In traditional B2B public relations, the general objective is to publicize the business benefits one company receives when it opts in with another. Many PR companies represent B2B organizations who want to promote these business benefits and win more clients as a result. For the agencies that do, the established PR play is to focus communications activities around raising awareness for the considerable return on investment individuals and businesses can realize if they elect to receive services from the company or person being showcased.

Among a host of outstanding professionals, HKA represents many prominent and successful wealth managers, CPAs and real estate developers under its B2B umbrella. Each of these HKA clients offers tremendous value to their own clients – established, financial value. And, as the PR firm, HKA is responsible for building and maintaining awareness that partnering with these professionals can help increase the bottom line for those who do. We do this because it helps our B2B clients with earned media coverage, new business leads and because, well, it’s true.

However, in telling client economic stories, HKA also ensures that the characters – often the real heroes of the story – aren’t forgotten. The humanity of client narratives can get lost along the way if there’s too much focus on abstract concepts like absorption rates, pass-through entities and yield curves.

Personal stories must be told, too. The flesh and blood anecdotes that drive any business success can’t be overlooked, especially as they often resonate so meaningfully with target audiences. Several examples of personal storytelling initiatives HKA recently deployed artfully mix facts and figures with faces and feeling:

• Apriem Generations: A new content series for Irvine-based wealth managers, Apriem Advisors, lets the employees tell in their own words what motivates them professionally. Apriem Generations looks at their upbringing and often compares today’s economic challenges with those of previous generations. Whether the topic is immigration, retirement or paying for college, there is a human protagonist in each tale, and the story arcs are as heartwarming as they are informative.
• Civic 50: Beyond providing high-quality business service to clients, constituents and other stakeholders, when an organization is socially conscious, community-minded and philanthropic, it is important to communicate this sense of give-back. Orange County Business Journal’s annual Civic 50 list recognizes companies who go above and beyond their corporate responsibilities, and HKA is proud to represent and support the interests of two of this year’s honorees, Haskell & White LLP and Companion Home Health and Hospice.
• In Living Color: While illustrating the recent business successes of affordable housing developers Community Preservation Partners (CPP) and the Irvine Community Land Trust (ICLT) with compelling charts and graphs, HKA also has focused on human successes to complement communications surrounding each organization’s real estate deals. The agency put residents on camera to explain in their own words how their lives have been dramatically improved by the respective landlords. A CPP tenant in Richmond, Virginia, was interviewed by a local television station about how happy she is with the improvements in her community, and an Irvine family discussed in a promotional video the wonderful lifestyle afforded to them by ICLT.

Of course, no one is suddenly going to stop caring about the bottom line. So, creating interpersonal bridges among companies, the people that comprise them, the communities they serve and the lives they change is paramount – and will go a long way toward humanizing the corporate client through PR. HKA is proud of its longstanding communications expertise as a bridge-builder.