King’s English, LLC is a full-service marketing communications firm founded in 1994 by David McLean. David had been a public relations director, copywriter and account executive since 1981. From its beginning, King’s English specialized in public relations as a component in comprehensive marketing services, representing about a third of the agency’s work.
In the past five years, public relations has emerged as a preferred service with clients seeking cost-effective marketing options in a challenging economy. Also, there is an increasing demand for transparency in marketing and public relations is a method of establishing objective validation as traditional media have fragmented and the cost of advertising is often prohibitive for small to medium sized businesses.
King’s English Public Relations has demonstrated success by maintaining the following tenets:
• Strategically focused—we treat public relations as one option in the marketing communications arsenal and develop plans as we would an advertising campaign, addressing the business goals of the client.
• Research based—using services like Nexis we are able to establish a baseline of media interest and coverage of any subject in order to have intelligent dialogue with relevant media. Our approach is well-informed from the client side as well as the editorial side.
• Journalistically sound—as a full-service agency we have kept public relations somewhat apart from the advertising side of the business, to maintain standards of objectivity and credibility with editorial decision makers. King’s English writes many of our placements in the voice of the client. This sometimes includes seeking third-party sources through reporter query services to build articles that exceed the expectations of many publications.
King's English PR helps close a big sale:
“In my experience, had I targeted this company and been lucky enough to talk with the right person, without the benefit of the article, it would have taken me anywhere from 1 to 2 years to close business at this level,” says Mike Warrick, Discovery Learning. “With the article (placed by King's English) it took just 3 months. This one client paid for more than two years of PR with King’s English.”
LDI is part of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a partner of the Center for Creative Leadership. King’s English has managed public relations for LDI for ten years. This has included a wide range of general publicity, but the most significant work has been the publicity of the Institute’s leaders and authors Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan.
Runde and Flanagan have written three titles on the subject of conflict management. This supports enrollment in LDI’s executive education programs and its 360 assessment, Conflict Dynamics Profile.
Runde and Flanagan publish with Jossey-Bass that handles most of the book review publicity. King’s English strategy has been to establish the authors as experts on conflict with pitches aimed at popular topics to appeal to a general business audience. This included placing Runde with his own blog on Inc.com and a similar podcast program.
Three psychologists are partners in EDG, a firm that provides executive education, executive coaching and leadership development in North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
Much of the firm’s work centers on ambiguity and divining executives’ ability to manage it as a trait of leadership. King’s English Public Relations has focused on two points for EDG publicity: 1) expertise in ambiguity, uncertainty and versatile leadership and 2) global leadership presence.
King’s English writes and publishes articles, book proposals, a blog and all marketing materials for EDG, including the editing of a peer reviewed article for Consulting Psychology Journal.
PPI is a developer and marketer of HR assessment instruments and training. King’s English began working with the firm as writers, in order to reestablish its principal, Dr. Paul Connolly, as a leading authority on personality assessments for selection and development. King’s English was later invited to develop PPI’s website.
For public relations, King’s English develops articles based on a body of research and writing already in PPI’s archives. In the case of the Talent Management article below, we also interviewed a number of HR professionals unaffiliated with PPI.
The Perils of Accentuating the Positive is a compilation of chapters by executive education and leadership experts (including Dr. Randall P White, whose chapter we edited) published by Hogan Press. King’s English was engaged to submit the book for review and publicize its premise, challenging the strengths-based leadership movement.
Dr. Gary Bradt is a keynote speaker and author of The Ring in the Rubble. He is also licensed by Dr. Spencer Johnson to present keynotes on Who Moved My Cheese. King’s English work centers around Dr. Bradt’s “Ring in the Rubble Journal,” a blog designed to 1) place Dr. Bradt highly in search rankings and 2) keep the premise of his book topical. We provide bi-monthly updates, editing all entries and managing the blog for search engine optimization.
