New podcast episode about Crisis Communications

21/11/2022By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, Podcast, PR, Public Relations Global Network, Scandinavian Communications, Strategic Communications

When a crisis hits, you need a team of key people in place to respond quickly and effectively before the situation escalates.

In this episode of the PRGN Present’s podcast, host Abbie Fink of HMA Public Relations sits down with Scandinavian Communication’s Founder, Trusted Communications Advisor Christina Rytter to discuss the key roles in a crisis communications team and how CEOs should be preparing for a potential crisis.

Episode 6: The CEO’s role in Crisis Communications: 

PRGN Presents is brought to you by Public Relations Global Network (PRGN), the world’s local public relations agency. With PR leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents.

PRGN provides customized communication solutions that combine the scale and stature of an international PR firm with the deep insights and hands-on, senior-level service of a local agency. This offers our clients a unique competitive edge. Scandinavian Communications is a member of PRGN.

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How to build a PR crisis team

01/09/2022By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor,
Scandinavian Communications

When a crisis hits you need to have a team of key people in place, so you can respond quickly and effectively before the situation escalates. So, let’s look at whom you need on your team – and how the team should operate.

The Crisis Communicator
This is the person on your team with the experience and expertise to plan and execute the right communications response in any kind of PR crisis or internal crisis. Ideally, this person will also exude a calming influence on the team, while knowing how to manage the crisis response narrative. If you don’t have an internal Crisis Communicator this role can also be managed by The Crisis Advisor.

The Key Leader
When a major PR crisis hits, it’s inevitable that the CEO will be involved in some way, whether you are making key decisions, delivering a message, or as a spokesperson providing a face for the company’s crisis response. But who else on your team can pivot from their day-to-day work and take on a key decision-making role in the crisis response? Ideally, you will have at least two or three of these key leaders.
You need someone who is an accomplished communicator and a clear thinker to help the crisis communicator and the CEO formulates a response. This person will have a proven track record for making smart decisions with limited information on short timetables. You will also need someone to manage the internal crisis response. Someone who has the authority to control and monitor what your team says and to whom, who can also be a calming influence as they deliver messages from the decision-makers to rest of the team.
Every Key Leader who acts as company spokesperson can also always secure a higher success rate by participating in Media- and Message Training – especially in a crisis. This will also secure the alignment of the company key messages in the crisis-management team

The Media Manager
At some point in your crisis response, you will need a person whose sole duty is to manage media interest. From moderating social media to responding to media requests and connecting the right messages with the right people, this can be a full-time job in the middle of a crisis.

The Crisis Advisor
When you’re very close to a situation, you can miss details or make assumptions that diminish the effectiveness of your crisis response. That’s why it makes good sense to bring in an outside advisor who specializes in crisis communication. This person or team has a different perspective that can prove invaluable in formulating and executing a crisis response.
To get your own Crisis Advisor as CEO also means that someone fully has your back – and that the advisor will work with you and your in-house team to build a narrative and implement a crisis response that should minimize the damage to your brand reputation and put your company in a better position to begin rebuilding credibility.

When facing a PR crisis your Crisis Communications Advisor also has an extensive list of key media contacts with whom they have developed good working relationships. When speed matters and you need positive earned media, knowing exactly whom to call is a vital aspect of an effective external crisis response.

Read more about Crisis Communications

30 PR Tips – you can apply today!

25/08/2022By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Content Marketing, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Public Relations Global Network, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, SoMe Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

In PRGN (Public Relations Global Network) we have created an eBook with 30 blog posts, where we offer our best tips in PR and communications from our members worldwide.

This is part of our 30th-anniversary celebration, that we want to share with you. Scandinavian Communications’ CEO Christina Rytter contributes to How you can Build a PR Crisis Team.

Download it here for free: 

Public Relations Global Network celebrates 30-year anniversary

15/05/2022By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Content Marketing, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, Public Relations Global Network, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, Strategic Communications


This week we had the pleasure of meeting business friends from Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) at our 2022 spring conference in Scottsdale, Arizona – hosted by our partner agency HMA Public Relations.

