The Cunningly Good Group was appointed by leadership development training and coaching specialist, the Extraordinary Training company (TETC), in February 2021 to develop a PR campaign to raise the profile of the business and founder and CEO, Jane Rennie, with the aim of developing new business leads. This followed hot on the heels of TETC delivering the extremely successful online training programme, the Hospitality Industry Trust (HIT Scotland) Hospitality and Tourism Talent Development programme (HTTDP), to over 2K participants in the Hospitality and Tourism industry in Scotland. This was the largest training programme to be delivered online in Scotland, ever.

The objectives were:

• Raise the profile of the company within the British business community looking to enhance the leadership abilities of their workforce.
• Encourage new business enquiries.
• Drive traffic to the website.
• Drive a 25% increase in social media following amongst the target market.

Our PR strategy focused on two compelling elements. Firstly, the HIT Scotland HTTDP was the first of its type and scale in Scotland; and secondly the interesting business journey that entrepreneur and founder of TETC, Jane Rennie, had been on through the pandemic. These two newsworthy elements came together to create opportunities for coverage in business press and subsequently social media content, particularly on LinkedIn

To raise the profile of TETC we decided upon the following:

•  Pitching Jane Rennie for entrepreneur profile features
• Pitching Jane Rennie to provide comment pieces on several topical issues, of interest to senior business leaders, responding to newsworthy events but also awareness weeks/months
• Creating a social media calendar that capitalised on events in the calendar
• Using the written/video testimonies of HIT Scotland HTTDP participants
• Asking the client to produce short ‘bite sized’ training videos on topical issues, of interest to social media users, but effectively demonstrating what TETC delivers.
• Enter Award schemes relevant to TETC and Jane Rennie

From a position of a relative lack of awareness of the business, significant coverage was obtained online and off-line in key target publications including Scottish Business Insider, The Scotsman, The Herald, The Courier, The Training Journal and Scottish Licensed Trade News. Jane was also interviewed on the Training Journal podcast. Google Analytics showed a significant spike in website visits on the days the coverage appeared. Jane and TETC were also shortlisted for the Professional of the Year Award and High Growth Business of the Year award, respectively, at the Association of Scottish Business Women awards 2021.

Engagement on TETC’s social media channels has grown steadily since March 2021

• 128% Growth in Facebook Likes – 181 to 414
• 572% Growth in LinkedIn Followers – 37 to 249
• 33% Growth in Twitter followers – 133 to 171

Jane Rennie has verbally fed back that awareness of TETC has grown since Cunningly Good Group began working with her in March 2021 and enquiries she has been receiving, specifically on LinkedIn, have significantly increased.