Entering a heavily wooded patch on my morning run, I suddenly saw a furry set of eyes peering out from the trees. It made me stop cold. I didn’t know what it was, but feared it might be a coyote or fox, both known to traverse our suburban streets, and I really didn’t want to cross its path.
Does the thought of speaking on camera for a video blog, television interview or podcast send shivers up your spine? Whether you’re building a base, reconnecting with customers, or working to change minds and hearts, the ability to be comfortable and effective on-camera has never been more important.
Feeling underappreciated? Here’s a refresher about why marketing and corporate communications executives matter so dearly to the larger organization. Pull these out these anytime you’re challenged about your job, or want to strengthen your ties to other top leadership.
Great nonprofit organizations on the front lines of social change often have a tough time getting people to understand what they are doing, why it is vital and, more importantly, why others should get involved.
It’s our experience that many top executives in communications and marketing feel undervalued, underappreciated, or even misunderstood. You may be the last people to know about a new strategy, product or a brewing crisis. Maybe you feel like the rope in a game of “tug of war.”
In our last blog post, we wrote about the need to Leverage All Your Communications. To become adept at leadership communications, we have to better connect with our internal and external audiences. We need to become more strategic in our actions and consistently express value within our organization and with our enterprise’s key audience(s).
We’ve been writing and talking about how achieving communications success in this age of rapidly changing, fast-growing platforms requires learning how to be like an orchestra conductor—bringing together a wide arrangement of programs, needs, and audiences, developing and maintaining a strong brand position, and keeping your enterprise front and center in the minds of key stakeholders.
At ASAE’s Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference this week in Washington, we posited in our breakout session that key association executives—those who routinely practice leadership communications—should be like orchestra conductors: strategic in their directions, clear in their messages, and composed in their performance.
All your hard work on your research, new program, client service, volunteer effort…well, you can fill in the blank…has drawn the attention of the local TV station or digital news outlet.
Recently we got a call from a company that wants to increase its visibility. Seems they were looking for a firm to write a few press releases a month. After explaining that press releases alone really weren’t going to get them where they wanted to go, the caller thanked me for my time and said they’d be in touch.
