Round tables and white papers: helping public relations achieve results and positioning
By Craig on Jan 22, 2010 in Communication tactics, Issues & crisis management, Leadership, Media relations, Public relations, Strategic communication
Round tables are an excellent methodology to help public relations professionals achieve positive media coverage, enhance relationships with important organisational stakeholders and strengthen organisational positioning. The white paper, produced from a round table, resources issues-driven media campaigns (of which opinion pieces are likely to play a leading role), direct mail and online communication campaigns.
The round table/white paper methodology can also be used in an even more targeted, discreet manner where very confidential, targeted relationship enhancement (i.e. management) will deliver results.
Strategic communication results with target audiences
The white paper is generally a strategic branding, rather than a tactical sales generating, mechanism, though it can be used for the latter. When using the white paper as a direct mail piece, for instance, in many circumstances a follow up phone call will take place to the prospect to use the thought leadership it features as a ‘door opener’ for an appointment.
Another reason why the white paper can assist with positioning, tactical sales or organisation-stakeholder relationships is that the target audience finds its content of value – so recipients appreciate the white paper’s ‘sponsoring organisation’ for producing it.
A final reason for adopting this approach is that it can be part of a program to help rehabilitate an organisation’s reputation after it has undergone a crisis. The thought leadership it shows, its linking/partnership/alliance with other reputable organisations and the manner in which it discusses its insight and activities can all impact positively on knowledge of, and perceptions towards, an organisation
White papers have an excellent track record, if well done, of achieving high level, top tier media coverage. They play an important part in an holistic communication strategy.
A round table (RT) is generally constituted of:
- six to ten participants
- a sponsoring organisation participant and external, non-organisational participants
- participants who are experts, and/or thought leaders, in a particular field
- an agenda for discussion that features a single or a series of closely-related issues that are topical, compelling and of business-relevance to all those participating, as well as the sponsoring organisation’s target audiences.
The ultimate objective of the RT/white paper is to position the organisation (and/or individual, such as a CEO) more favourably with priority stakeholders. From a process perspective, the objective of the RT is to generate ‘content’ that can be leveraged through a white paper, and/or other communication mechanisms, that enhance the positive positioning of the sponsoring organisation.
The credibility factor
There are a number of rationales for having non-organisational employees present at round tables:
- They automatically bring with them 3rd party credibility when you are using the content generated by the discussions when positioning your organisation and engaging with your stakeholders
- From a positioning perspective, the non-organisational attendees shine a certain light on the sponsoring organisation. If they are well known or experts in a certain field , this spotlight is shared with the sponsoring organisation. This is different to 3rd party credibility – it is about what the sponsoring organisation does and what it is good at
- Their presence has a snowball effect in filling the seats on your round table. The more credible people/organisations you get to participate, the more attractive the round table becomes to prospective participants
- Similar to forming a strategic alliance, the content from the round table can be leveraged through their organisation’s communication mechanisms (website, newsletters, social media etc). This helps raise the profile and positive positioning of the sponsoring organisation.
Elements of a marketing communication round table
There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes an effective round table, but primary elements to consider generally include the following:
- Having only one representative of the sponsoring organisation present, though you could do two at a push
- Those present need to be senior organisational stakeholders. Preferably, organisational leaders. But if not leaders in title, then certainly they should be leaders in thinking, intellect and/or standing
- Eight to ten participants is ideal. Any less and you may not get the discussion, debate and quality content required to give the white paper ‘heft’. Any more and it can become unwieldy, with many participants potentially becoming frustrated at their lack of opportunity to make a meaningful contribution
- Eight to ten participants also allows those present to network effectively and to have side-conversations. This is a key attraction to attracting participants to the RT in the first place
- Limit the discussion to one morning. A whole day is too long and most high-level potential participants will baulk at giving up this much of their time. The brain and the body are likely to be more willing and more engaged at this time of day. Enthusiasm and quality input will be greater
- Follow the round table with a lunch, by all means, but don’t have a meal during the RT process. Make the lunch optional. And don’t make it War and Peace. The mechanisms of serving food will impede and/or upset the thinking and interaction process. These things get in a groove and you don’t want to stymie the flow provided is appropriate, with an 8.45 or 9am sit down and rev up the talk fest time making sense
- Two to three hours should be the limit of time allocated to the round table, with a morning tea break an option to consider, though it is best to keep participants in the room and make it very short
- Make an audio recording of the discussion. Keep it on file as it may be called upon if participants disagree with the way they are quoted
- The white paper produced of the RT discussion will need to be signed off on by all participants.
