Roundtables are incredibly rewarding and I would always encourage running one in conjunction with a media partner (one of your core target publications) as this should garuantee coverage and helps justify the spend and time cost of your ceo and senior management.

White papers are a difficult beast and can become a full time job in themselves – which I’m currently learning from bitter experience. Again, as a thought leadership exercise though there is nothing better.

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.

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.

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.