The PR challenge
Young and female, Susie Ashfield is somewhat of a unicorn in the world of speech writing and coaching which consists mainly of men in their fifties churning out what Susie considers “stale speeches, that make dry material and already shy people sound like cyborgs”.
With a fresh and different approach, it’s no wonder CEOs and leaders are snapping her up to help them make an inspirational and memorable mark on their audiences, whether it’s TED Talks or their regular five-person leadership meeting.
However, working mainly behind the scenes to help turn the C-suite into ‘corporate rockstars’ it meant that her work was shrouded in mystery. She needed some personal PR to tell her story, show potential future clients what they were missing (but their competitors weren’t) and generate high quality coverage to build her Google footprint and share with her network via Linkedin.
The PR approach
Susie wanted to be in a mix of business and boutique consumer titles – grabbing the attention of her potential future clients when they weren’t necessarily thinking about work. So she posted a brief to Nibble looking for a PR specialist with consumer and B2B experience, who was creative and articulate, and who had worked on profiling campaigns like hers before.
The freelancer match she chose created a positioning that packaged her story and skills in a way that made her more ‘interviewable’ and essentially created a new category of consultant, offering journalists a different and immediately graspable way to explain who she was. ‘The Bernie of the boardroom – a corporate lyricist’ played homage to one of the world’s most well-known frontman Elton John who, like Susie’s clients, could thank his hardworking lyricist behind the scenes for the impactful performance he delivers to his audiences.
The first result was secured in week one, a full-length interview with Forbes that was "practically an advertorial", and generated new business that paid for the entire PR campaign.
The PR results
Armed with this and a selection of smart features ideas her, freelancer used traditional media relations - pitching these ideas to journalists - to land interviews and articles about Susie.
The first result was secured in week one, a full-length interview with Forbes, titled The public speaking advice you’ve never heard before, from the ‘anti-speech writer’ and was described by Susie as "practically an advertorial". It amassed over 10,000 views on LinkedIn when she shared it, and generated new business that paid for the entire PR campaign.
With the bar set high, a second full-length interview was secured in national newspaper The Metro - How I became one of the UK’s youngest female TED Talk speechwriters. This was followed by a steady stream of consumer lifestyle, consumer business and glossy regional lifestyle pieces, exceeding the KPI and making this Nibble client very happy indeed.
What Susie said:
“It’s amusing now, but I thought I’d be expected to pay somewhere around £10,000 for PR, or about £2,000 a month locked into a year-long retainer with no guarantee as to what that might produce. I think these figures may have come from a brief internship I did at a PR agency!
“I was over the moon when I saw the proposal and fees from my Nibble freelancer match, and the results we got went way beyond my expectations. The campaign paid for itself on the first article - to me, that says it all. I’m already planning how else I can use PR to help my business as it evolves and grows.”
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