Nottingham-based BCS Public Relations is the fastest growing PR agency in the East Midlands and has a 20-strong team working on its telecommunications, pharmaceutical, business and consumer accounts. Its clients are regional, national and international, with customers now located across three continents.
Associate Director Helen Lyman Smith heads up the telecommunications and technology division and counts webitpr as a key tool in running campaigns for the company’s retained clients. “A key focus of technology companies, by nature, is interaction with the latest new media and the internet. This makes the online coverage that webitpr helps to generate, and subsequently reports back to us, particularly valuable in raising awareness and brand profile,” she said.
“We have more than 50 clients across the business and for around 30 of those clients we use webitpr as a significant part of our news release distribution service. The online distribution offering complements our own media lists and personal outreach to the press, and the coverage report webitpr generates gives us a fast response to help our clients impress their own management.
“The speed factor also helps us when supporting clients at exhibitions and trade shows, when we are able to bring some impressive coverage to their stand – sometimes less than 24 hours after the release has been distributed.”
BCS Public Relations handles the PR for several national and international exhibitions and conferences. It has recently been named as Midlands PR Agency of the Year for 2006 and has been awarded with a CIPR Gold award.
BCS Public Relations has used webitpr’s services for over five years and, during that time, has often seen results reflect well for customers beyond mere press attention. “The speed and scope of service was most recently demonstrated to us when, within hours of a news release being issued via webitpr’s online distribution service, our own media distribution lists and personal outreach, our client received over 300 sales enquiries. This sort of delivery helps us to strengthen our role as an important part of our clients’ marketing mix,” added Helen
As well as assisting with orders, BCS Public Relations acknowledges that webitpr played a significant role when a telecommunication equipment vendor’s partnership with a major European player resulted in its share price increasing by $1 within just a few hours. This followed the organisation, by BCS Public Relations, of a major press conference and a news release distribution that utilised webitpr’s online service.
The agency has also now adopted webitpr’s services for its pharmaceutical sector clients. Account Manager Greg Simpson, explained: “I’m particularly happy about the way the pharmaceutical media database is continually evolving and this has undoubtedly helped us grow our client base in this sector.
“webitpr’s distribution has helped to raise awareness of our clients’ products and increase attendance at its events. In fact, we’ve only recently been awarded the contract to provide PR support for the biggest clinical research conference in Europe and for that, webitpr will play its part.”
Helen added: “Another area that is very important to us is having a dedicated account team at webitpr and knowing they will be available whenever we have a question. They are always friendly and proactive, even flagging up additional media opportunities to us when they’ve discovered them. It is nice to feel they will go the extra mile when needed.
“In short, we consider webitpr to be an important complement to the wider PR campaigns we operate for our clients. With the results we’ve achieved to date, and the rise in importance of online news delivery, we are confident our work with webitpr will continue to grow in the future.”