@aly_saxe I’ve been impressed by Iris since you first introduced me to it over a year ago. I know you’ve run a successful PR company in the past. What was the specific driver for you to create Iris and what's your vision for it? Can you tell us a little about the product?
@bydanm Thank you for asking this! To be candid, the driver to create Iris was an epic temper tantrum. I was trying to get my arms around not just what my team was doing, but HOW they were doing. I wanted to spend less of our client's budget on manual activity tracking and more of it on getting them better PR outcomes. Then I read that over $2B in opportunities is lost every year due to inefficiencies in PR. I didn't want to be part of that waste anymore, I wanted to change it.
So I took all the cash I had in the business and put it to work. We used the first crappy iteration of Iris from 2011-2013 inside my agency and we tripled in size during that time. Because we were delivering better results and showing data behind it, we were able to grow existing accounts and win new business easier. It was actually the clients of my PR agency who encouraged me to give Iris away to see if it could help other PR teams the way it helped ours.
My vision is to get PR a seat that table and be seen a serious driver of business impact. Right now brands spend $15B a year on PR services. I believe that could be $150B. When brands have the data to see what their PR investment is actually doing, they'll double down. I also believe that many PR pros -- from leaders to newbies -- want to deliver the best outcomes possible. I want IrisPR to be their go to solution to be the best.
@bydanm Yeah, good question. Mostly we're introducing something new to the PR industry, so in that sense we mostly replace spreadsheets and manual (or no) systems. Think of CRM but designed specifically for PR workflow and outcomes. So in the sense that a CRM can help your sales team achieve better, more sustainable and predictable sales, IrisPR can help your PR team achieve better, more sustainable and predictable PR outcomes.
Summary: We help you get more of the PR outcomes you want.
How does this compare to say, Cision or Meltwater? Those systems, the most commonly known on our space, are really just checking a box on PR. Where they provide lists of media contacts, IrisPR helps you build relationships. They're focused on monitoring media coverage, where IrisPR is focused on what that coverage means for your brand and learning what it took to get it, so you can repeat and optimize successful playbooks. They're focused on showing you the whole, noisy conversation that's being had about your brand, while IrisPR pulls the signal from all that noise, so you can actually see if your PR strategy is delivering the outcomes you're trying to get.
We're not for PR teams that are simply checking a box. We're for PR teams that give a shit about the results they deliver, and always want to do better.
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Hunter
I couldn't say more about this software. It helps me keep my team accountable and organized. It takes so many stresses out of the picture: Who have we've pitched? What were the results? How successful are our campaigns? We've scaled our agency and increased retainers based on the data that we are able to evaluate from Iris. No joke.
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We have been using Iris at Infusionsoft since before it launched in the market. The platform has helped us stay connected with our agencies, measure the impact of daily media activities, and report up to execs how our PR investment translates into business impact. I'm really excited about some of the future integrations Iris has on its roadmap, because we will be able to integrate PR more with the larger marketing stack. I'd love to hear about what those integrations are if Iris is willing to share.
@lccollins Thanks for asking this. In the coming months our customers will get to see our path to integrations start to take form. We've built our platform with this in mind. We've recently integrated with Gmail and will be rolling out an Office 365 integration in the near future. Beyond that, we're looking at integrations with data and analytics platforms that connect Iris to the marketing cloud. We have a few in the works now so stay tuned!
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