Ictus Initiative

April 24, 2007

PR CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

PR Scores Massive International Coverage for an Executive Coach With a Brilliant 12-Step Program for Email Addiction

The scenario is all too familiar. You sit down to write a press release or draft an important document for a client. By the time you get through a sentence or two, PING, an email lands in your inbox. Over the next several minutes—or hours—you toggle between the document and your inbox, carving out a sentence here and there in between responding to email after email. Often, the emails relate to pressing work issues that demand your attention. Sometimes, your coworkers want to know where you're going for lunch.

Email: The new drug of choice?

It's become common in the workplace for email to serve more as an instant messaging tool—one that often snags your immediate time and attention away from other tasks. What's worse is that in addition to your main email account, you probably have Gmail and four other accounts to keep track of. Not to mention Blackberries, cell phones and other devices that keep us connected to our email inboxes 24/7.

Enough is enough, said executive coach Marsha Egan. She noted that poor and inefficient email practices are costing individuals and businesses hours per month and thousands of dollars or more per year.

At the time, Egan was unknown in the national media. She began offering tips for better email productivity on her website and in seminars and training sessions. Then, knowing that everyone experiences email overload from time to time, she wanted to reach a wider audience through the media with her tips for overcoming email addiction.

Enter the Ictus Initiative, a Boston-based start-up PR firm. Together with Egan, Ictus began brainstorming ways to leverage the email angle and create a publicity campaign for increasing awareness of this widespread dilemma.

The challenge: Marketing email addiction

"Marsha wanted to bring her business more into the realm of email use and management," explains Ictus public relations specialist Catherine Pappas "Our first thought was, 'How do you market this?' Obviously, many people think about the amount of emails they get—and they know how hard it is to manage," she adds.

But is "email addiction" a legitimate phenomenon? And if so, how do you sell it to people in this age of prevalent technology?

It was an offhand comment that sparked the idea that would eventually turn into an international publicity campaign: "Marsha mentioned that it would be fun to do 12-step program for overcoming email addiction," Pappas says. "She figured it would be a funny way to get people talking about the topic. But we stopped and said, 'Wait a minute—this could be great.'"

12 steps to better email practices: The test-run with local media

Pappas and the Ictus team knew the 12-step idea warranted serious consideration: "We felt we should do a whole press release on this."

Egan outlined a "12-Step Program" to beating email addiction. Her top tips include keeping your inbox empty, clean and organized, establishing regular times to review your email and others.

Everything was in place: "We sent out a release to several little papers around the country," she says. "The papers are not read widely, but we thought, let's test it out and see how far we can take it."

The result was astounding: "Instantly, they picked up on it," she says.

Ictus turned its attention to the national media. But getting in would require some strategic thinking.

"We had been talking about it for a while: When does it make sense to launch a story that's only newsworthy because you make it newsworthy? We knew that timing would be very important. We didn't want to launch the campaign when there were a lot of other major headlines in the news, for example," Pappas says.

The strategy: Quick reaction to breaking email-addict news

Then, a relevant item appeared on Valentines Day: "The Wall Street Journal ran a story about a person who was an email addict," Pappas says. "We thought, this is getting national press—let's jump on it. We launched the national campaign that day."

The timing was perfect: "There was nothing else going on in the news that day, and people were already reading about email addiction—so instead of waiting and having to battle other email addiction experts that might pop up, we went ahead and put something out right then." The key to success: "We took it a few steps ahead of the news curve—before people were talking about it. We really introduced the problem."

But first they had to decide which media outlet to offer the story to: "We didn't want to target the Journal, because it might be too similar to what they just ran," she says. "But we knew that many papers pick up articles from the wires—and we thought Reuters would be a good one because of the scope."

They offered the story to Reuters, and the article ran the following Tuesday. "Everyone went crazy," Pappas says.

The result: International acclaim

The story ran on the homepage of CNN, Yahoo and MSNBC. "All of a sudden, there was a name for email mismanagement—and now there's an expert with a 12-step program," Pappas says. "Everyone knows what it's like to have Blackberries turn into Crackberries. This story had everything: A problem, a cure with a catchy name and an expert."

From there, coverage went international: "We were contacted by ABC Nightly News, and the next day the story was on the front page of the London Daily Telegraph. We got a ton of international publicity and realized that this is not just a problem Americans are dealing with. Everyone in the world seems to have this problem. It's an international dilemma: We got calls from Australia, India, New Zealand and other places. The scope was not anticipated."

Pappas contributes much of the widespread attention to basic communication essentials: "We had a great name for her program," she says. "It would have been one thing to say, "We have an expert to talk about email addiction.' But because we offered a specific program with a catchy name that everyone is familiar with, it gave reporters a headline and made it successful."

Secrets for success: Read on as Pappas offers tips that you can apply to your own PR campaigns based on the success of this one:

1. Identify your clients' "pioneer" angles. "Within your client's niche market or subject matter, you have to figure out what is going to make them unique and stand out from everyone else," she says. "Is there a trend that people haven't yet capitalized on? You have to look out for what hasn't been done yet. If you can be a pioneer for a cause or within your space, you can get great media attention."

2. Buff up credibility with client news like new books and products. "It's important to tie your outreach to a great new product or system that gives your client credibility," she says. "Whether it's a new book or a new program, it establishes credibility and offers something that reporters and their readers can latch onto and say, 'This is what this person offers.' Just giving expert advice and words of wisdom will get you placements—but not necessarily national recognition."

3. Keep the pressure on: Leverage a successful campaign to ensure continuing coverage. "You have to be willing to jump into the campaign and keep the momentum going," she advises. "If you realize an international market will respond to the story, make it easy for reporters to get in touch with your client, for example. Then, start making future plans. Creating an international breaking news story is a publicist's dream—but you have to think about how you can leverage it into continued news coverage. All of a sudden you have all of these news contacts, so get back in touch with them. In this campaign, for example, it's not just a 12-step program. The story doesn't end there. It's about how people are using and misusing email and how they can better manage email. Our challenge now is that Egan is publishing a book—and we have to leverage that book and create continuing media attention."