Reading, Seeing, Hearing, Experiencing: How Information Shapes PR Strategy

Communication strategy has evolved dramatically in recent years, requiring professionals to understand not just how to craft messages, but how those messages are received by diverse audiences. Joshua Altman, Managing Director of Beltway Media in Washington DC, takes us on a fascinating journey through modern strategic communications, sharing invaluable insights from his experience working with both government agencies and private sector clients.

At the heart of effective communication lies understanding what people "read, see, hear, and experience." Altman explains to host Peter Woolfolk how behavioral science principles reveal that audiences need to encounter messages 7-14 times before truly internalizing them, making strategic repetition across multiple touchpoints essential. The conversation examines how dramatically communication approaches must differ when targeting 100 key decision-makers versus 330 million Americans, illustrating the importance of tailoring strategies to specific audience parameters.

Having worked as a contractor for the Department of Justice and Department of Commerce, Altman offers rare insights into the unique challenges of government communications. He describes the evolution from expensive satellite systems to modern digital platforms, highlighting how technology has democratized access while reducing costs. When working with clients starting from what they perceive as a "blank slate," Altman demonstrates how identifying and leveraging existing assets—from email lists to professional networks—can build confidence and create foundations for effective communication programs.

Throughout the discussion, Altman emphasizes his role as a "fractional Chief Communications Officer" rather than simply a task vendor, integrating deeply with clients to shape perception and build trust over the long term. The conversation also explores open-source tools that can compete with expensive platforms, making sophisticated communication possible even with limited budgets. As Altman summarizes with his guiding principle: "Communicate strategically, not voluminously"—quality messaging will always triumph over sheer volume.

Ready to transform your organization's communication strategy? Subscribe to the Public Relations Review Podcast for more expert insights, and visit publicrelationsreviewpodcast.com to share your thoughts on this episode.

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Transcript

Announcer: 0:36

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, Peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 0:56

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now, apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide and recently Feedspot listed this podcast as number 13 on its top 70 best public relations podcasts in the United States. So thank you to all of our guests and listeners for your continued support and if you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review. Welcome, and here's the question for the audience Does your business or organization have an individual responsible for managing all external and internal communication strategies? Is it important? Who oversees all messaging and media, from investor relations to crisis communications and more? My guest today considers how projects and programs come together for clients to receive information, be that reading, seeing, hearing or experiences. Joshua Altman is the Managing Director of Beltway Media in Washington DC. His experience includes harnessing data-driven methods, behavioral science principles which provide an edge in public affairs policy, and crafting compelling narratives. So, joshua, thank you so very much for joining me today.

Joshua Altman: 2:12

Thank you for having me.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:14

The question now becomes how do you begin to use, how clients receive, information to begin crafting strategies behind behavioral sciences and so forth, to have them strategically and effectively deliver their messages?

Joshua Altman: 2:29

I think that's a great place to really start this, because you're asking how we kind of begin a project how are they getting their information? So it starts with a conversation with that client. You know what are they doing and in some cases the answer is actually a blank slate. They're really not doing much in terms of their communication, especially in an integrated way. So, in terms of how they're getting information, sometimes it's just you know of their communication, especially in an integrated way. So, in terms of how they're getting information, sometimes it's just you know their customers, their clients, talking to them. Other times you know they're running LinkedIn ads or you know doing the occasional. You know blue sky, twitter X post and they're just looking at.

Joshua Altman: 3:14

You know reposts and comments and they're just looking at you know reposts and comments, and that's how they're getting the information. And for us, we look at that when we're beginning to craft these strategies, using things like behavioral science, which really just is a fancy way of saying understanding why individuals and groups act the way they act and groups act the way they act, and from there we can start working with them to get usually better and more information, to start informing better decisions.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:54

So does it also depend exactly crafting what the specific message not only the specific message is going to be and how it's going to be crafted, but also how it's going to be delivered to their audiences?