This conference at the same time marked PRGN’s 30-year anniversary. Scandinavian Communications covers the Nordic markets in the network and our founder Christina Rytter is Past-president and has been part of the network for over a decade.

Founded in 1992 by a group of visionary public relations leaders, with approximately 1,000 professionals in 55 locations in 33 countries, PRGN is one of the world’s largest networks of independent public relations agencies.

All PRGN partners are independent, local, owner-operated public relations and marketing communications firms that share expertise and resources, while providing broad-based comprehensive communications strategies to clients worldwide.

Scandinavian Communications is looking forward to the next 30 years in this remarkable network ! 🤩

#prgn #prgn30 #pr #communications #marketing #socialmedia #agency #network #scandinavia 

Reboot Strategy: Create your MarCom Plan 

03/09/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, Scandinavian Communications, Strategic Communications


By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

A Marketing Communications Plan (or MarCom plan) is your bridge between Strategy and Execution. The MarCom Plan gives an overview of how you communicate your message through specific communications and marketing activities to create awareness and desired behaviour/action in your key target groups. You can have the best strategy and positioning in the world, but if you don’t effectively communicate it to your target customers your business will fail regardless.

SO what makes a strong marketing communications plan? It’s actually pretty simple. There are really four key ingredients in my perspective, that you need to put in the matrix: 

Step: Indicate which step of your strategy the activities support. 

Objective: What are the activity objectives and how do we measure the result (KPI)? 

Activity: What type of activity? 

Timing: When do we execute the activity? 

Remember to be reasonably broad in order to be effective. Relying solely on a single communication vehicle is not likely to produce good results. However, it is very important to always stay focused on communication channels that reach your ideal targeted customer and other key target groups and influencers you find important.

Your MarCom plan should always be developed in the context of a strong marketing and communications strategy – in synch with the overall business strategy.

Need help to Reboot your Strategy and reset your MarCom Goals & KPIs? Don’t hesitate to contact us. We are here to help! 😊

Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 1: Rediscover your purpose

Tip 2: Evaluate your target group 

Tip 3: Adapt your Key Messaging

Tip 4: Tweak your MarCom Channels

Tip 5: Reboot MarCom Goals & KPIs

Learn more about Strategic Communications

Reboot Strategy: Reset MarCom Goals & KPIs

25/08/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Content Marketing, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, SoMe Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

Remember this! As part of your MarCom strategy – you also need to strategic decide on and set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your communications, PR and marketing. Otherwise, you can only to a lesser extent measure the effect, business value and ROI (Return-on-Investment) of your invested MarCom budget.

So, if you Reboot your Strategy – you of cause also need to Reset Goals & KPIs. When you set KPIs and thereby measure results, you will be able to have a clear evaluation of, what is driving the business forward. AND what is not. You can evaluate and demonstrate the direct business value of communications, PR, marketing and social media to the management and the board.

How to measure MarCom results?
MarCom KPIs can be concrete actions or registration of change in behaviour or point of views in the target group before, under and after your work/campaign. Test the measurability of your indicators with SMARTSpecific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time-bound. When we work with earned communications such as PR you can set both quantitative and qualitative deliverables to get a more sufficient evaluation.

Quantitative PR deliverables could be the number of articles your PR-campaign created separated within your chosen Tier 1 Media in each market. Also looking at the PR-value of each media clipping, which we traditionally measure by finding the Equivalent Advertising Value for each media clip and then multiply the value with 3, because earned media have higher trustworthiness. A quantitative deliverable could also be the measurement of increased website traffic directly related to your PR-results.

Qualitative PR deliverables could be message resonance included in the media coverage such as your Top 1-3 Key Messages. It could be mentions of Brand Name & Product Names and back-links in your media coverage.

In Social and Digital campaigns I would always recommend you to create high-quality content relevant for your key target groups – and then as an ad on set aside a media budget to work with sponsored posts to get a much larger reach and higher amount of web traffic and response from your preferred audience.

