Jake Halpin, founder and CEO of Gloss Communications joins Flaunter General Manager, Claire Deane in the second of our 2022 Trends in PR video series to talk about why PRs need to bring their storytelling skills to the data conversation.
Interview Transcript
Claire Deane:
Welcome Jake, the founder of Gloss Communications to our chat today about trends in PR in 2022. Thanks for joining me.
Jake Halpin:
Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to chat all about PR in 2022. It’s so exciting. Things are changing hopefully for the better.
Claire Deane:
Definitely. So today we’re gonna be talking about some of these trends specifically, how PR is increasingly being held to a higher measurement and reporting standard how this might have changed job descriptions for PRS, how it’s gonna look like in 20, 22 and beyond
Jake Halpin:
Exciting times. Awesome.
Claire Deane:
So tell me so you are the founder of, of Gloss Communications. How long have you been in PR what’s a bit of your background?
Jake Halpin:
How long have I been in PR? I I’ve been in PR for, I think this is seven years this year. So kind of long enough to have seen a bit of the, the legacy of PR and, you know, by no means have been in the game long enough to have known the true heyday of PR, which I think used to be a lot of fabulous parties, but I kinda came in at the kind of nice tail end of, you know, there was a lot of changes in the media landscape, you know, magazines were closing their print operations. There was a lot of print going away and, you know, historically PR had really been measured, I think, against advertising because really that’s where the budgets were kind of split was, you know, PR was always held to this standard of what could you get the same amount of money if you were to take out a printed advertisement that was really the fundamental kind of measurement tactic people used.
Jake Halpin:
So, you know, a lot of the PR results back in the day were measured against, you know, the financial cost of what it would take to, you know, take our out an ad for the same space or for the same, you know, kind of awareness and, you know, watching that change particularly, I think over the last seven years has been really interesting, you know, there’s, there’s not as much print as there used to be. So that kind of, you know, really shifts that performance metric to something entirely different. And, you know, I think people are, you know, that there are more ways to tell a story these days, which I think is the fundamental difference is, you know, there’s a lot of different ways you can get your message across and sometimes, you know, a designer interview in a print publication, isn’t always the best place for that. Sometimes it still is. And I think, you know, looking at that with a very qualitative lens is quite in, so, you know, in terms of the last seven years of my career, it’s been very interesting to observe that kind shift as things have been moving.
Claire Deane:
Definitely. And even with changes to actual mediums like video and those kinds of things too, how do you measure a 15 second tik tok compared to an article in Vogue like what’s, what are the comparisons with those? So things are definitely changing.
Jake Halpin:
Yeah, for sure.
Claire Deane:
So do you think that PRS can still make the claim that results can’t be tracked in 2022? Cause you do hear a lot of PRS saying you know, we’re not a, we’re not a sales tool, we’re not a, you know, you can’t keep hold us to the same standards as something like digital marketing. Do you think that’s still a claim that can be made?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think it depends on the objective. I think people, you know, often forget that working in PR it’s, it’s a very, it’s a very interesting job within the field of marketing communications because it, it’s not necessarily just about performance output in the very kind of strict terms of, you know, X number of press articles or X number of brand features or product mentions or whatever it might be in the same way that you can quantify something like digital marketing, which is, you know, X number of clicks. And you have kind of like a very direct form of, you know, measurement KPI, even with things like awareness in digital marketing, you actually have visibility over the are times that any given piece of content or your brand has actually appeared in front of people. So I, I think a little bit, there’s a kind of, there is a shift towards that in PR, especially as things become more digital because you know, working in the digital space, you know, increasingly every day does open up a lot of avenues to kind of, you know, not just measure PR full stop, like, which is true.
Jake Halpin:
You actually can measure PR a lot more now in terms of its digital footprint and, you know, kind of even things like social media echo, which is really interesting to kind of look at how widely any given piece of content or any kind of published media article is actually shared and distributed amongst people. But fundamentally I think what P people need to remember is that PR is not just about putting things in front of people. It’s about how you tell the story it’s about, you know, it really is about relationships, it’s in the name, it’s public relations. So, you know, people do forget sometimes that, you know, there might be a week, a month, six months. It depends on the brand where there aren’t really a, any media features, but there’s a lot of work being done in the background to really advance a brand forward in their storytelling capacity and really, you know, working closely with the designer on honing their brand values or their brand vision and, you know, working out how that can be communicated to people and whether media is the right avenue for that, or whether that’s something that exists more in the social media space.
