Fortune 500 Cos. Expansion Signals Healthy PR Future
Executive recruiters and independent PR consultants might be encouraged by this finding from outplacement and career services house Drake Beam Morin: employment at the 30 largest industrial companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange rose more than 4 percent in 1996, with some of those companies showing dramatic expansions in their core businesses.
According to DBM, McDonald's [MCD] reported 25,000 new jobs and Sears [S] reported 14,000 new jobs, both due to new store openings; IBM [IBM] reported 15,000 new jobs because of expanded operations; and American Express [AMX] reported more than 2,000 new jobs due to business expansions.
Even though DBM didn't break out what percentage of the jobs were communications/PR-oriented, we guarantee that as companies enter into more mergers and acquisitions and grow their core businesses, they will increasingly rely on communicators to manage internal and external messages, especially those dealing with employee communications, investor relations and issues/crisis management. (DBM, 212/687-8999)
Financial Analyst Reports: A Top Measurement Tool
In the "Planning Goals and Measurement" portion of a Corporate Communications
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How Many Did They Hire?
Drake Beam ranked the companies which hired the most workers last year in this order: AT&T: American Express: Boeing: General Electric: |
Benchmark 1997 study that's being released in waves by Edelman, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Integrated Marketing Communications Department, survey respondents ranked the methods they're using for measurement analysis in this order:
1. Financial analyst reports
2. Primary stakeholder surveys
3. Media content analysis
4. Messages communicated
5. Readership surveys
6. Number of clips generated
7. Secondary research data
8. Tracking electronic communications
9. Internal benchmarking
10. Issues tracking and ROI
11. Cooperative benchmarking
12. Column inches generated
13. Focus groups
(Edelman, 312/240-2685)
PR Execs Take Note: Most Small Cos. Use Web For Research
If your company's in the process of developing its PR strategies for the online world, consider this finding by Find/SVP about how small businesses are using the Internet:
- 81 percent use the Internet for online research - an ideal avenue for you to present background information on your company or for you to provide statistics and data;
- 49 percent use the Internet for business news - you want to make sure that your PR includes a heavy dose of posting company news online and sending releases to the wires;
- 47 percent use the Internet for product information - what's become the backbone of any savvy customer relations program; and
- 28 percent rely on Internet technology for intranets - one of the most powerful employee communications channels you have. (Find/SVP, 800/965-4636)