New Jersey-based boutique public relations firm Violet PR won the 2024 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award for “Best Boutique Agency” at this year’s Anvil ceremony in New York City. The firm, which specializes in economic development, also won the Bronze Anvil Award for its Greater Topeka Partnership campaign and an Award of Commendation for its work for the Kansas City Area Development Council. Each year, the Anvil Awards honor the best communications programs planned and executed by agencies across the nation.
Category: In the Press
Sugar Land Office of Economic Development Selects Violet PR as its Marketing Communications Agency
MONTCLAIR, N.J., Feb. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Violet PR, a New Jersey-based public relations firm specializing in economic development, has been selected to represent the Sugar Land Office of Economic Development (SLOED). The agency will develop and execute an integrated marketing program leveraging media relations, digital media and site selection expertise to position Sugar Land, Texas, as an ideal location for business investment.
The Violet PR team will highlight the city’s new developments and key sectors, including life sciences and manufacturing. Sugar Land is home to 20 biotechnology companies, 19 corporate headquarters and eight advanced manufacturing companies. Just 20 minutes southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land boasts 8.9 million square feet of industrial property, 8 million square feet of retail and 7.9 million square feet of office real estate.
“This partnership underscores our commitment to helping communities achieve their economic development objectives,” said April Mason, president and founder of Violet PR. “From the transformation of the Imperial Sugar building, the city’s namesake, to the innovative life sciences programs at the University of Houston’s Sugar Land campus, this community has many exciting stories to tell.”
Sugar Land’s redevelopments include Imperial Sugar, a 181-year-old sugar manufacturing facility now being transformed into a $1 billion mixed-use center. Last fall, the University of Houston’s local campus broke ground on a $65 million academic building which will include 75,000 square feet of wet/dry/computer labs, classrooms, and conference spaces for biomedical and chemical engineering degrees.
“As we work towards advancing our economic development goals and strengthening our national brand, we believe that Violet PR’s expertise will play a crucial role in showcasing Sugar Land’s strengths, attracting investment, and fostering growth within our community,” said Alba Pennate-Johnson, assistant director of economic development and tourism for the Sugar Land Economic Development Office.
In addition to Sugar Land, Violet PR represents the states of Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina and Oklahoma, and the metros of Arlington, Va.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Kansas City, Mo.; the Lehigh Valley, Pa.; Newark, N.J.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Topeka, Kan.
About Violet PR
Whether rebranding a city, drawing attention to a revitalized neighborhood, or promoting a new sustainable development, Violet PR helps clients make a difference. Through a combination of news stories, social media and compelling content, the New Jersey-based boutique public relations firm helps clients attract more dollars and supporters.
Violet PR has won more than 50 accolades in the last three years, including “Best in Show” at the 2022 and 2023 Public Relations Society of America New Jersey Pyramid awards. The firm was named “Best Boutique Agency” by PR News and Bulldog Reporter in 2022, and in 2023, April Mason was named to NJBIZ’s “Best 50 Women in Business” list. Follow Violet PR on Instagram and LinkedIn. For more information, visit http://www.violetpr.com.
About Sugar Land Office of Economic Development (SLOED)
The Sugar Land Office of Economic Development (SLOED) serves as Sugar Land, Texas’ economic development organization. SLOED focuses on cultivating a thriving business community, driving economic growth and enhancing the quality of life within the region through industries including life sciences, advanced manufacturing, business and professional services and information technology. For more information, visit http://www.sugarlandecodev.com/.
Daily Ad Brief: ‘PR Champions’ with April Mason from Violet PR
Each week on “PR Champions,” Daily Ad Brief’s host talks to PR experts across the country. This week, the host spoke with Violet PR President April Mason. Read more below!
What is one PR strategy you recommend our audience to use in their business?
Violet PR has found success by working with clients that we can stand behind. We search for clients that make a positive impact on the communities around them and work to help them tell their stories. Having this personal interest in the work our clients are doing helps us to feel more motivated, and makes us proud when we see those results rolling in.
How does your PR strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?
Violet PR does public relations— we reach out to journalists on behalf of our clients. Where advertising falls under paid media, our work falls under earned media, meaning we do not pay for any placements our clients get. We work with a wide range of journalists in local markets as well as national markets. Our PR strategy changes greatly when working with local or national media. With local media, we leverage our existing relationships within the state or region to show the impact that our client has in that market. For national media, we work to showcase why the work our client is doing is important and outline the interest their readers would have in the story.
What is the biggest mistake you see people make when pitching the media?
The biggest mistake we see people make while pitching the media is targeting the wrong publications. A big part of public relations is understanding how to reach the audience you are looking for. The best way to do this is to have a specialized media list built from extensive research. You can have the best pitch in the world, but if you send it to the wrong people, the story will never get picked up. Having a specialized media list will always be more powerful than a larger broad list.