And remember, as the issue(s) being discussed in the RT should be topical, there is a need to accelerate the white paper generation. Don’t hang around.
Importantly, you want to get that paper and its supporting communication out and in front of stakeholders quickly. You don’t want someone else to beat you to the punch.
Additionally, a slow white paper production process will mean reduced buy-in and attention to it from participants through the sign off process. And that is nothing short of death to ROI.
This is the first of a three-part series on round tables and white papers. The next post will feature tips on getting participants to attend a round table, facilitating it and taking an alternative approach to round tables. The final post in the series focuses on the media relations dimension of a round table and white paper: should they be invited and getting editorial placement results.
What did you think of this discussion? What is your experience in holding round tables and producing white papers? Did they achieve the intended results? What were the non-media related outcomes, such as stakeholder relationship enhancement?
Ah, at the very end of your post, Craig, you mention the need to move quickly in your white paper production. This often is a difficult matter for organizations — there are multiple approval points and sometimes political considerations as to who authors, who’s quoted, and even whose opinions are being shared in the piece.
Reduced perception of value the farther one gets from the round table (or other initiating event, such as a conference) is huge issue. Even in Twitter-land, an online chat (such as the upcoming relaunch of #icchat) can be very valuable for participants, and doubly so if a blog post follows close on its heels. But press of business can toss the schedule for a loop.
I’ll be eager to see your other posts on this.
Sean
@commammo
Sean Williams | Jan 22, 2010 | Reply
This post is a good thought leader.
I suspect, from your summary, you will be discussing the following responses in your next two posts.
An “issues driven media campaign” is most likely to be simply a problem with potential to affect people’s opinions. A white paper professes to offer solutions to the problem or answers an issue of the moment.
White papers are now an accepted tool to plead a case for an organisation’s point of view. They have often been used by government to proscribe policy, or by technical groups to sell a particular solution to new technology.
So a white paper, while freely available, is likely to be read with a jaundiced or sceptical eye.
It’s the strength of the round table which can offer a wider authority to answers provided in the paper. A round table is a forum where professionals can share their experience. At a round table everyone is on equal footing. There is no head of the table.
As a result, it is too easy for the agenda to be high-jacked, or side-tracked. An important tool to keep discussion within bounds, is to send out explanatory notes or a detailed agenda to participants before the meeting. In other words, provide a green paper.
Peter Hindmarsh | Jan 22, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for checking in, Sean and Peter.
I agree with all your points, Sean. We PR folk can but try, emphasising as soon as the participants agree to get on the train that we need sign off pronto. Be a proactive as possible. But, yes, one bane of our existence.
The issues I refer to in an issues-driven campaign, Peter, do not necessarily relate to ‘bad’ issues, or potentially bad issues. They can be positive ones, too.
I don’t think a white paper has to offer all the answers, though that is great. It is more about new thinking on a particular topic. This thinking, or perspective, may be the spark that leads to solutions.
In this instance, i am talking purely about a marketing communication white paper. That might be a translation of a government policy paper or technical paper, so there is grey in this paradigm.
You are spot on re your need for effective facilitation to make sure all participants get a chance to actually participate and the agenda is not high-jacked. In fact, a future post in this series discusses that very topic – how prescient of us both!
Craig | Jan 22, 2010 | Reply
Craig,
I like your post, but at first was confused by the structure of it (first white paper, second roundtable). Your use of the word “methodology” saved me. In my experience, both of those vehicles are invaluable for all the reasons you mentioned.
I guess I would add from a B2B marketers viewpoint, I always try to link PR’s work to the overall marketing strategy. Could you comment on how you work with the VP of Marketing on issues based campaigns? Also, could you elaborate on your second sentence? It seems to missing a predicate. Thanks, Mark
Mark Delfeld | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
Craig. you refer to whitepapers as primarily for marketing communication, but I have found them of enormous value for positioning issues, sometimes as standalone dicuments rather than being generated from a round table. It is a truism in issue management that “naming and framing” the issue is critical and whitepapers are a proven tool to assist in this respect. The other critical benefit is demonstrating thought leadership on the issue, and a white paper is a very effective way to achieve this in a “controlled” environment.
I look forward to the next two parts of your post
Tony Jaques | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
Mark and tony. Thanks for your contribution. Tony, as it seems always to be with your comments, you’ll get no argument from me. The ‘controlled’ element is a very important one that I neglected to mention.