Jake Halpin:
Like you said before, whether that’s 15, second TikTok video or a, you know, in-depth feature in a magazine, it kind of depends. And that’s kind of a lot of work that gets done behind the scenes. That’s very hard to track and measure, you know, where is the value in that? Where is the effectiveness of that? How far does that lead? Because you know, that could be something, if, you know, you could sit down for one day and do a workshop up with a brand about their brand values and you could work on a strategy that sets the next five years. So, you know, that day can’t be measured in simple terms like clicks, views or impressions. That is something that will impact that brand for years to come and will kind of dictate so many other touch points. So I think that’s, that’s where things get a little bit trickier to kind of, but I suppose in some ways it has enabled you to actually measure a lot more results because in the digital world you have at, you know, Google analytics, you can hop in exactly how many clicks did we get through to the brands website from that story, that information is now completely available to people.
Jake Halpin:
And I think, you know, even years ago, that information has been available for years, but I think more so than ever before, people are really looking at this and it’s not just a, a fluff piece anymore. It really is a case of, you know, well, what, what really, you know, kind of business objectives is this driving.
Claire Deane:
And so you think that PRS can start to take some lessons from marketing when reporting to clients because clients are expecting to be able to see tangible results. Is it about kind of educating clients that it, there is a real difference between the two streams underneath the marketing strategy? Or do you think that that PRS can start to take some lessons from marketing and start to integrate that into their reporting and conversations with clients?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think it’s a bit of both. And I think, you know, having a client that does fundamentally understand that kind of split between how PR differs from other forms of marketing and communications is certainly valuable because you know, it, it sets up a lot of very honest and authentic conversations you can have with your clients about what you’re doing and how that’s towards supporting their business. I think there’s definitely scope for people who work in PR to take a lot of cues from marketing, because I think what historically marketing and advertising, you know, professionals have done well for many years is really communicate a return on investment in financial sense. And I think that’s something where I, I personally think PR has always fallen behind because, you know, you’re very hesitant to say that there’s a certain level of like humility for some reason in the PR world that, you know, people feel, you know, compelled to not really kind of communicate those wins and those kind of advantageous you know, aspects of their work in a financial sense.
Jake Halpin:
So I think that’s absolutely somewhere where PRS can really take it Q from marketing and advertising and some of those other related disciplines and say, you know, how, how can we demonstrate our value to the client in more ways than one? You know, I think people do value PR because they, they see the work, they, you know, they, they understand the relationships and, you know, generally they have a really good relationship with your client as well. But how can you one step further than that and say, not only are we doing great work together, not only are we really refining your brand and really putting your best foot forward and creating amazing stories together, but what’s that actually doing for you, you know, in the dollar sense as well, because I think, you know, ultimately as we know it is a business, so that’s something where I think absolutely people can, people can really take some cues from marketing.
Claire Deane:
And how do you think customer and client expectations are changing around reporting? What kind of data are they expecting to receive? What, you know, are they becoming more savvy around what kind of results they want PR to be able to generate?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think so. I mean, in my experience, I think people are, you know, obviously becoming more you know, quantifiably savvy, like, you know, like we’ve talked about, they can really measure the results. Like they can look at those referrals, they can see exact numbers, but in terms of what they’re looking for from PRS is actually just the qualitative context behind the numbers. So, you know, why would that particular story, even if it’s with the same publication lead to triple the number of clicks through to their website compared to one that they had the previous month. Now that’s something which the numbers can’t necessarily tell you. If you’re just looking for Google analytics dashboard, that’s very hard to really discern why, but, you know, you can look at the articles and say, well, actually, you know, you were featured higher up in this article.
Jake Halpin:
So, you know, from a consumer behavior standpoint, they’re more likely to have reached your brand first and clicked out from the news publication, which is why you’ve got more clicks from that story. You know, perhaps you had a greater share of voice in that story. So as a, as a value piece for your brand, you were able to better educate people who perhaps hadn’t heard, heard from you before about who you are and what you do, which encouraged them to click through to you. So, you know, it’s the qualitative analysis that I think really makes a big difference. So you can say to people, you know, and it can be for anything. It could be, you know, actually the publication shared this story really heavily across their social media channels. And a lot of, you know, customers were engaging in the comments section. So this actually be became, you know, something that social media algorithm picked up.
