Looking for the Perfect Job as PR Director

MARCY DOCKERY

Cell:  650.224.7911     Email:  marcydockery@gmail.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcydockery

PR PROFILE

Over 20 years experience building brand and market buzz for emerging startups, early growth and established companies in the consumer tech, enterprise, online retail, mobile and cloud sectors. Motivated, resourceful and strategic with the vision, passion and tenacity companies are searching for.

EXPERIENCE                       

Dockery Communications, San Francisco, CA (2011-Present)

PR Consultant

·         PR agencies – Media relations for high-tech clients

·         Primadesk Inc – Launched cloud-based platform at DEMO 2011

K/F Communications PR Agency, San Francisco, CA (2010-2010)

Group Account Director

Represented clients Flock social media browser, SimpleGeo geodata platform, Adility local mobile shopping advertising services, Payvment Facebook ecommerce payment system and TwitVid online streaming video for Twitter. Developed strategic positioning, messaging and managed media relations, including coverage by New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Mashable, VentureBeat, BrandWeek and Ad Age, and speaking opps at SMASH Summit, Kelsey, Ad Tech, SXSW and Web 2.0. Contributed to new business proposals.

Posit Science, Inc, San Francisco, CA (2009-2009)

PR Director

·         Introduced DriveSharp brain fitness software with positive reviews in Wall St. Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired.com, TIME, Scientific American MIND and USA Today, raising sales by more than 100% of forecast.

·         Launched brain health games on Facebook and other social media sites.

·         Developed social media communications deliverables, including vetting and pitching user stories, and collected over 680 online media and blog hits, viewed by more than 125 million readers.

ShopLocal, Chicago, IL (2005-2008)

Senior PR Manager

Spearheaded external and internal communications for leader in multi-channel B2B local advertising platform and B2C online comparison shopping site.

·         Through social networking, grew direct traffic to www.shoplocal.com by 75% through enriching content via SEO, surveys, videos and widgets; engaging online influencers with podcasts, newsletters and blogs and embracing community through email marketing and social networks.

·         Created “Eva the Shopping Diva” character for daily consumer blog and promoted Eva to media, with over 500 placements in print, online and broadcast.

·         Developed corporate messaging and positioning that provided continuity and established executives as industry thought leaders to Fortune 500 retailers, advertising media and market analysts.

·         Monitored coverage and industry research and collected data from comScore, Cision, Google Analytics, Alexa and Web Trends for quantitative and qualitative analysis and measurement.

·         Coordinated ShopLocal’s 2008 Summit for 130 retail clients and partners, doubling attendance.

·         Managed high-performing PR agency staff with half-million dollar budget.

·         Over 1,000 media hits, including: USA Today, The New York Times, Wall St. Journal, ClickZ, Quick & Simple, Good Housekeeping, Parents, Smart Money, Fox’s Neil Cavuto, KNSF-TV, WLS-TV.

Dockery Communications, Mountain View, CA and Chicago, IL (2000-2005)

Communications Consultant

Specialized in PR programs that built brand, increased sales and raised public awareness. Strategic, organized and detail-oriented thinker who worked seamlessly to achieve desired results.

Clients: Burson Marsteller, Google, Plaxo, Philips, Silicon Graphics, Option Int’l, Impresse

Organized and held press conference for client CDW in New Orleans to promote philanthropic program to aid small businesses devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

·         Wrote consumer PR plan and introduced consumer and vertical media contacts for Google to familiarize consumers to Internet search. Results included Google surpassing Yahoo! in user awareness within one year.

·         Orchestrated Silicon Graphics executive’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

·         Launched Option Intl’s Snap-ON wireless device for Palm Pilot at NAB with featured articles in Newsweek, BusinessWeek and The Wall St. Journal.

Long-term client: Airflash, Inc, (2000-2003)

·         Developed PR strategies and built speaker bureau that positioned executives as pioneers in location-based mobile services, including presentations at CTIA, DEMO and CeBIT.

·         Introduced global OEM partnerships with leading European wireless providers Vodafone, Vivendi, Orange and VIAG Interkom.

