PR Pros: Ellyn Winters-Robinson of Ignition Communications On The 5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career As A Public Relations Pro
Be a voracious consumer of knowledge and news — Ask any journalists for advice on story pitching and the first thing they’ll tell you (aside from “spell my name right”) is “read my work.” As a PR pro, you need to be consuming news about your industry sector, the economy and so forth, daily. It’s a big job and there’s so much news out there, but research is a vital component of any PR and media relations strategy. Reading the news will keep you abreast of emerging and ongoing news cycles, what your competitors are doing/saying, and allow you to position your narrative accordingly. There’s nothing more shameful than reaching out to a journalist with a pitch only to find that they have recently written a story on the same topic.
Have you seen the show Flack? Ever think of pursuing a real-life career in PR? What does it take to succeed in PR? What are the different forms of Public Relations? Do you have to have a college degree in PR? How can you create a highly lucrative career in PR? In this interview series, called “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career As A Public Relations Pro” we are talking to successful publicists and Public Relations pros, who can share stories and insights from their experiences.
As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Ellyn Winters-Robinson of Ignition Communications.
As the Chief Marketing Officer and President of Ignition Communications, a boutique marketing, communications and PR un-agency, Ellyn provides marketing & PR expertise to technology and other companies in Canada, the US, and Europe. She’s successfully helped her clients place stories in Tier One media such as TechCrunch, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Globe and Mail, CBC, ESPN, Venture Capital Journal, and the Sifted.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have a degree in public relations, so I’m one of the fortunate few who continue some 30 years later to be happily working in my chosen profession. I will admit, however, that the path to entrepreneurship was more of a happy accident. After leaving my job as the VP of Marketing for an enterprise software firm, I was approached by people in my network to do some project work. After about six months I fell deeply in love with consulting and here I am 14 years later running a thriving business with clients all over the world.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?
I’ve always believed that when you do good work for people and care deeply about customer service good things happen. So much of my business comes through word of mouth. A few years back I was referred to a cannabis technology startup by another client who needed assistance with their funding round announcement. As it happens, the investment firm was Casa Verde Capital, which is Snoop Dogg’s venture firm. The announcement went very well, and since that time, I’ve worked with several Casa Verde portfolio companies to announce their respective funding rounds. It’s been great fun. The companies bring very interesting stories to the table and it is very interesting PR work.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Way back in the early days of my career, I was working the registration table at a meeting of school board administrators. Once the meeting began and our time was freed up, I rocked back in my chair only to topple over backward knocking over the backdrop as I went with a huge crash. Not my finest moment, but my colleague still laughs about it to this day.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
My PR practice both broad and deep.
The work I am doing in the cannabis sector is fascinating as we are witnessing the birth of an entirely new industry — the first new major consumer goods category to emerge in this century. With that, there are lots of growing pains, and there continues to be a stigma associated with cannabis that must be overcome as the industry legitimizes. As someone who has traditionally had a PR practice focused on technology, there are many parallels in the way the tech industry grew and evolved and in the emergence of startups to serve the sector. Further, there is significant cross-over between the sectors, as technology plays a big role in the cannabis industry’s maturity. Because of the cannabis connection, quite a few have celebrity investor backing, which certainly adds an interesting dimension to storytelling.
Another client of Ignition, a health tech company called Cloud DX, is doing some exceptionally meaningful work in the healthcare space, which of course has been put to the test during the global pandemic. The company’s technology is currently being tested in research trials in Africa for tuberculosis cough detection. My colleagues and I are helping the Cloud DX team drive global media interest in that research.
Finally, as a core part of my practice, I’m lucky to be able to mentor early-stage startups at the Accelerator Centre to advance their learning surrounding marketing and PR. Our program has graduated several Unicorns, some of the industry’s fastest-growing tech scale-ups and even a couple of now public companies. It’s terrifically rewarding to watch these founders progress from an idea to full-fledged business success. I’m honored to play a role in their success.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Honesty.
As Popeye says, I yam what I yam. I am very good at what I do. But I am unfailingly honest in my dealings with clients and with the journalists I serve. For me, it is about building authentic relationships with people and taking a long-term view of relationships. I believe this is why I have continued to benefit from word-of-mouth referrals from clients, and why the journalists I work with are receptive to hearing from me. Those who work with me know that they will be treated fairly and honestly. This also may mean turning clients down. If the story is simply not there or it is not the right time for that story to be told, no amount of posturing or pressuring is going to convince a journalist to write about that business.
Resilience.
If you don’t adapt you die. In business, the markets you serve are continuously
changing and evolving and as a business owner, you need to be open to changing and evolving as well. If you become too locked in your ways or your plan, you may miss an opportunity. I’ve taken on projects in my career as an entrepreneur that scared the bejebus out of me. I could have let fear dictate and I could have said no to that opportunity, but those very scary moments represent opportunities to learn and grow. Resilience is also the watchword when it comes to pitching your stories to the media. I will say to my clients, pitching is like sales in a different form. It’s 99% sadness, 1% joy. So you need to have thick skin and you need to be resilient if you are going to be in the media relations game. And when you pitch a story with the right ingredients, at the right time and the journalist favorably responds…at least for a moment you feel like a PR rock star.
Service.
