Our Strategy and Approach

Westbound’s approach to the media relations program for ICOP would be a DUAL TRACK Strategy, employing thought leadership and news bureau programs. It works as follows:

Westbound will bring to bear our extensive background in commercial real estate, especially office, and the local, regional, national, and trade media that cover the space to evangelize ICOP’s value propositions, highlight its customers to help attract and retain tenants, and position designated subject matter experts (SMEs) as expert resources and thought leaders.

/ THOUGHT LEADERSHIP TRACK /

As our media landscape audit and competitive analysis show, there are clear areas where ICOP has a story to tell and topics you can own. These include: o Customer success stories o Financial stability of a long-term property owner – not subject to the strains of economic issues o Flex + as an innovative offering that reflects today’s businesses looking for new ways to work o Workplace Wellness and the impressive success of Spectrum Terrace and its features o Leadership in sustainability o The future of work

Our Thought Leadership Track will explore these trends and topics to determine experts within the company who can serve as our thought leaders. Understanding their POV on these topics will help us identify reporters and media outlets that we could proactively pitch on these topics or trend stories.

By establishing relationships with trade and business reporters, Westbound is able to reach out and offer story ideas that get traction.

Another key element of the Thought Leadership Track will be data. ICOP has the capability to survey its own tenants or other business leaders, as we saw with the recent back-to-work survey. Original data is very attractive to reporters.

Additionally, ICOP has a deep bench of existing tenants who are willing to tell their story. This is an invaluable asset when working with the media. Featuring the voices of your tenants adds credibility to the story ICOP is telling.

/ NEWS BUREAU TRACK /

It may sound old school, but it’s not. Westbound’s news bureau approach includes using the latest Artificial Intelligence tools to find outlets and reporters interested in your stories. Building a news bureau the Westbound Way begins with identifying top-priority media outlets, topics and subject matter experts. The goal of the news bureau is to create a steady stream of coverage that contains our key messages and differentiators.

Next, we build a robust 12-month editorial opportunity calendar based on a full media audit of trending topics in the industry, key dates like NAIOP and BOMA conferences, news hooks like ‘national small business week’ in May (Flex+ pitch), editorial themes identified by trade publications, and competitor coverage audits.

Finally, we monitor media coverage daily to identify any opportunities to capitalize on news of the day. Westbound’s rapid response media approach enables us to insert our spokespeople into stories as they are being written.

Using this Dual Track Strategy, Westbound will begin by creating a 12-month plan for ICOP. The following is a plan outline for ICOP to illustrate our process. Any final plan will be developed in collaboration with the ICOP marketing and communications team as well as executive leadership.