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Events that shaped me | West Sussex Health PR Blog

 

I was in my early twenties when I first saw what professionally trying to ‘dodge the bullet’ looked like…

I was attending a meeting of very senior professionals (clients) in London, who following a serious failure in the system, were all in agreement that at the forthcoming public inquiry they would not give any media interviews and would literally stay quiet and disappear out of a side door at the end.

I can still remember not quite believing what I was hearing and willing one person to challenge the decision. You don’t have to be in PR to realise that you have to be accountable for your actions, especially in a position of seniority.

It was left to me, sweaty palms and all, to stand up at one of the largest boardroom tables known to man and explain why they should ditch their plan and instead prepare to do as many interviews as the media asked for.

Avoiding media suicide

After a bit of coughing and shuffling, they reluctantly agreed. I’m still proud of my younger self for that one – it was terrifying at the time, but I knew their plan would be media suicide and more importantly, it was fundamentally wrong not to take responsibility.

They got pretty fair treatment from the media. It was balanced reporting and even though it was critical, they were able to explain their position and comment on the report. They were also able to explain what measures they were introducing to avoid the situation happening again. Without giving a Press Conference they wouldn’t have been able to do that.

It was critically important for anyone affected by the incident, the organisations involved, their community, other stakeholders and tax payers that they were communicating and accessible. It helps to rebuild trust. It shows you appreciate the seriousness of the incident and you care.

Ultimately, we’re all accountable for our actions, or we should be.

The right approach

Not communicating would have been the very worst thing they could have done that day, even though it was difficult to face the media, it was the right thing for them to do.

In the run up the day the inquiry report was published, I made sure they received the right support, help with answering media enquiries, writing statements, arranging interviews for them to take part in, media briefing and training.

I’m pretty easy going but I won’t ever go along with something I feel is the wrong approach just to keep the client happy.  After all no one would thank me if I didn’t take pre-emptive steps to limit any possible negative coverage and to ensure both sides of the situation were reported on.

I learned that about myself three decades ago in a board room in London.

About you

Are you running your own business or important project and also trying to manage the communications?

Do you spend evenings and weekends trying to do your own promotion and need to reclaim your life?

Whether you need someone to run your Communications function, deal with media calls, rewrite part of your website or write tailored social media, I can help!

This is client Hugo Spowers, taking part in an interview after media picked up on the Press Release I wrote and issued.

About me

I offer:

✅   Professional, proactive and reactive PR and communications support?

✅   Help to raise your profile and content perfectly tailored to your audience?

✅   Valuable media coverage worth 2.5X advertising space?

✅   Increased credibility in your sector?

✅   A higher online profile through effective website, social media and media?

✅   LinkedIn Content to attract your ideal clients

Why me?

I love my job and when we work together I become an invested partner in the success of your organisation.

Since setting up my boutique agency in 2015, I have worked with several leading public and private sector organisations, managing highly-successful campaigns in the healthcare, social care, recruitment, education and sustainable technology sectors.

Drawing on my experience as a PR and Communications Manager and former journalist, I work with companies and organisations of all sizes, fulfilling their communication needs.

I have helped website traffic increase by 250%, gained national newspaper, magazine and television coverage and supported three successful crowdfunding campaigns with PR, raising over £2 million. I have provided Press Office cover, dealt with countless media enquiries, written publications and helped successfully manage negative online comments.

I provide a tailored service to just a handful of clients at a time, ensuring you have the benefit of my many years’ experience in the industry.

See a selection of our media  coverage here:

Mail Online and Mail on Sunday pieces

iNews Article

The Sun

Primary Health Care

Nursing Times Patient Blog

Nursing Times Article

Are you in?

Book in for 15 minutes of my time to ask me anything you want about your PR, communication and marketing calendly.com/ckellypr

Still unsure?

Read some of my testimonials:

“Gaining features in relevant and well-regarded publications helps to build trust in our business and therefore encourage new customers to try our products. This was OjO’s first ever PR campaign and Cathy was an extremely reliable and invested partner in our success. Ultimately, we successfully funded our crowdfunding campaign and we believe that getting PR coverage early on in the campaign was a key driver of the success of the campaign.”

Freja Smith, Learn with OjO Marketing Manager

“When we wanted to publicise the launch of our new company, Cathy was my first choice as she’d previously been my global PR manager, was extremely capable and good to work with. Thanks to her experience and skills, we gained some fantastic national coverage within our target industry and were offered a valuable speaking opportunity at a prestigious event.”

Tim Richards, CEO, Future Resume

“Working with Cathy on various communication projects within West Sussex County Council was an absolute pleasure. Her knowledge, professionalism and skills allowed us to create positive key messages and quality items for publication and printed resources. I would recommend her to anyone needing a consummate professional to deliver both strategic and operational projects, effectively communicating with different stakeholder groups throughout.”

