Factory shooting underscores importance of solid crisis communications planning

Yesterday’s tragic shooting spree at the Atlantis Plastics plant in Henderson, Ky., serves as an unfortunate reminder that disaster can strike at any time.

Fires, explosions, natural disasters, chemical spills, manufacturing accidents, labor strikes—every crisis threatens a company’s stability, its reputation and, in the worst case, its survivability.

That’s why, when a crisis occurs, your response must be swift and effective. And the secret to taking quick control of a crisis? A sound crisis communications plan. It’s a strategic roadmap to get you through a situation, while minimizing potential damage.

Here’s a primer for developing your plan.

Getting started

Set your crisis management team. Include the CEO, department managers, public relations team members, legal representatives, security and human resources personnel.

Outline your protocol. Work with your internal or external communications team. Get the necessary resources aligned. Work through the possible contingencies and conduct a crisis audit.

Determine your communications process. Identify your audiences and how you’ll communicate with them—face-to-face, telephone, e-mail, etc. Prompt, proactive communication is essential.

Anticipate common questions. Prepare responses that can then be modified based on the nature of the crisis.

In the moment of crisis

Never provide a "no comment" response. Such evasion is often interpreted as though you have something to hide.

If you’re still gathering information, say so. Share what you know and pledge to provide additional information as soon as possible. You’ll show that you’re actively working to stabilize the situation.

Never lie or speculate. Stick to the facts that you can speak to with certainty.

Exude calm. Your demeanor can directly affect public perception of the situation and your company overall.

And here’s the best tip we can give you, by far: If you don’t already have a crisis management plan, start developing it right now.

Sustainability Efforts Must Come before Marketing Hype

The current issue of Advertising Age has an interesting feature about the rise of sustainability officers and their relationship to marketing.

“So goes the evolving dance between sustainability and marketing, as chief sustainability officers become as prevalent as chief marketing officers in Fortune 500 companies. Although more marketers are striving to act and look green, their sustainability officers seldom come up from the marketing side.”

And why don’t they come from the marketing side? Because the more successful eco-friendly efforts start from the grass roots. They fully integrate the spirit of sustainability into the rest of a business.

To illustrate this point, the AdAge piece goes on to highlight the sustainability initiatives of Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and other big players. These companies don’t have massive “sustainability departments,” just leaders in charge of making things greener across their companies.

If your organization isn’t big enough to justify hiring a sustainability officer, a commitment to sustainability can still be carried through. But either way, green should not be a figment of marketing imagination.

That’s especially true for companies taking environmentally focused products to market (like several of our clients). As we pointed out back around Earth Day, the marketplace of green claims is getting pretty noisy. Audiences are starting to tune it all out. So if you’re selling green, you have to walk that talk.

Besides, there may be an even better reason for going greener throughout your company. Potential business benefits such as increased energy efficiency will likely have a far more positive impact on the Earth and your bottom line than any green marketing claim ever will.

Do You Have a “Web site” or a “Website”? Get with the Times.

“Web site” or “website”?

If it were up to us, the great Web debate would have been settled by now. But the Associated Press Stylebook still clings to the stodgy ol’ “Web site.” Therefore, for press releases and bylined articles, PR professionals have little choice but to use “Web site” or risk the scorn of AP-loyal editors.

True, “Web site” may be an accurate reflection of the term’s roots as a location on the World Wide Web. But that matters little because “website” has become the familiar compound word of choice for nearly everyone outside AP-alachia.

Technology, information and the related terminology are evolving fast in the Internet age—much faster, it would seem, than an old-media organization such as the AP is prepared to handle. (See also our post from February about media coverage of the Favre retirement, when organizations well versed in new media were much quicker to spread the story.)

So, what about your organization? Are you staying ahead of the interactive technology curve, or at least with it?

If you’re still insisting on calling your portal a “Web site,” you may have fallen behind on other advances. A few additional red flags that show that an organization is out of touch:

-- A “news” page where the “latest news” consists of releases from two years ago.
-- An information dump that amounts to little more than a stagnant adaptation of the company literature—known as “brochureware.”
-- Anything that shows up on the Web Pages That Suck blog.

OK, so maybe you’re hip to buzz-worthy initiatives such as search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). But even so, if the site you’re driving traffic to is burdened by any of the flaws mentioned above, you’ll look silly to your new visitors—and they won’t come back.

