a consistent set of talking points is propagated.

2. Brand your campaign. Have a theme that unifies all your collateral and ads, from your website to newsletter to radio spots to brochures to social media accounts. And of course, use your aforementioned messaging strategy in your collateral.

3. Demonstrate how public outreach matters. Make it clear that everything is up for discussion and that no firm decisions have been made. Have an abundance of ways for residents to leave their input, and show them how that input is shaping the proposal. In addition, it’s important to educate the public and inoculate them from the inevitable misinformation from your opposition. Think tradeshow displays, maps, videos and models as required items at your events.

4. Be a part of the community. Sometimes a little goes a long way. Get to know the people whose lives you’re affecting. Be a sponsor of their 4th of July festival. Help them build a new playground in their park. Attend their city council meetings.

5. Measure how you’re doing throughout the campaign. Check that you’re reaching your key performance indicators (KPIs)–for example, number of positive editorials, letters-to-editor and op-eds; number and type of supporters; and position of elected officials. However, it’s more important to keep polling the public to see if your efforts are moving the needle, so to speak. If not, change your strategy and/or tactics.

The logo creation process

Posted on by Brian Lee

Creating a logo for a product or brand is not easy, but there’s no reason for it to be more difficult than it should.

The meticulous process of logo creation is time consuming with the end goal of creating something that sparks brand recognition. Following the steps provided below should mitigate some potential challenges, resulting in an easier process of creating a unique logo that meets the client’s needs.

  1. Research the Company. Prior to meeting with your client, make sure to research everything about the company, including how it currently brands itself (if at all) and past logos. Understanding the changes it made in past logos will help you know what elements to stay away from when creating the new logo.
  2. Meet with the Client. It’s important to understand their mission statement and what the company stands for. Understanding what they want to get out of their new logo is also important. Sometimes their vision isn’t clear, so make sure to ask a lot of questions to guide them along.
  3. Research Ideas. Before you start designing, see what other companies in the same industry have done. You’d hate to design a logo, only to see that you inadvertently created something similar to a competitor’s logo.
  4. Design Elements. Key design elements to keep in mind when designing your logo are good use of balance, clever use of color, creative recognition and a design style that suits the company.  Another key element in design is your typography. Commonly used fonts do not stand out. You also need to make sure you choose a font that matches the company’s style, and one that is legible in different scales.
  5. Get Feedback. Before taking your samples to your client, try to get a couple other sets of eyes on your designs.  Ask co-workers, art directors or friends to get opinions. By working on the same logos for a certain period of time, you may miss something that someone else may see.
  6. Present samples to client. Creating 2-3 versions helps your client compare and contrast, but don’t give them more, as too many options can be overwhelming.
  7. Re-work based on feedback. There will most certainly be changes to your design based on what the client wants. Be prepared to rework your designs based on their feedback. In part, sometimes it’s because a group of people analyzing your designs don’t agree with one another and want a whole new design (known as “death by committee”). This is more likely to occur. If you’re lucky, you may only have to switch a few things, like fonts or color. Understanding the client’s feedback when re-working designs will reduce the chances of never-ending revisions.

How to organize a conference in 2014

Posted on by Brian Lee

Hosting a conference in today’s modern times can seem daunting, but with ample planning and attention to simple details, you can succeed in organizing, marketing and executing your event.

While your main form of promotion for the conference may be brochures, mailers and social media, consider creating a standalone website, which allows you to tailor the site to the event theme and thus strengthen branding. If it is a recurring event, keep the site active year round and post updates and news. A standalone event website can also increase your SEO, especially if you provide a banner or links to the event site on your main web page.

For registration, use an online registration tool such as Eventbrite, which provides easy ticket and event management. The built-in analytics allow you to track which promotional efforts are directing the most traffic to the registration site. For day-of registration, use a tool such as Square, which can be connected to any smartphone or tablet to take credit card payments. Have an attendee list ready, which can be provided by Eventbrite, and make name badges using Eventbrite’s name badge tool. Bring a label maker so you can print name tags on the spot for those who register at the door (and so they don’t have to use handwritten name tags).

One crucial aspect of both the promotion and execution stages of your conference is creating a hashtag to represent your conference – something easy to remember and type. This will allow attendees as well as people not at the conference to follow along and virtually connect with one another. It will also help your event to be searchable and visible on social media platforms, creating a simple way to share updates and track feedback and opinions on the conference. Throughout the conference, remind people through signage and slides to use the conference’s hashtag with their tweets, Facebook posts and other social media updates. Set up a scrolling screen to display tweets with the conference hashtag.

At the conference, make sure you have free (and fast!) Wi-Fi. Your Wi-Fi should be designed to accommodate the maximum device load at any given time; plan for each attendee to bring at least two devices (laptop and smartphone). With this number in mind, you may want to set up more than one network depending on the number of attendees. Think one high-quality network for every 150-200 attendees. You also need to make sure you have plenty of power strips – line them up at every table and have extras ready for the attendees who need to charge up their devices during sessions or workshops. This may seem like a small detail, but the convenience of charging will make a huge difference to attendees.

One final thing to keep in mind is a follow-up survey or evaluation. Platforms such as Survey Monkey allow users to easily set up and send out an email survey to lists or groups of people. Use these surveys to get feedback from your attendees on what they liked or didn’t like, what they learned and things they would change. Listening to feedback and implementing changes can add to your success for your next conference.