I caught up with Speed client David Sherriff yesterday. He’s the chief operating officer of Microgen, a company which provides business process software to enterprise organisations such as ING Direct, Kleinwort Benson (Channel Islands) and Swiss Re.

Microgen was originally sceptical about the benefit of PR but no longer. Why’s that?
The recognition that we’ve achieved through editorial coverage firmly demonstrates the value and effectiveness of PR. Our success has come by aligning corporate and product news with industry issues, and teasing out customer announcements.

The current business agenda of regulation and business improvement means that there are plenty of topics that the PR team can use to create content and conversations on our behalf.

You’ve also been successful in publicising customer engagements. How has that happened?
Yes, we’ve announced a deal recently with ING Direct. But customers, particularly in the financial sector, remain firmly polarised between those that are happy to engage in PR and those that never allow any form of communication around a deal. We’ve become smarter at engaging prospects in discussions about publicity and including a PR clause as part of our contract negotiations.

How has Speed helped achieve your PR goals?
There are three areas that I would cite where Speed delivers very tangible value – namely contacts, content and conversations.

• Contacts – the team have relationships across the trade and national media
• Content – help with messaging and developing editorial materials
• Conversations – proactive in identifying issues across the media were we can offer comment

How do you measure results?
We have a scorecard system which we present to the board on a quarterly basis. Beyond that we test the sentiment of prospects. There’s no better measure of PR success than going into a sales meeting with a cold prospect and not having to justify your existence.