Jake Halpin:
It wasn’t even necessarily a digital story in the end. This really became a social media conversation that people were having. And then, you know, of course went to the digital story to find out more. And it’s things like that, which again, the numbers just don’t paint the full picture. So you do really need that qualitative analysis to say that was great, but why, or, you know, actually that didn’t do as well as we thought, but why is that? And how can we do better next time? And I think that’s where PRS can really bring that skills to the table,
Claire Deane:
Because once you’ve got that analysis of the data, you can then replicate those results, right. You can say, okay, well, next time we wanna be able to try and get, you know, this kind of traction based on the feedback that we’ve had or the, the analysis that you’ve done of data so that we can get those results, you know, every time moving forward.
Jake Halpin:
Absolutely. And look, and that comes down a little bit to the relationship that the PR can have with the journalist as well to say, you know, okay, we had a really amazing share of voice in this story. Like, what did we provide you on this occasion for this particular story that you really felt added color and flavor to your story. So we can do that in the future, and we can work with you more closely to really give you those things that are gonna not only enhance the brand’s visibility and the story, but also give something to the consumer that actually makes them want to find out more as well. And, you know, I think that’s a really valuable conversation that PRS can have because that’s where that relationship lies.
Claire Deane:
Definitely. One thing that we were talking about prior to this session is you were talking to me about how your analysis of the results that you’re getting for clients can be weighted differently based on, or depending on, you know, the client’s expectations. So you can give analysis back to the client saying, you know, while we might have gotten a full page in Vogue that might not have generated the, and kind of click through to your website as a news, do you article or something along those lines like you, clients can help you understand, and you can help them understand vice versa, the different waiting that different types of content can have on their results.
Jake Halpin:
Yeah, I think, and this is a really interesting one it’s, you know, cuz this is very contextual to the client and you know, this will really depend not just on the type of brand or the type of business, but also the time of the year. You know, what it is you’re actually talking about as to whether, you know, how you are waiting the, you know, the success or the value of any kind of giving piece of, of media coverage or awareness for a brand. So, you know, we were kind of saying, for example, if a website, oh, sorry, if a brand is really trying to generate traffic to their website, if, if that’s the kind of the core objective that they’re coming from with this PR campaign, you know, you might wait things very differently. Like you actually, you know, like you just said, news.com to U is the biggest news digital publisher in this country.
Jake Halpin:
So landing a piece with news.com AU in terms of its ability to reach people and you know, to hopefully then encourage them to take action on your client’s website is huge. And you know, it might not be, you know, this could be a luxury brand even, and like, you know, you might obviously think to yourself of, okay, you know, if you’re a luxury fashion brand, you might like to be in Vogue, you might like to be in Harper’s bizarre. You might wanna be in something like AFR magazine or the Australian wish magazine, but actually in terms of the objective that we’re looking for, right, this very moment news.com IU is where we need to be. So it it’s an interesting one to look at, but then also to say, you know, you might be a smaller, more emerging brand that might not have had much media coverage in the past.
Jake Halpin:
And you are trying to demonstrate to your, you know, to your audience or to your, you know, potential consumers that you’re a credible, you know, brand that people know, and that you have, you know, the authenticity to back up, you know, that people don’t know about you yet. So your objective might be to your really just go to media titles that people are familiar with. You know, if you were to pluck, you know, say four or five names of magazines or newspapers out of your head that you think most average people would be familiar with, your objective might just be to get stories in those four or five magazines and nothing else because being able to lend that kind of authority and that reliability and that brand credit ability to that from being featured in those publications, even if, you know, the feature could be about anything, but just to say that you’ve been featured in, you know, for example Sydney morning Herald might be a really valuable piece for a brand to kind of communicate with their customers,
Claire Deane:
That social proof. Yeah, exactly. Do you think that that PRS need to have difference skills now than they, that they might previously never have needed?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think so. I mean, this is this is an interesting one for me to answer because, you know, I’ve Al always kind of tried to diversify my skillset, you know, even when working in PR in the past, like in my own time, I would, you know, take the time out to do courses on Facebook ads just to understand how that kinda worked. And I would do, you know, I would read articles on like Google garage and like Google scholar to try and understand how things like that worked. So I think there’s a certain element of kind of remaining eternally curious about the world that you’re working in. Not just necessarily the lane that you’re currently in is really invaluable because, you know, you never know when things will change either. And what I’m finding more and more as someone who has just gone through the process of, you know, hiring employees and kind of writing job discussions and understand what, you know, what those roles look like now, more compared to what, you know, they used to when I last interviewed for a position, which was quite some time ago you know, it, it is, it is very different now and, you know, people are looking a lot more broadly, you know, for example, when I was writing a job description for a role I was hiring for within my business, it wasn’t just PR like, I, I really wanted someone who, you know, perhaps also had experience in graphic design or copywriting or digital marketing or social media, or, you know, even who is perhaps a, you know, a creative producer or someone that just had another skill set they could bring to that role.
