James Vetrano's Advice for PR Agency Success

This summer we had a fantastic intern by the name of James Vetrano work for Walker Sands. I was curious as to why he thought he succeeded this summer. Jimmy is unfortunately back at school, but he was kind enough to write up some advice for new interns heading to a PR agency:

I had a great time this summer interning at Walker Sands Communications. I expected a fast paced office with exposure to different companies and people. Though I was not too surprised with the job, Walker Sands taught me a lot. Here are several important lessons I learned that will help me achieve success in the fields of public relations and marketing (or any other field). 

Take Initiative

You can't sit at your desk and wait for someone to walk by and ask you to do something. It is crucial to always make sure you are working on an assignment. If you're not, then go to someone and ask if they need help. If you ever plan on making any sort of progress within a company, you can't hesitate to take on every challenge with enthusiasm and a strong work ethic.

Follow up is Crucial

Several times a week, I found myself pitching stories to numerous reporters across the country. Reporters receive hundreds of emails every day. Without proper follow up, these busy reporters would skip over the e-mails even when the story was perfect for them. Persistent follow-up, particularly by phone, forces the reporter or editor to read and consider your message as well as respond to your calls. I realized that leaving a voice mail is not enough; verbal communication must take place!

Learn to Adapt Rapidly

At Walker Sands, it seemed like we were taking on new clients every week. One day I was writing a piece for an online real-estate company and the next day would be a recumbent bicycle company! In this environment, I had to be able to switch gears in a moments notice.

Socially Integrate

Finally, I learned the importance of engaging yourself in social activities with your co-workers. Don't hesitate to go out to lunch with them or to happy hour once in a while. You will learn a lot about them and they will learn a lot about you. It also shows that you are a "team player" and are willing to get to know them. You wouldn't believe how much knowledge and information you miss out on by not attending these little functions. Sure, eating out everyday is expensive (especially in Chicago), but look at it as an investment into the relationships you will build with your co-workers.

These are just a few of the many lessons I learned during my internship at Walker Sands. I hope you find them useful!

Is the Art of Marketing Dead?

I’ve always been a proponent of weighing the science part of marketing over the art. Trusting your gut can quickly get you into trouble and powerful artistry is great, but if it doesn’t get results, who cares? A recent Newsweek article discusses Super Crunchers, a book by Ian Ayres that proposes that we can no longer trust our intuition.

But is this true? And if so does it apply to the field of marketing? The data is out there to identify best practices and the “right ways to market. There are multiple case studies on how running various tests and collecting data pointed out needed changes that allowed for improved marketing. Are these numbers strong enough to rid us of the “art” of marketing?

Newsweek writer Jerry Adler explains how as journalism moves to the web, data on strory popularity is easily collected. Once this popularity data is analyzed, deciding what people want to read becomes evident with little human thought. This story is just one example of what Ayer proposes. Adler writes:

“…this (journalism example) is a microcosm of a powerful trend that will shape the economy for years to come: the replacement of expertise and intuition by objective, data-based decision making, made possible by a virtually inexhaustible supply of inexpensive information. Those who control and manipulate this data will be the masters of the new economic universe. Ayres calls them ‘Super Crunchers,’ which is also the title of his book, the latest attempt to siphon off a bit of the buzz that surrounds the hugely successful ‘Freakonomics.’”

In the last ten years, baseball scouting has seen a revolution in the way players are drafted. Successful scouts place an increased emphasis on statistics rather than choosing players that look like great ball players. Those teams that rely on stats rather than gut instinct are proven to be more successful, even when they have smaller budgets. This is why the Oakland Athletics with a payroll of 6 million dollars can still compete with the New York Yankees who have a payroll of 194 million. Described in detail in the book Moneyball, the Athletics rely heavily on numbers rather than intution. Adler explains how baseball scouting isn’t the only field where this happens:

“In fields from criminal law (where statistical projections of recidivism are taking discretion away from judges and parole boards) to oenophilia (where a formula involving temperature and rainfall is a better predictor of the quality of a vintage than the palates of the most vaunted experts), "intuitivists" are on the defensive against the Super Crunchers.”

“Increasingly, jobs that used to call for independent judgment, especially about other people, are being routinized and dumbed down.”

We’ve seen the same trend in marketing. More and more of our decisions, as marketers, are based on research and collected data. There have always been “best practices” in our field, but now we have the data to prove it. In a way, I very much agree with the author. Relying on data and measurable results is critical in our field. If we can’t point to numbers to support our initiatives then we can’t justify our existence. We’re just guessing and producing pretty things. Marketing needs to drive business.

Yet for all the numbers we can collect on our activities, someone initially needs to come up with those ideas. To do A/B testing someone needs to create an A and a B. Certainly the best practices are out there, but they don’t tell you exactly what to write or what to design. In the future Google may discover that the best AdWords headline is five words long. You can do hours of research on your business and what consumers need, but in the end you’ll have to type those fives words. You’ll have to make a decision based on a combination of numbers and intuition.

In addition, marketing thrives on creativity and innovation. People respond to things that they don’t even know about, so how can one rely on data that doesn’t even exist. It's a chicken/egg problem. You need the numbers to create something, yet the numbers don't exist to create it. In that case you rely on a gut feeling and see what happens. Until a campaign, brochure, advertisement, etc. is created and measured you may not have the data to prove it works.

So in summary, numbers are critical to a marketer’s job. Do your due diligence in researching and identifying best practices for your particular campaign. Afterwards you must measure the success of the campaign on an objective scale. But the art of marketing is far from dead. If your gut tells you to go a certain direction and there’s no numbers to refute it, jump in. Computers have yet to demonstrate signifigant creativity.

Of course I could be wrong. We always thought man would triumph over a computer in complex tasks like chess. Is the art of marketing far behind? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Working on a Deadline? Don't Freak Out.

What do you do when you have a hard deadline looming and absolutely no clue how you are going to make it? It seems like I deal with this scenario at least once a week. Whether it's a big issue or a little issue, limited time can be a stress. That's why I found this article, "10 Innovation Ideas When You Are on a Deadline" such a nice piece.

Author Gwyneth Dwyer works for an interactive branding and design firm so these tips no doubt come from personal experience. I thought these two were particularly useful:

1. Zero in

What, exactly, is the task before you? State it clearly—in one sentence, if possible. This may take time, but it's worth it. "A problem well-stated is half-solved," said American pragmatist John Dewey.

6. Zone out

Ignore whatever needs solving. Immerse yourself in something entirely different. Read a book or browse through a magazine completely unrelated to your task. Listen to your iPod. Visit a different part of town.

Let some time pass. (Yes, even if you're facing a deadline.) If you've done the work in steps one through five above, your subconscious will pick up where you left off. Just make sure you have a notepad handy.

I already use a lot of these, but when you are on deadline and freaking out, it's a good idea to have these printed out for reference. Check out the other eight tips here.

Do you have a tip or standard process for dealing with deadlines. Leave your best idea in the comments.