By Denise Dilbey, Former Communications Manager, International
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In 1999, Perle
Systems' business model went through a substantial change. Through
acquisitions, Perle evolved from selling to the IBM AS/400 market
to offering communications products that ran on any operating system.
That meant that we needed to increase our exposure into the broader
technology media in North America and, since Perle is publicly traded
on TSE and NASDAQ, we needed to communicate with the business media.
Perle was using a well-known US public relations firm. We were receiving
some coverage but the agency's fees were high, which meant our return-on-investment
was quite low. We hired Xposure PR with the hopes of increasing
our ROI.
We noticed a difference right away. The consultants were passionate
about our business and understood what we wanted to achieve. We
were also working with a more seasoned account management team that
helped us reposition Perle and develop corporate messaging.
Our mandate was challenging. We wanted to distribute a press release
a week, which meant having to look for newsworthy information to
bring to the media. We also demanded high writing standards in order
to be able to effectively communicate business benefits over product
features.
Xposure met and surpassed our mandate. Upon receiving the first
written piece by Xposure, our VP of Marketing remarked that we had
finally found an agency that could write. We also met the goal of
one press release a week and significantly increased our press coverage.
Xposure made us feel that we were their only client. Regardless
of how busy they were, their consultants always took our calls and
did what they said they were going to do. They weren't just a supplier,
but became an extension of our company. They provided us with strategic
counsel that was valuable in reshaping the company. In fact, public
relations often drove the strategy behind our marketing campaigns.
Bottom line is, we tripled the press coverage over the previous
year and substantially reduced our costs.
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