Business Challenge:

CAST (Euronext: CAS) is a pioneer and world leader in Software Analysis and Measurement. CAST had worked with PR agencies previous to Gregory FCA, but felt that its story deserved bigger headlines than it was earning to drive thought leadership and lead generation. Software testing is a dry and highly technical topic, one that media journalists are typically not motivated to cover. Gregory FCA, as content marketing partner, assured CAST that it could get its story told in the most desirable trade and business publications in the U.S. One reason: Gregory FCA’s Editor-in-Chief is a former InformationWeek and CBS Radio technology journalist who understands enterprise IT and, more importantly, knows how to find the business story in highly technical topics.

Solution:

As part of its overarching strategy to gain visibility and business leads for CAST, Gregory FCA first reached out to top-tier business and trade media and networked with editors. The goal: to determine the story elements editors would need in order to consider an op-ed about a topic that was relevant to or about CAST.

As part of our outreach efforts, we contacted editors of The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal, whose editors said that the key element they look for in op-ed pieces are CIOs of large corporations who can provide expert counsel and insight on the issues that are most pressing to CIO Journal’s readership. Gregory FCA and CAST identified the top IT thought leaders in its customer base and reached out to these thought leaders to determine if they would be willing to work with CAST to produce an op-ed on a topic of their choice.

American Express’ CIO, Paul Dottle, expressed interest and was very passionate about best practices that American Express uses to assess and manage software risk. Gregory FCA interviewed Paul and provided editorial support to create an op-ed article, ensuring the article was written to the highest journalistic standards and focused on delivering high value to CIO Journal’s readers.

Results:

As evidence of the success of this approach, the article was accepted by the editors of CIO Journal with nothing more than a few grammatical changes, and it ran a few days later. CAST now has a reprint for its prospects and customers that validates the effectiveness of the technological approach it takes. Gregory FCA used social media tools and techniques to determine who shared the article, and provided that information to CAST for 1:1 social CRM lead generation. Gregory FCA credits the success of the article and its placement to its upfront research and ability to work with, think like, and write like journalists.

Business Challenge:

Yoh is an American talent and outsourcing company whose primary services include temporary placement, direct hire, managed staffing services, and outsourced solutions. Prior to the Internet revolution, the goal of Yoh’s public relations efforts was to generate awareness. Yoh would hope to tell a story that would resonate with the media, gain traction, and lead to consumer engagement. But over the past decade, as social and digital media has matured, the company required a new communications strategy that would maximize their consumer engagement.

Specifically, Yoh was looking to achieve the following goals: raise awareness of Yoh’s new agile practice; promote the issues facing HR pros trying to hire agile developers; establish Yoh as a thought leader in the agile space; generate demand among HR pros looking for agile developers; and generate demand among agile developers looking for work.

Solution:

Yoh partnered with Gregory FCA, who provided an integrated communications strategy that relied on both media exposure and the generation of prospect interest via new and advanced digital strategies.

The heart of the campaign established the Yoh blog—a content-heavy, issues-oriented, online publication that consistently encouraged prospects to seek direct engagement. Gregory FCA helped design, implement, and integrate “The Seamless Workforce” Yoh blog as a method for promoting such consumer interaction.

Gregory FCA facilitated guest blogging and created a report on talent supply chain with an accompanying infographic. These content-driven marketing tactics boosted Yoh’s thought leadership and the issues facing hiring employers. A mock cartoon debating “Agile vs. Fragile” developers and an “Agile Valley” cartoon series, also developed by Gregory FCA, improved Yoh’s awareness through viral marketing. These efforts were supported by Gregory FCA’s traditional press releases, media outreach and engagement. All content marketing efforts were highlighted on the blog as a one-stop shop for media and target audiences.

Results:

Gregory FCA’s content syndication yielded top placements on Visual.ly, InformationWeek, GigaOM, VentureBeat and eWeek. Placements were also secured with popular developer websites, including Developer.com and AgileScout, sparking conversation among the agile community. Total readership amassed by content placement was over 5.1 million. Yoh broke into the top 10 Google search results for the terms “agile development” and “agile hiring,” including all top six results for “yoh agile.”