PR News: Media Relations’ Dirty Secret: ‘Spray and Pray’ Pitching ‘Experts’ Works, but for How Long?
Violet PR Account Director Christina Forrest spoke with PR News, offering insight into best practices for media relations. Check out her insight in the article below!
PR trades, including PRNEWS, expound on authenticity’s virtues. Yet authenticity is a two-way street and includes journalists. So, here’s a confession: sometimes a media relations tactic routinely hated and long derided in surveys actually works.
It’s called spray and pray pitching and sometimes spammy pitching. A sub-category of it has a media relations person sending a large, automated list of journalists a pitch touting an expert source. Sometimes the pitch is repeated. For weeks and months. Same ‘expert;’ usually the same pitcher.
Perfect World
“The best situation, of course, is when a pitcher who’s worked previously with a journalist crafts a personal pitch,” says Christina Forrest, a director at Violet PR. “Our highest chance of getting coverage,” she says, “is building and maintaining great relationships with journalists.” Accordingly, she believes “bulk outreach” or blind pitching, which ignores recent time spent with a journalist, “runs the risk of damaging that relationship.”
Read the full article here.
PR News: Despite Differences, Journalists and PR Pros Have Much in Common
Violet PR President, April Mason, was quoted in this PR News article, sharing her views on the pay gap between public relations professionals and journalists and how it affects her media relations strategies.
We know the ranks of media members is declining, of course. Perhaps less known is that the number of PR pros also fell, at least last year.
In 2020, there were 244,550 PR pros in the U.S. That number was down slightly, to 242,710 last year. Similarly, media’s rolls fell, from 41,580 (2020) to 39,080 (2021).
As you can see from the above figures, the oft-mentioned uneven ratio of PR pros to content producers remains. It now stands at 6.2 PR pros to every one journalist. That’s a slight change from 2020, when it was 5.8 to 1.
These data seem to imply not only are more PR pros chasing fewer content people, but each media member is following a greater number of stories than previously. Several surveys reinforce this trend.
“For Violet PR president April Mason the uneven ratio of PR pros to journalists means communicators “need to be smarter than ever in how we approach” press. “We don’t want to bombard them, but instead be a resource.”
And since content producers are pressed for time, they no longer have the luxury of doing interviews on spec. As such, Mason advises delivering well-developed stories that meet audience needs and don’t require media members to spend hours on research.
Read the full article here.
PR News: Speed and Accuracy: An Usual Moment Prompts PR Changes
Violet PR President, April Mason, spoke to PR News about how COVID-19 has affected the PR industry. Read more below!
It’s not difficult to argue the U.S. is in an unusual moment. First, nearly all of us will contract COVID eventually, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, said Jan. 12. And while some epidemiologists believe the omicron variant signals the pandemic’s end, others, such as Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of MN and a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, are not sure.
Viewing this moment from a PR pro’s perspective, the question arises: Have the strategies and tactics of PR changed as a result of this unusual moment? Should they?
After all, some argue that before the pandemic PR pros were supposed to read the room, keeping tabs on customers, competitors and the rest of the zeitgeist. This allowed them to make course corrections to communication efforts as needed.
As such, this argument goes, the PR pro is doing what she has done for years: communicating, pitching, advising and raising awareness, all based on the state of play and with an eye toward the future. True, today’s conditions are different than they were before the pandemic, yet the PR’s pro’s job essentially is the same.
The influence of speed, which Mitchell mentioned above, is the main factor for April Mason, who heads Violet PR, a small firm in NJ. Specifically, Mason notes the speedy news cycle the pandemic has, in part, caused. With news about COVID-19 and its variants changing, sometimes hourly, media relations pros like Mason have adjusted or become irrelevant, she says.
For example, Mason often pitches stories that work alongside the day’s breaking news. Covid’s constant updates means she is looking for new angles at a fast pace. “What’s relevant today as a pitch, might not be tomorrow, or even a few hours from now,” depending on Covid developments, she says.
Expiration Date
In addition, as the length of a pitch’s shelf life has declined in this climate, Mason advises that “your executive is ready to speak with a reporter” the day you pitch.
While it depends on the pitcher and the executive, for Mason, pitching a story “a month out just doesn’t happen very much anymore.” Enterprise stories also are occurring less frequently, she says.
Also gone, she says, are desk-side appointments. “You’d bring a CEO or a political leader to meet with an editor and reporter for a wide-ranging conversation.” A few weeks later, the reporter called and indicated what topics could result in a story, she says.
