How Chicken Farmers of Canada Built Stronger Media Relations with Cision
Looking to adopt a more targeted communications approach, Chicken Farmers of Canada partnered with Cision to better identify relevant journalists and strengthen relationships with key media outlets.
Challenge
Chicken Farmers of Canada wanted to move away from “spray and pray” communications tactics and adopt a more targeted, personalized approach. The organization also sought to consolidate its PR and communications service providers.
Solution
To navigate the changing Canadian media and incorporate PR best practices, the association turned to Cision. Cision’s software solution is designed for PR and comms professionals, pulling together all the capabilities needed to deliver high-impact PR campaigns in an all-in-one platform. Chicken Farmers of Canada consolidated its media database and monitoring requirements into one solution, and distributed press releases via Cision’s press release distribution services on newswire.ca.
Results
This approach led to improved customer service and a wider range of digital coverage. The team was able to conduct more tailored and targeted work using Cision’s enhanced media search features while also testing and tracking opportunities through advanced analytics.
About Chicken Farmers of Canada
Combining communications tools
The initial intent was to shift the association's focus to adopt a more targeted, individualized approach, which proved to be a challenge.
“We need to stay connected with traditional media, and they're changing a lot. In addition to being more targeted, we wanted to be more efficient from both a cost and resource perspective,” said Marty Brett, Senior Corporate Communications Officer, Chicken Farmers of Canada.
Cision takes the guesswork out of deciding which media to target.
“The service and range of coverage were big factors for us. Having our media monitoring and media relations (database) linked together has made our outreach and messaging more efficient. We now have multiple tools in our arsenal.”
Tailored and targeted work
Within the database, the team uses the “Talking About” search for keywords, phrases, and hashtags to gauge interest in its industry.
"Instead of just putting out content and hoping that it will be looked at, we can proactively identify those who are already interested in our content,” said Brett.
"We are better able to track the frequency of coverage and identify adversaries – and champions – for our key issues.”
More digital content
Brett's previous monitoring service focused heavily on print but had limited digital coverage.
"With the ongoing digitization of newsrooms, a lot less content is being printed, period,” said Brett.
"The range of coverage that Cision offered in the digital space was a major factor in our decision to add online monitoring to our services.”
Testing and tracking opportunities
The association has used advanced media analytics to use unique search terms and score them based on prominence and impact, enabling the team to better understand the quality of its news mentions.
"This really helps us see what else is going on – in and around the industry,” said Brett. “The filters and keywords we can track will help us stay on top of trends and topics we may not have been following before.”
The team can also test more content to see what the media is interested in, now and in the future.
“Media relations is not just about the now and today, it's all about building relationships.”
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