Communications Solutions for the Public Sector

Riester Public Affairs is a public relations firm that assists the United States federal government in solving various communications challenges through the following services:

Core Competencies

Media relations support
Crisis media relations support
Strategic communications counsel
Podcast creation, development, production
Writing, proofreading, editing services
Technical/management oversight of communications staff
Development, design, maintenance of web pages/graphics
Multimedia products, layouts, graphics for digital/social media channels
Translate technical information into plain language
Communications campaign creation/implementation support

Differentiators

2020/2021:

8 virtual crisis media events with more than 53 national news journalists attending, and up to 320 million readers/viewers/listeners reached
95 original essays (60,000+ words) outlining communications guidance for federal and state government executives/staff
350+ podcast episodes produced, reaching more than 100,000 listeners
2 state-of-the-art podcast studios and 1 social media video studio in the Washington, D.C. region reserved for client digital audio/video/podcasting projects

Proprietary Solutions

RespondREADY ™

Riester’s proprietary RespondREADY media training approach teaches executives how to prepare for any media interaction by empowering them to take control of the interview and story process.

FlashCAST ™

The proprietary FlashCAST process equips organizations with emerging social audio and video strategies to amplify and deliver messages critical to mission success.

CommsBUILDER™

The proprietary CommsBUILDER process can help your organization maximize your existing communications framework by fine tuning, troubleshooting, or even rebuilding your internal or external approach to achieve mission objectives.

Simplified Acquisition Threshold Services

Note: The acquisition limit has been raised to $750,000 in compliance with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 increases to the MPT and the SAT. See GSA SPE Memo SPE-2020-07.

Riester Public Affairs provides a variety of services that are priced to qualify as Simplified Acquisition Threshold Services. These include, but are not limited to, the following communications services:

Media relations support for single events and campaigns
Spokesperson training and coaching
Crisis media relations support
Technical support/management of communications staff
Strategic communications counsel
Speechwriting and other writing support
Communications toolkit design
Podcast series creation, development, production, maintenance
Web page/graphic design, development, maintenance
Social media graphics, including multimedia products, layouts, designs

For cost details associated with our Simplified Acquisition Threshold Services, request a copy of our complete Capabilities Statement. Contact:

Summer Johnson, Managing Partner
Phone: 571-348-4759
Email: [email protected]

NAICS Codes

512110, 512290, 541430, 541613, 541618, 541611, 541690, 541810, 541820, 541840, 541890, 519130, 611430

Past Performance

Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, 2020-present. Strategic communications counsel in all areas of communications: messaging, crisis, media relations support and training, and podcast journalism services. Objective to develop and execute campaigns to support public health officials, especially during their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in conjunction with CDC programs and guidelines. Produce a popular podcast covering issues important to public health officials, with thousands of listeners across the United States.

Association of Community Cancer Centers, 2020-present. Strategic media relations support and training, and podcast journalism services. Objective to generate news media interest in Association stories and policy positions. Produce a popular podcast covering issues important to oncology professionals, with thousands of listeners across the United States.

Arizona Department of Health Services, 2020-present. Perform as a subcontractor responsible for producing a bi-monthly podcast for the Arizona Department of Health Services, offering parenting tips to women with children ages 0-5 years. Objective is to educate new parents how to properly care for their young children. Audience building effort getting underway on this new podcast production.

Key Staff Experience

RIESTER Public Affairs key staff members have communications and leadership experience working in or alongside these federal agencies:

Case Studies – 2020/2021

For reference contact information, contact:

Summer Johnson, Managing Partner
Phone: 571-348-4759
Email: [email protected]

Daily Morning Audio Newscast FlashCAST ™

Audience: Government Officials

Challenge: Help a national organization serving government executives create a daily morning audio newscast delivered to mobile devices, highlighting content created for its members. This content includes organization news, policies, programs, projects, products, and positions.

