Ready! Set! Go! A PR program to build credibility, establish leadership and drive sales for Quest Software
January 2012
Introduction Thanks for inviting LEWIS PR to be part of your agency selection process. We’re very excited about the opportunity and look forward to sharing our experience, approach and ideas with you. The below proposal is based on the RFP and initial discussions between Sue Hetzel and Tracy Benelli of Quest Software, each business unit PR head and Katie Eakins and Noah Dye of LEWIS PR.
Contents What you need to know about LEWIS
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What is your most relevant experience over the past two years in both traditional and social media?
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What case studies can you share of 8 programs that were the most successful and why? What programs failed and what did you learn from these failures?
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What is the best way to align your team 12 with ours, given the diversity and reach of Quest’s varied solution areas? What are your top-level thoughts on how 13 you can help us based on the information provided? What tools do you use to measure the 16 success of PR programs you undertake on behalf of your clients? What does your proposed team for our 18 account look like? What is their experience level and how long have they been with your firm? What clients have they worked on that are similar to Quest? What is your fee structure?
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LEWIS?
We’re lots of things but, mostly, we’re:
Journalistic We were founded by a journalist and we have former editorial staff in almost all our offices. We know what makes a great story and we use that to build your company narrative. We’ll approach all your content from a journalistic perspective. We don’t allow dull copy out of the door. We also provide digital editorial services, managing our client’s own online channels like professional publications.
Agile Gone are the days where a chewed-over press release formed the backbone of every PR campaign. Now it’s about monitoring breaking news and responding in real-time, knowing the trending topics and creating assets on the fly. We have a healthy respect for process and we never take off without a flightplan. But we believe the ability to think on our feet is critical.
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Digital We back our campaigns with infographics and videos because it’s the best way to boost coverage, drive your web visibility and convey your brand personality. Our social media teams have managed some of the most passionate and vocal tech communities out there, from Second Life to SAP, OnLive to VMware. And we know our way around a keyword matrix. We recently won two Bulldog Digital Awards for our work with Unisys and Neustar; Best use of SEO in a Campaign and Best use of Digital for a B2B Campaign. Click here to learn more about our digital services.
Entrepreneurial We’re independent and 100% partner-owned. We’ve grown every year since we were founded (16 years ago, making us one of the youngest global brands in our industry). Now we’re in the top 40 PR agencies worldwide. We know what it takes to work with fast-paced, entrepreneurial companies because we are one.
Global We have 25 offices in three continents, 300 people and $35 million in revenues. But we don’t feel that big! In fact, we describe ourselves as a global boutique – a mix of international reach with personal service. We’re international to the core too – our teams are experts in coordinating cross-border campaigns. We love taking our clients into new markets and helping them become a global brand.
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WHAT IS YOUR MOST RELEVANT EXPERIENCE OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS IN BOTH TRADITIONAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA?
LEWIS PR has a broad range of experience that matches up well with the different solution areas that Quest Software plays in. We support many of the clients below in both their traditional and social media initiatives. You’ll see some of the specifics of our integrated approach to PR and social / digital communications below.
Provider of innovative business intelligence (BI) solutions
Enterprise remote support and configuration management technology
dynaTrace, a division of Compuware, is in the application performance management (APM) market – former client in the US
Connects businesses with partners and customers around the world through a global platform of high performance data centers, containing dynamic ecosystems and the broadest choice of networks Anti-virus and anti-intrusion software designed for both home and corporate users
Business Intelligence and enterprise reporting
Secure, remote access and monitoring of devices of applications
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Software that allows companies to develop, test, deploy, assess and modernize business-critical enterprise applications
Business application platform, complex event processing, and SOA infrastructure software for operational responsiveness
End-to-end eDiscovery, enterprise search and automatic categorization software
Facilitates centralized IT operations and dynamic cloud management by uniting critical IT functions such as performance, fault, availability, asset, service desk, automation, and event management Provider of software that provides real-time operational intelligence
Worldwide information technology company
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WHAT CASE STUDIES CAN YOU SHARE OF PROGRAMS THAT WERE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AND WHY? Splunk is a new campaign for LEWIS. We were hired to create a narrative for the business media. Our concept: ‘Every company is a data company’ is already a central part of Splunk’s new messaging and has generated opportunities with Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes.com, GigaOm and eWeek in the first four weeks of the campaign. We’re also advising Splunk on its social media strategy so its own social channels can become platforms for this new message.