In one year, with the help of Gregory FCA, Yoh was featured in 120 local, regional, and national media placements. And unlike public relations strategies of the past, Gregory FCA has used these media placements as a means to generate online awareness. Earned media coverage was funneled back to the Yoh blog, which provided a wealth of information that prospects could use, share, and exchange. By closely tracking the blog; identifying and analyzing who engaged, when they engaged, and how often they engaged, Gregory FCA was able to create a graduated pipeline of prospects for Yoh, prioritized by those most likely to procure services.

Business Challenge:

Friendly Planet Travel is a national vacation operator specializing in premium, exotic, and cost-effective international travel arrangements. With no additional advertising budget, the company sought to increase their visibility and brand awareness on Facebook to existing and potential customers, build a community of engaged travelers, and educate fans on their offerings and special deals using their pre-existing Facebook page. The client also wanted satisfied travelers to do word of mouth marketing on the page by leaving positive reviews.

Solution:

Gregory FCA recommended a strategic campaign to leverage Facebook’s open API and allow Friendly Planet Travel to host sweepstakes within its company pages on a shoestring budget. To achieve these goals, Gregory FCA created a strategic integrated campaign called “Win the World”. At the heart of the campaign was a series of sweepstakes, awarding six all-inclusive dream vacations for two to some of the world’s most exotic and desirable locations, including South Africa, China, Peru, and more.

Gregory FCA surrounded the sweepstakes launch with low-cost, high-impact marketing exercises, including an email blast to the existing database, promotion in sweepstakes-focused newsletters and websites, and promotion on Friendly Planet Travel’s website and Twitter account.

An aggressive traditional media relations campaign was also developed, targeting top tier media at travel websites and blogs. The sweepstakes was monitored daily through posts, commenting, and “liking” media, as well as monthly chats.

Results:

Gregory FCA secured exposure in top tier media outlets, blogs, and industry trade publications such as About.com, The Chicago Tribune, Deals4Dummies.com, JohnnyJet.com and Smarter Travel. The sweepstakes sites alone exposed the brand to more than 9.6 million unique monthly viewers. Based on the success of this campaign, and despite the current low promotional budget, Friendly Planet Travel’s social media presence is now an integral part of the organization, with the Facebook page now boasting a community of more than 26,000 (from its start of 1,500), giving it a larger presence on the platform than many other travel household names including AOL Travel, Gadling, and Smarter Travel.

The word of mouth marketing objective was achieved with over 200 positive testimonials from customers. The media coverage, coupled with Gregory FCA’s aggressive marketing tactics, helped increase Friendly Planet Travel’s Facebook fans by more than 14,000 in the first 90 days while concurrently strengthening the company’s email database and marketing outreach efforts. User engagement rose dramatically and has remained high, from a baseline of 1,200/month prior to the initial sweepstakes, to an average of 9,652 monthly engaged users one year later.

Business Challenge:

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is a $4 billion global IT management software and solutions company with 14,000 employees worldwide. CA has deep expertise across all IT environments, from mainframe and distributed to virtual, cloud, and mobile. Solutions from CA Technologies help companies manage and secure IT environments and deliver more flexible IT services to the business faster.

While CA is one of the most-recognized enterprise brands, it was best known for solutions used in large, complex, heterogeneous IT environments. The company wanted to establish a leadership position and derive significant revenue in several highly competitive emerging markets: cloud computing, social media, mobile computing (smartphones, tablets, and apps), among others.

Solution:

Gregory FCA developed a thought leadership strategy to help CA engage the most influential media and bloggers covering IT, and marshal their audiences into CA’s pipeline through digital demand generation and sales enablement techniques.

Gregory FCA helped CA identify, cultivate, and interview a deep bench of subject matter experts. The interviews powered an editorial calendar of custom content developed, syndicated, and socialized by Gregory FCA, including blog posts, guest blog posts, ebooks, infographics, cartoons, bylines, videos, podcasts, and more.

All of the content was optimized for search and social media, and was syndicated across the enterprise IT blogosphere and Twitterverse.

Results:

CA’s custom social content appeared regularly in some of the most-read enterprise and business media today, including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, ReadWriteWeb Enterprise, CIO, ZDNET, IT Business Edge, and AllTwitter. Moreover, CA’s articles were shared widely across social media, including on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and DailyMotion.

