When practicing public relations and striving to drive awareness on behalf of clients, it can be easy to lose sight of the notion that quality, in many cases, is more important than quantity. Let’s be honest: Unless you’re working for Apple, Amazon, Boeing, or another major brand, it’s unlikely your news announcement will appeal to—let alone reach—the masses. However, when your small- to mid-size company’s news is considered “disruptive” to an industry, and thereby newsworthy by press, there can be exceptions to the rule.
Many companies operate in niche industries providing innovative services and solutions to other businesses. However, because this work is behind the scenes rather than consumer-facing, these company’s brands are largely unknown to the general populace. Our client Delta-Q Technologies is a good example of this.
Delta-Q Technologies is a leader in battery-charging solutions that improve the performance and durability of electric-drive vehicles and industrial equipment. In other words, the company develops discrete, highly efficient chargers for electric vehicles and machines and has become the supplier of choice to manufacturers of electric golf carts, aerial work platforms, industrial floor cleaners, and other utility and recreational vehicles.
Delta-Q’s innovative power technologies, realized in the form of compact and reliable battery chargers, equip more than one million electric vehicles, and is well regarded by the manufacturers of industrial equipment.
Recently, Delta-Q released a white paper, “On-board Charger Reliability for Electric Drive Vehicles and Industrial Machines,” which shared new insights into on-board industrial battery charger reliability and validation testing. Drawing on the company’s design and validation expertise, the paper details how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can improve integration of on-board chargers into machines such as lift trucks, aerial work platforms, and floor machines.
While the benefits of this research are undeniable—higher charger reliability is leading to improved machine availability and productivity gains by increasing charging convenience—the target audience for this news is limited when compared to a general business or consumer audience. However, we did want to drive awareness of Delta-Q as an industry thought leader with a highly targeted audience of design engineers and decision makers at OEMs of industrial machines and equipment.
We discussed the news value of the announcement and set reasonable expectations of coverage with our client contact. Additionally, we worked together to develop a strategy to focus our attention on securing placement in specific industry publications within Delta-Q’s vertical markets.
To support this news, we managed distribution of the release via a wire service—not with a goal to achieve numerous media hits, but to ensure that the information was available in the public domain. In addition, we shared the news and details on how to access the report directly with a highly targeted list of outlets serving readers for whom the news would be relevant.
The Results
As expected, Delta-Q’s announcement garnered only a few articles. However, the articles were placed in publications that reach exactly the audience for which the news was meant. And because Delta-Q created a landing page on its corporate web site specifically to deliver the research to interested parties, they have visibility into the frequency of white paper downloads, as well as evidence that visitors are coming from OEMs with whom Delta-Q is working to establish relationships.
By setting realistic expectations and focusing on the quality of coverage rather than quantity, we were able to deliver on our promise to reach the audience that matters most to Delta-Q. As a result, a small number of articles in the right publications has helped raise awareness of the company and generated increased engagement with Delta-Q’s website.
For more information about Delta-Q’s power conversion solutions, visit the company’s website, where you can also access the white paper. Following are the articles that resulted from our outreach on Delta-Q’s behalf.
“White Paper Gives Insight into Onboard Battery Chargers,” Lift and Access
“Delta-Q Technologies Provides Insight Into On-Board Charger Reliability,” Industrial Lift & Hoist
“Delta-Q Technologies Releases New Insights into On-board Charger Reliability for Electric Vehicles and Industrial Equipment,” In Compliance Magazine
“The Delta-Q ruggedized industrialized battery charger,” EDN Network
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Our Results