KPIs for Social Media could be Engagement and Relevance for your target group measured by; Clicks per post (Traffic to the website), likes, shares and comments. You can also look deeper into development in your followers such as; Audience growth rate, new follower rate, follower/following ratio, which show Thought Leadership position.

SoMe Influencer campaigns can also be very effective when you select bloggers and Instagrammers relevant for your target group to help deliver your key messages. Be aware to set very clear KPIs in paid contracts with influencers to make sure your campaign goals and measure points are clear.

Need help to Reboot your Strategy and reset your MarCom Goals & KPIs? Don’t hesitate to contact us. We are here to help! 😊

Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 1: Rediscover your purpose

Tip 2: Evaluate your target group 

Tip 3: Adapt your Key Messaging

Tip 4: Tweak your MarCom Channels

Tip 6: Create your MarCom Plan

 

Learn more about Strategic Communications

Reboot Strategy: Tweak MarCom Channels

10/07/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, SoMe Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

When your business conditions suddenly change you often also need to Reboot – or at least evaluate – your existing commercial strategy to adapt. So, you can work successfully within the new normal.  When you have your overall purpose, target group and key messaging in order the next cornerstones in your strategy is your communications channels. If some of the other important areas of your strategy change, it might also be relevant to tweak communications channels. It must always be your target groups and influencers preferences, that decides which channels you use for Marketing, PR and Communications. NOT your preferred channels 😉.

To reach each of your key target groups, you need to tailor your content and then communicate and get into dialogue in the relevant and strategic/tactical selected channels. Again, this often very in different target groups across business position, country, age, gender etc. Your business needs to be present, engage and communicate authentic and clear in the channels where your target groups are present.

Need help to Reboot Strategy? Don’t hesitate to contact us.

Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 1: Rediscover your purpose

Tip 2: Evaluate your target group 

Tip 3: Adapt your Key Messaging

Tip 5: Reboot MarCom Goals & KPIs

Tip 6: Create your MarCom Plan

 

Learn more about Strategic Communications

Reboot Strategy: Adapt your Key Messaging

25/06/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, Scandinavian Communications, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

Did crisis or change turn your business upside down? If so, you might need to reboot your commercial strategy. The second vital cornerstone – following your Target Group – is your Key Messaging. If your market and target group change, so must your Key Messaging.


Get your Key Messages in order
It is vital to have your Key Messages in order – and adapt to your new normal. Do a solid piece of work with both your Corporate & Product Messages. Our Corporate messages must be Value-driven, authentic and show WHY your company or organisation are in this world? What lights your inner fire? This is feeling based messages. All studies show that our actions as humans to a large extend is feeling driven. It’s hardwired biology. Your Product messages must address your target groups pains, needs and dreams. You need to understand and take your target groups perspective to create relevant product messages. NOT only your company perspective!


Talk to your target group
The best and most simple way to develop your product messages and unique selling proposition/points (USP) is to test if your product messages resonate with your target group. This is not rocket science. Just ask them! A great easy way to get started is to do a qualitative interview survey. Line up 10+ interviews with people in your core target group – and do a thematized interview face-to-face or on the phone. You will quite quickly start to see the overall pattern in your target groups pains and preferences. You can learn more about their barriers to changing behaviour and how you best positively influence them. You will get answers that surprise you and challenge your prejudiced position with a deeper and more clear understanding of how to connect with your target group and adapt your Key Messaging to get a stronger impact.

Need help to take a closer look at your Key Messaging to Reboot your Strategy? Don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 1: Rediscover your purpose
Tip 2: Evaluate your target group
Tip 4: Tweak your MarCom Channels
Tip 5: Reboot MarCom Goals & KPIs
Tip 6: Create your MarCom Plan

Learn more about Strategic Communications

Reboot Strategy: Evaluate your Target Group

10/05/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

When you are hit by crisis or change and things, as you knew them, is turned upside down you need to reboot your commercial strategy to adapt. One of the important cornerstones in your strategy is your market – and thereby target group. You need to take a deeper look at if the crisis or change you are in affects your market? And if so in what way? Did crisis change your need to move to other international markets – or focus more regional or local? What did happen to your competitors? And what does it all mean to your target group? Still the same – or maybe you need to move in a different direction. With a tweek or change in your brand positioning?