CA’s content now appears on Google page one when people are searching for information about CA’s targeted topics, attracting legions of fresh prospects to CA’s digital destinations. In the end, CA’s content generated over one million impressions per month, and has reached over 120 million users worldwide.

Company leaders credit the thought leadership strategy with generating $42 million in new pipeline, and pushing $24 million in existing pipeline through to close. As a result, the campaign is being expanded to take on two additional subject matter areas for the next fiscal year.

Business Challenge:

Mitsubishi Electric was feeling neglected.  Their previous public relations firm, a large national agency, had told Mitsubishi time and again that premier media simply wasn’t interested in attending its product shows or covering its large screen TVs. Mitsubishi had had enough, and launched a national search for a new agency. They included Gregory FCA after having worked with the firm on a partner’s event in New York.  The event, which Mitsubishi’s previous firm had dismissed as not “media worthy,” attracted major media, including a USA Today reporter that Mitsubishi had prized, but had never met.

Finally, in 2010, Gregory FCA was named Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions America’s agency of record

As a legacy company in the television and technology market space with a smaller market share, Mitsubishi Electric desired greater media exposure. However, because of Mitsubishi’s limited advertising budget, public relations was relied upon to inform and alert the industry, educate dealers, reach consumers, and keep the brand fresh and alive.

Solution:

In designing a consumer public and media relations strategy, Gregory FCA reached out to its dedicated and developed media contacts, advocating Mitsubishi Electric’s product lines to previously untapped audiences.

Further, Gregory FCA supported Mitsubishi at conferences and trade shows, consumer and media exhibitions, customer initiatives, multimedia, as well as other marketing projects. This direct stakeholder engagement aimed to help raise the level of awareness and capture a greater share of the voice in the crowded and competitive television and consumer electronics marketplace.

Finally, Gregory FCA helped Mitsubishi further amplify its existing social media platform by providing a consumer friendly voice which facilitated two-way communication and primed the company for direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns.

Results:

Since the beginning of their business relationship, Gregory FCA has generated over 2,000 media placements for Mitsubishi Electric. Highlights of Mitsubishi’s media exposure include USA Today, New York Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Consumer Reports, Popular Science, PC World, Rolling Stone, and more. A successful campaign, however, does not end with traditional media procurement. Before utilizing Gregory FCA, Mitsubishi maintained a limited presence on Facebook with 700 likes. Since then, Gregory FCA helped the company build its Facebook page to more than 32,000 likes.

Business Challenge:

Five Below is a rapidly-growing specialty value retailer offering a broad range of trend-right, high-quality merchandise-all priced between $1 and $5 to the teen and pre-teen market. Founded in Philadelphia in 2002, the company quickly began opening new stores, first in Greater Philadelphia and then gradually throughout the Northeast Corridor. Between 2011-2012, Five Below opened 50 new stores and set its sight on retail locations in major metropolitans farther from its roots. As the company evaluated new markets across the country, it sought a public relations partner to help build awareness of the brand, generate excitement among consumers, and drive traffic to its new stores.

Solution:

Gregory FCA developed a consumer PR and media relations strategy that targeted major local dailies, business journals, community newspapers, and online and TV outlets to promote each Five Below store opening and market launch. Through a combination of press releases and one-on-one media outreach, Gregory FCA contacted regional influencers to offer interviews with Five Below executives, personalized tours of the new stores prior to grand opening, photo and video opportunities, store hours and specifications, and details on grand opening festivities.

Results:

As of May 2012, Gregory FCA has supported Five Below in more than 10 major metropolitan expansions, including Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and more than 100 new store openings. Feature stories secured by Gregory FCA in major daily newspapers, such as Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Boston Globe, and The Chicago Tribune have successfully showcased Five Below as a fast-growing, trendy, and dynamic specialty retailer that is on the forefront of the powerful value- and teen-oriented retail trends.

In addition, Gregory FCA has arranged for numerous local television networks, local daily and weekly newspapers, and online media outlets to cover Five Below’s grand opening events. These segments captured shoppers’ excitement at the great value they can find at Five Below and have increased the buzz about the retailer within local communities.

Five Below continues to open new stores, both in new markets as well as those in which it already has a presence, and has the potential to grow to more than 2,000 locations nationwide. Gregory FCA continues to provide Five Below with media relations support in these efforts.