The pandemic also sped the reduction in newsroom size, Mason argues. As a result, pitchers and executives interviewing with reporters best be succinct, she says. Her counsel for interviewees is to have not more than three talking points.
“Reporters don’t have time for executives who digress,” Mason adds. Several reporters abruptly ended several interviews she arranged. CEOs “can’t be offended by this. You explain to them that if you want coverage you have to work in this [sped-up] structure.”
Good News
It’s not all bad news, however. Mason doubled revenue and staff in 2021. “A lot of [PR pros] had a good year,” she says. Again, the pandemic offered conditions that led to a resurgence in her business.
“We lost 30 percent of our revenue during lockdown” at the start of the pandemic, she recalls. That allowed Mason time to “do more publicity for the firm, answer more RFPs and create more content,” including thought-leadership essays. With newsrooms straining, media is ripe for submitted essays, she says.
Another important factor for Mason was the rise in Covid-related federal and government spending. Much of her business is centered on government and contractors.
Read the full article here.
ROI-NJ: PR on PR: N.J.’s experts step out from behind the curtain to offer insight into their sector
Violet PR President, April Mason sat down with ROI-NJ to provide insight into the public relations industry. Read more of their conversation, below.
ROI-NJ: If you’re thinking about hiring a PR firm, maybe for the first time, what questions should you be asking? What should you be looking for?
April Mason of Violet PR: When considering hiring a PR agency, I think it’s super important to understand what experience that PR firm has in working with clients in similar verticals to you. If you’re a retailer, for example, what other retail firms have they worked with recently? I would always ask for case studies and examples of their successes. And, if they can’t come up with any or the case studies don’t relate to what you do, I would definitely press for more relevant information. Oh, and check references as well.
ROI: What are some things you advise clients to generally avoid or be aware of when interacting with journalists and their editors?
AM: When we set up interviews for clients, we explain to them these conversations are on the record. So, they have to come in with an understanding that everything you say is fair game to be used in a story. They also should understand in advance what the interview is about. Write down main points to emphasize in an interview. And, lastly, you don’t always need to talk very long, because a journalist might be looking for just a few sound bites. You might just occupy one quote in a story about your industry.
ROI: How about the upcoming holiday season? As everyone’s attention and availability goes into a sort of hibernation, how do you get a message out as a company during that time of the year?
AM: If you do have a holiday-related message, make sure you prepare news way in advance. We know journalists and their editors need to take time off as well. So, media outlets might be on a skeleton staff for something like the Thanksgiving holiday. That means that if you have a pitch about Black Friday, and send it on Tuesday of that week, we know it’s probably too late to get it in. You need a longer lead time, and if it’s something like a holiday gift guide, sometimes those are prepared months in advance.
ROI: Anything else companies should know about working with PR agents?
AM: Clients often confuse PR with advertising. Clients are paying us to connect with journalists, not paying for ads. When you’re pitching a news story, you don’t have control over the outcome. It’s not paid content, so clients have to know they’re telling a story but it can’t be controlled — and you have to know if that doesn’t work for you. But I think there’s a lot of benefits to it, because people tend to consider news stories more credible than an ad, even if you lose some element of control over the final product.
Want more? Read the entire interview here.
New Jersey Business Magazine: PRSA NJ Recognizes 30+ Winners During Annual Pyramid Awards
PRSA NJ recognized more than 30 award-winning campaigns during the Public Relations Society of America New Jersey’s 32nd Annual Pyramid Awards, honoring the most impactful communications campaigns of the last year. Winners were announced throughout the day across several PRSA NJ social media channels, primarily with the @PRSANJ Twitter account.
Violet PR was a top winner taking home two Pyramid Awards in Media Relations (Greater Topeka Partnership) and Events (The New Jersey Business Action Center). We also received honorable mentions for campaigns we ran for Newark Symphony Hall and ArtPride NJ.
Cision: Violet PR Wins Five National Awards for Public Relations Excellence
New Jersey-based public relations firm Violet PR announced today that the PR agency earned five national awards in 2021 from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Bulldog Reporter and Ragan Communications. These institutions recognize the best-of-the-best in the public relations field, selecting campaigns and firms that have addressed challenging issues with exemplary skill, creativity and resourcefulness.
Montclair Patch: Violet PR Wins Five National Public Relations Excellence Awards
Professional news outlet Patch.com covers how Violet PR has earned five national public relations excellence awards in 2021. These institutions recognize the best-of-the-best in the public relations field, selecting campaigns and firms that have addressed challenging issues with exemplary skill, creativity and resourcefulness.
We recently announced that our firm has garnered 5 national awards this year for its efforts, including nods from organizations including Public Relations Society of America, Bulldog Reporter and Ragan Communications.