AboveNet: Cleaning PR House

AboveNet, a provider of “high bandwidth connectivity solutions” based on fiber optics, had a winning product but a losing approach to PR. They brought in Crawford to make PR ship-shape. We identified and fixed key problems, then built a solid infrastructure that continues to drive the company’s successful PR.

Creating Consistent Messaging. Marketing materials and product literature had been created over an extended period, and many items were seriously outdated. Crawford revamped and updated the entire marketing collateral canon, simplifying the text and making the message consistent.

Building an Online Presence. Before Crawford’s arrival, AboveNet rarely surfaced in Google searches. Crawford spotted the problem quickly – use of a low-cost, fly-by-night Web press distribution service. We brought in a brand name wire service that could distribute AboveNet news broadly and economically to all search engines. Then we eliminated problem areas that gave AboveNet the wrong image. For example, we rewrote the company’s Wikipedia listing to make it an objective, fact-based entry versus a sales spiel. Then we corrected old media databases that erroneously described AboveNet as a long distance company and ISP. End game: a positive, accurate online presence.

Targeting Key Influencers. AboveNet’s media list had swelled to 22,000 contacts – completely useless to a niche player needing to reach journalists with specific telecom beat assignments. Crawford tore up that list and created targeted lists for telecom and vertical media and bloggers, paring back news distribution to a few hundred contacts.

Launching Press Outreach. AboveNet had never conducted a proactive media campaign, erroneously thinking that press would dislike direct contact. As a result, the company’s PR began and ended with putting a news release on the wire. Crawford brought AboveNet out into the open, launching their first U.S. media outreach in local markets to support sales.

With the right PR framework in place, AboveNet today is winning the media hits it deserves, including Fox Business coverage of the company’s central role in supporting cloud computing and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.