Our recommendation is first to modernize design and content to make it clean, current and easy to use. Of course, you might start by calling it a website.

Even CPAs Agree: Marketing Investments Still Make Good Business Sense

CPAs can be very stingy people—even more so when the economic seas are churning, as they are now.

But even some of the most conservative accountants recognize that now isn’t the time to shut down marketing efforts. Here’s an article from a firm called Vrakas/Blum suggesting that this is a critical time to invest in your future through marketing.

Why? For the same reason it’s good to invest in quality stocks when the market is down: The bull will be back, and you’ll be able to take advantage. Right now, while many of your competitors are cutting back on marketing, it’s a great opportunity for you to gain an edge. When the economy picks up again, you’ll be better positioned to pounce on new business.

Now, we don’t recommend throwing more money around indiscriminately (although we’d sure benefit from that, if you insist). You should invest as wisely as possible. The Vrakas/Blum article offers four tips to approach marketing in a tough economy. (Never mind that the author actually promises six suggestions.)

For further reading, you can review a similarly helpful post we offered back in February with five tips on marketing during the downturn.

Ramp up Your Customer Retention Efforts

Is customer service dead? You’d better hope not.

Customer service is, of course, the key to satisfied customers. Scratch that—not just satisfied, but loyal customers.

Even in bullish economic times, customer retention costs a lot less than customer acquisition. And in the current iffy economy, retention is even more important.

But many B2B marketers remain more focused on attracting new customers, according to a new report.

The Chief Marketing Officer Council’s study, highlighted in BtoB Magazine, found that only one-third of global marketers have strategies in place to win back dormant or lost customers, and only half have strategies to further profit from key account relationships.

That’s too bad, because a host of new media and technologies offer us all kinds of fresh opportunities to understand, inform and interact with customers. For example, Scheibel Halaska works with several clients on email newsletters aimed at keeping customers in the loop.

Current customers, after all, are your most crucial target audience. Sure, you’ve got to be out there selling. But it’s a whole lot easier to sell to the folks who are already sold on your company.

The Labor Shortage Is a Perception Problem

Manufacturers, Trade Groups, Schools Must Work Together
A staff editorial in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls attention to a pressing issue for manufacturers and other B2B companies: the skilled labor shortage.

It’s a topic we’ve discussed here before—and one that, right now, several of our clients are taking a leadership role in addressing. They’re collaborating with technical schools and colleges, offering scholarships and internships, sponsoring recruitment fairs and more. In the interest of your company’s future, you may want to follow suit.

The baby boomers’ retirement is often cited as one of the leading causes of the intensifying skilled labor shortage. And rightfully so. But the real problem isn’t necessarily that there aren’t enough workers out there to replace them; no, for manufacturers in particular, the challenge is that potential workers are avoiding manufacturing careers.

Why? Because hey don’t think it’s a sophisticated path. Their parents have told them the jobs don’t pay well. And they’ve heard that all the manufacturing jobs are moving overseas.

These are all misperceptions. The truth is that manufacturing positions today often are at the forefront of innovation.

Clearly, manufacturers face a significant public relations challenge that must be solved promptly. Fortunately, two upcoming events in Milwaukee may help dispel some of the myths. ANTEC and the Plastics Encounter, set for May 4-6, will showcase the latest developments in high-tech manufacturing, helping advance current workers skills and improve recruitment of new workers.

We agree with the JS editorial: Manufacturers, educational institutions and trade organizations must work together more to help attract and retain workers. ANTEC and Plastics Encounter are two fine examples of such initiatives. Now it’s time for your company to join the cause.

For Marketers, the Earth Day Bandwagon May Be Full

In the thick of Earth Day media coverage, it may be time to ask: Is “green” on its way to being as undifferentiating a term as, say, “solutions provider”?

An interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal takes a look at that question. And clearly, in some sectors—particularly in the consumer space—the answer is yes.

Quick take in B2B: Environmental claims may not yet be devalued. But there’s certainly no shortage of green pretenders out there. Trade media are being flooded with green product stories … some have merit; many don’t. As a result, many audiences are becoming desensitized to claims about corporate environmentalism and social responsibility.

So it’s more critical than ever that substantive, defensible claims be the backbone of any green messaging. That’s most likely a good thing, because it may encourage more companies to pursue environmental initiatives the right way—with actual green impact.