Despite the emergence of social media, organisations still love their control. And the white papers and their attendant communication mechanisms (which I go into further in the third of this series) can frame the leadership in a pretty controlled manner and generate high quality coverage. This has been proven again and again, especially when one takes the op-ed approach with media (but even when it doesn’t).
I think I’m going to have to update the third post based on your insights!
Also, interesting that you seem to be drawing a line between issues management and marketing communication. I guess that is fair enough in the context of the tools and the thinking behind the two niches of PR, but I also think that both are about proactive communication and proactive positioning, so I think they are both driven by the same essential needs and mindset.
Mark, apologies if my grammar isn’t up to scratch. You might have to help me out a bit more here as I’m not quite sure what you are after re your predicate – help me!
I thought I would mention white papers early on as they are the main quantative element that comes out of a round table, then get stuck into the round table in some more detail. The next part of this series goes further into some of the more, I guess, hands on elements.
Must run now, but I’ll come back to address your excellent question re working with overall marketing strategy.
Craig | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
Mark, two points. Firstly, I am sure you are well aware that PR is not purely media relations (http://craigpearce.info/?p=92). Secondly, for a number of reasons, marketing should report to PR, as I explain here: http://craigpearce.info/?p=1
We might not be starting from the same page on connecting marketing and PR if we don’t agree on how the two (very much interconnected) disciplines should work together, but I’ll give it a shot re ‘issues based campaigns’.
Issues-based campaigns, because they are about ‘issues’, and hence about holistic organisation-stakeholder relationships, and are not solely about sales (marketing’s main concern), are very much the remit of, or are generally led by, public relations.
In the context of this discussion (round tables/white papers etc) we are talking both branding and tactical sales generation. Having complicated my response enough now with qualifiers, I think the rather bland answer to your question is looking at each situation on a case by case scenario, underpinned by the essential necessity of working together to achieve mutually relevant outcomes for both professional communication disciplines.
There are subtle and there are obvious ways to link white paper content to sales (a link to branding is pretty easy, I think, because it is pretty much encapsulated in the notion of thought leadership), but I don’t think it is an easy methodology through which to generate sales.
I would certainly love to hear your thoughts, or anyone else’s thoughts, on linking white papers to sales or tactical campaigns. Perhaps one of the mysteries is how to create a link between ‘issues’ and sales. How do we make issues relevant to sales? How do we get thought leadership to generate sales? Where is the strategic-tactical link?
Is it as simple as being progressive, ‘different’, challenging or putting forward a solution on an issue which the white paper ’sponsoring organistion’ just happens to sell?
And is another answer the simple equation that quality thinking on an issues opens dialogue with a potential customer. The dialogue leads to a connection between customer and organisation and that organic, human dimension leads to the organisation getting a shot at providing a product or service.
After that, it’s really up to the marketers (in the full holistic product/service development etc sense of the profession) to come up with the goods.
Craig | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
Craig, as someone who has never generated a white paper or a round table, could you give some specific examples of what situation/how/by whom they might be used. I understand government’s use of white papers and round tables but not in business. Not sure why stakeholder CEO’s might want to contribute to one – what’s in it for them? I know these are probably very basic questions but a lot of us out here don’t know the answers.
Martha Halliday | Jan 25, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for the questions, Martha.
A white paper could be on issues such as the the way government funds are distributed to schools, urban planning (specifically on transport infrastructure, for instance), the roll out of broadband and its implications, telecommunications in rural areas etc.
Organisations that sponsor the round table/white paper are relevant to these topics. They might supply products or services to them. It is a way to raise their profile in these industries (I go into more detail about the communication mechanisms that can do this in the third of this series) and, hopefully, generate increased business or create stronger relationships.
The motivation for high profile CEOs and their ilk to participate in another organisation’s round table (and hence white paper) is that by associating with others of similar high profile they enhance their own credibility/standing. To be frank, part of this is an ‘ego thing’ as well.
Also, it allows their profile to be raised (and that of their organisation’s) courtesy of the efforts of another organisation – free publicity, if you like. If the process is being undertaken effectively, that means very targeted communication to very relevant stakeholders.
A final rationale for participating is contained in the biblical maxim…’do unto other as you would have them do unto you.’ Another, more rational, articulation of this notion is the theory of reciprocity. If you want your peers to help you out on occasion, then you’d better give it up for others! Really, if done well, it is a win-win situation for all involved.
Craig | Jan 27, 2010 | Reply