• From Boston to Portland: a PR Brainstorm

    Everyone knows the common saying among creative professionals: “There’s never a dumb idea while brainstorming.”

    Jokes aside, being a member of the Matter Communications team, whether in Portland or Newburyport, we often find ourselves searching for creative ideas among our colleagues, both on and off the account in question, to expand our clients’ reach within their respective industries. Matter has developed such a strong repertoire of clients that teams often overlap when it comes to technologies or media targets.

    Cue the calendar invite for a brainstorm session.

    Sometimes it takes a conversation with a person or group not on the account to be a catalyst in a new, innovative communications tactic. A fresh pair of eyes and/or ears can make a world of difference in a short 20-minute brainstorm session. There is no shortage of smart PR professionals at Matter, which makes for productive, sometimes ground-breaking brainstorming sessions, whether on the couch or over the conference line 3000 miles away.

    If you’re feeling like all of your ideas have been exhausted, it will never hurt to get 4-5 people together just to talk. Since this should be an educational post, I’ve developed a few simple checkpoints the brainstorm leader can use to make a session productive and efficient!

    • Provide a brief explanation of the client’s offering to start the conversation and ignite a firestorm of creative thinking.
    • Ask if any of the brainstormers have a relationship with a publication or editor that can be utilized for an opportunity. Don’t expect an immediate introduction, but learn what can be done to seize the potential opportunity.
    • Has anyone noticed any current events or relevant news stories that can be related to the client’s story or offering?
    • Build upon others’ ideas – don’t just write them down to let them die

    While you should come out of a brainstorm with an entirely new set of provocative, exciting and news-worthy ideas, you may even discover a completely new understanding or appreciation of exactly how cool your clients really are!

    Matter

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  • Escaping the Pitching Ditch

     

     

    After pitching a particular topic for X weeks, months or even years, PR professionals can start to feel as though they’ve reached an unavoidable road block. You’ve hit every outlet under the subject’s umbrella, pitched every relevant contact with every reasonable angle you can come up with – and now finding a new, creative direction feels like squeezing water from a rock. It happens to the best of us.

    In these situations, I find great value in brainstorming with colleagues (especially those not directly on my accounts). I’m regularly amazed by the gems of ideas that can come from people meeting to think out loud. Bouncing half-baked ideas around helps me to avoid the tracks of my day-to-day approach and map out new strategies.

    Then there’s something to be said about wandering off the normal path entirely – it could be a little dicey, but it could also lead you to a great, unexpected place. I took a cue from Matt Armendariz this weekend, a food photographer, esteemed blogger, and amazing self-promoter. Through no help of any PR folk, he wound up as the front man on the West Elm blog last week. Though Matt’s subject matter is far from impossible to pitch, this placement represented a brilliant realm of outlets I hadn’t yet thought to explore – retailer blogs.

    • What are some of the ways you get out of your own head when pitching?
    • Do you have an example of an “aha” moment, when you suddenly came up with a new, creative direction?

     

    Matter

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