Business Challenge:

While we may all recognize the famous purple and orange FedEx vehicles, retail investors may not even know the company’s stock symbol (NYSE: FDX). How, then, do you make it simple for individuals and brokers to appreciate the investment attributes of one of the world’s leading transportation, e-commerce, and business services companies?

Solution:

Gregory FCA worked to understand the most important of FedEx’s financial data to promote then recommended a design layout for a visually pleasing and easy-to-read investor Fact Sheet. By providing concise descriptions and business highlights of FedEx’s separate Express, Ground, Freight, and Services divisions, the Fact Sheet provided investors a broad overview of the company’s operations, accomplishments, strategies, and performance in an easily digested format.

FedEx uses an electronic, PDF version of the Fact Sheet on their web site where it is one of the most downloaded documents among investors that are new to the company. Ten-thousand four-color copies are printed each year, bound in key retail financial publications, and are also used as handouts at various retail investor conferences that the company attends. More recently, a QR code was added, directing those seeking additional information to the investor relations pages on the corporate website.

Results:

In its fourth year, the annual Fact Sheet was elevated to the area on FedEx’s Investor Relations website where the Annual Report and Quarterly Stat Book are located. Moreover, reception was so strong that the financial publication exhausted its supply of hard copies. The Fact Sheet has been celebrated both internally and externally for its simplistic yet informational design—the success of which has been felt throughout the organization.

Business Challenge:

Kimco, an $8 billion, NYSE traded real estate investment trust (REIT), desired to enhance the value of their company through a high-impact communications strategy that would establish the company and a number of its executives as industry thought leaders.  They wanted these messages to be based on a single narrative that would simultaneously serve the diverse needs of their various audiences, complementing their traditional media outreach with a very aggressive social media presence.

Solution:

With deep domain experience in both the real estate and finance industries, Gregory FCA was able to develop and execute an integrated communications strategy. At the heart of the strategy was a groundbreaking blog developed by Gregory FCA that served as a central locus of information for Kimco’s many audiences.  As a trusted source of valuable information and insight, Kimco’s blog became the ‘go to’ site for updates on industry trends and developments. Gregory FCA provided Kimco with fresh, new, original content that its executives could post to the blog to build thought leadership throughout this growing community.

Results:

Kimco’s blog quickly achieved traction and now accounts for a growing proportion of Kimco’s online audience, with some 4,500 visitors reading Kimco’s content each month. Due to its fresh and insightful content, traffic on the blog is growing faster than on the corporate website. This content is repurposed on many levels to drive Kimco’s media relations efforts. The results speak for themselves, coverage by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsday, The Boston Globe, National Real Estate Investor, Seeking Alpha, and Real Estate Forum. In addition, Kimco has won industry acclaim as a model of transparency. The Kimco blog was named a ‘MAXI Awards’ finalist by the International Council of Shopping Centers in the “New Media—Best Use of Social Media (Company)” category. Kimco is now expanding their social media program.  Facebook pages are being created for a number of Kimco’s shopping centers where the pages will be populated with useful information to better serve customers and increase foot traffic. Gregory FCA has devised the pilot program, which will ultimately be implemented portfolio-wide.

Business Challenge:

Safeguard Scientific builds value in growth-stage technology and life sciences businesses by providing capital as well as key strategic, operational, and management resources to its partner companies. Gregory FCA has served as Safeguard’s communications partner for the past five years, telling the Safeguard story as well as the stories of its partner companies to a variety of audiences. Along the way, Gregory FCA has supported a number of Safeguard’s seminal financial events while helping the company pioneer new social channels with groundbreaking tools and tactics.

The Safeguard story is not a simple one. With no sales or revenue of its own, the company communicates its value proposition through the success of its partner companies, relying on the rising tide of these high profile companies to raise its own boat. Gregory FCA developed an integrated communications program that better enabled Safeguard to tell its nuanced story in a way that resonates with investors, potential partners, entrepreneurs, and deal sources around the country. The program was comprised of a broad assortment of communications components including media relations, message development, speaker training, an industry first investor relations blog, and various social media initiatives.

Solution:

Exposure is the lifeblood of quickly growing companies, and the ability to tell a compelling story through high impact media is critical to building visibility. Gregory FCA works with Safeguard partner companies to generate a steady flow of news that demonstrates their growth as private companies, which consequently reflects favorably on Safeguard’s public value. Each week, Gregory FCA works with Safeguard to identify and prioritize partner companies’ news, release it in a coordinated, timely fashion, and connect these companies with reporters, bloggers, and influencers who can amplify their message. As part of the engagement, Gregory FCA has developed close relationships at every level of Safeguard,  which has enabled us to discover unusual story angles that connect with the media in a manner that advances Safeguard’s overall business objectives. This very deep understanding of our client’s business, operations, and strategy has provided us with interesting stories we have been able to take to our extensive network of national media reporters. This has resulted in stories as varied as a half page Wall Street Journal article on Safeguard’s unique compensation model, bylines describing the differences between venture capital investing on the East Coast vs. the West Coast, and how new small business legislation can potentially affect employment levels.

To leverage the storytelling to new audiences, Gregory FCA launched Safeguard’s Investor Relations blog in 2010; at the time, one of the only IR blogs in the industry. This groundbreaking blog has evolved into Safeguard’s primary communication tool to inform investors, showcase internal expertise, spotlight partner companies’ successes and growth, and otherwise tell stories that would have been overlooked, if not for the power of digital communications and the evolution of social media.

Results:

They speak for themselves. Safeguard views Gregory FCA as much more than just a service provider. Rather, as Safeguard’s Vice President of Investor Relations tells it, “Gregory FCA operates as an extension of our communications team. They work hand in glove with us to track the trajectory of our partner companies, find and distribute news and stories about them, and find innovative ways to have this news reflect back on Safeguard’s value. They are hands on, active participants in our success who work with, and in advance of, us to keep our story fresh, exciting and of interest to audiences that include sophisticated investors, potential partners, entrepreneurs.”

Placements include FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, The Scientist, The Motley Fool, Red Herring, Dow Jones Venture Wire, The Daily Deal, and Medical Device Daily.

Business Challenge:

LA Weight Loss, one of the world’s most successful weight-loss programs, was seeking to gain top-tier national media coverage in an effort to increase their brand exposure. While the company had experienced success over their near 20 year existence, they felt that they had been losing their competitive advantage to opposing programs including Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, and Weight Watchers.

Solution:

After identifying the crown of weight-loss centered media coverage, People magazine’s bi-annual Half Their Size issue, Gregory FCA worked to develop and initiate a plan that would land an LA Weight Loss client a feature in the issue.

Working closely with managers of LA Weight Loss centers across the United States, Gregory FCA conducted thorough research, scouring the company’s long list of weight-loss clients to find the perfect subject to submit. An initial list of hundreds of candidates was culled to the top 10, who were presented to People editors, along with their personally crafted story of triumph. In the 12^th hour, People pushed back. To round out their story, they needed a minority woman who had lost half her size, and they needed to find and interview the person in less than 24 hours. Working around the clock, Gregory FCA found the perfect client, Angela Williams, a Louisiana woman who lost 250 pounds on the LA Weight Loss program. Gregory FCA prepared Angela for the People magazine interview, sent a stylist and photographer to her home for shots of her new body, and provided a new wardrobe for her to wear. Gregory FCA’s editorial department then drafted Angela’s compelling and transformational story to be submitted to the magazine.

Results:

People editors loved Angela and her story and shortly thereafter, she was featured in the magazine as the biggest loser in the entire issue. Not stopping there, Gregory FCA scheduled appearances with national morning shows the week the magazine hit newsstands. Gregory FCA conducted thorough media and message training, ensuring that Angela would be prepared for her television appearances. Good Morning America invited Angela Williams on the show and LA Weight Loss was the only weight-loss program mentioned during the four minute segment.

While Angela Williams was the first LA Weight Loss client to be featured in People, she served as the catalyst for a continued and productive relationship. Over the next 3 years, Gregory FCA helped secure the company 10 spots in the Half Their Size issue, including 5 cover stories! To accompany the People coverage, Gregory FCA secured many of the selected LA Weight Loss clients features on prominent national morning shows including Good Morning America, The Today Show, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

The significant media coverage that Gregory FCA helped LA Weight Loss achieve has established the company one of the most successful and highly-regarded weight-loss programs in the world.