Equinix is a two-year-old campaign for LEWIS. We were hired to help Equinix, a data center company, penetrate the business media and to reposition it as an ecosystem for companies in the digital economy. We began with an intensive vertical program to show the benefits of Equinix’s ecosystem approach for the financial services, networks, digital content, cloud and enterprise sectors. By positioning the data center as a revenue center, we then built a strong presence in the business media, with almost 200 top tier business media clips in 10 months, and five mentions in Forbes and six mentions in the Wall Street Journal in just the past three months alone. Click the clips below to view the full article
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Unisys hired LEWIS in 2011 to handle US media relations and social media, with the goal being to revitalize the brand and achieve visibility in more prominent technology outlets. LEWIS’ strategy was to infuse every piece of PR content with a journalistic edge and fresh, inventive, digital content. To date we have executed three research-led campaigns, each focused on demonstrating thoughtleadership on a key topic such as security or the consumerization of IT. Infographics were developed to support these campaigns and have to date achieved placements in outlets such as Mashable, GigaOm and The Atlantic. Unisys is thrilled with the increased visibility and positive industry feedback it has received as a result. We recently won a Bulldog Digital Award for our work with Unisys - Best use of Digital for a B2B Campaign. Click the images below to view the full infographic
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WHAT PROGRAMS FAILED AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THESE FAILURES?
Learning From Mistakes Entire programs rarely fail. Tactics fail more often. It’s here where lessons can be learned. At LEWIS, we embrace failures. One of our cultural values is ‘Believe in your creativity, be bold and act on it.’ Any creative communications program involves risk. If it doesn’t, we’re unlikely to have a standout program which gets noticed. That means some tactics will fail. We like to build relationships with our clients where it’s okay if some tactics fail. Our programs do not rely heavily on a single ‘big idea’. We create a pattern of tactics, which together have a major impact, but alone are not required to ‘go viral’ or move the needle themselves. Sure, they might and we’ll do everything we can to make that happen. But it’s not essential. Relying on one element of the program to shine is not a strategy, it’s just wishful thinking. So why do ideas or tactics fail? Sometimes ideas fail because our assumptions are wrong - we thought an idea would be newsworthy, but it wasn’t; we thought the research
would support a particular trend, but it didn’t. Sometimes tactics fail because of external events - the day we execute the tactic, a major news shadow occurs; the weather stops people attending an event etc. Sometimes it fails for operational reasons - these are the ones we can avoid. Occasionally tactics fail because they are poorly executed. Mistakes happen in any complex process. This is why we have procedures, checklists and methodologies to memorialize past mistakes and to avoid them. Errors, such as transposed digits in a telephone number can result in missed journalist interviews; data transmission errors can mean content isn’t shared correctly on social channels; traffic delays on a press trip can result in missed meetings. These are all avoidable. But these kind of things are going to happen, and the aim is to have a system which course-corrects quickly.
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We aim to foster a relationship with our clients which is mature enough to focus on the strategic, without getting distracted by the tactical minutiae, while maintaining strong attention to detail. We pride ourselves on our operational excellence. We feel this provides us with the credibility to present strong creative ideas. Unless we’ve got the basics down, we won’t be trusted to execute bold ideas.
But once we’ve secured that trust, we know that some of our ideas won’t work as planned or be as successful as we hoped. Our mission as an agency is to ‘Advance the way global brands communicate’. If we’re not failing occasionally, we’re not pushing hard enough and won’t have a significant impact on our clients’ objectives. In summary: It’s all right to fail. But only if you learn from it.
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WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO ALIGN YOUR TEAM WITH OURS, GIVEN THE DIVERSITY AND REACH OF QUEST’S VARIED SOLUTION AREAS?
LEWIS PR has selected a team that closely aligns with Quest’s individual business units. The chart below gives you a visual representation of how the team would be deployed. Please keep in mind that all team members would be responsible for communicating the overall Quest Software brand messages, but there would also be leading brand ambassadors for specific business units, based on their experience. Detailed bios of each team member are included below in a separate question.
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WHAT ARE YOUR TOP-LEVEL THOUGHTS ON HOW YOU CAN HELP US BASED ON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED?
Ready! Set! Go! Quest Software has built a strong internal communications team over the last 12 months. The company has also developed new messaging to position each business unit as a market leader while transforming brand awareness to widen the scope of what Quest Software is known for. In order to achieve the overall objectives of the Quest Software program, we need to lay a foundation to ensure we’re following PR best practices. Doing so will position Quest Software to take advantage of planned opportunities in the media, while establishing itself as a leading resource on what’s driving the media agenda. We understand that each business unit is in a different position, with some more advanced than others – but for the most part, here is what we need to do across business units to ensure each has a solid foundation to realize the best results from the media.