Sarah Dimmock, West Sussex County Council

“We engaged Cathy recently to provide extra support to our company whilst staff were on holiday. She was previously employed by us for a couple of years, so we knew we could be assured of a high standard of work complemented by a pleasant, efficient demeanour; she is a pleasure to work with.”

Stephanie Lee, Jonathan Street Public Relations, London

I’ve been working with Cathy for nearly 1.5 years, after she was recommended to me.  She writes and manages all our social media, advising on the best channels and specifically focuses on LinkedIn and writing our Blogs. She is experienced and knowledgeable, especially about using LinkedIn as a marketing tool, which is a big plus.  She also advises how to best use our marketing budget and which activities to focus on. She regularly steps in with an expert perspective on specific projects, such as content for adverts and helping us to overhaul the website – rewriting key pages and advising on the best design. She’s kept up to date with the latest marketing tools, which is good news for her clients. She’s proactive, professional and provides an excellent communications and PR service.  “

Dermot Kennedy, partner, Giltinan & Kennedy LLP

“Cathy helped us to reach new audiences and build SEO backlinks around our Kickstarter campaign. On top of this, she provided invaluable expertise for how to choose the right images and messaging, and emphasised the importance of having research and evidence to back the PR story and help increase our chances of success.”

Freja Smith, Learn with OjO Marketing Manager

“Since starting work with Catherine Kelly PR our media presence has jumped about 10 fold. Cathy is able to advise on how to go about securing the best coverage and has used a variety of channels, resulting in both print and radio coverage. She also set up and established our social media presence which has grown in a short space of time – giving us valuable extra exposure.”

Ian Inglis, Bluebird Care

“I worked with Catherine Kelly PR and was exceptionally impressed. I had attempted to use a couple of other PR services, but the results were disappointing.  During our first three months,  she secured a number of PR opportunities, including several newspaper articles, radio interview, monthly column and a large magazine feature.  Not only this, but she is knowledgeable about social media, blogging and speaking engagements.  She listened carefully at our first meeting and assessed my needs – and then drew up a tailored plan to meet them.  Our budget is fixed, with the opportunity for flexibility where required, so I have peace of mind.  I would not hesitate to recommend Catherine Kelly PR.  She is a delightful person with whom to work and a total professional.”

Miranda Banks, Director, Smartivate and Excel in Exams

“I know the wellbeing team are really pleased with the coverage they are getting and it’s great to see the Health Champions name in the press so much. People can see the good work that is going on.  You have made such a difference to raising the profile.  I only wish we had you on board sooner!”

Karen Dennison, Director, Health Champions Training

“I have found Catherine Kelly’s PR service invaluable. Catherine quickly understood my business requirements; produced a plan to meet them including an agreed price and delivered a high quality product, to budget and within the agreed timeframe. Throughout the process Catherine was great to work with; and I would definitely recommend her work to others looking for a professional, high quality, PR service.”

Nikki Gibbins, Director, Achieving Together

Let’s chat, calendly.com/ckellypr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Events that shaped me | West Sussex Health PR Blog

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Healthcare public relations for disruptors, innovators…

Plato was right: necessity is indeed the mother of invention – healthcare public relations for disruptors, innovators and entrepreneurs is reflecting their current incredible growth with AI and digitilisation – starting 2021 on a buoyant high.

Necessity and urgency accelerated change, but the bigger picture is how bioengineering, bioelectronics, genetic sequencing, machine learning, and AI have seamlessly come together.

The pandemic has made it clear which brands, healthcare and otherwise, understand their consumers and are surging ahead as we enter 2021.

In 2020, agile organisations truly came into their own, quickly adapting to a vastly difference landscape, understanding what was needed by consumers and pivoting to meet that need.

Those organisations that truly understand their customers and how we all now live – are unsurprisingly thriving as we enter 2021.

Pharmacist using device with patient healthcare public relations
NuroKor’s mitouch is being used at some of the UK’s most innovative pharmacies

And if we weren’t digital natives prior to the pandemic, we are someway closer to adopting an ease with technology.

Post COVID, life will be different, because we have all changed.

Many now favour apps, wearables, devices and technology – even the previously phobic. Zoom exercise, medical consultations, online shopping and working virtually have become the norm.

As we continue to miss human contact, communicators are creating experiences where we authentically connect – virtual events, compelling human interest stories and video content.

Although the past year has been difficult, it’s inspiring seeing how innovators are pivoting, changing focus and ploughing ahead, to bring us life-changing advances in health-tech.

I’m working for one of them www.nurokor.com – exciting to use PR to share their amazing story. If you need healthcare public relations support contact me at cathy@catherinekellypr.co.uk

See examples of my coverage for clients here https://catherinekellypr.co.uk/

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Five Tips For Crisis Communications

Cathy Kelly runs through five key tips to get prepared for a crisis. She also talks practically about how best to look after your team in a crisis situation and how to avoid the mistakes her and her teams made when managing a crisis.