I can’t stress the importance of customer service when running your own business. Clients need to feel understood, cared for, listened to. It baffles me why more companies don’t embrace the notion of great, responsive customer service. Perhaps it is because it is my business, and my livelihood, but my client’s well-being and happiness matters to me.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview.
For the benefit of our readers, can you help articulate what the different forms of PR are?
PR by definition is the art of persuasion. It is about bringing key stakeholders onside and persuading them to carry your message to the market. Media relations is often the first thing people think of when they first consider PR because journalists are a key stakeholder audience, but there are areas of specialization within PR that are focused on different audiences. For instance, internal communications focuses on employees. Investor relations focuses on investors and the surrounding financial community. Social media communications, influencer relations, analyst relations and crisis communications are also areas of specialization that often fall under the PR umbrella.
Where should a young person considering a career in PR start their education? Should they get a degree in communications? A degree in journalism? Can you explain what you mean?
There are numerous pathways into a career in PR. Journalism is one path — in the past, it was the only pathway. Now, many universities and colleges offer PR Bachelor and Masters degrees as well as post-graduate diploma programs. They produce graduates of excellent calibre. In my humble opinion, the magic combination is someone who has an undergrad in journalism coupled with a PR post-graduate diploma. I have a PR degree versus a journalism background but I have spent a lot of time honing my journalism writing skills over my career.
You are known as a master networker. Can you share some tips on great networking?
Always be networking. Maintain and continually build your business relationships and stay in touch with others frequently through a LinkedIn post, by liking or sharing their content on social media, or by connecting for a tea or coffee. My network has been invaluable to me and my best source of new business opportunities.
Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business. Can you share some of the strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?
First and foremost, do good work for people. Results talk for themselves. Back that effort with strong customer service and a great work ethic. And be responsive. It is shocking to me how many vendors are poor at responding to a client’s question or need. It’s such an easy thing to do and it speaks volumes. Maintain and work your network and embed value into your conversations with prospects and your social media content. 95% of my business comes through word of mouth, so it is important to stay visible and relevant.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career As A Public Relations Pro” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Write well — Folks often equate PR with relationship building and with being a good networker. That’s not untrue, but I would argue the most fundamental and foundational skill a PR professional can cultivate is their writing ability. PR pros are called upon to craft press releases, contributed and feature articles, speeches, and many other forms of content. Similar to a journalist, you must be able to digest and parse information efficiently, and quickly and succinctly write an account of that information. The very interesting thing is that with the rise of inbound marketing and the emergence of content as a core area of the marketing function, the world of owned (blogs etc) and earned (traditional PR) have collided and there’s more demand than ever for individuals with strong writing ability. In addition, the world of journalism is also changing. There are fewer journalists and just as many, if not more, stories to tell. Editors now routinely ask PR pros to craft content aligned to their editorial guidelines instead of assigning a reporter to the story.
- Understand and use principles of storytelling — In addition to being a good writer, PR pros need to be exceptional storytellers. Human beings communicate with each other through stories. So why should this be any different in business? This means understanding the elements of news that journalists use to frame out a story (timely, topical, human interest, conflict). This should be the filter by which you craft a pitch and position and write stories. So, read up on, and internalize the ‘Hero’s Journey.’ It is the classic story arc that is leveraged in mythology, movies (Harry Potter anyone?), video games and really, any form of captivating and engaging content.
- Be a voracious consumer of knowledge and news — Ask any journalists for advice on story pitching and the first thing they’ll tell you (aside from “spell my name right”) is “read my work.” As a PR pro, you need to be consuming news about your industry sector, the economy and so forth, daily. It’s a big job and there’s so much news out there, but research is a vital component of any PR and media relations strategy. Reading the news will keep you abreast of emerging and ongoing news cycles, what your competitors are doing/saying, and allow you to position your narrative accordingly. There’s nothing more shameful than reaching out to a journalist with a pitch only to find that they have recently written a story on the same topic.
- Always be networking — We’ve addressed the topic of networking already, but it’s vital that PR pros stay visible and connected to their networks. This includes past and potential clients, journalists, influencers, venture capital firms and investors among other stakeholders. And the networking effort should be reciprocal. Give as much as you take. Lead with value always. Respect a person’s time and honor their contribution. Write or send a note of thanks to express your gratitude. It’s just human civility.
Right now, with so much of the work operating differently, social media channels such as LinkedIn play an important role in the networking effort. But there are other tools such as Lunch Club that exist to help you network with net new contacts. - Stay relevant — Who wants to be that stale PR pro? Not me. You want to always be the dynamic communicator that is one step ahead of the market. The world is changing and evolving and in tech, there are new tools, platforms, social networks emerging every day. You want to be on top of the action, conversant with the way clients, journalists and other stakeholders want to communicate. And you need to be prepared to guide them to new communications channels so that they are actively participating in relevant conversations about their business and their industry. Publishing business models are also impacting the nature of news and the way journalists work and engage. There’s a huge turnover in roles in the newsroom. Freelancers are more heavily relied upon for stories. Communication is more digital and more interactive. So, if you aren’t constantly refreshing and learning you will quickly fall out of favor.
Because of the role you play, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love for people to simply be kind and considerate to one another. There is so much polarization in the way we communicate today, we seem to have lost our capacity to care about our fellow human beings and to react with hostility vs curiosity. Life to too short. We must always be kind.
This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.
PR Pros: Ellyn Winters-Robinson of Ignition Communications On The 5 Things You Need To Create A… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.