Matter Communications

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the global PR manager for Unit4, an enterprise software company. We have operations in about 26 countries, and I coordinate our PR and external communications in roughly 10 of them.

We’ve always struggled in our North American market because we don’t have a huge brand there. We needed to build our brand and reach influencers who’d be interested in what we have to offer.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an ongoing monthly relationship with Matter. They provide consultancy work for our North American region. They conduct everyday PR work, generate media coverage, and contact influencers.

What is the team composition?

We have multiple points of contact, including our account director and one of Matter’s founders.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

My boss had worked with them at a different agency and put me in touch with them. We met, went over a few pitch ideas, and decided to partner.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $120,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2016.

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

Not long after partnering with Matter, we acquired a new education software company that gave us a modern product in higher education. We’ve had so much education coverage from that point, and I honestly believe Matter’s work has driven business sales in that sector.

We also have a special monthly report that every country adheres. It provides a score based on quality and quantity of coverage: how positive an article is, how good the publication is, how many pieces of coverage were achieved that month, etc. Each country is expected to increase their annual overall score by at least 10% every year, and Matter consistently accomplishes that. In their first year, they achieved 180% of their full year target.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is one of their strong suits. I don’t have a team around me, so when a project requires a high level of input and logistics-handling, I turn to them. They meet deadlines and make sure I stick to the schedule, as well. They have direct contact with many of our executives, who they’re not afraid to reach out to.

What did you find most impressive about them?

If they think something won’t work, they tell us. They’re honest and provide actual consultancy rather than just doing everything we ask for. If they don’t think it’s a good idea, they’ll come up with suggestions to improve our content for that market. I’m confident in their skills.

They understand us as a business and what media outlets we need to reach with what stories. I’ve worked with quite a few different agencies, and none of them have been as successful as Matter.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like more coverage. They managed to get a lot of traction in higher education and AI, but that’s slowed down now. Our presence isn’t very strong in North America, so that awareness can be hard to foster, but they do a good job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a health IT/software company. We create specific health electronics, medical records systems, practice management systems, and run analytics for specialty physicians. I'm the senior business manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Matter Communications?

We have a challenging marketplace and a unique product. We wanted to improve brand awareness in our target market and increase brand equity.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They have been our PR agency of record for a few years now. They help us with press releases, contributed content, editorial pitches, awards, etc. They meet with our senior leadership and internal thought leaders to discuss trends and what’s new in the marketplace. They meet with clients to learn their points of view and help us differentiate our brand from our competitors.

What is the team composition?

We have a team of at least three. We have a primary account manager, a senior member, and a few others.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

Our previous VP of marketing worked with them at a previous company and brought them in.

How much have you invested with them?

The range is between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around September 2014 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

We get a quarterly report of impressions, press releases, and contributed content. They provide a monthly list of all the placements and the impressions they generate.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

They do very well. We have weekly calls and an update tracker. We determine who is responsible for each part of the project and they do their part.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a great team to work with. They’re very responsive and always available when I need them. They are happy to update our clients or our leadership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We would like them to showcase more of the brand elements that are difficult to place.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of corporate communications for a corporate learning platform. We provide content to help improve people’s skills across different disciplines like business leadership, corporate compliance, and I.T.

What challenge were you trying to address with Matter Communications?

We were primarily trying to increase brand awareness. The quantity and quality of our public relations content were stagnating before working with them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We meet with Matter on a weekly-basis to strategize critical themes to pitch that align with our corporate objectives. Then, they build out a target media list a develop pitches to secure opportunities for us around executive commentary and trend articles. They also find opportunities for us to contribute articles to key publications. We ask them to pursue product coverage as well, but that’s becoming increasingly difficult to get.

What is the team composition?

