a&dc is a leading consultancy in the field of behavioural assessment and development.
Although a&dc had developed a very strong client base and had completed some very impressive work in its field, the company was struggling to raise brand awareness more widely across the HR and general management community. While paid advertising had brought some limited success, the company wished to experiment with the use of PR to tackle the challenge and turned to BlueSky to plan and execute a tailored communications strategy.
We immediately identified that a&dc already had a wealth of thought leadership material in-house, which could be tailored to create user-friendly case studies and ‘white papers’. These were then used as the basis of articles in key HR press about new thinking on talent management and employee assessment.
In addition, we drip-fed news to the HR media about the growth and development of the business such as regular updates, event announcements and reactions to relevant industry news. As the HR community is one that is highly active online, particularly with regard to the sharing of knowledge and best practice, the BlueSky team set about developing the company’s social media presence. This entailed setting up a blog on a leading HR community site and creating and maintaining a Twitter account to ensure constant, up-to-date engagement with all stakeholders.
a&dc regularly achieved ‘top guest blog’ status on a leading HR community website, with their posts reaching more than 1000 reads each time and as a result are now regularly approached for comment by writers on key HR media. The company gained over 500 relevant Twitter followers organically from a standing start and through regular and targeted updates. a&dc also regularly received thought leadership based coverage in target media, with an average of eight pieces of coverage per month, which contributed to the growing recognition of the company as the UK-based leader in behavioural assessment and development.
“At a&dc we are seen as leaders in the field of behavioural assessment and development, and our clients look to us for the latest thinking and research. In order to really portray ourselves as thought leaders, we feel that PR is absolutely critical. And since we began working with BlueSky in September 2012 we have come to rely on PR. We are now able to seek out opportunities within industry and national press, both in digital and in print, reaching a much wider audience.” - Catherine Cook, Marketing Manager, a&dc