Tag: award winning PR

What Does a PR Agency Do? Briar Chapel Unveils Encore

Clairemont InternAwards, Blog, Case Studies, , , , ,

Briar Chapel is one of the largest master-planned green communities in North Carolina and part of Newland Communities, the country’s most prominent privately held residential real estate developer. As Briar Chapel prepared to launch Encore, its new age-qualified section, marketing managers turned to Clairemont Communications to gain visibility and roll out this distinctive offering to homebuyers ages 55 years and older.

Strategy: Feature Story

Clairemont crafted a comprehensive public relations campaign designed to gain visibility and support home sales for Encore. As a key element in this strategy, Clairemont set an objective to secure a feature story in The Original Relocation Guide prior to Encore’s grand opening that highlighted the age-qualified section’s features and lifestyle appeal. To gain maximum exposure, we aimed to secure this story in a local publication with a followership of at least 300,000 that targeted homebuyers. 

Execution

Clairemont recognized that feature stories often secure greater exposure with more opportunity to tell a complete, in-depth narrative than news briefs or short blurbs. Encore included a distinct set of lifestyle offerings that few other locations in the country could claim, so a larger feature story was critical to thoroughly depicting the character of the new section. The Original Location Guide, with its large readership in North Carolina, provided the perfect vehicle to share the news.

Clairemont crafted a creative, out-of-the-box angle designed to grab the attention of busy editors. Our initial hook leveraged the exclusivity that Encore offered, since it was only the second of its kind in the country. While this newsy tidbit might have been worth a local newspaper mention, we recognized the need for a more engaging story that would appeal to The Original Relocation Guide’s informative yet warm tone. We invited them to share a “how to” segment that tapped on both the desire to share fresh news as well as equipping the editors with a DIY approach for their home shoppers.

Results

Clairemont met the stated objective and far exceeded expectations. The feature story in The Original Relocation Guide highlighted the distinct character of Encore while positioning Briar Chapel (cited as the author) as a thought leader in the retirement industry to its circulation of 470,000. Published prior to the grand opening, the feature article prompted interest from prospects, and Encore secured a full waiting list of homebuyers by grand opening date.

The work Clairemont Communications conducted in partnership with Briar Chapel received a “Best in Category” award in the 2017 InSpire Awards. We are proud that this campaign represents one of the 175 awards we’ve received since starting Clairemont in 2010. To read more about the work we do with clients, please visit the case study section of our blog.

Read More

What Does a PR Agency Do? Unlocking Your Child’s Future

Clairemont InternAwards, Blog, Case Studies, , , , , , ,

Newland Communities, the country’s most prominent privately held residential developer, launched its newest master-planned community – Wendell Falls – in May of 2015. Since many families choose their homes based on the quality of the closest school system, Newland turned to Clairemont Communications to unveil the strengths of eastern Wake County’s academics and position Wendell Falls as a popular living destination for families.

Strategy and Tactics

Clairemont crafted a comprehensive strategic campaign to target families with school-aged children seeking homes in the Triangle area. As a component of the campaign, our team set the objective to develop an informative external publication highlighting the school system’s strengths to ambassadors and prospects. The touchstone publication supported a larger strategy to boost home sales by 100 percent in 2016.

Execution

Clairemont decided to craft a brochure that was clear, concise and easily portable, giving realtors the ability to physically pass them out without weighing them down from too much information. Our goal was to make the information readily available to realtors when they were asked questions about Wake County schools and to showcase the quality of education that the school system has to offer the prospective homebuyers and their families.

Results

Clairemont met the stated objective and far exceeded expectations, successfully creating an attractive, informative publication for  homebuyers and ambassadors. Complemented by additional family-centric marketing, sales increased by approximately 250 percent in 2016. Clairemont’s brochure even prompted one Wendell Falls representative to tout it as “the best school tool we’ve had to date!”

The work Clairemont Communications conducted in partnership with Wendell Falls earned an Award of Excellence and a Best in Category from the North Carolina Public Relations Society of America. We are proud that this campaign represents one of the 175 awards we’ve received since starting Clairemont in 2010.

To read more about the work we do with clients, please visit the case study section of our blog.

*Cover image courtesy of Wendell Falls.

Read More

When Square Dancing Pays Off

Cherith AndesAwards, Blog, The Clairemont Team, , , , , , ,

To all of those wonderful media people who whipped out their best square dancing moves at the Wendell Falls Hoedown Showdown last May … thank you.