Sign up for my ‘What’s Hot in the World of PR’ newsletter and get free resources including a Crisis Contingency Plan home page.

I’ll be sharing other free resources with you over the coming weeks and months. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up to date with the latest resources.

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Today I’m going to be talking to you about how you manage and prepare for a potential communications crisis. So it could be something along the lines of staff redundancies, it could be a major health outbreak, or it could be a security breach. But effectively it’s something where you want to contain and control some of the messages going out. A lot of this you can prepare in advance believe it or not.

I am a former journalist and I’ve also got around 20 years’ experience of working with, and writing for the media on major media campaigns. But I’ve also worked in house with various organisations including hospitals and different health trusts. I’ve dealt with some of these situations myself and there’s nothing like first-hand experience to know what you’re talking about and to learn from your mistakes and we did make some mistakes.

So the first time I had to deal with a crisis it was something which came out of the blue for one of the major London hospitals we worked for at the time. We were literally were glued to the telephones dealing with media inquiries and giving interviews for around 10 hours. During that time we didn’t eat enough, drink enough or even go to the loo enough. So we learnt by the end of it that, that’s really not how you do it. In terms of managing the situation in terms of communication materials that we gave out and shared with the media, we did a good job. But we didn’t do a good job of looking after ourselves.

So one of the key things is to look after your team in a crisis. To make sure that you have people being runners and feeding them, giving them drinks, letting them having toilet breaks. It sounds really basic, but those things are incredibly important.

The second time I had to deal with a crisis I was on my day off, and I had young kids, and I ended up having a little incident room in my kitchen, in my house. So I was dealing with national journalists and dealing with a measles outbreak. But because I had frequently asked questions already written and prepared in case that happened. Because I had holding statements and because I had details of journalists, it didn’t panic me so much because I had everything to hand. I also had details of other directors and I had their contact details.

So what I would say first is to look at your communication channels and to make sure that you have as much in place as you possibly can. You need to look at internal communication channels, because the first people you should be trying to reach are your staff, because they’re going to be having to deal with this with you, and they’re also going to be reacting to it, and potentially reading about it, or watching it on the news. So you need to find a way, or find different ways of reaching different groups of staff in the best possible way. This may be through email, through your intranet, through cascade systems within your organisation, with managers’ briefings. All sorts of things that you may have in place. So tap into those and have things written in advance if you can to actually make things as quick and easy as possible for you, so you’re just slotting in the details specific to your incident.

The other things you need to think about are the external systems that you have in place. So you’re effectively going to be using things like social media, your website, and the media, in terms of issuing holding statements and possibly press releases about the incident, which has taken place. So you need to make sure that you have all these things set up in advance.
Towards the end of the video I’m going to be sharing a free resource with you. It’s a media crisis template plan, so that you can apply to your own organisation. So look at maybe areas, which you should be addressing and things that you need to focus on. To make sure that you’re as ready as you possibly can be. Because by being ready you really take the heat out of an incident, because when it strikes, it strikes without any warning. That sounds very obvious, but you need to make it as least stressful as possible for you, because it will be pretty frantic. You won’t have time to think about other things.

One of the things I wanted to focus on a little bit was what should actually go into your media contingency plan. So this will be all the telephone contact numbers for all the people that may be useful for you in that situation. So it’ll be people like your communications manager and director, the different directors responsible for perhaps different parts of the organisation. Key people that you need to be able to contact in a crisis.

You also need to think about your key media contacts, who are the media that you have on side that you trust, that you can use to your advantage and to brief in these situations. Also media who you need to reach who perhaps you don’t have those relationships with. Have them all in your plan so that everything’s to hand, it’s easy as possible for you, and is quick to reach the people you need to reach with your messages.

You also need to split the incidents into different types of incidents. So for example here we have a critical media inquiry with a camera on site. So someone’s pitched up, they’ve heard about something that’s happened, perhaps it’s a security breach, or a potential bomb alert. They’ve turned up with a TV crew, so you need to be able to react to them very quickly. You need to know what to do when that happens. So for each incident you have a page in your plan. So if that thing happens you pull out the page, and you run through the process. You’re not having to think on the hoof, you’re not having to make it up as you go along. It’s ready, it’s prepared for you. You’re taking the heat out of the incident.

You also can maybe look at things like a riot or a major disturbance. Perhaps you might have a death on your premises or in one of your stores. It may be a fire or a bomb alert, or even damage to property. So you have emergency checklist, and you work through those checklists. By following a particular checklist you are reacting to it in a way, which you feel comfortable and in a timely fashion.

Five Tips to Prepare For Crisis Communications