Pinkston

Please give a brief description of your company.

The company is a trade association, and we work on regulatory advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development, and the fostering of business and strategic relationships.

What is your role at the company?

I am the senior director of industry and policy communications.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached the Pinkston Group?

We wanted executive visibility for our president, including high-level media placements, op-ed drafting and placement and speaking engagements. Eventually, this became a request to publish and promote the CEO's first book – and then his second book. But, initially the business challenge was executive visibility via media interviews, op-eds and speaking engagements. For the books, we wanted to have published a New York Times bestseller. For the other work, it was to promote the CEO in high-level media and speaking engagements. We relied heavily on the counsel of the Pinkston Group partners to help us set and manage realistic expectations for the project.

Can you talk about the scope of the project?

The Pinkston Group partners quickly became key counselors to our CEO, with the communications team closely involved, but we never hesitated to put the Pinkston Team directly in touch with the CEO for maximum influence.

Eventually, Pinkston also helped establish and manage the CEO's Twitter feed and make recommendations for his Facebook page.

What was your process for selecting Pinkston Group?

They came recommended to us.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The basic retainer was $20,000 per month for op-ed and speaking engagement work. The book contracts were upward of $100,000 each.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's an ongoing relationship.

What were the results of the project?

In 2009, Pinkston secured a Huffington Post column for the CEO, through which they placed 25 op-eds. In 2010, they pitched other outlets for op-eds and letters to the editor, securing 43 op-eds. In 2011, Pinkston secured a weekly Forbes op-ed column, for which Pinkston then helped greatly with the drafting, editing, placement and promotion via social media. In addition, Pinkston reviewed and suggested other topics that the CEO could write about for other news outlet editorial pages, including the Washington Times, The Huffington Post, Roll Call, Daily Caller, LinkedIn, Forbes, American Spectator, Fox News, The Hill, San Jose Mercury News, Washington Post, and Investor's Business Daily. Pinkston placed for the CEO more than 130 op-eds in 2012, and more than 160 in 2013 – stunning results by any measure.

For speaking engagements, Pinkston Group pitched and placed the CEO at about one conference per week, around the world for the years from 2012-14. Outstanding results. On a weekly basis, Pinkston Group pitched the CEO to high-level media,(mostly broadcast, on issues of the day.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them?

The Pinkston Group is one of most results-oriented agencies I've ever had the pleasure of working with. They are true professionals who only promise what they can deliver – and they consistently deliver results. The metrics above tell the story better than anything I can write. I spent 18 years working for PR [public relations] agencies before I came in-house at CEA, and I never saw results like the ones Pinkston achieved. 

Pinkston provides high-level counsel. You see their senior people at every meeting and talk to them on the phone every day. While they employ very competent junior staff, they understand that they client wants to rely on senior counselors. They also have real relationships with reporters and editors. They are known entities at many media outlets, and they enjoy a great reputation. As a client, you can feel good walking into a studio for an interview with the Pinkston Team by your side. 

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve?

I think they learned a lot about speaking engagements through our assignment. They may not have been the best-suited team for that assignment at the outset, so we had some ups and downs in the beginning with multiple Pinkston Group personnel trying to achieve results on this action item. In the end, however, they figured it out and achieved results beyond our expectations. 

What advice would you give to a future client of theirs?

Get to know the people at the Pinkston Group. Bring them in as counselors and partners – do not treat them as a vendor that you keep at arms' length. The more they know about your business, they more creative and results oriented they will be.

Please describe your organization.

I do all of Steve Forbes's personal and political things, whether it's his books, speeches, events – those types of things. I also run a nonprofit called Americans for Hope, Growth & Opportunity, which is located in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area. Steve operates largely out of New York and New Jersey.

What business challenge were you trying to address with the Pinkston Group?

Primarily I needed help promoting Steve's books, speeches, radio and TV interviews.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We used all of Pinkston Group's media placement services as well as some creative work in terms of asking them to write drafts that we would edit and then approve: op-ed, letters to the editor, tweets, Facebook posts – things like that. There's an intensive social media aspect. The Pinkston Group actually is the main engine behind Forbes's personal Facebook and Twitter accounts as they are with Americans for Hope, Growth & Opportunity.

How did you come to work with the Pinkston Group?

I had known two of their principals for several years. I've worked with them through numerous political and public policy campaigns and knew that they could get the job done in a quick, concise, positive, and cost-efficient way.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It's probably somewhere north of $100,000 annually, but the reality is that they give us a lot more than $100,000 in value. Conservatively, between the social media work for Steve and other PR-type stuff, their value to us is probably in the low seven figures.

What is the status of this engagement?

My initial work with several of their principals goes back to the 1990s, and then I worked with the Pinkston Group itself at its formation in 2000. Our relationship is ongoing.

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from this engagement?

They have over-performed with every type of media placement activity we've ever asked for. For example, on radio alone in the last year, they've probably set up in excess of 300 radio interviews; TV, somewhere in the range of 50 to 100 interviews; op-ed and commentary placement, somewhere between 25 and 30. On Twitter in particular, Steve went from around 30,000 or 40,000 followers to now 111,000 [as of August 2015].

What distinguishes the Pinkston Group from other providers?

You work directly with the principals. You're not shoved off to some staffer. Pinkston Group's turnaround time and success rates are probably not comparable with any other firm I've ever dealt with.

Is there anything the Pinkston Group could have improved or done differently?

No. Nothing. As a matter of fact, every time they surprised me with what they promise and then they over-deliver, literally, every time. I am not exaggerating.