Pearl Comms on building a lasting relationship with Shakespeare Martineau

Shakespeare Martineau and Pearl Comms have been PR partners for over 10 years. The relationship is built on mutual understanding, trust and unwavering communications support. Originally won by Pearl Comms’ Managing Director, Alia Al-Doori, the agency has supported Shakespeare Martineau extensively over the years through mergers, rebrands, leadership team changes, strategy refreshes and campaigns. This has involved a comprehensive media relations approach, data-driven campaigns, social media and digital content creation.

Shakespeare Martineau is a multidisciplinary, full-service law firm with eight UK offices in Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, London, Milton Keynes, Stratford upon Avon, Glasgow and Lincoln, and over 880 people. We are an extension of the in-house marketing team, delivering a multichannel campaign encompassing proactive and reactive press relations, a targeted thought leadership campaign, C-suite profiling, a rolling media training programme, social media support and digital content creation. This is supplemented by a steady stream of standalone content projects and campaigns, approximately one per quarter.

Having gone through several mergers and acquisitions over the past 10 years, the arrival of new CEO, Sarah Walker-Smith in 2019, allowed us an opportunity to refocus our objectives. We worked with Sarah to promote a new vision for the firm, that broke the mould in the legal sector and ensured that all of the firm’s teams and practice areas were given equal promotion. These general objectives were:

• Set Shakespeare Martineau apart from other national and regional law firms.
• Communicate a radical and bold business culture.
• Establish the firm as a leader in legal sector commentary, across practice areas, such as corporate, private client and real estate.
• Achieve 30 pieces of coverage per month, minimum.
• Improve domain authority by 5, annually.
• Manage and implement four content campaigns annually.
• Support M&A activity and improve investor relations.

The strategy

In 2017, Pearl Comms was invited to re-pitch, after holding the account for six years. Successful, we proposed a new strategy, focusing on three activity strands: Inform, Elevate and Differentiate. Due to the firm’s matrix structure, the strategy is designed to work across all teams, taking into account factors such as experts’ experience of PR, new joiners, emerging markets and many others. The strategy covers the full suite of traditional and digital external communications to set the firm apart from its competitors and based on agreed KPIs:

• Minimum 30 pieces of coverage per month, including 3 nationals and 2 broadcast.
• 10 ‘follow’ back links per month and online outlets to have an average domain authority of over 35.
• Minimum 8 digital content reworks per month.
• Minimum 80% positive or neutral sentiment score.

Example campaign

Beyond standard corporate PR functions, we have worked on many standalone campaigns, including Brexit market reports, energy sector reports and most recently, a two-year, later living market penetration campaign.

The campaign incorporated two sets of research, two reports, two launch events, industry stakeholder touchpoints and a media relations, content and webinar campaign. To ensure the campaign had credibility, we involveda group of around 20 leading industry stakeholders.

From the launch of both reports (downloaded over 300 times), over 60 pieces of national, regional and sector coverage were secured, including I news, Property Week and the Times Raconteur. Interviews were secured for the firm’s experts at  Property Week, Inside Housing and The Times. The campaign generated 60 direct enquiries to the firm, which has also led to new clients and strategic hires. It resulted in a leadership appointment to the South West Housing LIN steering group and a pipeline of new business meetings with later living providers.

The results

The most telling result of our long-term PR strategy with Shakespeare Martineau is that we have been the firm’s PR agency for over 10 years. We have won repitches and lead the firm’s external communications function through mergers and team changes, and most recently, through a pandemic.

Over the course of our relationship, we have:

• Exceeded our KPIs by 30% on average every month over the past six years.
• Delivered over 500 pieces of coverage generated between May 2020 and June 2021, including over 100 national and broadcast. Over 40 per month.
• Secured on average 20 ‘follow’ back links per month.
• Provided 24/7 press office support.
• Broke national news and landmark stories, including a landmark ethical veganism case, which gained over 300 pieces of coverage. E.g. Guardian.
• Average sentiment score of over 90% positive coverage.
• Consistent annual DA increase.
• Integrated digital tools such as Buzzsumo, Answer the Public, to provide targeted media relations.
• A full website refresh project, including drafting 200 pages of new SEO-optimised web copy
• A steady stream of landmark content campaigns, including research, drafting and media outreach – e.g. this report, Shining a spotlight on the hidden housing market, which focused on challenges facing the later living sector
• Drafted one-off content pieces, including a 20 minute keynote speech on the energy sector post-Brexit, delivered at a State Law Resources conference in Houston, Texas.
• A rolling media training programme for the firm’s spokespeople (60 people due to be trained in 2021).
• Held monthly ‘PR drop-in sessions’ at each of the firm’s offices [pre-pandemic].
• Delivered a landmark coronavirus external communications campaign which delivered 168 pieces of coverage (26 million circulation), drafted 85 pieces of bespoke coronavirus advice web content, which generated 97,000 page views on the firm’s website and a DA improvement from 41 to 52 on the firm’s website.
• Bespoke event support, including chairing roundtables and panel events.
• Led in-house blog writing top tips sessions for key teams and individuals.

This project was a winner at The Drum Awards for PR 2021. To find out which Drum Awards are currently open for entry, click here.