In fact, online readership of The Times had been predicted to drop by as much as 90 per cent and The Guardian is claiming that this figure is nearer the mark when the massive decline in web traffic is over the last three weeks is taken into account.  Readership is expected to fall further once the Murdoch-owned paper removes its introductory offer of £1 for a month’s access.  From August, readers will be charged £1 a day to view content or £2 per week.

It is not yet clear whether the new revenue generated will be sufficient to shore up the struggling print title – if the estimated 15,000 daily online subscribers agree to pay for the £2 a week offer, the pay wall will generate £1.4m a year.  However, it costs £100m a year to run editorial operations at The Times and Sunday Times;  News International’s accounts to June 2009 show a loss of about £240,000 a day for both titles; and last month’s ABCs show a fall in monthly circulation of 14 per cent to 503,642.  With the Guardian having just announced £26m-worth of cost-cutting to reduce the £100,000-a-day loss it was making last year, there is a big question over how long the presses can keep running.

The advent of the worldwide web has meant that we are now all used to enjoying instant FREE access to almost any information we want, not to mention music and videos.  It is difficult to see how the paid-for content model can work given this mindset and the fact that similar information is available from other websites free.  The only way subscribers will be persuaded to pay for access is if the content has more perceived value as it offers deeper analysis and commentary than is available elsewhere – both the FT and the Wall Street Journal have proved that this is a viable option.  Some titles such as The Times and Guardian are also looking at developing readers’ clubs that build on customer loyalty by giving added benefits and content in return for a fee. 

There is a place for newspapers in the digital 21^st century, but as with any business, an ability to evolve and innovate is vital.

Presented by Stephen Holgate from PACE Partners International, who has spent more than 20 years helping businesses to grow, the message was that marketers must identify actions that would help their organisation “win more of the right work from the right clients at the right fee”, an appropriate objective for businesses in any sector.

To help formulate what the perfect client base would look like in two to three years time, Stephen suggested sending a post card back from the future – the aim being to clearly define a vision for the years ahead. This postcard would include the sectors being worked in, the number of new and existing, the type of clients, the type of projects and relationships, fee levels and profitability, even client location.

Stephen introduced the PACE Pipeline which set out five actions required to reach the dream list; prospecting, promoting, projecting, protecting and pruning.  Focusing on the first and last actions, Stephen said the prospecting process had filters, the reasons for approaching a particular client. Among these were:

• existing relationships
•  likely quality of business
•  prestige value
• ability to meet demand
• potential longevity of the relationship.

 Triggers, the reasons that made clients more open to an approach could be:

• change in their strategy
• policy change.
• change in personnel
•  personal contact
•  sector growth

Pruning would allow space for growth and would influence the design of the client base for the future, being carried out where, for example, the volume of work and revenue with a particular client was low, there was no strategic fit or the association with the client created the wrong image or poor staff morale and high churn. Work could be left to ‘wither’ or the client serviced at a distance but ideally an ‘honest’ meeting would be the preferred option.

The advice is relevant for any business sector not just professional services and the list of actions for the marketer is key. These include:

• facilitating discussion on the postcard and the vision
• providing focus on the client list
• championing the cause internally, ensuring there is agreement with managers over the list
• managing the actions required.

A varied range of activity indeed, but the lesson here for marketers and business development managers is that the differing teams with their different priorities and different methodologies need to meet, discuss, share knowledge and ask questions of each other in order to help them all achieve success and build that dream client base.

All things considered, BP probably felt its crisis management strategy was just about holding up in the blast of anger being generated in the US about the disaster.

In truth, BP is never going to win this PR battle but it, nevertheless, has effectively used a range of tools including interviews, press releases and website and video updates to defend its reputation.

And in an interesting development, well known in the crisis management industry, BP is attempting to consolidate its position on the internet. Type “oil disaster” into Google and heading the results is a sponsored link to its response website.

The company is reportedly spending large sums of money each day on Search Engine Optimisation to ensure its disaster strategy is not pushed down the ratings by news sites, protestor sites and social network media, where opinion is overwhelmingly negative.

So far, so good…ish but then came the now infamous comment from the man who has become the face of the energy giant in this disaster .

BP chief executive Tony Hayward told reporters he wanted his “life back”. PR people everywhere put their heads in their hands as it was promptly pointed out that the 11 people who died in the initial explosion would never get theirs back. And the lives of those affected by the disaster would probably never be the same again.

