April 2017 Luncheon

APR April 12
“To succeed in the world of PR, it takes A PRo!”
April 12 – GFW PRSA April Luncheon Sponsor Logo

Sponsored by: Lemon Meetings & Events  

Learn about the world of becoming an APR when you join the PRSA Greater Fort Worth chapter on Wednesday, April 12, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Register today!

During this month’s luncheon, you’ll learn how to profess what you know with the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR), which symbolizes distinction and demonstrates an experienced PR professional’s mastery of strategic communications and their personal and professional commitment to lifelong learning and ethical standards. We will hear the APR journey from some of our newest APRs and pin them recognizing this esteemed professional accomplishment.

Account executives from ROXO, TCU’s student-run advertising agency will also join us to share some of their top-notch campaigns from the past year.

January 2017 Luncheon

prsa-january-2017

“How to Be Effective in an Ever-Changing Information Environment ”
January 11 – GFW PRSA January Luncheon

Join the Greater Fort Worth PRSA chapter on Wednesday, January 11, at 11:30 a.m. at the City Club of Fort Worth to learn how to be effective in the ever-changing global information environment. Our chapter’s own Robert Hastings, APR, Fellow PRSA, will share how to plan and implement strategic communications in a corporate world. He will touch on how to use research to better target your audiences, focus your strategies, measure your success and improve your ROI.

Register today!

June 2016 Member Spotlight: Margaret Ritsch, APR

June 2016 Member Spotlight: Margaret Ritsch, APR

SONY DSCName: Margaret Ritsch, APR

Job Title/Company: Director, Roxo, and instructor at TCU

College/Degree/Graduation Date: University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.A. Journalism 1987. College of William and Mary, B.A. English, 1980

Hometown: Greenville, S.C.

Position within GFW PRSA (i/a): Member

Childhood ambition (what did you want to be when you grew up?): An actress, believe it or not!

Current livelihood (what you’re actually doing as a grown-up): I oversee a student advertising/public relations agency at TCU called Roxo. I also teach courses such as Strategic Communication Campaigns and Diversity and provide academic advising to a few dozen students.

First PR job: Straight out of college I got a job as an assistant advertising manager at a rapidly growing video-electronics company, Erols, in Northern Virginia. I established its first employee publication, which grew quickly in popularity and won the CEO’s direct involvement. I’d like to consider this my first PR job!

What you know now that you wish you’d known then: I was unaware that internal communications is an important subset of the public relations profession. I had majored in English at a liberal arts college, which offered no coursework in professional fields like public relations.

Best piece of advice you’ve ever received: Trust your gut.

Greatest professional or personal accomplishment: Building a wildly successful student advertising/public relations firm at TCU.

If you weren’t in PR, you’d be: A creative director at Droga5 in New York!

Desired legacy: To inspire young people to pursue not only a career in public relations, but also a way that they can contribute to the social good.

Why did you originally join PRSA: I had landed a job as the director of communications for a small company in Delaware, and realized I knew nothing about corporate communications! I owe my entire education in public relations to PRSA workshops, conferences and seminars.

Finally, tell us about your hometown and what makes it cool: I don’t really have a hometown. I was born in Greenville, S.C. but have no memories and we moved frequently during my childhood. I have lived longest in the Washington, D.C. area (11 years) and in Fort Worth (12 years). Fort Worth is much cooler than D.C.! To me, D.C. means traffic, a high-pressure work culture and too many people who believe they are very, very important. I absolutely love Fort Worth’s big sky, slower pace, lack of pretension, friendly people. This is now my hometown.

 

April 2016 Luncheon

April 2016 Luncheon

APR: Everything You Want to Know and More

Join us on Wednesday, April 13, at the City Club of Fort Worth, as we play a game of Jeopardy to learn all about the APR process.

Register today!