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The Solutions Narrative In order to boost credibility across the Quest Software business units, LEWIS suggests telling the solutions story that maps to key industry trends. We’ve pulled together the overall solutions narrative below. This focuses on the fact that as enterprise IT environments grow and become more diverse, organizations need to deploy solutions that provide the tools and simplicity to avoid the ‘complexity crash’.
The aim is to use this solutions narrative to tie each of the different business units together. Quest Software aims to tackle the most complex areas of enterprise IT, bringing the key benefit of simplicity with each of its solutions.
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WHAT ARE YOUR TOP-LEVEL THOUGHTS ON HOW YOU CAN HELP US BASED ON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED?
The Disruptive Trends In order to map the business units to specific key trends, we’ve identified the topics we can and should be commenting on. The below chart also maps these trends to the individual business units.
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Since each business unit is at a different stage of development in terms of communications, we’ll go through three phases, matching each BU to the correct phase.
Ready!: Lay the foundation To ensure we have the right parts for a well-oiled machine, we will first: • • • • • • • • •
Conduct an overall communications audit Identify key media targets, our magic media circle Research editorial calendar opportunities for each business unit Create a corporate news calendar for each business unit Ensure our spokespeople are media trained Establish a customer program to help with media relations work Identify product award opportunities for each business unit Identify event opportunities relevant for each market Develop and refine messages and proofpoints
Set!: Join the conversation To enter the conversation and begin establishing credibility, next we will: • • • • • • • •
Develop a creative content calendar focused on concepts key to each business unit Commence proactive media outreach based on key concepts and industry trends Commence rapid response outreach Consistently secure inclusion in planned story opportunities Secure speaking opportunities at key industry events Submit for relevant award opportunities Secure regularly contributed pieces (ie bylines) on thought leadership topics Align key PR messages with social media communications efforts
Go!: Lead the conversation To lead the conversation by driving trends, we will: • • • • • • • •
Deploy Quest Software ‘roving reporters’ at key industry events Conduct conference polls at events for data-driven, issues-based news Commission research for industry-focused PR content Generate links from relevant influencers Outreach to influencers, inviting them to share our content with their networks Integrate with social channels Optimize all content Create digital content such as infographics and videos
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WHAT TOOLS DO YOU USE TO MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF PR PROGRAMS YOU UNDERTAKE ON BEHALF OF YOUR CLIENTS?
Data Driven PR Decisions All client campaigns are focused on delivering specific business goals, whether it’s driving sales, traffic, recruitment or investment, altering a perception, or influencing a specific outcome. We first identify the business goals and understand how they are measured internally (stock price, investor feedback, sales etc). Then we determine the PR Key Performance Indicators that will support those goals. For example, if increasing sales is necessary, the KPIs may include number of new leads from communications activity or the number of downloads of sales material. In order to capture and report on campaign goals, we developed our own proprietary measurement application. Our LSCORE product automates the measurement process and produces dashboards in a highly visual format. Once the KPIs for the campaign are set, we are able to show analysis based on key concepts that inform the measurement tool.
For example, to capture sentiment data, we can analyze the percentage of positive, negative or neutral tone around a specific announcement. For a KPI that shows support of revenue growth, we look at leads, content downloads and sales. It is important to reiterate that everything we measure is tied back to your business goals, and the overall campaign objectives we set at the start of the relationship.
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Here is what a sample executive summary looks like. This would be sent to you each month, customized and based on the agreed KPIs.
L-SCORE
LEWIS also provides daily and weekly reports to clients about specific activities. The format of these is customized for each client and varies greatly. These can be provided via an extranet, email, shared spreadsheet or Vocus, but there is no specific template for these reports. We agree the specifics at the beginning of each campaign.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Morgan McLintic, San Francisco • Job title: Executive Vice President • LEWIS Life: 15 years • Relevant experience: Morgan brings a broad range of client experience to the team, across technology sectors including hardware, software and services. He has advised a range of technology and telecom companies about their marketing and public relations including BT, Equinix, Splunk and SAP.
• Key takeaway: Morgan would provide strategic input to the Quest Software team to ensure campaigns meet business objectives and takes an intuitive, creative approach to messaging / positioning work. Morgan joined the agency in 1996 from pharmaceutical giant, GSK, and as part of the executive team grew LEWIS to be the largest tech PR firm in the UK. In 1998, Morgan founded the LEWIS US operations.
WHAT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE LEVEL AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN WITH YOUR FIRM?