Solution: Riester Public Affairs (RPA) team members developed a format and the infrastructure to produce a daily morning audio newscast, like a radio news radio newscast, featuring interviews and soundbites from organization members and staff, talking about their work, while also providing audiences with corresponding links to resources associated with the stories reported each day. The show is delivered to listeners via Apple, Google, Amazon Alexa, Spotify, and on social media and website every morning.

Result: Listenership for the newscast, Public Health Review Morning Edition, is steadily increasing with the target audience, while also providing an outlet for organization teams to showcase their work with an industry audience. Since August 2021, more than 55,000 people have listened to the daily report.

Media Relations Campaign

Audience: Public

Challenge: Help a national organization serving government executives produce a series of virtual news conferences allowing their experts to explain to the national news media how states and territories are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Events would be called as needed in response to breaking news developments and produced with less than 24 hours notice.

Solution: Riester Public Affairs (RPA) team members created a process that enabled overnight support for the organization’s news media plans. RPA updated media contact lists daily with information for reaching journalists no longer working in newsrooms due to quarantine and work-from-home restrictions. Advisory and news release templates allowed RPA to draft client media documents in less than 30 minutes. A media pitch team was placed on 24/7 stand-by, available immediately to reach out to the media with details for connecting with newsmakers on short notice.

Result: Riester Public Affairs produced 8 national media events for the organization from January 2020 through February 2021. Together, 53 journalists from all major national and trade media outlets reported on the events, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, ABC, NPR, and more. Their combined audience is approximately 320 million people.

Media Relations Training

Audience: Government Officials

Challenge: Provide in-person news media and crisis communications training to government officials meeting in annual conference.

Solution: Riester Public Affairs (RPA) team members developed a custom media training experience teaching government officials how to maintain control of their media interactions and messages. The training curriculum addressed several areas of concern to the client. Training modules were delivered as part of a day-long session.

Result: The training curriculum was well received, with 26 government executives engaged in the training. In response to a client administered post-training survey, 93.3% of attendees said they intended to apply information learned from the training session. All attendees (100%) said they found the workshop to be “valuable for my work.”

“Great workshop and the presenters were engaging, funny and truly enlightening.”

“Good facilitation and good group discussion.”

“The media training tips were really helpful for me.”

“It helped set the context to the overall messaging strategy that a (government executive) needs”

Crisis Communications Campaign

Audience: Federal and State Government Officials

Challenge: Convert an existing communications channel programmed by a national client serving state and territorial public health officials into a resource platform where the client’s members could access current insights and information to help them respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Solution: Riester Public Affairs (RPA) team members researched, produced, wrote, and edited a series of 12 podcast episodes published to audiences over a 10 month period in 2020. The shows featured state and territorial health officials, federal health policy leaders, and others sharing ideas and best practices for the pandemic response.

Result: More than 8,000 people listened to the special series, growing the average audience for the client’s longer running podcast show by 10% compared to audience totals logged prior to COVID-19.

Strategic Communications Campaign

Audience: Oncology Medical Professionals

Challenge: Create a platform to deliver COVID-19 related guidance to the client’s membership of more than 25,000 oncology practitioners nationwide.

Solution: Riester Public Affairs (RPA) team members researched, wrote, produced, and edited a series of 21 short podcast episodes delivered to audiences over a 9 month period in 2020. The agency cut production times by 50% to deliver podcast episodes addressing the challenges facing oncology professionals responsible for health care during the pandemic.

Result: Almost 6,000 people listened to the episodes that were a subset of a longer running podcast series RPA produces for the client. These 21 coronavirus – focused shows grew the franchise’s audience by more than 25% and resulted in a catalog of instructional content that continues to be available and downloaded by professionals seeking advice on various coronavirus-related topics.

Also, the podcast was named the Best Healthcare Podcast in 2020 by the eHealthcare Leadership Awards program, recognizing cutting-edge digital communications teams and projects from healthcare organizations nationwide.

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