On May 10, the North Carolina Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (NCPRSA) hosted its 2017 InSpire Awards recognizing outstanding public relations and marketing campaigns in a variety of categories. The Clairemont team almost danced its pants off when we received 27 accolades from NCPRSA, adding to the agency’s existing 137 awards. Our most favorite, of course, was the Best in Show award for the Wendell Falls Hoedown Showdown … because who doesn’t love cuttin’ a rug for a good cause?

Clairemont’s 2017 InSpire Awards included:

  • Best in Show for “Creative Tactics: Hoedown Showdown at Wendell Falls”
  • Best in Category for “Creative Tactics: Hoedown Showdown at Wendell Falls”
  • Best in Category for “Events and Observances: Fire It Up! Briar Chapel’s 9th Annual Pepper Festival“
  • Best in Category for “Media Relations: The Media Digs Chef Teddy Diggs”
  • Best in Category for “Social Media: A Taste of Italy at Il Palio”
  • Best in Category for “Video: Our Coffee Cares at Wendell Falls”
  • Best in Category for “Feature Stories: Briar Chapel Unveils Encore”
  • Best in Category for “Brochures: Unlocking Your Child’s Future with Wendell Falls”
  • Best in Category for “Press Kits/Media Kits: Applebee’s Hand-Cut Wood-Fired Media Kit”
  • Best in Category for “Editorial/Op-Ed Columns: Piña Coladas, Creativity and #PinkBeetle“
  • Best in Category for “Advertorial: Newland Communities Advertorial for Wake Living”
  • Award of Excellence for “Creative Tactics: Hoedown Showdown at Wendell Falls”
  • Award of Excellence for “Creative Tactics: Vita Vite Creates Raleigh’s Sunday Spot”
  • Award of Excellence for “Creative Tactics: Briar Chapel Asks, ‘How Spicy is Your Personality?’”
  • Award of Excellence for “Events and Observances: Fire It Up! Briar Chapel’s 9th Annual Pepper Festival”
  • Award of Excellence for “Media Relations: The Media Digs Chef Teddy Diggs”
  • Award of Excellence for “Media Relations: DQ’s Miracle Treat Day to Benefit Duke Children’s Hospital“
  • Award of Excellence for “Social Media: A Taste of Italy at Il Palio”
  • Award of Excellence for “Video: Our Coffee Cares at Wendell Falls”
  • Award of Excellence for “Feature Stories: Briar Chapel Unveils Encore“
  • Award of Excellence for “Brochures: Unlocking Your Child’s Future with Wendell Falls”
  • Award of Excellence for “Press Kits/Media Kits: Applebee’s Hand-Cut Wood-Fired Media Kit”
  • Award of Excellence for “Editorial/Op-Ed Columns: Piña Coladas, Creativity and #PinkBeetle”
  • Award of Excellence for “Advertorial: Newland Communities Advertorial for Wake Living”
  • Award of Excellence for “Reputation/Brand Management: Il Palio Dishes Up Something New”
  • Award of Excellence for “Integrated Communications: Il Palio Dishes Up Something New”
  • Honorable Mention for “Social Media: Briar Chapel Asks, ‘How Spicy is Your Personality?‘”

We love what we do. We love our clients. We love doing what we love to do with the clients we love. (Whew! That’s a mouthful!) Thank you to our wonderful partners and clients who allow us to live out our dream and do great work for our community!

Want to know more about what we do? Check out a few of our case studies!

Read More

Award-Winning Social Media Campaigns

Dana PhelpsBlog, Case Studies, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , ,

The trends and best strategies for social media campaigns seem to change faster than our Facebook feed, but that’s an exciting challenge for us at Clairemont Communications. We’ve received 20 awards over the years in social media –eight Sir Walter Raleigh awards from the Raleigh Public Relations Society and an even dozen InSpire awards from the North Carolina chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (NCPRSA).

The InSpire Social Media awards we’ve received every year since 2011 include four Best in Category or Best in Show awards for one of our first social media clients, Thomasville Furniture. We began managing the company’s Facebook page in July 2010 at a time when social media for business was relatively new, after confirming Facebook’s potential as a customer engagement channel.

Established in 1904, Thomasville Furniture is a leading name in the home furnishings industry. We helped the company honor its long history by visually documenting its milestones with historic photos on its About page.

At the same time, we developed strategies to help younger customers understand Thomasville Furniture as a fashionable brand as well as a venerable one. Videos featuring younger actors and a more relaxed feel, and creative content about interior design increased the company’s 18 to 34-year old Facebook fans from 20 percent to 30 percent of the total fan base.