 His words went round the world as a classic example of corporate insensitivity. The US media  intensified its offensive and US President Obama joined the attack, talking about “ass kicking”. An apology came soon after.

Here’s the lesson. All the crisis management, reputation management and perception management can be undone in an instant by an unguarded comment. 

So get your strategy in place. Be ready to respond, be open and honest, don’t play with words, give interviews and manage the internet. But above all, keep reminding the person who is fronting it all that it is not about them.

In our PR world, we all know that the private and public sectors are always squeezing every last drop of value out of their budgets and that is clearly not about to change.  The PR alarm bell is ringing, but here’s the question, whose is ringing the loudest?

Is it the in-house team which constantly has to justify its headcount and spends a lot of time making sure the precious press cuttings go round so that other business units can see what they’re doing?

Or is it the PR consultancy, which is managing its client’s brand as required and achieving agreed targets, but which can be dropped like a hot potato as a relatively easy short term cost-saving measure?

In-house teams have an intimate knowledge of their company and they understand the ethos of the business. They will hopefully have a representative in the boardroom. Middle management knows them, knows they can deal with the media and can turn to them for support in small projects which might not otherwise win any plaudits.

But in-house teams may have become part of the corporate furniture, the comfy chair that everyone puts their feet on rather than the functional mirror which serves to remind the business how others see them and what they have to do when the reflection isn’t so good. 

On the other hand, consultancies are focussed. They do the job required and clients know how much it will cost them. They can build relationships with executives which are no less meaningful and successful than those in-house.

Consultancies bring a fresh perspective and wider experience to the role which an in-house team can’t always do, especially in the fast-developing world of social media PR.

What’s more, consultancies don’t have that sense of security that comes with being in-house; they have to work hard to produce results and justify their role and cost to the client.

Of course, cutting PR budgets at a time of economic hardship, is actually the last thing that businesses should be doing. PR can raise their profile among equally cost-conscious customers and create an environment where deals are done.

In any recession, as well as the casualties, there are also companies which are able to take advantage of the opportunities. For example, there’s less competition for media space thereby creating an opportunity to increase profile.

So the message is; if you’re a business, whether you use an in-house team or an external consultancy, make sure you keep that investment in PR and make sure it is working hard for its money.

 TheFashionPixie App is available to download free from iTunes and mirrors the live sales information that is published on the website. So it’s one smart App…if you pardon the pun.

But it’s not just the App that does the business. The successful launch highlights what we knew, and that is the huge PR value that is gained from using the right distribution method which hits the targets that matter. We’ve cut our cloth to fit, so much so that the App will probably pay for itself in the end.

So far, TheFashionPixie.com has collared 260 backlinks on the net in less than 24 hours. Using an online distribution service for a cost of £110, the media release has gone to more than 850 sites run by bloggers, tweeters and online publications who receive not only the  words, but images both still and moving including a YouTube clip, which was produced in-house using flipshare.

The site is very busy to say the least and we expect to see SEO benefits aplenty such as Google indexing and inbound links from other sites…Versace results for Primark prices.

With many clients within the professional services sector, we were pleased to be invited to join the committee of the Yorkshire group of the PM Forum, the association for marketers in professional services.  The seminar I attended this week raised some familiar themes and I was interested to hear how some of the region’s leading legal and accountancy firms were handling them.

It’s not very often that you are able to question the managing partner of a leading regional professional services practice about his marketing strategy, let alone quiz four at the same time!  But this was the opportunity presented by the PM Forum event which took a Question Time style format.  The panel consisted of partners from four well-known organisations in Yorkshire with law firms represented by Paul Ayre of Gordons and Jonathan Oxley of Lee & Priestley; plus Kevin O’Connor of Baker Tilly and Richard Williams of Deloitte providing an accountancy perspective.

Ably chaired by James Buckley of Deloitte in the role of Dimbleby, it was a refreshingly honest session with the partners sharing some of the common challenges and frustrations of marketing within the professional services arena.  They gave an interesting insight into traits they look for when recruiting their marketing team.  Desirable characteristics include resilience; a ‘can-do’ attitude; creativity and enthusiasm.  They agreed that they need people who will champion marketing initiatives and are genuine team players, able to work across specialisms in the firm.  Whilst some of the partners stated that a background in the firm’s profession was very useful, others felt that a fresh approach with a marketer from a different sector could also give significant benefits.

