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Communicator IncCommunicator Inc was founded in 1999 as a spin-off of Salomon Smith Barney to build, manage and operate Bond.Hub, an online financial services industry hub that offers technology services to some of the world’s largest investment firms. Bond.Hub enables the common customers of the major bond dealers on Wall Street to access the proprietary research of each dealer using a single password, instead of requiring a separate password for each Web site. The site also aggregates the research so users see headlines from multiple sources in a single view.Over time, the Bond.Hub community grew to nearly 30,000 customers, partners and employees at eight of the world’s largest investment firms, including Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Warburg. Business ChallengeWhile Communicator Inc received some attention from the financial services press for its work with Bond.Hub, the company was largely ignored by the technology publications and higher level business press. As a result, Communicator Inc was positioned soley as a financial services vendor, thereby limiting its ability to sell its services to other markets. By 2002, Communicator Inc was looking to refocus its attention on re-branding itself and breaking into new markets.In February 2002, Communicator Inc planned to roll out its new Hub IM enterprise instant messaging service to the 30,000 Bond.Hub users. Recognizing this launch as a key opportunity to expand its positioning, Communicator Inc tapped Schwartz Communications to bring its message to a broader audience of enterprises in need of secure business communications solutions. Schwartz PR StrategyUsing the new instant messaging service as a launching point, Schwartz aimed to broaden Communicator Inc’s audience while meeting the following goals:
- Position Communicator Inc as a leader in secure electronic communications, both inside and outside of the financial services industry.
- Encourage PR coverage of enterprise instant messaging at a time when most articles on instant messaging focused on consumer products such as AIM, MSN and Yahoo.
- Ensure reporters understood that use of consumer IM products within businesses was widespread and often exposed companies to security risks. Because of this growing practice, businesses were in need of an instant messaging service designed to meet the unique requirements and concerns of enterprises.
- Continue to support the growth of the community within the financial services market without pigeonholing Communicator Inc strictly as a “financial services” company.
Schwartz public relations positioned the Hub IM rollout as the world’s largest cross-enterprise instant messaging implementation, focusing the story on the 30,000 users at the eight major investment firms that comprise the Bond.Hub community. This strategy enabled Schwartz to back up Communicator Inc’s message of offering robust technology services to Fortune 1000 clients.Schwartz started by arranging briefings with industry analysts both to establish Communicator Inc’s position in the emerging enterprise instant messaging market and to market test critical new messaging prior to rollout. Schwartz also worked with analysts to obtain validation quotes for the launch release and to create a contact list of references for reporters.Schwartz then screened Communicator Inc’s customers to establish how they were using the service and what they found to be the most advantageous features. Schwartz used these customers as spokespeople to covey the story of Hub IM as a necessary business tool.Focusing on emerging interest in the enterprise instant messaging space and leveraging the blue-chip names of Communicator Inc’s customers, the Schwartz team went to work with an intense focus on technology and business publications. Schwartz viewed the pitch as an opportunity to both gain PR coverage for the launch and to lay the groundwork for stories down the road.ResultsIn the weeks leading up to the launch, Schwartz arranged for Communicator Inc’s CEO and Hub IM product manager to brief analysts at seven analyst firms. The public relations agency also arranged media interviews with CIO, CIO Insight, eWeek, Financial Times, InformationWeek, Instant Messaging Planet, Network World, Release 1.0 and The Wall Street Journal.The aggressive pitching leading up to and on the day of the launch paid off with the technology and business press. On launch day, a two-page, stand-alone article in InformationWeek included all key messages as well as a customer quote touting how Communicator Hub IM would streamline the bond trading process. Other high-impact placements included The Wall Street Journal Online, Instant Messaging Planet, Computerworld, CNET News.com, CNET Radio, Network World, Financial Times, the Associated Press and IDG News Service.Momentum from the launch helped generate coverage for months, including a customer as the lead in an article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal’s “Marketplace” section and continued PR coverage by the technology press. It also opened the door to meetings with BusinessWeek, META Group and Forbes.com.Even through the end of 2002, Communicator Inc remained top of mind with major media. A CNET News.com article wrapping up advances in the instant messaging industry noted that Communicator Inc beat out AOL, Yahoo and MSN to the enterprise IM space and CIO Magazine focused on Hub IM when it named IM #7 on its list of “Big Ideas for 2003.”Prior to April 2002, the majority of stories about instant messaging focused on consumer services. After the Hub IM launch, business reporters started taking notice and writing about the trend of instant messaging use in the enterprise, often including Communicator Inc as a major player in the space. Further, Schwartz fielded numerous calls from reporters planning enterprise IM stories who felt they needed to speak with a Communicator Inc spokesperson in order to truly understand how businesses benefit from a tool that was once considered just another way for teenagers to chat.The coverage also inverted Communicator Inc’s sales process. Prior to the launch, the sales team had few incoming calls and mostly concentrated on drumming up leads. After the launch, the sales team received a constant flow of calls and focused its efforts on following up on the sales leads created by the PR coverage.Other indications of the public relations program’s success include:
- Web traffic to the Communicator Inc site more than doubled for the month of April compared to the four months leading up to the launch. The numbers remained high through May and June.
- Communicator received more than 100 sales calls during the two weeks after the launch from companies interested in enterprise IM, including calls from such industries as energy, defense, software and consumer goods.
- For several months after the launch, the Communicator sales team received unsolicited calls a rate of 16 to 20 each month.
- The Communicator sales team received unsolicited interest from companies that had previously turned down sales calls, including Putnam Mutual Funds, Wellington Management, Vanguard and Wells Fargo.
- Calls also came in from such giants as Duke Energy, The Coleman Company, Intuit and Raytheon.
- Reporters called on Communicator Inc spokespeople and customers to comment when major industry players AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo launched their own enterprise IM services.
- Schwartz elevated Communicator Inc from a strictly “financial services” provider and non-player in the enterprise instant messaging market to a company that is mentioned whenever reporters compile a list of key enterprise IM vendors.
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