During the coronavirus crisis, members increased their publishing frequency, story counts and team contributions to better serve their communities. In the process, they helped The 100 Companies achieve a new milestone in April 2002: delivering more than 2 million in one month.
See related story on members achieving highest-ever number of email opens.
“As an agency that works with a wide range of clients, we have access to and stay on top of what’s happening in many different industries,” said Jennifer Thompson, president and CEO of Thompson & Co. Public Relations and publisher of The Alaska 100. “Being able to share resources and information to help Alaskans is why we launched The Alaska 100 to begin with.”
“Our readers value the content we provide with The Alaska 100. In times of uncertainty, access to current, reliable information is paramount and we’re happy to share the messages of people and organizations helping our community.”
HMA Public Relations also leveraged their opportunity with The Arizona 100, increasing publication frequency to weekly in April from their normal biweekly schedule. Abbie Fink, VP/GM at HMA, publisher of The Arizona 100, and her nimble team doubled their content while still adjusting to working from home.
“This provided us an opportunity to highlight what Arizona’s businesses and nonprofits were doing in response to the pandemic,” Abbie said. “The response to these issues has been fantastic – not only are we seeing an increase in open rates, but we are receiving more proactive pitches to include content in upcoming issues – COVID-19 related but also general news of interest. These special issues have further positioned The Arizona 100 as a timely news outlet.”
Melissa Mathews, founder and president of The Mathews Group, publisher of The Engineering 100, says her team produced a special COVID-19 issue to showcase ways engineers impact our quality of life.
“Everywhere we looked, we saw examples of the many ways engineers were responding to the crisis with creativity, resourcefulness and problem solving,” Melissa said. “We decided to devote an entire issue to spotlighting how engineers were uniquely contributing to the COVID-19 response.”
“We loved the editorial flexibility (frequency, content, dates and deadlines) The 100 Companies offers to its member publications,” Melissa said. “In a fast-changing environment, that kind of responsiveness is invaluable.”
