Tag Archives: Pitchengine

A good friend told me the other day that we should share more insight into the gory details of what we do here at Backbone. He had a good point. At times we are misunderstood.

“So you guys just write press releases and send out product?”

Umm, not exactly.

We started Backbone 16 years ago as a social experiment to see if we could create a company that provided skilled professionals an environment that blended their outdoor lifestyle with challenging, engaging work.

We strive to deliver best-in-class results in public relations, media planning, social strategy and branded content. Our roots are in the active lifestyle segment—outdoor, snowsports, hunting and fishing, travel, nutrition and beer; and we proudly represent a portfolio of over 50 brands large and small. We work with brands in which we believe, we partner with people we respect and we seek out clients that will push us to be a better agency. Yet beyond these overarching themes, it is the more tactical stuff that makes Backbone work.

So what are some of the nuts and bolts? Here are four mundane daily tasks (at the risk of sounding boring) and four more progressive trends we’re following (at the risk of sounding buzz-wordy).

1. Communicate – Duh? Right? We talk to our clients aiming to provide the best customer experience using media as a channel. This is an everyday process. With the media we’re pitching targeted, newsworthy and relevant stories that will appeal to their readers. With clients, we’re creating strategies, developing tactics and crafting stories. Regardless of the recipient, we work to keep our communication professional, succinct and on point.

2. Action– Every client asks us to THINK BIG, but to get those dream editorial placements or launch an innovative media program it takes a daily grind.  Pick your favorite quote: “A goal without a plan is just a wish,” Antoine de Saint-Exupery or Jay-Z: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business… man.”

Action, everyday. We pack lots of boxes. We chase down the UPS truck to ship product. We build action plans and then we execute them. We create content and we share it. We put a ton of stock in the blocking and tackling of daily tasks, making sure we have a list and we’re performing against it to achieve our goals.

3. Incubate – This one is a tough one–but we encourage people to get away from their computers and think. We have a ‘quiet’ conference room with overstuffed couches where our team can collaborate. Even better, we urge people to get out and exercise–ride their bikes, run, hike, to process and think.

4. Measure– building the media side of our business has made our PR work much stronger. Why? Media is metric driven. It’s acronym central. But looking at your KPI’s to maximize your ROI and CTR’s has helped us challenge subjective and intuitive rationale to become more defined and objective with our PR strategy and measurement.

So to get just a little more buzz-worthy–here are four more progressive themes we’re focused on:

1. Channel segmentation – social media is becoming a more complex matrix. The Facebook lemming effect days are over; brands and influencers have to win their followers with true value proposition. Instagram just added video. Zuckerberg tours Samsung. Vine integrated into the marketing for the upcoming Monsters University film. Within each channel there are sub strata that need to managed individually but that ladder up into the overall brand ID.

2. Frequency and relevancy – in all marketing the frequency and relevancy is critcal. These metrics have always been primary to a paid media plan but now we’re using them to evaluate our PR strategies as well.

3. PTAT – people talking about this – (sorry I couldn’t resist at least one of these). PTAT is a metric derived from Facebook that tracks engagement and thus quantifies WOM (word of mouth). Good article here in terms of how it is measured.

4. Endgame – perhaps the most common mistake we see consistently is the loss of focus on the absolute goals that pertain to a business. Disciplined systems help counter the fast paced nature of business as does a dogmatic adherence to the endgame. The common mistake is to campaign instead of sustain. Beware of the trend to make a big splash and move on.

The last example here comes from our friend Jason Kintzler at PitchEngine. He was researching a brand by spending time on their site. Wanting more he went to their Instagram feed. After a quick run through their photostream he knew everything he needed by seeing what the brand’s users had posted.
The takeaway is that a new school social media channel gave him what he needed more effectively than the traditional model. Through imagery he clearly understood the brand he was reviewing was better represented by its consumers than by the brand itself.