Your target group rules
The target group is what decides your communications and marketing. Your visual identity, your tone of voice, which key messaging and USPs you push forward, which channels you communicate in – and your choice of MarCom activities. So, it is pretty important to evaluate your target group.

A vital part of your MarCom Strategy is to segment your target groups and influencers. Successful Communications, PR and Marketing start with a very clear and deep segmentation. Your target groups are often very different. The more we unfold the target groups and influencers in our strategic work, the clearer it becomes, that we have many more, than we realize off the top of our heads. 

Find your ideal customer avatar
A typical pitfall is, therefore, that companies try to reach all target groups with the same type of communications. If you try to reach everyone – often you reach no one. And the MarCom results become too weak to create a successful impact on the business. Clear communication is about qualification. You need laser focus – so just choose fewer than you got 😉. We are talking qualification of the target group, product or service line, messages, channels, markets etc. Of cause, it’s a little caricatured – but you get the point! 

A good way to get to the core of your target group is to find your ideal customer avatar. This means that you describe all the characteristics as deep as you can to get a clear understanding of who you communicate to.

If you need help to evaluate your target group and Reboot Strategy don’t hesitate to contact us.


Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 1: Rediscover your purpose
Tip 3: Adapt your key messaging
Tip 4: Tweak your MarCom Channels
Tip 5: Reboot MarCom Goals & KPIs
Tip 6: Create your MarCom Plan

Learn more about Strategic Communications

Reboot Strategy: Rediscover your purpose

03/04/2021By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Content Marketing, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, SoMe Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

Do you know, why you go to work in the morning? I mean really. When you ask yourself from deep down inside. What’s the answer then? What’s your purpose? Why are you here?  

In Crisis, we fight to survive. Change, adapt – or die. Is it pleasant? Not really! Because humans, in the way we are wired, most are reluctant to changes. But if you are in a Crisis – you need to Reboot your commercial and even personal strategy very quickly to adapt. So, you can execute successfully within the new normal. Reboot and shoot!   

Communicate what matters   

BUT before you hit the ground running with an adapted strategy. Crisis gives you a beautiful opportunity to take a deeper look at what truly matters to you: Your purpose – also called your WHY. Crisis equals development! Both on the business side – as a leader and as a human being. 

To get aligned with your inner purpose will raise your feeling of happiness overnight. AND it will also be your launchpad for strong, authentic, and crystal-clear communication – both as a leader, an organization, and a brand striving for commercial success. As a business owner and/or part of Top-Management we are fortunate that our purpose can become the company’s as well. As an employee you can get clearer on, what values you seek in the organizations, you work for. 

What did the crisis make you discover?  

Maybe the crisis got you to realize that your purpose is still aligned? Then you just need to reboot your strategy. OR maybe the crisis gave you a new perspective? If so, you need to take a deeper look at your purpose before you reboot your business and commercial strategy. 

A real purpose is feeling driven. It’s your values, passions, drivers and what gives you and the organisation motivation. This is why your purpose becomes such a strong lever in communications. Because humans relate to and react to feelings. This is not an opinion. Its biology!  

If you need help to rediscover your purpose to Reboot Strategy – don’t hesitate to contact us! 

PS. In case your wonder what my purpose is – and thereby also Scandinavian Communications; “We help leaders and organizations that do good in the world to get personal and commercial success – so their positive impact on people and planet gets as strong as possible”.

So, if you see yourself and your organization in that – don’t be a stranger!😉 

Read more Tips to Reboot your Strategy:

Tip 2: Evaluate your target group
Tip 3: Adapt your key messaging
Tip 4: Tweak your MarCom Channels
Tip 5: Reboot MarCom Goals & KPIs
Tip 6: Create your MarCom Plan

Learn more about Strategic Communications