ABOUT

Husband and wife duo clinical psychologist Dr Mara Klemich and leadership consultant Stephen Klemich are the founders of Heartstyles, an organisation which specialises in leadership development and workplace culture.

The centrepiece of their approach is the Heartstyles Indicator, a character development tool that reveals the dominant behaviours in each of us and helps us to understand why we make the decisions we do. Understanding what truly drives employee behaviour helps organisations support employees at all levels.

They have over 30 years of experience in the corporate world and have helped organisations such as PwC, Amex, KFC and Pizza Hut UK create thriving leadership teams.
Stephen and Mara landed a book deal with HarperBusiness (US) to publish their first book ABOVE THE LINE: Living and Leading with Heart which includes their lifetime experience revealing the four universal character principles — humility, love, pride and fear — which drive human behaviour both personally and professionally.

We were brought in by the Heartstyles Chief Marketing Officer in March 2019 to prepare Stephen and Mara for the release of the book in 2020 (January – US/February – UK) and raise their profiles through targeted media relations and social media campaigns.

Key challenges:

 Stephen had no previous PR experience and Mara had a negative experience in the past which made her slightly resistant to undertaking PR activity
 No author social media presence and limited organisational social media activity
 Complex organisational language with unique to the industry terminology
 Multiple internal and external teams in the UK and the US
 The authors split their time between the UK/US on the run up to the book launch
 Book was marketed both as a business and a self-help publication – multiple audiences

Our Approach:

Working closely with the Chief Marketing Officer, we spent time getting under the skin of the business in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the key messages and the ethos behind the company. This consisted of desk research and ‘deep dive’ sessions with the marketing team and the authors to ensure key messages were in line with the company’s voice and all marketing and web activity was joined up.

Our media relations campaign focus was on generating in-depth articles which demonstrated Stephen and Mara’s expertise and knowledge of people development and to offer valuable advice to HR departments, senior management and people interested in their own personal development. We also established the areas of interest for the consumer press to reach the audience through multiple channels. From this, we were able to implement a thought leadership campaign to communicate complex messages to the various audiences.

We developed a detailed social media strategy to establish Stephen and Mara’s author social media presence. This included setting up a joined author Facebook page and streamlining their existing LinkedIn profiles. We looked after every aspect of the organic content and worked closely with the digital agency engaged by the company to create graphics and develop a paid-for content campaign to boost the Facebook page.

This multi-channel activity was designed to position Stephen, Mara and Heartstyles as credible experts in the field of people development and raise awareness of their book.

Results:

By working closely with the CMO and the authors on an ongoing basis, we delivered a dynamic media relations campaign achieving coverage in both business and mainstream media.

We identified the key business titles which had specific interest in the topics addressed by the Klemichs and developed article ideas which would appeal to their audiences. We achieved coverage in key titles including The UK Newspaper, Employee Benefits, Chartered Management Institute Insights, HR World, Catalyst magazine and The Hive.

Our consumer activity secured contributions in major outlets including Bustle UK, Women’s Health and Mashable.

We also looked at relevant podcasts aimed at business owners and generated interviews with podcasters such as Raw Influence.

By planning for seasonal opportunities such as the January return to work blues and undertaking ongoing news hi-jacking, we were also able to generate interviews on BBC Five Live, BBC Breakfast and LBC.

The authors now have an established social media presence with a high engagement rate. Their Facebook page currently has 3,473 followers and they are currently in the process of joining up their LinkedIn pages.

Project Management:

We have had to evaluate and adjust our PR output on an ongoing basis to ensure it aligns with the changing demands of the client and the fast-paced rhythm of the account due to the involvement of different stakeholders in the UK and in the US. This included changes in the publication dates and change of focus for the campaign to align with the timings.

Throughout this we have project managed different aspects of the PR delivery and have provided additional marketing supporting activity including internal communication copy.