“Do I really need to wear a tie on CNBC?” Yes! Well, it depends. “Can I wear my favorite neon-colored shirt?” No! Really not a good idea. “Do I need to wear pants?” Not answering that. Over the years we’ve provided numerous tips to portfolio managers and strategists fortunate enough to be interviewed on TV. Truthfully, since the pandemic, [...]
The advice I’d give to early-career PR professionals about interacting with reporters is not too different from the advice I would give to anyone in the field: Make yourself a resource and not a pain-in-the-neck who wastes their time. When you’re a “flack,” as many curmudgeonly journalists (some of whom clearly were not adequately cared for as small [...]
A note about this series: There comes a time in every professional’s life when you want to impart what you’ve learned to those coming up behind you. Fortunately, that’s part of our job description at the Lowe Group—we train financial communicators! Today we begin a series of posts welcoming those fresh college graduates fortunate enough to score a job [...]
I’ve got artificial intelligence (AI) on my mind. And it’s no surprise, given daily headlines related to AI innovations and implications. Our team gathered last week for one of our occasional “Lunch ‘n Learns” on the topic of ChatGPT, Large Language Models and AI. My colleagues Ben Bishop and Pat Allen shared a firehose of information on some of [...]
You can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say. --“Shotgun Willie” by Willie Nelson I might get some grief for this angle from my more biz-dev oriented public relations industry peers, but hiring a PR consultant is a big commitment, and we all have an interest in a positive outcome. After all, it’s not a great [...]
“Count me in. Though I view this as like going to the dentist, … if I have to learn more about annuities, I want it to be from this team!” --Bloomberg reporter response to our Media Masterclass invitation There are a million-and-one reasons for journalists not to show up at your media event: They’re busier than ever. [...]
In the asset management world, investors generally don’t pay any attention to an investment strategy until it hits the three-year mark. Institutional investors and the consultants who serve them are particularly leery about strategies without an established track record. The same is true in in the advisor space, as Morningstar waits for a fund’s three-year anniversary before assigning a [...]
Positive media coverage has long been considered a powerful tool for the top of the marketing funnel. Bylined articles, profile stories, quotes or mentions in a respected publication can build brand awareness and position a company as a source of trusted information and insight. That’s even more true in today’s digital communications landscape, where the audience for any one article can expand exponentially via social media to far beyond the publication’s direct subscribers. What’s more, since “publication” is no longer limited to a single point in time, savvy companies can strategically use media coverage to add value and drive growth at every stage of [...]
There’s an old chestnut, often attributed to Mark Twain, “Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” Like most quotes ascribed to the mustachioed Nineteenth Century author, this one is likely apocryphal. Besides, the saying should probably be updated to “Never argue with anyone who gets more than a million unique monthly page views.” But no matter who said [...]
Whether you talk to the media weekly or once in a blue moon, you should have a trio of top-level messages about your firm to guide your media interactions. Those key points—what we call a message triangle—keep you focused when you are talking to a reporter. If it’s a phone call, have them in front of you, written out [...]