·         Reached key influencers at Wireless Dev and NAB trade shows, centered on featured articles in The Economist, Red Herring, IEEE Spectrum and Telephony.

Apple Inc, Cupertino, CA  (1998-1999)

Senior PR Manager

·         Produced and directed $1 million consumer-focused PR campaign that drove record sales for original Apple iMac and iBook computers.

·         Positioned iMac as gaming machine through 1-on-1 meetings with game publishers and CEO, resulting in favorable reviews in gaming publications.

·         Devised quick-turnaround media programs to boost timely national broadcast and print coverage during crucial consumer sales cycles (Dad’s/Grad’s, Back-to-School, Holidays).

·         Well-positioned iMac and iBook placements: Barney’s New York holiday window display, Parade Magazine and American Teacher covers; features in publications as diverse as International Herald, Vogue, People, Macworld and CGW.

WebTV Networks, Palo Alto, CA (1995-1998)

PR Manager

Introduced and promoted nation’s first Web-based TV device and subscriber service with PR credited by Board as key to company’s high market valuation of $500 million at time of Microsoft acquisition.

·         Worked closely with Business Development as internal contact for partners Sony, Philips, Hewlett Packard, Sun, Fujitsu and On Command.

·         Acted as company spokesperson and influenced public awareness for accessing the Internet via televisions by working closely with industry analysts and maintaining strong relationships with top-tier business, trade and consumer media.

·         Stellar product reviews by consumer tech columnists: Steve Wildstrom in BusinessWeek, Walt Mossberg for The Wall St. Journal, Peter Lewis at The New York Times and NBC’s Today Show.

Copithorne & Bellows PR Agency, Santa Clara, CA (1992-1995)

Account Executive

·         Established PR goals, strategies and tactics as client leader for Hewlett Packard DeskJet Printers and Imaging divisions, successfully repositioning its products to consumers from business to home use.

·         Propelled national, regional and local press coverage, triggered participation in Warner Bros. Technology Home, wrote multiple PR plans, established relationships with print market analysts and managed agency staff.

RELATED EXPERIENCE

Apple Inc, Cupertino, CA – Marketing Supervisor, Business Systems Marketing (1987-1990)

Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, CA – Assistant to President (1985-1987)

EDUCATION 

University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, WI, Sociology coursework 

Wrestling Social Media

Social media – communicating via push or pull over the Internet – has found its place in today’s world and is part of most of our everyday lives. Sharing stories and photos with friends and family on Facebook, showcasing resumes to the professional community on LinkedIn, emailing correspondence via Gmail or Yahoo, spouting opinions on Twitter and keeping up on instant news on CNN.com or sports scores on espn.com are becoming second nature and can be a lot of fun, whether searching from our iPhones or computers or soon, an iPad. Juggling these different sites is easier now with Internet Explorer's tab feature where you can have all the sites open at the same time, checking regularly for updates and new news. Never have we been so in touch, so intertwined, so expected to respond quickly to one another. When you think about it, it's kind of scary that we know so much about the frequent goings on of so many people and are developing a compulsion for instant knowledge.

But I digress...in public relations, one of our functions is to harness the information that is written from and about our company, executives and employees, online and in traditional media. This can be laborious and inaccurate if one doesn’t subscribe to an expensive monitoring service or if there isn’t some kind of a simplified system in place to keep an eye on what’s out there. I have found HubSpot a great resource for webinars on all things social media and they have a webinar coming up on keeping track of your social media presence in 10 minutes a day. For more information, you can go to http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-webinars/ to sign up for this webinar which is being held on March 10.

I know I need all the help I can find in figuring out how to keep track of all the different infusions of information today and know that my credibility lies in providing strategic counsel to companies on what is being said about them and how they can influence, interact and promote their wares. If anyone has advice on this topic, please send your comments to marcydockery@gmail.com and I will share them with my readers.

Thanks, everyone, and have a great day!

What is considered a success in a PR person's world? I pondered this as my job was recently eliminated and I was laid off from Posit Science as director of Communications. Even though in six months we garnered some great press coverage, including a wonderful column by Walt Mossberg in the Wall St. Journal; articles in Newsweek, NY Times Wheels blog and Scientific American MIND; and a two-page story in TIME that unfolded as I was leaving. Generally, I consider this a pretty decent lineup of media hits for a small startup and strong results for my resume.