Jake Halpin:
Because, you know, I really think moving forward, you know, PRS are always kind of done this to an extent. I feel like PI has always been like the, kind of the slashies so to speak of the, of the marketing communications world, because you know, it just, by nature of the role, you get to know a lot of people. And it is very much a case of having to work cross collaboratively with a lot of teams in different areas. However, I think, you know, probably more than ever, they will need to bring something different to the role. And I think there are certain elements that cross over quite heavily. I think, you know, PRS by nature are storytellers. So the ability to kind of add a, a copywriting element or some kind of creative writing to your role will be really invaluable for clients because, you know, it opens up other avenues like perhaps, you know, they need also help communicating their story across their own website.
Jake Halpin:
It’s not just about, you know, you know, you going out to the media and pitching stories for them. They actually wanna do better across their own channels and their website and their social media. You know, or perhaps it’s digital marketing, because like we’ve talked about people are looking more and more at that Google analytics dashboard. They’re looking at SEO referrals, they’re looking at, you know, Google AdWords, they at trending topics like, you know, having that understanding to be able to, you know, hop into something, say like Google trends and look at how a particular concept or idea is kind of really spiking in it in its search history and using that to then inform what you’re pitching for PR and taking that to the media and saying, you know, this particular topic or concept that’s relevant than to my client has seen a 600% increase month a month in Google search traffic. So it’s of interest to the people. I think that’s a really invaluable, you know, way to be able to do PR and you have to be able to understand how all of that world works to bring that, you know, across to your PR day to day.
Claire Deane:
And particularly from a, from an SEO perspective, too, able to provide clients with that feedback on this particular article will be, you know, successful long term, because you are mentioned hype in the article, you, you know, your keywords are mentioned multiple times. You can give them that you know, qualitative layer of understanding of why certain articles perform well from an SEO perspective as well.
Jake Halpin:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, like we were saying earlier, it’s that it’s that qualitative analysis to be able to say, you know, he, this is a really good result and here’s why, and you know, it’s not just about, you know, oh, you know, this was actually, if you’d taken out an art, it would’ve cost you much like that doesn’t, that doesn’t go far enough in the modern PR world. You know, that’s not enough of an analysis you need to say, this is a really good article because, you know, you were one of only two people interviewed for this feature and you were mentioned first and it had multiple keywords that linked back to your brand and it had a back link to your website. And you also mentioned in the title. So as far as searchability goes, this article will continue to work for you for months to come.
Claire Deane:
Definitely. So how do you think the different disciplines, marketing PR advertising, they can all work better together to really provide more holistic results for clients?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think this is actually something that’s, you know, I’ve observed already happening, to be honest. I mean, there’s, you, you can’t, you can’t really separate these things in this day and age because you know, so much of, and again, it depends on the brand, but if we’re talking, you know, say a national to international brand with a very solid consumer presence, you know, you are advertising your, your PR work hand in hand because more often than not as part of your advertising conversations, you’re also having PR conversations about, you know, what’s paid versus what’s earned media and how that, you know, will roll out across any different particular, you know, publication or, or media publisher. So I think those conversations are so linked these days, they’re almost inseparable. And I think the same can be said for, you know, marketing and PR as well, because you, you really, you really lean on each other for ideas, particularly if you’re in a kind of a company you know, where perhaps you’re a single brand or a group of brands where you have these different departments, you know, you really are working very closely together day to day.
Jake Halpin:
And, you know, you’re not able to really separate your role out from each other, but I think, you know, in my opinion and what I’ve observed, I, I think more than ever before all of these different kind of disciplines have so much respect for one another, because they can kind of see how everything works together in the picture to kind of support what the others are doing as well. You know, because like we literally were just talking about, you know, PR articles, support, SEO, which ticks boxes for digital marketing and, you know, know PR and media, you know, goes hand in hand with what the advertising team might be securing from a paid perspective. And, you know, you might be able to leverage off the back of that to do some amazing PR stories. So, you know, it’s not something you can fully separate out from one another, you know, and forever more probably I imagine that would be continually be the case.
Claire Deane:
So as the head of an, how important is it for you to have transparency around data with your clients? So, you know, we’ve spoken in the past about how you are lucky to be able to have access to your client’s Google analytics, and you can actually use some of the data that you’re seeing in there to be able to use that, to shape stories. So, you know, these products are doing really well. These ones might need an extra bit of a push. How can I, you know, integrate that into my outreach? Do you think that that’s really important for PRS moving forward?
