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Erica Vonderwall

Outreach Manager

About this Author

Erica is an outreach manager at iProspect UK. She likes cold coffee, loud music and petting other people’s dogs.

iProspect UK's Commitment to CSR

This year iProspect UK launched &Culture, the wellbeing and social impact commitment that will see the business allocate and enforce a minimum of 4,000 hours (or two days per person) to be spent for good, outside of the office, helping the community, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Once of the reasons I joined iProspect UK, was because of the two charity days per year that are offered alongside the annual leave allocation (and bonus birthday day, whoop!). In the first few years I was here, I didn’t know of a single soul that used those charity days, and so I had to wonder if they were really a thing. I investigated, and sure enough, not only were they real, but there were tons of different ways to use them. What was lacking though was education, information, and encouragement to use them. In a recent survey of iProspect UK staff we discovered that the biggest thing holding our colleagues back from using their charity days wasn’t because they didn’t want to, but they didn’t know how to. Enter &Culture. The aim is to take all the leg work out of being a 'do-gooder', by providing a comprehensive calendar of volunteer days, workshops, pro-bono activities, and local charities who need helping hands, so our colleagues can – at any time – find something that is meaningful to use their days on. Already this year, we have supported colleagues through mental health first aid training days (onsite and outside of the 4,000 committed hours), become trained “befrienders” via Age UK, baked spectrum cakes for Autism Awareness Week, ran marathons for Mind, sky dived for Scope, and raised more than £5,000 for Cancer Research through dozens of other company-wide initiatives. And, we’re not done. We have plans for an all-agency day that sees us tackle a local garden or community centre, to help rebuild, renovate, or reinvigorate with a coat of paint, a hammer and nails, or, well, whatever they need. This will run alongside another “World Cup-type Tournament” after last year’s successful all-agency sports day that saw teams from iProspect UK, Twitter, and Facebook compete for the treasured cup (and even saw England actually bring it home, ironically). Charity, though good for the soul, doesn’t have to be all about giving money. We are committing time, expertise, and skills where we can, too. We are partnering with local schools to provide invaluable real-world advice on things like CV writing, interview skills, and what not to say to your new boss on your first day through the wider network’s CODE scheme. These skills are things we all possess, and by sharing them we are helping shape the young minds of tomorrow. Terrifying, but better it be us, right? 0 3 min read

Embracing Agile Working

iProspect UK continues to champion flexible working conditions for all its staff, to further support a better work-life balance across the board. This not only involves the ability to work within the business’ Core Hours of 10am - 4pm (allowing for more flexible start and end times), but also to encourage agile working for all employees. Whether this be working remotely from home, in a café, or on the go, this has meant massive changes for the business in terms of communication, working together (and from afar), and also: trust. As someone who doesn’t have kids, I had never considered the idea of working remotely being possible for me, because – what was the need? Well, as it turned out – the need was for my mental health. Being around a lot of people five days a week can be stressful for some, and for me, by the fourth day I was starting to fatigue from meetings, from constant chatting, and from being interrupted at my desk without warning. Enter agile working: with this option available to me, I have been able to work from home one day a week, every week, to give me a break from the office (and the office a break from me), which has also meant I can combine my favourite past-time into my working day: dogs. I joined Borrow My Doggy a few years ago, but until the last year or so wasn’t able to utilise the borrowed-doggy scheme much as I was limited to weekends. Now, being at home one day a week means I can also take my puppy pal Monty out for a long walk one day a week, as well as have him with me at home for some non-human company during the day. It’s true that animals make the very best therapists, and so have one day at home/with Monty per week has really done wonders for my mental health, as well as my productivity. This year, iProspect UK has gone one step further by introducing a completely agile working environment to its head office in London. What does this mean? Basically: hot desking. Which is great for fluidity, for collaboration, for cross-team bonding, and really, a great reason to get in to the office before everyone else, to make sure you get the best seat! A complete office refurb has meant that every one of the Dentsu Aegis floors is a comfortable, stylish, and calming area to work in, so we are now spoiled for choice more than ever. Gone are the days when it maybe seemed a bit 'odd' to be found wandering different floors, because now it’s encouraged. And, unless you arrive late and have to sit at the dodgy desk with the wonky screen, it’s also awesome to have the variety of options we do now too. 0 3 min read

PR vs Digital PR

Erica Vonderwall and Chloe Hutchinson, Outreach Managers at iProspect explain the difference between PR and Digital PR. What is the difference between traditional PR and Digital PR?” is a question we get asked a lot. With a couple of members of the outreach team coming from a more traditional background, we think we have the nuances nailed... There are small but key distinctions between traditional PR tactics and Digital PR (as part of a content marketing/SEO strategy). However, the biggest success is always achieved when using them in conjunction with each other. Consider your two methods a bit like salt and pepper. Individually, they’re both fine. Great, even. But together, it’s a taste sensation! The agenda Digital PR, especially within content marketing, is more story focused. The aim of any campaign being to produce emotive data-driven content with a strong story for outreach. The story itself should entice the journalist, while the supporting on-site content (blog/article/tool/data viz, whatever format you’re working with) should encourage the journalist to link back to the brand’s website. The story is never overly branded, and it’s usually a step removed from the product or service. The goal is always to drive links back to the brand’s website. Traditional PR is more brand focused, with outreach tactics focusing on brand-heavy stories and key messaging, often closely related to product or service and new product launches. Obviously, traditional PR does cover many other tactics too, from trade events and pop-ups to large scale stunts, however it’s always centered around getting the brand’s name out there. The goal for traditional PR is usually brand reach and awareness. Outreach Strategy When it comes to journalist outreach, the target media lists tend to differ slightly too. Apart from Digital PR lists including solely online publications, the lists also tend to be more extensive, delving into niche and specialist sectors and blogs too. Strong titles for an outreach campaign are those which have a high domain authority, rather than the largest reach – although we understand reach and traffic is still important. The way we conduct the outreach also varies. A press release is at the heart of the traditional approach – topped with a killer headline and finished with a boiler plate featuring all the key details about the brand. But in Digital PR, we produce longer outreach e-mails which sell the campaign story, highlighting stats and key findings too, engaging the journalist and encouraging them to write a piece linking back to site and our assets. Outreach e-mails and the story will change numerous times over the course of an outreach campaign, so we focus on varying angles for the different publications and sectors. As with traditional PR, in Digital PR, we always keep an eye out for news hooks as an opportunity to do another round of outreach. Be reactive Both sides of the PR world use the news agenda to inspire campaigns and newsjacking opportunities. They also always have eyes open to spot relevant journalist requests which might be of interest for clients, coming through via various tools. And, both have also been known to use editorial partnerships to bolster campaign activity in line with objectives. However, in Digital PR we tend to also utilise platforms like Reddit to a fuller extent, for testing campaigns and stories, not just for campaign inspiration. Digital PR strategies will also incorporate guest posting and link reclamation (outreaching to secure or update links to the client’s relevant page), to drive link building success. This is where a Digital PR and traditional PR should be working together, so as to ensure that the traditional press releases are optimized from the start, to reduce the amount of link rec that needs to happen further down the line. So you see, there really is space for both traditional and Digital PR in any Content Marketing strategy, as the deliverables from each are so specialist and nuanced that there is a range of expertise needed to achieve overall success. 0 4 min read

Erica is an outreach manager at iProspect UK. She likes cold coffee, loud music and petting other people’s dogs.

Erica Vonderwall

About this Author

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