Laika Communications GmbH

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm responsible for all national and international communications at LivingPackets, a European tech company that builds the future of transportation. We have been researching the future of deliveries over the last four years and invented THE BOX, a smart and zero-waste packaging that can be reused over and over again for deliveries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Laika Communications GmbH?

We hired Laika Communications because we needed a reliable, creative, and experienced PR agency that could help us to raise awareness for our vision to build a truly circular logistics system.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to raise awareness across a broad audience through media stories and company news.

SOLUTION

How did you select Laika Communications GmbH?

I've known the founder, Michaela Krause, for many years already and have always been impressed with her work ethics, dedication, rigor, and creativity. So, it was a natural choice to ask her if she and her team at Laika would like to help us make LivingPackets a well-known brand in Germany.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Laika helped us as a full-service PR agency. We worked out the strategic angle of our campaign, story angles, and handled all inbound and outbound media inquiries which initially relied heavily on their extensive network.

What was the team composition?

Two senior communications people work on the account.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Since the start of our collaboration, we saw dozens of publications cover our vision and product at LivingPackets. We have seen a great number of incoming requests for partnerships and potential customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Laika has always been a step ahead of us and prepared everything in advance.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I've always been a big fan of the work ethics and dedication at Laika, which is a wonderful foundation for a partnership that is based on trust.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

For the first 3.5 Years of its founding, I served as CMO for ONOMOTION GmbH, a leading mobility innovation company, proving a new category of electric vehicles to solve the emblematic and infamous last mile of delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Laika Communications GmbH?

Laika helped us standardize and professionalize our company from a PR perspective, making it much more appealing for journalists to connect with us, provide high quality and high exposure press releases.

They secured top national (German) and Pan European press coverage. Additionally, they helped us rebuild our press sections on our website, early work on our crisis management as well as introductions to prominent industry journalists.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to better understand and optimize our Public relations channels, to secure a much broader audience for potential and future investors and clients.

SOLUTION

How did you select Laika Communications GmbH?

We were impressed with Laika's amazingly executed presentation and pitch deck. They were able to illustrate the power of their network in other markets and better align our positioning and expectations.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We worked close together to align the founding team's goals in terms of timely publication and growth for a product that was barely coming to market. Laika geared us and equipped us with the tools to scale properly and always have novel ideas to get noticed or published for great value.

What was the team composition?

We had Michaela as a lead, and talented and diverse international ressources for other markets.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

During the campaigns we ran together, we increased our website visits by 300%, each... one of these helped our linkedin community grow by 10% in one months and our leads more than double during and after the campaigns.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Pretty effortless. regular meetings scheduled in advanced, available on the phone and even in person when it mattered most.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They way they can almost immediately let you know where you stand in your industry, where you can go and most importantly, how to take you there. Their campaign ideas are even sometimes what you would expect from a top creative agency- not a PR one.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some additional support we lacked at the time, such as content marketing would have also been nice!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of investor relations at 3U HOLDING AG, an IT firm. We have operations in renewable energies, e-commerce, and cloud computing. The most promising and successful company in our ream is weclapp which is a European stock corporation.

They’re providing a cloud-based ERP platform with the ambition to become the ERP solution of choice for small and medium-sized businesses around the globe and expanding into the neighboring European countries right now.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Laika Communications GmbH?

We do excellent online marketing in e-commerce and in the weclapp business. Still, it takes more than marketing to become the solution of choice. We needed help building our reputation, image, and branding and getting more coverage in social and traditional media.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Laika Communications GmbH provides LinkedIn and magazine marketing for us. The plan was to start with increasing the visibility of our CEO at weclapp on social media. They developed a LinkedIn strategy and started implementing that.

We were happy with our social media presence but we also wanted to be establish ourselves in financial magazines, business trade press, and maybe even radio and TV. This is what we’ve started this year.

Our first interviews were for some of the leading German economic magazines, including Manager Magazine, which is very prestigious, and Germany’s leading daily newspaper. They opened another drawer in the cupboard and we feel they have some potential in there. We’re very curious and looking forward to the next steps.

What is the team composition?

I work with their whole team.

How did you come to work with Laika Communications GmbH?

We came across Laika Communications GmbH about two years ago. One of my bosses, the CEO of weclapp, talked to other office peers and asked how they became so prominent over the past years. They said they were employing Laika Communications GmbH.

We put out an RFP with several agencies, including them. They actually declined which was a pity because we were very curious to learn more about them. However, they declined because they had a high demand for their services and couldn’t hire enough good people to be ready to take all contracts that were an offer.

We decided to go with another communications agency, but we ended that engagement early because they didn’t perform. By then, the founder and CEO of Laika Communications GmbH told us they had two new people on board and they were interested. We sat together and made a plan.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest about €4,000 per month (approximately $4,700 USD). At times it’s less and at times it’s more depending on the actual work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020 and it's ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve been more than happy with their performance. We increased our visibility by 10 fold. We see that the curve is becoming even steeper over the past weeks and we’re more than happy with that.

They have a good instinct for what works in social media, what topics we can use, and the setting which suits our strategy in terms of operations and suits the interest and appetites within the social media. Arriving at this match is what we think is a real competitive edge of Laika Communications GmbH. They have a feeling for us as a company and for the target audiences we want to address.

We have 2 or 3 tools we use to track the followers and activity of readers and users of social media. Additionally, we track the clippings on a regular basis and have a couple of indicators in terms of quality analysis and that’s done internally. They provide quantitative metrics.  

How did Laika Communications GmbH perform from a project management standpoint?

Laika Communications GmbH is very fast. We come up with a topic and within the next 12 hours, we have their feedback for a post, a story, or a journalist they want to address.

The project is essentially a succession of individual short-term tasks. That necessitates very tight communication. Our teams have a bi-weekly telco where we review the entire scope of what we’re currently doing. In the day-to-day business, everything is done via Teams or email. It works really well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very determined and customer-oriented. The agency we hired prior had an account director who simply didn’t get the neck of what we were after. At those very large PR agencies, information is often passed from one person to another. We appreciate being able to talk directly to the people who do the work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no reason to complain at all. They are even more acquainted with our company than was required. Things have moved very fast so we're keeping an eye out to make sure they don't slow down. We need to make sure they put as much focus on the traditional media as with social media.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want. Use their expertise to arrive at a strategy that is suitable for your targets. It’s what you’d have to do with anyone. Make sure you are in good standing with the people working on your account.