Welcome to PR Vibes, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with insight into the thought leaders, publications and events covering mobile, wireless and telecom technologies.
Today, we visit with Laura Borgstede, Calysto’s founder and Chief Energizing Officer, who shares news about two new additions to the Calysto team — Sue O’Keefe and Charul Vyas — and discusses some of the benefits you will be seeing. Enjoy!
So . . . what’s new at Calysto?
We always look for the very best senior-level people so I’m really excited about two new additions to our leadership team. Sue O’Keefe is our Chief Content Officer and Charul Vyas is our new Chief Strategic Analyst. Their roles complement one another and strengthen Calysto’s overall approach to helping our clients increase the value of their businesses.
Tell us about the role that Sue O’Keefe will play as Chief Content Officer?
Our approach is that content comes first. Although we’ve been offering content marketing services here at Calysto since 2012, the vision has always been to have a Chief Content Officer with a strong editorial background from the industry. Sue brings a unique skillset as a respected and well-known journalist and publisher with more than 20 years in the trenches, covering the growth (and growing pains) of the telecom and wireless industries, as well as managing editorial teams as editor-in-chief at Telecommunications Magazine. She has valuable experience managing events as well – as a matter of fact, she pioneered the webinar concept in telecom. I’ve worked with Sue for many years and I’m extremely passionate that she’s finally part of Calysto! Our clients will have an extraordinary resource to help them tell their own stories and find creative ways to repurpose them across a variety of communications channels.
What do you see as the value Charul Vyas brings as Chief Strategic Analyst?
Many agencies are missing a component that I feel is critical – a strong analyst perspective. With more than 15 years as an industry analyst at firms such as IDC, iGR, The NPD Group and The TowerGroup, Charul gives our clients both the B2B and B2C insider view of what industry influencers look for when a business in the mobile, wireless or telecom ecosystem discusses their branding.
We always recommend to our clients that before they roll out any new messaging, they take it to three champion analysts. Based on those analysts’ feedback, they’ll revise the message, and then take it out to the world. Now I’m recommending that before they meet with any outside analysts, our clients brief Charul and take advantage of her insight into how an analyst thinks. This adds another specific value that Calysto brings to the positioning and messaging process.
She’s also done a great deal of media and presentation training, which make her a tremendous asset to Calysto and its clients.
Additionally, Charul is building a whole new monitoring “product” for Calysto (stay tuned!). I’ve always felt that there’s not enough hard analysis in the PR and marketing industry, not enough tangible measurements that clients can use to track back to sales. How do you know if your messaging is working? Clients are asking for KPIs that are quantifiable. Charul is more than just a market and trend analyst, she also understands marketing, branding and lead generation. This skillset is a perfect match with the new way we are measuring marketing communications.
How do clients benefit from Calysto’s approach to PR/marketing communications?
Instead of going to separate agencies for creating content, social media and PR, Calysto offers it all. Calysto’s content service offerings cover creating content for corporate websites and microsites, corporate blogs, e-books, digital publications, bylined articles, e-newsletters, case studies, white papers, Slideshare, e-brochures and more.
Since 2012, the industry has chanted content, content, content. With that mentality it’s easy to overlook the importance of usingthe content where it’s going to be the most effective. Calysto’s mantra is REPURPOSE, REPURPOSE, REPURPOSE. Sue will be advising our clients on the best ways to repurpose their content – whether Calysto created it or someone else did. Charul provides the invaluable (and what I feel is unique) analysis of that content and its value to different tactics. Of course, our PR and social media teams will continue to handle the execution. Finally, we will provide our clients with measurements of how effective that content really is – in what channels. The idea of a PR agency as the fluff equivalent of an advertising agency, churning out press releases and contacting reporters, belongs back in the 1980s. Today’s businesses want quantifiable results – and rightly so.
What advice would you give to a company when implementing a marketing communications program?
Editorial journalism is not dead – as was all the hype in 2012. The press release is not dead – as many agencies claim. But too often companies tend to latch on to a boilerplate program – centered around press releases for their only media outreach. Or pure influencer relations. Neither is correct. Each company is unique in its branding, the number of announcement it has (or doesn’t have) and the number of media actually writing about their category. Maybe your company is better served by a white paper, with the content leveraged as a series of bylined articles in media properties that your potential customers respect, along with an email campaign to your clients and potential clients and a webinar. Maybe a pure media relations “education” campaign is in order. Maybe one white corporate sales presentation is the basis for an entirely new industry category and your positioning as the leader in it. One size definitely does not fit all!