UK personal and business coaching team, The People Matters Company, decided in 2003 that it wanted to raise the profile of its business using PR. Having considered using a mainstream PR agency, the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Sarah Matthews wanted to explore alternative options. They commissioned virtual agency ICONIC to deliver a flexible campaign that eventually involved creating new media-friendly content, developing and editing website copy and introducing the company to the trade and national media.
“We had not used PR before and wanted to work with a team that had experience and could advise us on what would and wouldn’t work,” said Matthews. “It was critical that we received honest advice as we wanted our investment to deliver tangible results.”
Matthews goal was to raise the profile of the business and explore how PR could be used to widen the range of business leads the company engaged with. The company was also creating a range of new marketing content, including a major website upgrade, and wanted new collateral that would work from both a PR and wider marketing perspective.
The campaign, led by ICONIC founder Mark Charmer and supported by Joanna Burton, ran through the summer of 2003 and achieved a major piece of coverage in the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Jobs and Money’ supplement as well as pieces in the Financial Times’ Creative Business supplement and customer relationship management trade title CRM-Forum.
“The challenge for Paul and Sarah was to unlock the value from what they were already doing and make it work with the media,” commented Charmer. ICONIC interviewed several people that People Matters had worked for or coached – ranging from the head of contact centre at T-Mobile to a chemist at a Cambridge-based pharmaceutical firm. A range of content and comment was developed on the relevance and role of coaching. The team then targeted relevant journalists and adapted this material to provide exclusive content to a number of journalists.
Charmer stresses the need to stay flexible. “Media we tested our story ideas on felt that our initial case study, though interesting, lacked timeliness. As we progressed suddenly new angles developed: our Cambridge chemist team were made redundant part way through the campaign. This provided the news hook necessary to reach into the higher profile national media supplements.”
The team was able to use the flexibility of its virtual agency approach to provide support on other marketing projects as The People Matters Company’ needs developed. Joanna Burton, with extensive experience of marketing web-based businesses, provided counsel and copywriting support as Paul and Sarah worked with their web designer on their new identity.
For Matthews it provided a platform upon which to express his latest thinking on the role of coaching and the need to focus on the power and potential of the individual. “I was able to work with the team to help distil my views into a form that would work with the media,” Matthews commented. “Sometimes when you’re working with lots of different clients and on multiple problems, you need support to help narrow your focus.”