There were a number of recurring themes, perhaps the most significant was the need for the entire organisation to ‘buy in’ to the importance of marketing and business development.  Whilst it might not always be a practical solution to make this element part of an employees’ performance review, one of the partners stressed the importance of a top-down approach saying that because he as managing partner had a weekly meeting with the marketing team, everyone in the firm was aware that business development activities were a priority. 

Making Marketing a Priority

There were comments from the audience that marketing was often seen as a secondary function to client work and also that it was sometimes difficult for marketers to challenge the opinion of partners who were senior to them, but perhaps had a limited understanding of marketing.  There was a consensus that it was the responsibility of the marketer to champion the best strategy for the firm and to find a way around any resistance.  It was also agreed that although every partner had to be a fee-earner, he also had a responsibility to market and promote the firm. 

The importance of cross-selling services within a firm and the role a marketer could play in this process was also stressed.  With the market still tough for winning new business, the opportunity to sell additional services to existing clients presented a much more attractive proposition.  However, with professionals sometimes ‘blinkered’ within their own department, a marketer with a broader perspective could prove invaluable.  It was also felt that those involved in business development must engage with clients.

Interestingly, all of the partners said that their marketing activities had not retracted during the recession with business development acknowledged as a crucial part of the management process.  In some cases, marketing activities had grown although resource had been re-focussed on sales generation.  As with marketing in any sector, the key is to ensure that every initiative has clear and measurable objectives.

As the tide of crude leaking from a damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico threatens local wildlife and the livelihoods of fishing communities along the southern US littoral, the oil giant is fully engaged in a major damage limitation PR exercise to keep an increasingly angry US Government on side and to rescue its corporate positioning as a global enterprise that is, despite what it does, sensitive to the environment.

The crisis management strategy kicked in with the group chief executive, no less, fronting interviews across the US news networks as well as UK news outlets. Tony Hayward was at pains to point out that the rig, the people, the processes and the equipment were not BP’s but merely leased.

In the same breath – and wisely so given that the “it wasn’t me guv’nor” line of defence could backfire at some stage no matter how true – the oil company sought to go on the front foot by swiftly unveiling plans to tackle the leak and the resultant slick with an innovative metal funnel, the drilling of a new well and the deployment of thousands of feet of floating orange booms. At the same time, BP provided a commendable wealth of information, images and interviews.   

In the days ahead, one outcome of the disaster will be to throw the spotlight on the PR value of owning the green credentials that so many companies seek, the credentials which say “we are responsible, we care about our world”.   

It is a decade since BP unveiled its environmentally-friendly face with the logo that symbolised everything natural from a flower to the sun. The move was highly significant for an industry that had long been seen as the villain of the green peace.

And in those 10 years, unceasing public awareness and lobbying on the issues of climate change, global warming and just the impact of man on the earth, has meant government and businesses continue to position themselves as environmentally aware to show voters, shareholders, staff and customers that they are doing their bit for the planet.

Some, such as the Co-operative Group  have environmental awareness in their genes. The mutual retailer surveys the opinions of its 5.5 million members and has an environmental and social ethos that permeates throughout the business and is reflected in the output of its PR department.

But you don’t have to have green in your DNA. Green credentials can be acquired by anyone. It might be via a company’s waste recycling policy, an office’s movement-sensitive lighting system, a new building’s rain capture to provide water for the loos, a new home’s insulation features.

In PR terms, we’ve all recognised the benefit, rather than the burden, of having green credentials, be it financial, through tax relief on reduced carbon emissions, be it the opportunity to launch a new product for green conscious consumers, or be it the creation of a satisfied workforce that is engaged with its employer because the bosses care.

All this is a good thing and is great for providing PR opportunities. But when it goes wrong, when waste gets dumped not recycled, when rivers and seas get polluted, when wind farms get pilloried for spoiling the view, then the PR damage is acute.

We can look at BP’s current slick PR strategy – pun intended! – and maybe learn a few lessons. Be open and honest, be swift and proactive, provide a steady stream of information and updates on the action being taken and above all and, as obvious as it may sound, get the boss into a hi-vis jacket and hard hat with company logo and in front of the mike asap.      