Jake Halpin:
Look, I think so. And I mean, it will, it will depend on the nature, you know, of your, your client and also your relationship with your client. I mean, I’m quite lucky in the sense that a lot of the, the brands and companies I work with are, you know, in that small to medium business category. So generally speaking, I’m working with, you know, owner operated businesses for the most part. So, you know, those conversations and those relationships are quite, they’re quite organic, they’re quite, and it easy for, you know, you to kind of slot into their company as you know, part of the team. So, you know, it, it does kind of feel as if it’s quite easy to share that that type of access with you because it, it can be quite intimate too. I mean, you know, if you have access to a client’s Google analytics dashboard, there’s a lot of information that you can see about how their business is performing as well beyond just necessarily the parts of their business that you are, you know, involved with.
Jake Halpin:
So it is, it is quite an intimate level of access in that sense, but the, the doors that it opens for you and being able to do your job better, and to have really honest and authentic conversations with your clients to say, you know, this is working really well, this isn’t working so well, here’s what I’m proposing we can do about this. You know, it really does, you know, open the floor to have those really Frank and honest conversations with, with your clients. But also, you know, like we’ve talked about in the past as well, it’s, you know, it does enable you again to do your job better because again, as, as PR, you know, you are, again, I keep going back to this, but you’re a storyteller. That’s really what you’re doing. You’re trying to, you know, pull out the interesting pieces of information from any different client and put it together in a way that you think advances them forward in the world and, you know, finding a, a space to house that story.
Jake Halpin:
And whether that’s through the media, whether that’s through social media, whether that’s on their website, whether that’s, you know, through customer newsletter, wherever that place may be. I think the more information that you can have available to you from your client and, you know, like you just gave examples of which products are working really well right now, like what are actually a lot of people clicking on, but they’re not purchasing like what what’s, what’s getting a lot of interest, but we’re not, we’re not closing, you know, the deal as far as the customer’s concerned, like what, what do we need to do differently there? And you know, what else do we need to be communicating about this brand or that product, or this collection or whatever it might be, you know, to kind of move that forward and to kind of advance the narrative to the point where the consumer feels confident making that purchase.
Jake Halpin:
And, you know, that that type of, you know, thinking is only possible when you have access to the information. So, you know, in terms of how PRS can implement that, if they’re, you know, if they, you know, you could be either agency or non-agency facing, I think if you’re not agency, you probably have a greater level of access to that information already, cuz you probably work for a particular brand or group. So, you know, hopefully that’s information that you have available to you already to be able to utilize. But if you’re an agency side, you know, they are, I think have those conversations with your clients, particularly, you know, if you feel that, you know, you may have had a, a longstanding relationship with this client and you think that’s something that they would feel comfortable sharing with you, you know, I, I think that that type of conversation can lead to a lot of really amazing outcomes for them.
Jake Halpin:
So don’t be afraid to have that conversation, even though you feel that, you know, that’s a bit of uncharted territory for you. I think, you know, what the opportunities that can come from that are really worth having and you know, and there are different ways to have that conversation too. I perhaps they might not feel comfortable sharing full access to their Google analytics dashboard or whatever kinda recording metric they use to kinda analyze their, their digital performance. But you know, you can ask for specific things, you might have a monthly catchup where you actually just review the referral sessions together and say like, you know, here’s where we’re finding traffic coming to our website from, you know, these types of media publications have done really well for us in this last month. We’ve actually had a lot of, you know, follow through from blogs or from, you know, retail referral websites or, you know, whatever it might be. You can actually look at that together and really have those conversations. So, you know, I would just encourage people to really, to really think about what information is out there that your client has access to that might help you do your job.
Claire Deane:
Awesome. And last question, what was the last thing that you Googled for work?
Jake Halpin:
The last thing I Googled for work there was two I’ve Googled two things this morning. One of them was electricians in Sydney so that some electrical work in my office
Claire Deane:
That’s important
Jake Halpin:
Was looking at, I was, I can’t remember why exactly I was doing this, but I was forecasting out public holiday as far as 2024.
Claire Deane:
Oh, OK. Planning holidays or
Jake Halpin:
Planning holiday’s but not tell you why I that’s a bit far for me.
Claire Deane:
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jake. It was a pleasure to get your thoughts.
Jake Halpin:
Thank you so much. It’s it’s amazing to be able to chat to you about this. And I hope that people are able to take something away from this that will encourage them to move forward with PR in a new and exciting way.
Claire Deane:
Definitely. Thank you. Thank you.