The APR process remains a mystery and can be intimidating. Let our chapter APRs unveil the mystery for you in an entertaining way. Three contestants will be chosen to play and winners will receive some special prep work from our chapter APRs to prepare them for the process.

We will also honor our new and existing APRs with a pinning ceremony. Join us as we celebrate this distinguished honor.

The Fourth annual Worthy Awards – Entry Tips and Information

The Fourth annual Worthy Awards
Entry Tips and Information
By: Carolyn Bobo, APR, Fellow PRSA

The Worthy Awards are designed to provide area communications, marketing and public relations professionals with an opportunity to celebrate creativity, strategic thinking and professional ability.

Don’t be hesitant about entering. Think about your activities between January 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, and go for it.

Here are some tips for preparing your entry.

A solid entry will address these points:

  • What was done?
  • Why did it matter?
  • How was it measured?

Carefully Read the Entry Parameters
The judges (Cleveland’s PRSA chapter) will look at each required area and base their scoring on how well the four entry areas are explained. Entrants should address each required point, and thoughtfully explain their good work so that it is excruciatingly clear to judges not familiar with our area.

Rationale (Tactics) and Research (Campaigns, Projects)
Explain any type of research, and why it was used. A textbook campaign would include formal, original research, but that isn’t always feasible or necessary. Judges know this, so entrants should clearly describe what was done. For example, a brainstorming session, a review of media clips or discussions with clients may be described as secondary, qualitative research … literature review … content analysis … anecdotal reports.

Objective/Purpose (Tactics) and Planning (Campaigns, Projects)
Why did you do what you did? Possible reasons are to increase sales, raise funds, create name recognition or influence public behavior. Describe any factors about the project/tactic that will help judges understand the purpose and the market. Note that the purpose must – absolutely must – match the outcome. Read on to the Evaluation section.

Execution (Campaigns, Projects)
Explain which tactics were chosen and why. When there are several tactical options, the entrant should state, for example, that “these tactics were selected to expand the reach of our message,” identify and justify each tactic.

Remember that the judges won’t know that your decisions and efforts were special unless you tell them.

If your entry states “TV station XYZ sponsored the event,” you must explain that “TV station XYZ rarely supports activities in Fort Worth.” Or, “TV station XYZ sponsors only three events per year, and we convinced the station to choose ours.”

Another hypothetical example: If your target market/public prefers electronic media over print, your entry should state, “Secondary research found that our target demographic prefers to receive electronic communications.” Such data may be obvious to you, but your entry narrative also must make your decision obvious to the judges.

Execution (Tactics)
Here’s where to explain who wrote the copy, designed a magazine, edited content, provided photos, approved the budget and negotiated with a vendor. The tactics section of The Worthy Awards is an explanation of who did what. If an unusual price or component was negotiated, say so, so the judges will understand your extra effort.

Results (Tactics)
Tactics are created to meet a specific need, and are skillfully and professionally prepared. An evaluation of effectiveness and impact, based upon defined objectives, can be simply stated. However, the results must – absolutely must – match the purpose. If the purpose was “to generate five media stories,” the result must show five (or more) media reports. If the purpose is “to raise awareness,” the results must show a measurable increase in awareness.

Evaluation (Campaigns, Projects)
Explain how the targeted market, public or audience responded and how you learned about its response. This is the time to include quantitative data and analysis. Such measures may be a replication of preliminary research or measures of other activities. For example, measures can be election results, a sales increase, ROI, donor or donation increase, or the number of participants/responses that exceeded expectations. Include as much measurable and anecdotal response as possible, and describe future plans.

If comprehensive research was not needed, say so. For example, “More than 5,000 people in our target public responded to the activity. We expected only 3,000, so we did not repeat our preliminary research to measure interest in the topic. However, we will analyze the experience of these respondents to plan future campaigns related to this issue.”

Information below on Communicator of the Year will be available soon. Please check back.

Good luck to everyone. See you at the Nov. 5 awards presentation.

Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like more information: