we do all the things
ASCERTAINMENTS
Everyone has an opinion
At the start of any project, our team seeks to build and maintain trust with the project’s stakeholders. Our strategy accounts for the diversity of opinions, demographics, proximity to the project corridor, and frequency of travel through the project corridor.
Our ascertainment development process ensures that our final outreach plan accounts for the unique desires and common threads of stakeholders and prioritizes communities to reach and when. In the end, it is about producing a plan that is precise, targeted, and rooted in research.
Copywriting & Messaging
Word choice is everything
Our team has decades of experience crafting clear, consistent copy that is easy to understand, conveys a project’s purpose and need, and highlights a project’s benefits.
CPOG has extensive experience developing targeted high-impact communications that move the intended audience to action and drives awareness of a project. We are also experts at taking technical jargon and complex project information and translating that into everyday terms that the public can easily understand. We also have several team members that are proficient in the use of AP-writing style and its guidelines.
Branding & collateral materials
Building trust through design
It is essential that project branding is easy to recognize and resonates with all audiences. Our team works with our clients to explore refreshing the current design or identify a new design. We also take into account relevancy and local cultural sensitivities that should be included in a project’s brand.
Our team will craft clear, consistent copy that is easy to understand, conveys a project’s purpose and need, and highlights a project’s benefits. CPOG has extensive experience developing targeted high-impact communications that move the intended audience to action and drives awareness of a project. We are also experts at taking technical jargon and complex project information and translating that into everyday terms that the public can easily understand.
MEETINGS & BRIEFINGS
It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach
Community relations is at the heart of our public engagement efforts. We believe that there is no better way to reach out to stakeholders than with face-to-face interaction. CPOG has hosted hundreds of meetings from in-person and virtual meetings to information booths, EMS/First Responder briefings, focus groups, property owner meetings, community and organization meetings, decision maker briefings, and project field visits.
We work with our clients to determine the goals and objectives for each meeting and develop a comprehensive proactive plan specific to a project. This includes identify the type of meeting necessary, the appropriate meeting format, and hosting dry-run preparation meetings.
DIVERSE COMMUNITIES OUTREACH
Equitable and accessible communications
The CPOG team has “boots-on-the-ground” bilingual Latino community liaisons with street, highway, and rail construction experience to engage underserved and traditionally hard-to-reach populations (such as seniors, low-income, and monolingual) with project messages and information sensitive to their communications and cultural needs.
Knowing where the heaviest concentrations of diverse audiences are, who they are, and how they communicate is key to developing an equitable, accessible, and successful communications strategy that addresses diverse communities outreach. The demographics drive appropriate language skills, outreach, and communications tactics to address the needs of each neighborhood in a project corridor.
SPECIAL EVENTS
It’s always a good time for celebration
Events are an opportunity to introduce the client’s projects, programs, and initiatives to the community it serves, showcase the benefits, and thank the community for its partnership.
CPOG begins the event planning with a kick-off meeting to define the event concept, understand the purpose and goal, and identify the target audience. We advance planning by developing a master plan including venue location, date, theme, decorations, speakers, entertainment, publicity, sponsors, staff needed to manage the event, and the event budget.
CPOG has extensive experience in planning for and executing events including groundbreakings, ribbon-cuttings, milestone celebrations, press conferences, industry summits and forums, general assemblies, educational seminars, business expos, and virtual events.
CANVASSING
Knock-knock
CPOG staff are specialists in facilitating community dialogue about complex and sensitive issues and managing project, programs, and initiatives. Our canvass teams are highly skilled and strategic, with extensive experience in grassroots outreach and persuasion techniques. We conduct comprehensive training before canvassing starts to ensure that we are an extension of the client at every door. The key to successful canvassing is having genuine conversations and taking the time to understand and educate stakeholders.
DIGITAL OUTREACH
What’s your @
CPOG creates and brands social media presence for its clients to maximize outreach efforts and reach target audiences. We utilize all platforms including e-newsletters, blogs, online surveys, text messaging, and social media outlets including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok.
Developing a cohesive voice across all digital platforms is key to engagement. The voice should be personal, relatable, reliable, informed, and empowered to help. We also utilize targeted conversion ads and boosted posts to geo-target to a project location and demographics.
MEDIA RELATIONS
Telling your story
Our staff have extensive relevant media relations experience from writing press releases and media advisories to securing placements in print and television. Our experience spans surface transportation, transit, rail, toll facilities, and aviation in all phases of projects, from planning and environmental to design, construction, and operations.
CPOG explores opportunities with on-demand platforms to include in our digital advertising. We also use paid media and identify outlets specific to the client.
CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS
Ready to respond
We know that every crisis is different and requires a unique response. It is vital to have a plan in place so that we are prepared to act when confronted with the unexpected.
Our approach to any crisis includes:
- Identifying and defining the crisis
- Assigning a spokesperson
- Crafting the message
- Communicating with the public
- Monitoring the situation and providing updates
- Closing with an incident summary
- Evaluating our efforts
CPOG staff have direct experience dealing with a crisis, are well-versed in crafting the appropriate response and are media savvy.
PHOTOGRAPHY & vIDEOGRAPHY
A picture is worth a thousand words
Video is an integral part of any outreach effort. We use video to inform and educate stakeholders about a project and help them to better understand information through a visual lens.We also leverage this asset to support outreach through a project’s website and existing social media platforms.
Internally we produce videos including “man on the street” and Biteables to create simple branded explainer videos for our clients.
CPOG works with industry experts to providing
cutting edge, high-impact video and photography services including 3D modeling, animation, and virtual reality.
INTERACTIVE MAPS
Real-time closures, detours, and updates
To improve mobility throughout a project corridor during construction, CPOG uses map apps including Waze, Google, and Apple to share real-time closures and detours and project updates.
These interactive maps allow us to provide real-time information to stakeholders via their desktop or laptop, mobile device, and on text alerts, and it is user-friendly and provides us with metrics such as how many project stakeholders opened and viewed the mapp app.
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
I’m just a bill, sitting on Capitol Hill
CPOG works with our clients to support communications with federal, state, and local elected officials. We often prepare key message points as well as policy and issue briefings, coordinate attendance/participation in a related special event, provide project presentations, or provide project information to be shared with respective constituents.
EVALUATION
In the end, was it worth it
As part of our best communications practices, CPOG uses tools to define,measure,and evaluate the success of our outreach efforts and provide data and metrics to support recommendations and refine our approach. Implementing feedback mechanisms and evaluation tools to measure effectiveness and gauge public perception allows us to remain nimble and responsive to the needs of a project’s diverse stakeholders.