Our work with Thomasville Furniture exemplifies the passion that helped start Clairemont Communications — developing strategies that use both traditional and emerging forms of communications. One campaign for the company and its sister company Drexel Heritage combined local media and trade magazines with blog posts and Facebook content to boost brand recognition among consumers.

At Clairemont, we stay on top of new social media tools and their potential to help our clients. In 2015 we built and managed a customer application using the social engagement platform Shoutlet to host a special giveaway promotion for Thomasville. The company asked us to help it build brand awareness during its annual Memorial Day Sale; the resulting giveaway campaign increased its Facebook fan count by nearly 11,000 likes, created at least one million total daily impressions, and captured more than 100,000 new consumer leads.

A key to using social media effectively is understanding that it is not a broadcast medium; success comes from creating interaction and active engagement. We had confidence in our Memorial Day campaign because our previous experience managing Thomasville’s Facebook page had shown giveaways to be effective traffic-driving tools. In 2011 we promoted special giveaways throughout the year to build and sustain fan engagement. We also designed our interior design posts to get fans talking about their own design ideas. As a result, weekly interactions increased 155 percent, and the total Facebook fan base increased almost 178 percent from the previous year.

Since our work with Thomasville in Clairemont’s early history, we have had the pleasure to work with several other clients to develop social media strategies and support the day-to-day management of social media tactics. Examples of other client campaigns and our thoughts on emerging digital communications tools can be found on our blog under the social media category.

Maybe you love social media as much as we do. Or maybe keeping up with its  constant evolution feels daunting or too time-consuming. Either way, we’d love to help you put social media to work for your business! Email me at d@clairemontcommunications.com to schedule a call.

 

Read More

What Does a PR Agency Do? Growers Media Relations

Tracy LathanAwards, Blog, Case Studies, , , ,

As the next generation assumes responsibility for family farms across the country, they are looking at new ways of doing business. Growers, a precision farm management business headquartered right here in Raleigh, recognized this opportunity and is reinventing the way farmers across the country manage their operations by using precision agriculture to help them improve yields and cut costs. Founded in 2011 by N.C. State graduate Steven Valencsin, Growers turned to Clairemont Communications in the summer of 2015 to help build awareness and share its story with farmers across the country.

The Pitch

Our primary goal was to build awareness and educate the agricultural community about the significant impact that Growers was having on farmers’ bottom lines. We developed a media relations strategy targeting local Raleigh business media, since Growers is headquartered here, as well as regional and national agriculture trade media. We also worked to help position Steven as an industry expert by securing media interviews and speaking engagements.

Execution

Although we quickly recognized Growers had a powerful story to tell, we knew that we would face challenges since most of our key media targets had never heard of the company. We conducted research, including reaching out to our key trade media contacts to better understand what issues were trending in the agriculture world, desired story topics and timing for upcoming feature articles for which Growers might be a fit. After conducting our research, we identified the following three angles for our media relations outreach:

  1. Technology – After talking with editors, we learned that precision agriculture and technology tools were hot topics in the agriculture industry. Growers was ready to unveil some revolutionary new technologies, so we decided to lead with the technology angle in the news release.
  2. Customer testimonials – Steven and his team had recently reached out to several customers and gathered impactful testimonials about how significantly their businesses had improved since working with Growers. Since we know word of mouth and testimonials are very effective in the agricultural community, we shared these stories in our media pitching.
  3. Founder and CEO – We highlighted the fact that Steven is a young entrepreneur with a passion for farming when telling the Growers story.

After finalizing our pitches and targets, we crafted a news release and gathered photos, testimonials and supporting materials. We posted the release on Business Wire and then contacted each of our media targets individually to pitch the story.

Results/Evaluation

Over a three-month time frame, we were able to meet and far exceed all of our defined objectives. As a result of our outreach, we secured the following:

  • A feature story about Steven and Growers in the Sunday edition of The News & Observer
  • A feature story in Southeast Farm Press, Growers’ number one media target
  • Coverage in various additional agriculture trade media outlets

We also facilitated three interviews to help further position Steven as an industry  leader  and made connections for Growers with several thought leaders and influential groups within the agriculture community. The placement of the news release on Business Wire generated additional impressions with 2,168 views and 7,095 headline impressions.

The work Clairemont Communications conducted in partnership with Growers earned a Gold Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Excellence in Communication by Raleigh Public Relations Society. We are proud that this is one of the 129 awards we’ve received since starting Clairemont in 2010. To read more about the work we do with clients, please visit the case study section of our blog.

Image courtesy of Growers.

Read More