Instead of working in silos, data will be that one piece that aligns all the teams to work together to talk to the same person: Elise from Syncari

With 2 semesters in while majoring in Bio, Elise realized it was not for her and her sister introduced her to PR and communications. She got intrigued to understand why people say the things they say and why they engage in the way that they do, so she took the semester off and majored in Communications, and now she is Sr. Director, Community & Corporate Communications at Syncari

Check out her entire story:

Transcript (Auto-Generated)

0:01If you’re working for a company that is an enterprise company that has a lot of pr initiatives, then you’re going to have lengthy reports that take hours, right?

0:12Like I remember I used to do them.

0:13It could take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours just to put on a monthly report on a PowerPoint.

0:20and it includes all the executive mentions and executive mentions include all of the top tier publications and so when you think about that, there has to be a way to do it in a much faster way and hopefully an automated way.

0:43I started out at the University of SAN Francisco studied and majored in bio and then thought, gosh, I really don’t like this.

0:55So you know, two semesters in, I am burned out and I figured I have another 3.5 years to go and I realized, why don’t I do something I love?

1:07And at that point, one of my sisters was working for a public relations company or technology that helped enable PR folks.

1:17And so she said to me, at least why don’t you do what you’re good at?

1:20You’re great at talking to people.

1:22And so like I never thought of that as a profession because at the time, you know, when you were growing up, you always think I’m going to be a surgeon and be a doctor.

1:32And so I was reaching this point in my life where I thought, gosh, I really don’t like biology or I just don’t have a knack for it.

1:40Right?

1:40There were folks that had a photographic memory that could just take tests like that?

1:44And then there was me who was trying to learn everything and so I took a semester off and then I came back and I was like okay let’s do it.

1:53And so I majored in communication studies and that’s where I started to really learn about qualitative work and that’s where I started to learn about the things of communication, why people say the things they say and why they engage in the way that they do.

2:08And that was really intriguing to me as a comms major.

2:11So that’s how I started on the path of communications.

2:21Yeah, absolutely.

2:22So I’ve been very lucky.

2:23I think on the communication side when we look at data we look at it from how many mentions did we get the share of voice?

2:31How is it increasing across the company?

2:34The clients that we’re working with and their competitors, Right.

2:37Is it increasing, is it not?

2:39And if it isn’t, what else can we do?

2:41Right, So we use it as a way to inform our initiatives.

2:44And then when I worked out for a genius and we’re on the marketing side, we looked at it from a lead gen perspective and a demand gen perspective.

2:52Right?

2:53So if we put out a campaign, it helped us really identify how much interest was there from the market?

3:01Right, So if I put out an email, how many opens did I get?

3:04How many clicks where there are people who are engaged, did people sign up for the forms are the forms working?

3:09So it helps you understand if the things that you’re working on are working or not.

3:15So it was a great pulse check for that.

3:22We did a media campaign on the single source of truth is dead.

3:26And then we also did a media campaign on our H2 essentially momentum release, which surrounded around all the awards that we’ve won as well as customer case studies, how we were working with customers as well as awards.

3:42And so as a part of that we saw an uptick and pick up releases, we saw an uptick in traffic to our website and we saw an uptake to look at, click-throughs in that piece of media when we push it out on social and so for that, we saw come through to our website, we saw people come through and ask for more demos as well.

4:09I think that one of the biggest challenges in communications is, the lack of alignment across the organization.

4:16So in communication in particular, sometimes you have revenue teams that look at you and say, well, what’s the value?

4:24Right, how many leads are you bringing in and over here and on the communication side, you’re trying to tell a story, you’re trying to position the organization or whoever it is you represent in a way where it stands, you know, essentially distinguishes itself in a marketplace.

4:40And so I think the alignment in the education there can be lacking in the sense that when you’re in pr and you put out an article or you get you secure a couple articles, the revenue order, the executive team, perhaps the marketing team is going to say to you, how many leads did you get right?

4:59But the metrics that KPI s there are very different.

5:03So I think that if the teams can align on the KPI s as you go to market as you go and you achieve your objectives and understanding that hey, we’re going to put out all of these, these pitches and we’re gonna secure maybe 2 to 5 articles, but they are for these reasons and aligning with the organization on that front will help set you up for success and then educating them that it is a long term game.

5:29Why?

5:29Well the short-term game, it is executing on that as well, but it’s about working on it incrementally.

5:36And so alignment there is key to creating a unified view, especially across your systems.

5:42When you’re aligning across your systems, you’re able to analyze all that data together and then activated it together and when you’re working in unison and then think like that, that’s when you’re able to achieve much more of success than working in silos.

6:03I feel like right now where the state of the market is, I feel like it’s a very holistic number and so what that means today, where I sit, it’s more on the social side, it’s more about how many people are looking at our content because we’re, you know, as we know, buyers aren’t as into gated content anymore, Right?

6:27But you can start to see the saturation in pr as well.

6:31So for me, I wouldn’t say it’s the most important metric, but it certainly impacts the word of mouth that we see.

6:38And instead of on this side of the turf, instead of reporters writing or talking or mentioning about us, it’s more about people, writing, peers across LinkedIn and social, are they talking about us?

