LT Public Relations

Speaking Topics

LT Public Relations' President Casey Boggs speaks to financial associations, universities, national conferences and leading businesses across the country on topical issues in public relations, marketing, branding and corporate communications.

2013 Presentation Topics

For more information, please click on the links below or scroll down for topic summaries.

Crisis Preparation
Marketing Budgets
Social Media
Merger & Acquisition Communications
Community Engagement & Responsible Banking
Litigation Support
Reputation Management
Internal Communications

Formats

Keynote Address
Speeches and Presentations
Conferences/Seminars
Panel Discussions
University Lectures / Guest Speaker
Executive Workshops (small groups)
Employee Training (small and large groups)

Contact

LT Public Relations
Tel: 503.477.9215
Email: PR@LTpublicrelations.com

Crisis Preparation

In crisis mode? Here are four keys to remember:

LT Public Relations is committed to helping responsible companies emerge from a crisis with reputation intact. Though every situation is unique, here are four keys that should guide companies when managing a crisis.

#1, Empathize. Identify with your audience. If your company is under fire, you must bridge the emotional, even hostile distance between you and the affected public.

#2, Remind the public of your company's core values. This is your chance to remind the public of your company's core values, emphasizing that the crisis is an unfortunate circumstance that occurred despite a culture of responsibility.

#3, Acknowledge that somewhere, somehow core values have been compromised. Great companies are not perfect companies, but they have high standards of excellence and are willing to evaluate and reform when their core values are compromised.

#4, Act. Tell the public how you will proactively address the current problem. Share what your company is currently doing or will do in the short-term to remedy the crisis. Share how it intends to reform and prevent similar crises again.

Marketing Budgets

Recasting the marketing budget for the digital age

Smart companies today are making a shift away from general focus advertising to a well-defined integrated marketing strategy that relies on understanding the target audience and customer relationship management.

Balancing advertising and public relations in the marketing mix

Leveraging public relations to create competitive advantage

Understanding media fragmentation and the value of unified messaging across multiple channels to increase trust and credibility

Social Media

How to leverage social media in 2013

Customers make decisions based on peer experiences shared via social networks. Internet and social media use continues to grow, approaching total population saturation with remarkable speed. Company's today must swiftly ascertain what works and what doesn't in social media to manage the customer's online experience.

Preliminary goals. The preliminary goals of a social media campaign often include building brand awareness or increasing sales, but successful social media campaigns start internally, building momentum around core messages and critical success factors..

Knowing who to communicate with is the first step... then and only then is the time right to discuss specific strategies, such as what products or services to promote and which social networks to use.

Taking social media to the next level. Learn new ways to use social media to communicate with target audiences, increasing engagement and dialogue.

Merger & Acquisition Communications

Strategic M&A communications make a good deal a great one

When two companies come together to create value through a merger or acquisition,the impact of M&A communications can make or break the ultimate success of the deal.

Confidence in Leadership: Mitigate M&A risks based on fear of the unknown, trust issues and resistance to change. Create confidence and satisfaction with leadership to prevent employee and client turnover post-merger.

Harmonizing Corporate Culture: Aligned cultures achieve business goals more quickly. Communicate early/frequently about the scope and impact of change, anticipated level of integration and assimilation expected.

Human Resources Issues: Help employees "deal with the deal."

Community Engagement and Responsible Banking

Banking on transparency ~ the audience is growing

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in 2012 requiring banks receiving city funds (which total $6 billion) to communicate how they are reinvesting in the local community. New York and Portland, Ore., passed similar laws within 24 hours and several other major cities have also recently adopted responsible banking ordinances, including San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Boston.

These new laws are intended to enable a city and its residents to identify which financial institutions are helping the community and which are not; but what does this mean to the financial services sector?

No longer is it enough to produce an annual report for investors and file it with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The role investor relations played in the past has changed completely - from communicating with a well-defined audience of shareholders to proactively communicating with a broader, well-informed public audience that's growing.

Litigation Support

Executives and corporate attorneys are often called upon to act as spokespersons for the companies they represent.

It is at this crossroads between legal counsel, executive leadership and public relations that corporate spokespeople protect the reputation of their companies. LT PR's Casey Boggs discusses:

Communications strategy	Monitoring media coverage
Talking points	Local/regional/national media relations
Media statements	Communications training
News releases	Defusing hostile/negative press
Press briefings	Attending trials/managing press

Reputation Management

"Banks must rebuild confidence now - the economy depends on it."

In a 2012 Gallup Business Journal article, Dennis Jacobe, PhD, Chief Economist for Gallup, famous for its global research and polling, made a case for improving the reputation of banks. Jacobe writes "Americans" confidence in U.S. banks fell to a new record annual low of 21% in June 2012." Fixing this problem is essential for economic growth, he notes.

"Recreating a strong U.S. banking system requires more than banks having strong net worth," says Jacobe. "It requires Americans to have a strong, positive image of the banking industry" and now, that does not exist," he says.

How responsive is your institution?

Learn how to manage, improve and protect corporate image through public relations by recognizing and evaluating opportunities for communication and interaction with target audiences.

There are many ways to communicate responsively, but getting the timing (and timeliness) right can be tricky when communicating with the public. Making a plan for reputation management also includes proactively establishing a way to nip problems in the bud – coping with negative situations.