We work with a six-person team including an account director, senior account executives, and an account coordinator.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

We engaged them through our former SVP of marketing who had a prior working relationship with their EVP.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

The volume of our public relation efforts has increased significantly. We're getting the right coverage in the publications we need. Our subject-matter experts are regularly being featured in articles, be it by quotes in a more extensive story or contributing their own material. They’ve done a great job with the trade press and got us a fantastic story in Forbes about our digital transformation.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t manage them day-to-day, but I do participate in the weekly calls. They go through the projects and keep things flowing productively. We collaborate on new ideas and they reliably execute on getting us valuable coverage. If they can’t succeed, they go over the media’s feedback and explain why something may not be working. After that, they suggest an alternative approach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Matter does a really good job of understanding our business and continuously asks for more information. They regularly look for the next opportunity and come to us with proactive pitches. They’re definitely one of the best agencies I worked with in the last 10 years of my career.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d love to see more focus on providing business press. I’ve spoken to them about this and they’re working towards it. However, we’re asking them to do quite a lot already considering the size and scope of our business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of corporate communications of JDA Software, a supply chain provider. My role encompasses global PR and includes media relations, press releases, any external communication, and global social media programs.

What challenge were you trying to address with Matter Communications?

Our former agent relationship was becoming stagnant. We’d gotten to the point where we needed a more fresh and creative approach in order to reach the next level of media coverage (i.e., beyond the typical trade coverage to business press).

What was the scope of their involvement?

They manage a monthly and quarterly measurement global report for us. They do the North American portion along with others in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America. They combine all of these into one report that includes PR and social media metrics. We condense these into one KPI goal that goes into a deck which our CMO gives to the board every quarter. We track against that number every month and quarter in order to share a snapshot of media coverage and highlights to the leadership team on a monthly basis.

They’ve done some ad hoc work on other projects as well. They execute some surveys on their side via a survey tool. They put together a little package that includes the cost, some additional above-and-beyond analysis, and writing involved. We did two surveys like that the first year, three last year, and plan on doing three this year as well.

What is the team composition?

The VP and managing director is our overall lead on the team. We also have an account director, two account managers, two senior account executives, another account executive, and an assistant account executive. There’s also an account coordinator.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

We did an agent key review. We selected Matter because they knew what we needed in terms of thought leadership, demonstrated and understood our goal around the relationship to business press, and had the right balance of creativity and content.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2015 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Prominent media coverage has increased by about 200% over the last couple of years. Our CMO recently had this in a deck that he used for our regional sales kickoff. We’ve never had that kind of coverage before at a business-press level. We’ve been in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC Broadcast, and Business Press. We now have a lot of really strong relationships at the business-press level that we never had before. They come to us for questions on different stories that they’re writing.

The increase has been pretty phenomenal from a thought leadership perspective. We have a metric that we call a “signature story”, which is a big KPI that goes into the deck that my CMO uses to report back to his leadership and board. Last year, our goal was 120 global signature stories between the U.S. and Europe, and we actually reached 150. We had big increases even with a stretched goal. The year before our goal was 80, but we hit 100.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always five steps ahead of me and I never have to follow up on their work. If I bring something up, they’ve already thought of it or are pitching it. I don’t have to micromanage them at all because they really have it together.

We work with demand generation content and product marketing on any deliverables we do from a project standpoint that require team collaboration (e.g., surveys) and tie back to the surveys. They’re really good at making sure they get us what we need in time to execute the other pieces. I’ve never had any issues with that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I worked at an agency for almost nine years, so I knew what we were and weren’t looking for in an agency when we did the review. I picked Matter because they were not a typical agency and had a flat-budget model. They were immediately willing to work with me on scalability in order to build the team out more than initially proposed. Their team is comprised of really good people. I said I would never go back to an agency because I worked at one for so long, but if I did, it would be there’s.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I do a lot of reference calls for them for new business. They’ve been fantastic and a huge partner for us. All the people here see that and know that they’re a really good agency.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the senior vice president of marketing for an organization that produces medical waste remediation equipment. We have 35 employees and are about five years old. The commercializing of our machine started about 16 months ago.

What challenge were you trying to address with Matter Communications?

We were trying to quickly build our company's credibility and visibility with a disruptive technology, competing against an embedded base yet has a method of disposal that has been the same for decades. We wanted Matter to position our company within the marketplace as the disruptive innovative solution in a very complacent environment.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Matter Communications built out an entire PR and social plan based on targeting national storylines, key vertical categories, and disruptive product news. They spent the first month doing their due diligence with our advisory board, sales team and key market participants. They handle all of this space and do almost all of the writing that includes editorial pieces.

