Communications Strategy Group (CSG) creates targeted, measurable traditional and online influencer relations campaigns that tie directly to its clients overall marketing and strategic objectives.
Powerful and effective marketing communications is based on a content value exchange whereby organizations engage prospects, customers and influencers through relevant and purposeful content in exchange for their attention, engagement and patronage.
“At CSG, we leverage our deep understanding and network of influencers in the industries we serve to create, package, distribute and promote compelling and impactful content to and through influencers on behalf of our clients,” explains senior vice president and head of financial and professional services at CSG, Dan Mahoney.
Dan has a long track record of working with innovative FinTech companies and has also worked with more established global brands, such as Janus Capital, Farmers Insurance, Charles Schwab, Invesco PowerShares, The Bancorp, NACHA, Wolters Kluwer and the Financial Planning Association to achieve a wide variety of business goals through strategic communications.
“Public relations is not reserved for strict, traditional media relations anymore,” he states. “What PR encompasses is changing every day; but as it stands today, PR is everything from television, print, social media, online news sites, apps and more.”
Organizations gain a competitive advantage by leveraging and engaging with influencers and influential organizations, such as media, analysts, associations, non-profits, politicians, customers, social media communities and bloggers. This form of engagement is what CSG defines as influencer relations.
“Influencer relations focuses on deeply understanding an industry and effectively communicating with the right people in the right places at the right time, often at the ‘point of need,’” Dan embellishes. “We find stakeholders who can have impact; establish an authentic voice among champions who can help spread your message; build and maintain channels of communication; and engage your prospective and existing clients and customers. We help you establish a clear path and approach to influencers, exponentially driving sustainable and profitable longterm growth.”
CSG is composed of a team of people who take an unusual level of pride in their work and care deeply about their clients’ success.
“We describe ourselves as ‘work horses’ not ‘show horses,’ which is a significant distinction in the communications arena. We are determined, thoughtful, ingenious, passionate, hardworking, caring and talented professionals who serve as an extra set of arms, legs to help you get work done, and thoughtful minds and hearts with which to collaborate.
“Our team is further enhanced by our ability to tap our partners in the IPREX network of communications agencies around the globe. With more than 1,500 professionals in over 100 offices worldwide, IPREX affords CSG clients a global footprint of reliable and proven communications solutions providers that are equipped to achieve clients’ objectives.”
As the financial services practice director at CSG, Dan oversees all of the practice’s sectors, including banking, personal finance, payments, insurance, financial technology, legal, accounting and asset management, which allows him to share best practices and lessons learned among the various teams.
Previously, Dan provided strategic communications guidance to high-profile national, state and local political campaigns, and on behalf of issue advocacy organizations. Dan graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
“The most compelling ingredient of CSG’s success is our commitment to exceptional work. Our work is based upon creative approaches to challenges and opportunities, followed by good old-fashioned elbow grease to achieve intended outcomes. The culture and the company have been built upon this dedication and the delivery of meaningful, measurable work.
“Our content-based influencer relations philosophy allows us to deploy a broad spectrum of strategies and tactics that deliver the benefits of a well-constructed content value exchange. Whether it is a content audit, creation of highly compelling content, packaging it in various formats or promoting through traditional, online PR and social media, it’s all designed to achieve short- and long-term objectives.”
While there are vast opportunities within the communications realm, the strategic challenge is to identify the initiatives that will most effectively impact a clients’ bottom line, triple or otherwise.
“We work to direct efforts and dollars toward the areas that will most benefit your business, whether it is building thought leadership, lead acquisition, conversion, reputation management, crisis communications, loyalty and retention, or business-to-business versus business-to-consumer solutions. We offer you measurable outcomes, which keeps our course, expectations and deliverables in check.
“Success doesn’t always look how you thought it would. By measuring these different facets of impact, you can find ways to effectively measure how targeted audiences received and interacted with your campaign. But remember, it all starts with setting the proper benchmarks.”
