OVERVIEW
Independent by design, with integrated talent across Saratoga Springs, New York; Conshohocken, Pennsylvania; Scottsdale, Arizona; 
and Columbus, Ohio; Fingerpaint is an innovation agency committed to creating and executing meaningful brand experiences that are never paint by number.
CHALLENGE
Repairing a fragmented process with a need to show ROI to existing and potential clients
As an agency, Fingerpaint knows that it needs to showcase its competitive advantage to potential clients in order to win new business. Bringing value to clients as a PR and marketing agency goes beyond building and delivering great campaigns. Fingerpaint needed to manage its media outreach, engage with influencers and consumers across multiple channels, monitor clients’ news and demonstrate the value of earned media activities to its clients. (click to tweet
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“Before Cision, we were using three different services to manage various communication components,” said Lynita Johnson, in public relations at Fingerpaint. “We were spending a lot of time going into the different platforms and manually manipulating the information and data to filter into versions that we could use, both internally and externally.”
As part of its new business development strategy, Fingerpaint put together a presentation for a potential new client – a large national retailer. Two of the main challenges they were dealing with included metrics and reporting related to ROI.
“Clients come to us and say that they know they need PR, but we need to show them the value of the work we do with tangible results and ROI,” said Johnson. “Showing a direct link between what we do, the coverage we helped to secure and how it drives traffic and leads for their business is critical to win and retain new business.” (click to tweet)
APPROACH
An all-in-one, integrated platform to serve clients’ needs and win new business
Wasting valuable time using point solutions, Fingerpaint recognized the need for a more streamlined and comprehensive process. Fingerpaint turned to the Cision Communications Cloud™ to integrate all its earned media activities into a fully integrated, cloud solution.
“Using three different platforms was not efficient and made for a very fragmented process,” said Johnson. “We knew we needed one integrated platform to manage all of the different components.” (click to tweet)
Fingerpaint first utilized the new platform to benchmark prospective clients’ earned media performance, competitive differentiation and future opportunities as a way to showcase the agency’s capabilities.
“We use the Cision platform for new business development opportunities,” said Johnson. “Clients have ideas on what their positions are in the market and where they want their communications efforts to focus. Using Cision, we get a clear picture of their actual position in the marketplace and what their audience is interested in, which gives us a foundation for recommendations we pitch to them. We also use the platform for goal development and competitive analysis, and to show how we can tie it all to tangible ROI.”
Using the Cision Communications Cloud, Fingerpaint has significantly improved several key areas of previously fragmented communications strategies:
- Influencer Outreach: Fingerpaint struggled to manage media lists in a way that hindered its ability to share information across the agency. “While we could previously look at a media contact and share internally how this contact had worked with us on specific campaigns, customization was limited,” said Johnson. “Now with the new platform, we can add notes, and the platform tracks previous distribution so we can see who consistently covers specific news we send out, which is very beneficial to us.”
- Earned Media Performance: The ability to track pitches from pitch to placement as well as engagement on clients’ websites is very valuable to the Fingerpaint team. “Another exciting feature is the ability to connect Google Analytics to see how earned media placements drive traffic to our clients’ websites,” said Johnson. “If we can say, ‘We placed this story and it drove this many leads to your website,’ that’s the best-case scenario for us.”
- Share of Voice Analysis: This feature allows Fingerpaint to see how its clients are performing against the competition. “This is one of my favorite features,” said Johnson. “It allows us to really get an accurate evaluation of how our clients are performing.”
- Media Relations Management: By utilizing the notes section and the option to add private contacts, Fingerpaint ensures it is sending information to the most accurate contact information available. “It’s very helpful to be able to securely add information that can be shared only within our agency,” said Johnson. “It helps us keep the information centralized and easily accessible.”
- Engagement Analytics: Before Cision, Fingerpaint was unable to track how its distribution was performing. “Now, we can easily see who received our communications, opened it, clicked in it, and who opted out,” said Johnson. “It gives us insightful info to have educated conversations with our clients about the success of our outreach.”
Cision is the only truly integrated platform in the market. We chose Cision because of its efficiency and how intuitive the program is to use.
—Lynita Johnson
Public Relations Team
RESULTS
A Streamlined Process and New Business Win
By providing its prospective clients with deep market analysis and a preview of what can be accomplished for their communications strategy using Cision, Fingerpaint is confident that this will help in all aspects of future media outreach and business development. (click to tweet)
“I have one point of contact at Cision that helps me with all my needs, and having one platform that is used for everything we do saves so much time and effort,” said Johnson. “Instead of having to stay on top of best practices for multiple platforms, we can focus on this one tool to meet all of our needs and develop an expert understanding on how to best utilize it for our agency.”
FUTURE PLANS
A New Way of Reporting Results
“Cision is the only platform we use and the only one we need,” said Johnson. “My role is to make sure we use the best PR tools available for our agency. At the end of year, we will be able to pull a report and say, ‘This is what we earned for our clients, and this is how our clients have trended over the year.’ Previously, we were not able to do that. Now, we can take a look back as an agency and report to leadership with tangible metrics and ROI, which in turn will allow us to increase our budget and work on bigger and better campaigns.”