6:52And so, to answer your question, I wouldn’t say it’s the most important.

6:57I think it definitely impacts the overall experience and journey of a customer and it definitely influences the buyer journey, definitely see data being a critical part in aligning teams.

7:16So, what that means is going back to the 360 unified view of your customer profile and understanding who is it that you’re talking to?

7:25Right?

7:25Are you talking to the same person?

7:27And if you you are then tackling it from a communication standpoint and tackling it from a marketing standpoint as well as a sales standpoint will be critical.

7:36So instead of working in silos data will be that one piece that aligns all the teams to work together to talk to the same person, I’ve been in scenarios where I worked, respectively, only in hubspot and the sales team worked in their own crm, so we didn’t even talk to each other, right?

7:56And the customer journey was already disconnected at the onset because I would hand off these leads and they wouldn’t like an egg, it wasn’t being carried over or if it was, it was a disjointed journey.

8:08And so that in itself was a challenge because we weren’t speaking the same way language, we weren’t delivering the same promises, right?

8:16And then, you know, I’ve been in organizations where it marketing wasn’t that important and calms wasn’t that important and it was C suite that drove the the initiative, right?

8:28It was whatever C suite one, because the C suite was either a product specialist or they’re generally a builder.

8:34So they built a product that they don’t understand the marketing pieces.

8:37And so being able to educate that is also a challenge.

8:41And that’s where your data will also become very important because when you’re working with leadership that doesn’t understand marketing, you have to prepare all the data points to demonstrate and prove your point as to why you need to deliver on a use a campaign as to why you need to go out and tell these stories as to why you need to have a story around X, Y and Z.

9:03So even that side is a different kind of, of course you will, I think currently today my, I would say in an ideal world, it would be where I live the most.

9:22So today is essentially in salesforce marcato hubspot.

9:29I would also say in linkedin across sprout social, I think understand getting where people are and what they’re talking about, especially in communities as well.

9:39So that’s more slow on the dark side.

9:41Yes, exactly.

9:43Of the boots on the ground, right?

9:45You’re in the community.

9:46What are they talking about?

9:47These are your buyers that these are their struggles and their challenges.

9:51Understanding that is where I mostly live.

10:00I think it’s always the typical one of course, is at what point do you meet your prospect at what point do you begin to see them?

10:11Turn into an opportunity at what point do you close them?

10:15And at what point do they become their champion?

10:18So I think all of those data points are always good for me, especially also what’s important to me, right, like, but in that, So what do they come to us for?

10:28What are their pain points and then what kind of services products to resolve them for and then taking all of that and then building stories around it.

10:38So I’m looking at the full full 360 picture.

10:42I’m not just looking at one data point, looking at all the critical ones that continue to be meaningful to the customer?

10:49And that’s if it’s meaningful to the customer, then it’s meaningful to me.

10:57Yeah.

10:58When you’re looking on the pier, calm side as well as the digital side.

11:01I think it’s those monthly reports.

11:04Right.

11:04I think some companies even do daily reports of these were all the mentions.

11:09These are all the links and this was the sentiment that is also really stressful, especially for teams.

11:16but the monthly and quarterly ones can be pretty long and lengthy.

11:20I would say when we’re looking at metrics were generally looking at how many articles were featured mentioned, we’re looking at the sentiment, was it positive?

11:29Was it negative?

11:29Was it neutral?

11:30And then we’re also looking at the impressions.

11:34Right, That means or unique visitors per month for each article, usually we look at it per, by the outlet, but if we’re not able to then we look at it by the article and vice versa.

11:45And so all of that, if you’re working for a company that is an enterprise company that has a lot of pr initiatives, then you’re gonna have lengthy reports that take hours right.

11:56Like I remember I used to do them, it could take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours just to put on a monthly report on a power point.

12:05and it includes all the executive mentions and executive mentions includes all of the top tier publications.

12:11And so when you think about that, there has to be a way to to do in a much faster way and hopefully an automated way I know when I was doing it, even automated reports weren’t efficient enough or weren’t accurate.

12:26So we would still have to comb through daily google scrub.

12:30So if you imagine daily google scrubs, monthly, daily google scrubs and so that is and then we put it on a document, write a document and then or or an excel sheet can you imagine and then we put it onto the power point.

12:44So the short answer to that is we still track for the number of mentions, we still track with the number of articles we still track for impressions, and then on the social side followers across each channel Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, we still track for engagements, likes, how many reactions in the growth month over month I would say bi-curious.

13:14I would say gather all of the data points that you can as much as you can, whether you realize it or not.

13:22Your company will likely ask you for it.

13:24They don’t ask you for it.

13:26They will thank you for it and that will help you be a smarter communicator.

13:31It, even if you just leverage a data point somewhere from one of your stories and or something from when your customers or your usage or whatever the case may be or you’re even like your website traffic, whatever take that and build a story out of it numbers do still matter.

13:50And so I would say, you know, on the concert, we often think, oh it’s all about how you tell the story and how you position it.

13:57But what’s most meaningful to your readers?

14:00Are the numbers, too.

14:01So keep going at it, Keep an open mind and be curious.