BP has been here before. The full extent of the damage in PR terms will be felt for a long time to come and in many different ways. One thing we do know is that the oil giant faces at least three months of negative PR. How do we know that? Easy, it’s the time it says it will take to drill the new well.

The power of social media has made the crisis management minefield even trickier to navigate, opening businesses up to attacks where there was previously no platform. Rallying public support using a channel that has the capability to reach thousands in a very short space of time, these campaigns can have a very rapid detrimental effect on a company, no matter how solid their CSR policy.

While elaborate, visual stunts are normally the name of the game for Greenpeace, the fact that this latest attention grabber, arguably one of its most successful, built up a storm from behind a computer screen, illustrates exactly how a well-targeted social media campaign can harness the power of online gossipers and bloggers, pick on the flaws of a multi-national’s crisis management plan and muster enough momentum to leave a large corporation’s reputation in meltdown.

Greenpeace’s strategy was simple – no scaling London landmarks, no storming North Sea oil rigs, no hoisting banners on the tailfin of a BA jet at Heathrow. OK, they did dress up as orang-utans at various Nestle offices. But aside from that, its best tactic was to throw a line to the masses, posting a hard-hitting video on YouTube which replaced chocolate fingers with some of the ape variety, whilst brewing up damaging chatter on Nestle’s Facebook page.

The result? A campaign that highlighted Nestle’s inability to handle its social media channels effectively – its ham-fisted response saw representatives trying to delete wall posts from the Facebook fanpage as soon as they appeared, responding to wall posts in what was taken as an aggressive, holier-than-thou tone, whilst attempting to block YouTube views.

It wasn’t necessarily Greenpeace’s actions that caused such damage, but the way Nestle reacted to them – rather than stem the flow, they angered consumers who then fuelled the fire, and the story blew into an international news item as a result.

They finally got a grip on the situation with a calm, detailed and transparent response to the offending issues which would have gone some way to help. But it was posted on Nestle’s corporate website, not at the battlefield itself and was therefore completely missed by the Facebook feeding frenzy.

Nestle’s reputation has taken a serious battering and it will take a huge amount of time and effort to restore this. For businesses and PR agencies, it is a valuable lesson and one that highlights how important it is to advocate the development of robust crisis management strategies, with clear plans directed at social media.

The key is to engage people from the start – find a balance between openness and brand control and try to keep the platforms from which people can grumble or insult in a place that you manage and facilitate. People need to be in a place where they’re talking to you, so that you can deal with the problem, provide answers or explanations and keep them aware of what’s happening.

They also need to be talking to someone who understands the situation and is clear about the company’s brand objectives; a) so that they don’t cause further fury by responding in an inappropriate, stuffy and condescending way and b) so that they can toe the corporate line.

Like it or not, people will always discuss, debate, complain and spread their opinion of brands online. And with a plethora of new websites, forums and apps launching every week, managing online reputation is a challenging task that needs serious consideration.

Engage the public, respond to complaints, be transparent, don’t try to stifle cyber-chat and most importantly, work with your PR team to develop a comprehensive crisis plan that covers all eventualities. Leave the gaffs to Nestle.

I wish there was some decent guidance about developing ‘apps’ for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android platforms, but there seems to be a conspiracy by ‘techies’ to keep the process as mysterious as possible!

We have been working on several in the past few weeks (that aren’t launched yet, so we can’t mention them), but they are the current hot trend.  Figures from last summer reported 50,000 iPhone apps  and by November 2009 this had increased to 100,000!  As a regional PR agency, one of the most useful recent launches for us has been

TheBusinessDesk.com Appwhich arrived in the Apple store just a few weeks ago, but is already proving indispensable.

We thought it might be useful to share some of our recent learning about how to go about developing an iPhone app, and many of these tips also have value for developing BlackBerry apps too.

1. Plan well ahead – Shortlist a few specialist app developers (we have worked with several and know of a few more, if you want recommendations, drop me an email) and get prices to a tight spec, just as with a web developer.  The scope of what you need will greatly affect the price, but £2k is a decent starting point and the sky is the limit if you need all the bells and whistles!  Expect to spend two weeks planning, four weeks developing and two weeks testing, unless you can focus everyone to compress the work needed into less time.
2. Get draft designs – you must really brief the designers well, and be sure you like the draft designs before the build process begins – changing the look of an app can be costly…
3. Manage timings – developing web site and apps usually over run, as you are dealing with managing business people (whoever the client is) and techies, so there are always a few snags and delays
4. Test, test and test again – When you think you have your app designed, test it over and over before submitting it to the Apple store.  You can test apps on your own devices before you launch them with Apple, using a convoluted process of downloading zip folders and pushing files into iTunes on your own PC.  It is well worth doing as you always find more snags the more time and test users you have (10 – 20 is a good test audience) and it saves time and effort if you have all the snags ironed out before you first submit.
5. Register with Apple as an app developer  – I recommend registering as a developer ($99 cost) and setting up your own developer account.  This gives a number of benefits, the main being that your details on the iStore are flexible, and you control the access to stats etc too.  Your app developer will most likely be able to do this for you, steer clear of using their own developer account unless there is good reason.
6. Be prepared to launch PR – When you finally upload the app, there will be a delay of between 24 hours and five days before it is live on the iStore.  You have no control over this, and you must be ready to put any PR plans into action as soon as you see the app is live.  Countless online sites trawl for new apps, and you can’t control who will write about your app first.  It is amazing how many sites download and review even UK only apps, especially in the States, so make sure you make the most of the PR opportunities.
7. Utilise social media and app PR sites – there are a number of good ways to distribute media releases about the launch of apps that cost a little but deliver a lot in terms of online coverage and back links.  PR Web www.prweb.com/ (£110 upwards) is worth a look, as is the cheaper ($30 USD) Mac PR www.macpr.co.uk/

So, don’t be put off developing an app just because you haven’t done it before; you just need common sense and the support of a good designer.  Personally, I think that as long as the app has a purpose and is useful to the user (sounds obvious, but there will be people who develop pointless apps) they are a great way to get huge PR value, and they also to bring a fresh and added value aspect to your web offering. 

The massive rush towards iPhones that started last year when the Vodafone 02 and Orange networks got the handsets is compelling.  I personally think they have been a massive boon to our business at Appeal and we all love them, and I believe they will be the standard business handset in 18 months’ time.

If you think you could grow sales or offer clients an improved experience through an iPhone or BlackBerry app, go for it.  Especially if you are able to get in before the competition…

Over the last few months, everyone who’s anyone seems to have been developing an app and we’ve seen ever-more innovative offerings.  From Wagamama becoming the first restaurant brand to launch a take-out order service via the platform to Tesco’s app which turns the phone into a scannable electronic clubcard; through to the Labour Party app designed to help canvassers in the run-up to the general election (complete with the party’s Virtual Phone Bank); to Ikea’s catalogue app which has been downloaded 300,000 times since December!

So, here are my top ten FREE apps:

1.       The Business Desk

Yes, TheBusinessDesk.com is continuing to lead the way by this week becoming the first regional news publisher to launch an app!  Now it’s even easier to keep up with breaking news in Yorkshire, the North West and the Midlands direct from your iPhone

2.       RunKeeper

With the Leeds 10K in July fast approaching, this could be a useful training device, giving the benefits of an expensive GPS watch, but FREE!  I used it for the first time this morning and it’s a great way of setting yourself training targets

3.       Shazam

This must be one of the all-time best ideas – next time you’re in a shop and they’re playing a track you love, but can’t quite remember the name, just hit Shazam and it will listen for you and put you out of your misery

4.       TweetDeck/LinkedIn

The easy way of keeping track of your social media networks while on the move

5.       toptable

Wherever you are, if you’re looking for a restaurant, just tap toptable

6.       Orange Wednesdays (or  Flixster)

Easy access to everything you need to know before you head for the silver screen

7.       vouchercloud

An app dedicated to discounts

8.       Appsilicious Inc

Aesthetics are important to iPhone users – choose great wallpapers for every occasion, anything from cool Apple logos to Shrek or even Easter bunnies!

9.       Squeeze it/LEGO photo

You’ve got to have a couple of apps purely for fun – these allow you to manipulate photos and even to turn your pictures into Lego

10.   BBC – coming soon!

Okay, so this hasn’t been launched yet, but the good old Beeb has announced that it is currently developing news, sports and iPlayer apps.  Just when I thought my iPhone couldn’t get any better…

PS  If you can stretch to a paid for app, Sccope could be a wise investment.  For £1.19, you can download an app which scans product barcodes and compares prices to make sure you save money as you shop.

If you’ve come across any great apps that you can’t live without, please share them!