Katie Eakins, San Diego • Job title: Vice President • LEWIS Life: 8 years • Relevant experience: Katie has 11 years’ experience managing domestic and international PR campaigns. Her background includes IT services management, enterprise software, software development, unified communications and compliance software. She has overseen campaigns for companies including Actiance, dynaTrace, INTEGRITY Global Security, Kaseya, Smith Micro, Solarflare and ScienceLogic.
• Key takeaway: Katie would lead the West Coast element of the campaign, while also providing strategic guidance to the overall program and specific business units based on the West Coast.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Ian Lipner, Washington DC • Job title: Vice President • LEWIS Life: 9 years • Relevant experience: Ian has worked on behalf of a broad range of technology enterprises, from General Electric, to Sprint, to niche players in the government, security and data center automation space. Working just blocks from the White House and minutes from Capitol Hill, Ian's teams specialize in communicating for technology clients with both key media and with decision makers within the US federal government. He routinely helps bring forth technology and security stories and perspectives for clients that serve some of the most secretive customers in the world.
• Key takeaway: Ian would lead the East Coast element of the campaign, while also providing primary creative input to the database management and Sharepoint tactical team.
Ian Lipner, Washington DC
WHAT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE LEVEL AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN WITH YOUR FIRM?
Catherine Koo, San Francisco • Job title: Account Director • LEWIS Life: 4 years • Relevant experience: Catherine has 9 years’ experience managing PR campaigns, with an emphasis on deep technology industry. She specializes in enterprise software, having worked with companies such as Actiance, Cornerstone OnDemand, Equinix, nScaled and UC4.
• Key takeaway: Catherine would lead the database protection business unit. She will manage the day-to-day news schedule, working with team members to maximize announcements, coordinate media briefings, tours and events, as well as managing ongoing relationships with trade, technology and select business press.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Amy Robinson, San Diego
• Job title: Account Manager • LEWIS Life: 5 years • Relevant experience: A recipient of PRNews’ 15 to Watch award, Amy has experience managing both US and international campaigns. Amy has led campaigns for companies such as Actiance, dynaTrace, INTEGRITY Global Security, Kaseya, Smith Micro, Solarflare and ScienceLogic.
• Key takeaway: Amy would lead the IAM / Windows and Application Performance Monitoring business units. She works closely with her team to set the media outreach strategy and capitalizing on her journalist relationships to ensure results for clients.
WHAT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE LEVEL AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN WITH YOUR FIRM?
Nicole Tanenbaum, Washington DC • Job title: Account Manager • LEWIS Life: 2 years • Relevant experience: At LEWIS, Nicole works on accounts focusing on government, application development, Internet services, virtualization and cloud computing, including arcplan, ARIN, Progress Software, Splunk and Unisys.
• Key takeaway: Nicole will manage tactics for the database management and Sharepoint business units to ensure all tasks are complete, while providing content generation and outreach to top tier influencers. Nicole will also help with the strategic counsel and tactical planning of security-focused campaigns.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Brittney Wolff – San Diego • Job title: Account Manager • LEWIS Life: 5 years • Experience: Brittney has deep technology experience and specializes in finding the themes and trends to help clients get into media conversations. She has worked with companies such as Internap, Kaseya, Lantronix, QuickOffice, Solarflare and Smith Micro.
• Key takeaway: Brittney would lead the User Workspace Management business unit. She drives clients’ media relations programs through proactive pitching and rapid response.
WHAT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE LEVEL AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN WITH YOUR FIRM?
Lauren Grassetti, San Diego
• Job title: Senior Account Executive • LEWIS Life: 5 years • Relevant experience: Lauren has worked in two LEWIS US offices, having started off in our Boston office. She has led media outreach for client campaigns of all sizes, including Information Builders, INTEGRITY Global Security, Micro Focus, iDashboard, ScienceLogic and Smith Micro.
• Key takeaway: Lauren would work closely with Brittney on the User Workspace Management team. As a day-to-day media contact for clients, she leverages journalist relationships on a daily basis to secure top-tier coverage. Lauren’s other responsibilities include content generation, reviews, speaking and award program management, managing press interviews and PR events and social media monitoring.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Marissa Ramey, Washington, DC
• Job title: Senior Account Executive • LEWIS Life: 4 years • Relevant experience: Marissa has a deep understanding of everything from from global IP addressing, application development and virtualization to data center transformation. She contributes to accounts including arcplan, ARIN, Progress Software, Splunk and Unisys.
• Key takeaway: Based on her relevant experience, Marissa will work with the database management, Sharepoint and performance monitoring business units. Marissa will work closely with the media through pitching news announcements; identification of rapid response opportunities; creation of proactive pitches; and tracking and qualification of editorial calendar opportunities. She will also works closely with team members to ensure all goals are being met through traditional and social media efforts.
