In April 2021, I was promoted to Global PR & Content Manager, responsible for developing STANLEY Security’s first centralized, global PR program. Taking on this role – and delivering measurable results within eight short months – was no small feat.

PR: A Pain Point for the Business

Stepping into the position, there were no processes or playbooks.

I inherited a global PR agency that had been brought on with no clear guidance, structure or onboarding. I became the point person for dozens of requests from leaders across the business who didn’t fully understand what a PR strategy should look like (beyond one-off press releases). And I soon found myself navigating an as-yet-undefined review process that caused friction between the Security division and our corporate counterparts at Stanley Black & Decker (SBD).

Before I moved into this role, there wasn’t a centralized PR function at STANLEY Security, leaving the regions and business units to define their own PR strategies and employ their own agencies, which created inconsistent messaging, confusion among the media and cannibalized PR opportunities.

Additionally, the review process was a pain point for everyone. At best, the turnaround time was one month. At worst, it could be up to six months. There were no defined processes, owners or protocols. Each time a press release or media opportunity arose, there was chaos in sorting out who handled what and how many people should review it or be involved.

Creating Clarity

All of this was a lot to manage, but I moved forward by creating clarity through process. One of my first outputs in this role was a document that outlined the following:

  • The existing review process
  • Suggestions for how to optimize this process to accelerate and scale our PR initiatives
  • A matrix outlining the roles and responsibilities, as well as target media outlets, for the business’ five total PR agencies

I spent time road-showing the document with various stakeholders across the organization, and soon got the green light to move forward. The new process reduced the turnaround time for reviews significantly – from 1-6 months to 1-2 weeks – allowing us to work with speed and agility.

More importantly, it created clarity for the business. With a dedicated PR champion (yours truly), business leaders knew who to turn to for assistance navigating media opportunities and PR initiatives. And, as a result, I could ensure that our PR output was on brand, high quality and properly approved.

While implementing this new process, I also began joining the SBD PR team’s weekly meetings to stay closely aligned with their strategy and maintain a regular rhythm with corporate.

These changes began creating structure around what had long been a neglected but vital function of the business. 

Defining & Measuring Success

STANLEY Security’s mission is to be a leading tech company that proactively solves organizations’ health, safety and security challenges. My responsibility as the PR manager was to increase brand awareness among our target audience, create that perception among customers/prospects and establish our expertise within the technology industry.

Instead of following the typical approach to gaining share of voice (e.g., ramping up press release development and distribution), I relied on a more thoughtful approach that placed quality over quantity. I focused our PR strategy on building thought leadership across technology, business and trade media. We would prioritize securing byline opportunities for key leaders across the business, while also pitching interviews and speaking engagements.

I established the following KPIs to define and measure success:

  • 1 piece of top-tier coverage per month
  • 3 pieces of tier 2-3 coverage per month
  • 15 million potential reach of coverage per month
  • 1 press release per quarter
  • 55 average domain authority of coverage

For months, however, we were manually measuring our results – a time-consuming and often inaccurate process. There was no way to access PR activity, metrics or media monitoring for all divisions and regions across STANLEY Security. This created a huge blind spot for the organization and led to significant inefficiencies.

We needed a global PR platform to simplify and streamline reporting, while providing visibility and insights into PR activity across the organization. Cision was the answer. A months-long approval process followed – from pitching the tool to leadership and working with procurement to liaising with IT and raising the PO.

Once finally approved and implemented, Cision became another accelerator for the global PR program. With a dashboard that automatically monitored press coverage (and helped us identify areas of opportunity), we could shift our focus to activities that truly moved the needle. This meant we spent more time developing high-quality content and refining media pitches and less time on burdensome administrative tasks.

Delivering Measurable Results

I was tasked with building a global PR program from the ground up and using thought leadership to amplify our brand story across key sectors. More than that, I set out to eliminate inefficiencies and create clarity by developing processes that could streamline, accelerate and scale our PR initiatives – and the results speak for themselves.

Across all regions and business units in 2021, my PR program generated more than 1,200 pieces of media coverage, totaling a potential reach of 1.6 billion. The ad equivalency – the dollar value of the media coverage – surpassed $3.2 million, generating a 12x return on investment.

Some of the key pieces of coverage included:

In addition to supporting traditional PR and thought leadership efforts, I worked closely with four of our executives to extend their expertise to their own LinkedIn accounts, increasing impressions and engagements each by 101% year-over-year.

All of this helped amplify our brand story and further our mission to be a leading tech company that proactively solves organizations’ health, safety and security challenges.

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