Social Media & PR for Cosmetics Company
- Public Relations
- $50,000 to $199,999
- June 2017 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 3.5
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"It’s been an absolute delight to be working with them again."
- Other industries
- Montreal, Quebec
- 51-200 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
For the past few months, Strategic Objectives has been the PR lead for a cosmetics company, working to manage their social media campaigns and maintain relationships with influencers in their industry.
Awarded the best agency of the year for the last six years, Strategic Objectives is one of the strongest providers in the PR and social media fields. Their professional demeanor reflects directly on the quality of work they produce, confirming the trust their clients have in them.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Right now, I’m working at a cosmetics company that encompasses four separate sub-brands. I am the director of external communications, public relations, and social media.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Strategic Objectives?
I’ve worked with Strategic Objectives not only in my new role, but also at a past role with a separate cosmetics company based in the UK. In my current role, I wanted to work with Strategic Objectives to help us to better manage our social media platform within one of our sub-brands.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
What I love about Strategic Objectives is that they’re a seasoned group of professionals. Everything that they present is always buttoned up to the tee. Before hiring them to work with my current company, they came down and gave us a presentation of their capabilities deck. They showed us what they were able to do for our sub-brand and they also highlighted what they as a company have been doing over the last 30 years.
What was really refreshing was that they kept their presentation at a very high level and tailored it to results. At the end of the day, we are really interested in determining how we are going to address the success of these campaigns once we’re done with them. I like that they were able to hit every nail on the head beginning with coming in very well prepared, giving us a proposal that makes sense, and then tracking their results to ensure that we met or exceeded our expectations.
The process was a lot of back and forth. We wanted to come up with an influencer social media campaign. Strategic Objectives came in to put together a list of influencers that we then had to approve with our team. We really appreciated that they are actually in the field day in and day out, talking with the different influencers. We were really leaning on them heavily to give us good recommendations when it came to influencers. The fact that they were managing those relationships made it that much more interesting for us as well.
What is the team dynamic?
What I love most about Strategic Objectives is that Judy Lewis [Founder, Strategic Objectives], who is one of the presidents there, is heavily involved in everything, including all of the projects that we’re working on. For me, that makes me feel much more secure because I know that she knows exactly what’s going on with all of our projects. We also work with Adriana Lurz [Vice President, Strategic Objectives] who’s the vice present and we’ve also been working with Vanessa Powell [Account Manager, Strategic Objectives].
How did you come to work with Strategic Objectives?
I had worked with Strategic Objectives at a prior cosmetics company. With that company, their brand was really built on public relations and Strategic Objectives had been working with them for over 30 years which I think is quite exceptional in this day and age. I was able to work with them while doing PR for about four years.
When I was moving into my current position, I was not considering any other PR firms besides Strategic Objectives. What I love about them is that not only do they specialize in PR, but they also do social media. They are just an extremely seasoned agency.
How much have you invested with them?
We've spent about $50,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
I just started working at this new cosmetics company about three months ago. I think it’s safe to say that it was roughly three months ago that we started talking with Strategic Objectives and we awarded them the business on two of our campaigns. Our partnership with them is still ongoing.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
At this point, we do not have any metrics just yet because our campaigns are still in motion. However, while I was working at my past firm, there were numerous campaigns that we worked on with Strategic Objectives. One of them was a campaign we did to stop sex trafficking of children and young people. We had a huge media event in Ottowa where our president at the time did a press conference. There were tons of media outlets there and we went to Parliament Hill to really work towards changing the law in the effort to stop sex trafficking of children and young people.
Through our company's efforts and through the public relations we did with the help of Strategic Objectives, the government actually said that they were willing to invest $25 million over the four years to really put a plan in place to stop sex trafficking. We feel really proud of that event because we really helped to elevate the voice of that campaign and we also won an award for that campaign. It was a big moment for us as a brand and as collaborators.
How did Strategic Objectives perform from a project management standpoint?
They’re extremely quick. They’re on it. With PR, we need be reactive and extremely fast in sending out an email and getting a reply, whether it be 7:00 PM Saturday night or first thing Monday morning at 9:00 AM. Strategic Objectives understands the way we have to work which is an extremely fast paced environment. They love it.
We mainly correspond over the phone and through email.
What did you find most impressive about them?
What I really love about Strategic Objectives is that they are an award-winning agency. There are not too many agencies out there in PR and social media that could really say that they continuously win awards. If I’m not mistaken, I think they won agency of the year for the last five or six years which I think is pretty impressive. That alone I think speaks volumes for them as an agency.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Sometimes I feel that the way they go about managing their business might be a bit too corporate. I think they could relax a bit in terms of the way they handle themselves as an organization. With Strategic Objectives, you definitely get the sense that they are serious about their business, but sometimes it can be perceived as too corporate.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
"Every campaign that I’ve worked on with Strategic Objectives has exceeded expectations."
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Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
"They never missed a deadline. If anything, they will present to me earlier than anticipated."
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Cost
3.5Value / within estimates
"They are good on the price. I do feel at times that they are pricey, but in the same breath it’s also reflected in the work that they are providing us with."
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"It’s with great pleasure and honor that I would recommend Strategic Objectives to any of my fellow PR and social media people in the industry.