What is the team composition?

Our point person is Tim Hurley, the executive vice president. The team is comprised of four other members.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

I found Matter Communications while looking for a local vendor based in the Boston area. An ad agency contact I knew recommended using them. I reached out to Scott Signore, who is their principal. We started a dialogue, and he invited me out to the facility. Ultimately, we chose them out of five other agencies we were considering at the time.

What is the status of this engagement?

We officially started this engagement at the beginning of February 2017. We're still working with them, and are currently finalizing our plans for 2018. Overall, we're moving forward based on the foundation set from last year's plan.

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

This relationship worked out very well for us. The final deliverables they produced included 49 unique published articles. These received 41 million impressions and generated between 50-80 sales inquiries. We won two awards as a result and had multiple investor inquiries. There was a post on our business every month of the year.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very diligent and excel at project management. All five team members participate in our weekly phone meeting, where we review our project sheet. Beyond that meeting, I talk to each of those individuals a couple times a week. They're completely engaged in what we do. Even though I know they work with other clients, it never feels like they do.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're a small company, but I never feel like a minor client of theirs. I always feel confident they're working on my behalf. When I'm in the building, they welcome me with open arms. Everybody participates and looks forward to coming up with the next idea.

I've never heard them say the word "can't." I like that they're always in a positive, "let's go forward" mode. When considering an idea, they think hard about their response. They won’t say that anything is outside the scope of their ability. Rather, they’ll convey a better approach using a compelling argument with facts and strong rationale.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My reservation as a small firm working with a larger agency was always that we would become invisible. With Matter Communications, that's never been the case. I really can't say I've ever had a confrontation with them or wished they'd done anything differently.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I manage PR, AR, events and social media for a learning platform that helps sales teams learn to sell better.

What challenge were you trying to address with Matter Communications?

We’re a fairly new company and sales learning is a new and emerging market. We wanted to find an agency to help us create the market and raise awareness of our company as the dominant player in that space.

What was the scope of their involvement?

A big piece of the scope of work is creating thought leadership for our executives. Matter built visibility for the company by establishing our two co-founders as visionaries. Tactics include placing bylined articles and securing speaking opportunities. They helped us secure an article with the Harvard Business Review to publish a joint article about the importance of sales learning between our CEO and one of their contributing writers. Matter now handles all of our media relations including press releases and scheduling interviews with vertical media (e.g., financial services, life sciences) and business publications. They also write blogs for our website.

What is the team composition?

Our account lead is Tim Hurley [Executive Vice President, Matter Communications] and three other people work on the team.

How did you come to work with Matter Communications?

We initially heard of them from one of my colleagues. They pitched us when we launched but we ended up going with a different agency. It wasn’t a great fit so we decided to switch after just a few months. Matter really stood out to us from the original session so we asked them to come back and pitch us again. We liked their ideas and felt that they really understood our business.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in January 2016 and they’re currently on a monthly retainer.

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

Tim has great media relationships and uses them successfully. He secured an interview for our CEO in The New York Times’ Corner Office feature. He's also gotten us coverage in Forbes and The Huffington Post and we were listed on the Inc. 500 in 2017 as one of the fastest growing software companies in the country. The Harvard Business Review article has been really successful for us. We've been able to use it as a marketing piece to help people understand the need for changing the way they're training their employees.

How did Matter Communications perform from a project management standpoint?

They are phenomenal and very responsive. I trust them to be my PR team because of their ability to just jump into projects and work independently. I fully trust them to meet directly with our executives or run a project with one of my colleagues in a different department. They're responsive to my needs. They report back to me and ask questions when necessary. They also deliver according to the deadlines we set.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of agencies come in and wow you with big ideas but don't deliver as promised. Matter is different because they’re truly committed to our business. Everyone on the team is incredibly easy to work with. There’s a constant drive to do their best for us that is evident in the results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.