Though millions of dollars are spent on run rates, research and reserves in a typical Silicon Valley startup, dollars are often not budgeted for integrated outbound marketing and instead public relations is expected to carry the weight of getting the word out about products to the public. So stardust is sprinkled and hopes rise and good old economical PR spins its golden stories and the company is a success. But unfortunately not everyone is going to have a story like Google's rags to riches based on its incredible PR good fortune. In the real world of most struggling emerging growth companies, every day needs to be a "USA Today day", meaning that type of coverage is constantly necessary to raise sales numbers to keep the company afloat. And this is not a realistic accomplishment in most PR pros' worlds.

So back to what makes a person in public relations feel successful? Is it the number of media hits, ability to get everyone on message, generate discussion on social media sites, create a buzz in its customer community? It is all of these but most of all it is a confidence in telling the truth...being true to your PR instincts and experience in counseling senior management about expectations and the role PR can play - and not play - in building brand. That honesty and respect for the profession is what allows us to look in the mirror every day and say to the reflection, "job well done!"

PR for PR's Sake

Ever wonder why as a PR professional you are not given the kind of credit you deserve for enhancing perception and building a company's reputation? That might be because measuring the impact PR plays on the bottom line is difficult to evaluate, even if you're striking home runs with each press release. Measurement is defined as confirming or denying a hypothesis...in the case of today's tech industry, business objectives would serve as the hypothesis. But often PR is asked to promote and publicize the company and products without executive-level direction to work from. I know I've had plenty of cases where I was asked to come up with a communications plan out of thin air, without knowing what the vision or short-term goals were from top management.

So, how do you take the initiative and show your worth to today's measurement-driven start-ups, emerging companies and corporations? Because you have to have something to measure against, it's important to get the objectives from senior management or participate in developing those objectives if they don't exist. Working from your communications plan, you will be summarizing the consequences from your PR strategy, ideally on a quarterly basis.

Next, speak the language of business, using standard methods such as a balanced scoreboard, benchmarking or dashboard to showcase your qualitative and quantitative evaluation. You can compare coverage to competitors, whether key messages were integrated in articles, how many were in print, broadcast, online, blogs, and how the company/product was positioned, and comparative ad value. Using surveys or focus groups can also help identify opportunities and risks for the company that you can include in your measurement.

Also, you can evaluate your own performance to your supervisors on a monthly basis, tracing your number of contacts, reason for calling/emailing them and what the results were.

Summarizing a collection of public relations measurements showcases your hard work and puts you at the head of the communications table!

Five Ways to Get Your Message Across

There are some tried and true methods of building brand by communicating your corporate or product positioning in a clear, concise way. Here are some tips that work every time:
* Nail down what you want your company name/logo to mean to the public, and especially to your customers and investors.
* Create three messages from the exercise above that are simple, easy to understand and to memorize.
* Distribute these three points, along with a 30-second "elevator" pitch, to anyone who speaks on your behalf - spokespeople, investors, employees, influencers.
* Weave these messages in all of your external and internal written and oral communications.
* Stay consistent and don't waver from your agreed-upon messaging, especially with the media.

Messaging and positioning 101 - Obama

What is one of the elemental reasons we now have a Democrat in the White House? President Obama (http://www.whitehouse.gov) and his creative staff hit the right note from the beginning of his campaign by developing his messaging and positioning first and sticking to it throughout his campaign. If you noticed, he very rarely went off topic, keeping to his themes of change, hope and responsibility...addressed in every speech, every spontaneous meeting, every sound bite. And not only was Obama pitching these themes but so were his spokespeople, aides and volunteers throughout the country. Why was it so effective? Because remembering and speaking three simple messages can magnify and clarify what a company, person or product is all about while building a strong brand through its consistency.

Companies need to review their value proposition and take a note from President Obama's playbook to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Another reason why PR can play a substantive and important role in today's economic condition.

PR Gone Wild