Getting Press for our company Part 4 – Success story #2 – The Cover of Access Lift & Handlers Magazine.

It’s crazy just how the world works sometime.  We had just gotten our stuff to Vince at Scaffold Industry Magazine and the article hadn’t even come out yet when someone in our office remembered being contacted by Lindsey Anderson over at  Access Lift & Handlers Magazine (part of KHL group).  Again, we turned her name over the Erik who told her about the work we were doing over at Independence Hall.  She was excited when she saw the images.  She even thought that we would get the cover shot of the magazine.  Yeah!

So, we went back to the press release and tweaked it a bit so it wasn’t the exact same as the one we sent to scaffold magazine.  By the way, I did inform her that we had already had an article coming out in the other periodical – it’s just good business to be honest about where you stuff is being seen.  She assured us that there were no worries.  We went back and forth a few times as Lindsey prepared the article and layout… She was very cool and professional throughout the entire process.  And a few weeks later… Bam.

The cover of Access Lift & Handlers Magazine.

The article inside was great and we had accomplished our goal.

See the article inside – here.

A giant shout out to both Lindsey over and Access Lift & Handlers Magazine, and Vince at Scaffold Industry Magazine for the work they did on the Independence Hall project.

We thought that this worked so well that we are now making this part of our over-all marketing strategy.

How we got Press for our Company – Part 3 (Success)

Everyone will tell you, that in business you need a bit of luck once in a while – and this was no different.  We had everything together and ready to go but who would we get it to?

And as bit of luck would have it, while going through our contacts, we remembered an email we had gotten from Vince Brennan, the editor at Scaffold Industry Magazine a few months prior, asking what we had going on.  Bam.  We gave Erik Highland, our photographer and marketing guy,  Vince’s name and number and said – “have it him.”,  which he obviously did, because a week later we were answering a list of questions he had prepared for us about our roll in the Independence Hall renovation.  Erik sent him some of the photographs (with and without the scrim) and Vince thought they might even be good enough to garner the cover shot!  How cool would that be?    We were all very excited about this opportunity.

For several weeks we went back and forth with the photographs and text that Vince had written for the article.  It was a terrific story and the photographs really helped accentuate the work we had done.

We crossed our fingers that our scaffold and scrim project would make it onto the cover of one of the biggest magazines in our industry.  But as fate would have it – we lost out to a man wearing a safety harness.  The issue was all about safety so they went with a logical choice.  But Vince did an awesome job with the article!  Superior Scaffold from Philadelphia got a 4 page spread on the inside of the magazine.

 

It worked.  Our small idea about documenting the job we did and then finding an angle for the story paid off.

And that wasn’t the end.  There was more to come!

See part 4.

Getting Press for our Company Part 2 (writing a press release and searching contacts)

Okay – we’ve made our plan.  We’ve picked the project that would be great for all of America to talk about (the renovation of Independence Hall) and we’ve gotten some fantastic photos of both phases of the job site.

Now what?

How do we get press for the scaffold work we’ve done?   We started by compiling a list of contacts that we have had over the years.  Some are still valid and some are not – but we look at them as possible leads to run a story on us.  While we are culling through our possible contacts we write a press release detailing our role in the renovation process.  Since we were not the general contractor (GC) but the scaffold company, we have a slightly different role in the process (mainly designing, renting, transporting and erecting the scaffolding).

So we come up with our angle on the story.  Every press release needs an angle.  Since the major papers in the area have all done a generic story on the renovation of the beloved landmark we need something new, something fresh that will still tie into the overall renovation project.

We find it in the decorative scrim that was added to our scaffolding.  That’s a cool story because, not only does the scrim add a great look to building while renovations are taking place but the structural engineering changes that had to be made to accommodate it were pretty significant.  So we detailed the equipment, the procedures and even include a few quotes from the engineers and the CEO of the company – and boom.  We are ready to get it out to the public.

For the correct format of writing a press release and/or what to include you can google or hit any of the search engines “How to write a good press release” and you’ll get plenty of guidance.

We knew that we wanted to be placed in some of the industry magazines so that’s where we focused.

A home run.  See part 3.

Exterior renovation begins at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City

The former Trump Marina hotel and casino, in Atlantic City has been purchased by Landry’s Inc., an international gaming and restaurant operator and is being rebranded with the Golden Nugget name.

Superior Scaffold has been brought in as part of the $100 Million renovation to help restore the facade with an EIFS (Exterior Insulated Finishing System), restoration of the 90′ high Crystal and 220′ high Bay Towers of the Golden Nugget.

Superior’s rental department will be installing 18 swing stages and 4 mast climbing platforms!  They will also install 170′ of overhead protection for the Atrium glass on the pool deck and stair towers for access to the sixth floor roof.

We will post pictures soon – as it should be quite a site.

Here is an artist rendering of what the finished renovations will look like.

Getting Press for our company Part 1

PR seems like an easy thing to do.  Right?  Well, not so much.  We are experts in scaffolding not getting press.  But we did realize that is a vital part of our marketing mix.  The more we can tell and show people about the work we do the better they will understand our business and in turn hire us.  But how do you go about doing it?

The key for us was the word ‘show.”  We can have our engineers describe the architectural details all day long but what better way to showcase our  work than to photograph it.  That way, clients, customers and even general contractors can see just how good we are – especially on the historic projects where the utmost care is needed.

We decided that the Independence Hall project would be the perfect opportunity to do just that.  The first step was finding a photographer crazy enough to climb around the scaffolding we build.  We found him in Erik Highland.  Not only was his willing to go where most people never dared but seeing his work we realized that he could tell our story visually.

He took some awesome shots of the scaffolding in place and then some of the decorative scrim being installed.

 

You can see more of those images by clicking here.

The shots told our story perfectly.  But now what would we do with them?

That was the million-dollar question.  I’ll detail that in part 2.