Services/Website development, online marketing and optimisation

"With almost shocking speed, there has been a global climate change in the public relations industry. Some species of PR professionals will be unable to adapt, and future generations will examine their fossils"

From the article INTERNET PR - A GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE,
By Terence Fane-Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive, Chelgate Ltd.

The new economy, and the new media which serve it, have created a revolution in public relations. From marketing to media relations, from crisis management to government relations, the rules are being re-written. New opportunities and new threats are reshaping the commercial landscape.

Chelgate is committed to providing its clients with the professional skills and resources to respond to this challenge.

Combining proven public relations, media relations, financial relations and marketing skills with real, hands-on strength in new media communications, Chelgate brings its clients a range of specialist capabilities:

Internet Media Relations

"For many journalists now, the Internet is quite simply their primary research tool. If you're not meeting their needs on the net, then you're not meeting their needs, period".

Chelgate's reputation for strong, professional and effective media relations is well deserved. Time and again, Chelgate professionals have generated massive, targeted and relevant coverage on behalf of our clients. On other occasions, prompt and skillful action has served to prevent damaging and hostile media publicity.

The same professional skills which have been the hallmark of Chelgate's media relations over the years are now being applied to Internet media relations.

Increasingly, the quickest and most effective way to deliver your message to many newsprint and broadcast journalists is through e-mail. While media serving financial and technology-sector audiences have been particularly influential, there is now no area of commercial or professional life untouched by the Internet media revolution. Chelgate maintains an extensive database of on-line contacts for journalists across almost every sector of the British media.

We can also help clients build and promote on-line press rooms to provide journalists with dedicated resources, information and contact access over the Net. By providing journalists with user-friendly, accurate, well resourced on-line news and background facilities, clients can quickly establish "favoured contact" relationships with the key media covering their field.

Chelgate clients are also now able to attach broadcast quality sound files to their other media communications. This means that broadcast news stations can use "live" statements from client spokesmen, and print journalists can draw upon the same material for their own stories.

The Internet is creating a revolution in media relations technology. We can now attach sound and video clips to our clients' news releases and statements. The sound clips can be downloaded at broadcast quality by broadcasting stations anywhere in the world. An e-mail from Chelgate alerts them to the fact that the clip is available, and the interview or statement is right there ready to use.

Soon, when greater bandwidth is available, it will also be possible to offer broadcast quality video clips in the same way. But quite apart from the media, video clips already offer a really valuable PR resource. In fact, you become the media. You can talk to your public, and you can show them what you are talking about, without depending on media coverage. The news, the sound, the image are all there on your site. You are the media.

A fast growing number of dailies, weeklies and periodicals now publish on-line versions. Often these are significantly different from their newsprint versions. In addition, the Web is seeing a flood of on-line newsletters, magazines and even daily newspapers with no newsprint counterpart. Chelgate has the skills and the contacts to reach the on-line media quickly, accurately and with information presented in a manner suited to their style and format.

On-line media monitoring can often be just as important as conventional, off-line, media monitoring. Chelgate can both set up appropriately designed on-line media monitoring packages for its clients, and provide assessment reports.

Issues and Crisis Management

"Grotesque rumours and accusations can spring fully formed from Internet news groups and quickly establish themselves in urban mythology"

The Internet offers extraordinary new resources for issues and crisis management. These can be quicker, more targeted, more interactive and responsive than anything possible with conventional media.

At the same time, the Internet has created a host of new threats and dangers. Rogue sites can savage corporate reputations; chat room and newsgroup gossip can generate almost unstoppable rumour. The digital grapevine can bury - or make - reputations with startling speed. The Internet has also enabled individuals and small groups to wreak havoc on corporate reputations on a scale out of all proportion with their numbers or resources.

Chelgate has long been renowned for its crisis and issues management skills. In recent times Chelgate has worked for clients facing some of the most savage and extensive Internet campaigns the UK has ever seen. We have developed a range of Internet crisis strategies which work, and which have been proven to work.

The Internet now offers a powerful crisis communications resource.

Within half an hour of a Chelgate client reaching the studio, we can have a video and sound clip of the chief executive or company spokesman making a statement. Broadcasters will be able to download and use the sound-clip at broadcast quality. And for the general public there is the opportunity to see and hear from the source, without depending on media reports. The broadcast clips can be linked to constantly updated text, as well as downloadable photos, charts and background material.

Internet Political Action

The Internet has created a potent, fast and cost-effective vehicle for political action of all kinds - whether the purpose is to publicise a cause, raise funds or build a network of support. During the March 99 Federal Election in Australia, the Australian Labour Party's Web site received 2 million hits in five weeks. That equates to almost 20% of the entire voting population.

Chelgate knows how to use the Net to deliver messages to politicians. It knows how to build alliances of support across the Web, and how to monitor significant political activity on the Net, whether in newsgroups, on-line media or Web sites.

Chelgate's new media team work in close collaboration with our government relations professionals to provide clients with the best Internet communications resources to support their political and government relations programmes.

Web-site development and promotion

"A Web site is not a corporate brochure on the Web. Think of it more as a corporate doppelganger - the opportunity to replicate the full, complex personality of your business, in all its facets, and to build and sustain relationships with each of your key publics."

For clients who do not yet have a Web site, Chelgate's new media consultants will develop a detailed site plan. This will identify needs and opportunities for the site. It will create content outline and positioning recommendations. Finally, it will provide precise budget recommendations.

For some clients, Chelgate will offer to design and develop a Web site using our own internal resources. For others, we will work closely with specialist Web site developers.

For clients with existing Web sites we provide a detailed critique, identifying strengths and weaknesses, focusing on opportunities and recommending action for enhancement in line with the client's strategic objectives and financial parameters.

We also help our clients build traffic to their sites. We recognise that Web site promotion involves much more than search-engine registration. We also know that it is a continuous process, and we have the skills and systems necessary to sustain a prominent profile for client sites among all relevant Web communities.

Internet PR is also one of the topics in our Discussion forum.