WHAT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE LEVEL AND HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN WITH YOUR FIRM?
Marrissa Meyer, San Diego • Job title: Account Executive • LEWIS Life: 2 years • Relevant experience: Marissa works closely with clients in the enterprise software market including Actiance, ScienceLogic and Smith Micro.
• Key takeaway: Marissa would work closely with Amy on the IAM / Windows team. Her varied media experience enables her to reach a wide swath of media including print, online, bloggers and broadcast media in order to secure top-tier media placements on behalf of her clients.
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WHAT DOES YOUR PROPOSED TEAM FOR OUR ACCOUNT LOOK LIKE?
Katelyn Perkins, San Diego
• Job title: Account Executive • LEWIS Life: 2 years • Relevant experience: At LEWIS, Katelyn has worked on clients such as Solareflare, QuickOffice and Lantronix.
• Key takeaway: Katelyn would work directly with Catherine on the data protection business unit. Here responsibilities include research, tracking and submission for speaking opportunities and awards; editorial calendar / feature qualification and pitching; event pitching; meeting facilitation; coverage tracking; social media outreach via forums like Twitter; and product pitching. She also provides assistance to other members of the account teams to ensure that client objectives are met.
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WHAT IS YOUR FEE STRUCTURE?
LEWIS’ pricing for campaigns is based on hourly rates. Rates vary according to seniority and an approximate number of monthly hours are allocated to the campaign at the outset, equivalent to the proposed monthly fee. However, to ensure predictability, LEWIS also provides a list of activities that will be delivered as part of that monthly fee. This way you can anticipate activity levels and output. The PR program will incur third party costs such as, but not limited to, wire fees, news monitoring services, travel and accommodation, production costs etc. LEWIS does not mark up these costs or charge an administration fee on them. However, if there are significant spend items (>$1,000) which the agency must pay for in advance of receiving funds, there is a 10% financing fee. Typically, we recommend allocating 15% of the budget to third party costs.
LEWIS’ hourly rates are as follows: Title
Rate
President / SVP / EVP
$350
VP / GM
$300
Practice Director
$265
Account Director
$220
Account Manager
$180
Senior Account Executive
$155
Account Executive
$125
Account Coordinator
$90
Blended Rate
$200
Typically, budgets are allocated across the team as follows: Title
Percentage
VP / GM / EVP
20%
Account Director
20%
Account Manager
30%
Account Executive
30%
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Based on the budget breakdown information provided we have broken down the number of hours each business unit can expect to receive during each month of the campaign. Business Unit
Annual retainer
Monthly retainer
Monthly hours
Performance monitoring
$150,000
$12,500
62.5
IAM
$120,000
$10,000
50
Data Protection
$120,000
$10,000
50
User Workspace Management
$120,000
$10,000
50
Database Management
$110,000
$9,000
45
Sharepoint
$90,000
$7,500
37.5
Windows
$80,000
$6,500
32.5
Total
$790,000
$65,000
327.5
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WHAT IS YOUR FEE STRUCTURE?
These monthly hours and fees would cover the following scope of work: Ongoing activity: • Ongoing communications collaboration, planning and strategy with each business unit • Annual and quarterly reviews of communications plans • Identification of key industry trends / themes with a proactive approach to helping Quest reply • Development and maintenance of media lists for each business unit • Creation of ‘top’ critical influencers list • Regular engagement with top media on behalf of Quest • Following and engaging with top bloggers and other influencers to ensure key messages are heard and shared • Editorial calendar development for each business unit, with creation of response and pitching • Development of feature and trend story pitch calendar for each business unit, including pitching of content • Review, comments and edits of press releases, call downs and follow up on press releases • Interview coordination around news announcements, includes guidance on messaging, talking points, media briefing sheets and follow up • Creation of a speakers bureau, with a focus on the top 10-20 conferences for each business unit • Creation of an awards bureau for each business unit • Competitor tracking with analysis • Coordination with international agencies • Media training for each business unit, as needed Daily activity: • Identification of competitive news, major industry news, trends across all business units Weekly activity: • Reporting via a weekly activity tracker to help with planning and status calls with each business unit, includes agenda prior to weekly calls to include goal tracking, pitching efforts, upcoming activity Monthly activity: • Creation of a monthly planning update to assist in prioritizing activities • Update on all activities for each business unit • Monthly coverage report for each business unit with measurement analysis that covers share of voice, tone, message pickup, inclusion of customers, etc. for each business unit
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Thank You We look forward to the meeting next week.