Joshua Altman: 4:06

Always matters. One of the things we talk about a lot at my firm is what people read, see, hear and experience. So if you are a federal agency and your audience is 300-plus million American adults or 330-ish million Americans overall, that's going to be very different than if you are a b2b firm working specifically in the energy industry. So kind of who their audience is and what they get is very different. And if you're a federal agency and you have, you know, hundreds of millions of people in your audience, you got to cover a lot more bases than, say, that b2b energy firm which you know. You know where those trade shows are. You know who the decision makers that companies are. You can get a list of companies that you are trying to reach out to and know who your audience is. You know one firm I spoke with at one they were saying we kind of know who we want. We have a list of 100 decision makers who we're targeting.

Joshua Altman: 5:09

Like well, that's a small audience, right, that's very small. Like you got a, you know sometimes emails you're looking for you know. You know, depending on, you're going for an opens. You're obviously looking for a lot more. You know 30 is percent, maybe 40 on the low end. That's 40 people. It's that particular audience, so your open rate better be really good if you're targeting that. You know using emails. As opposed to getting 40 people out of 330 million plus Americans Big difference in your rate there.

Joshua Altman: 5:50

So who they're trying to reach out to and kind of what they hear back from is important. And the flip side of that, when you're dealing with a company like that you know, b2b Energy firm, with a list of 100 decision makers, it could be very personalized. Like, your feedback is you know, we know that. You know, joe Smith told us on this date that this is what they're looking for. Like, your feedback is you know, we know that you know Joe Smith told us on this date that this is what they're looking for. Like, we can work with that so you can really get personalized, actionable feedback when you have such a small list, which is an advantage, but it is a very small list.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:25

You know, one of the things you brought up, of course, is working with the federal government, and I don't believe we've had a guest on here that has actually spoken in detail about working not only with the federal government, but also with and for the federal government. I've done both. Let's talk about the federal government for a moment or so, as to how there are different audiences and how you have to do more for them to get whatever their messages are out.

Joshua Altman: 6:56

Yeah, so I was a federal contractor at two different agencies, the Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce, and with that you know. So I was not a federal employee, I was a contractor. I was a subcontractor. Okay.

Joshua Altman: 7:13

So when you're a federal employee, there are different things going on. As you know, in my role as a contractor, as a subcontractor, you have to reach a lot of people. Like I said, you know there are about 300-ish million American adults. Add in, you know, children, you're up to about 330 million or so, plus or minus a couple million, and reaching them requires you've got to hit everyone you have.

Joshua Altman: 7:41

In terms of the US, these agencies covered everywhere, from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific. We covered Guam because we had people there and we had to communicate with that population, with that audience. So it's a lot in terms of just geography. And of course, you're thinking the Internet is borderless but people are different across geographies and you got to figure out what you got to do to reach them. Your audiences are, of course, very different.

Joshua Altman: 8:30

We're not trying to make tools that anyone in the US would use and be comfortable accessing, which can be a lot when you have that many people of that level of diversity and I think a lot of agencies really do a great job doing it, you know, considering that it's a big lift to reach that many people who have, you know, just diverse experiences and backgrounds, who you know need to get information in very different ways. So we would, of course, do things you know, just like anything you know commercial business would do. You know we had you, we had images, we had infographics. If we had people who were going to in-person events, they brought one-pagers with them. I worked with the agency to do the content and design, so that would work with people who maybe weren't online as much.

Peter Woolfolk: 9:31

Well, one of the things that I think that, because I work for the Department of Education, and one of the things is that, yes, there are a lot of people there, but also some of those that audience can be broken down to smaller groups One of the things I had to do was to put together a satellite meeting for community college people around the country. Well, that was a much smaller audience. You know, I had to hook up the satellite in Washington and get it fed around to all over the country. You know the big part of it was, you know, where am I going to get this thing downloaded?

Peter Woolfolk: 10:03

Well, the thing I found out was that, you know, a lot of community colleges do have satellite systems where they do pull down information, and there was an office of community colleges in the department. So, working with them, I knew who I could call on to pull the signal down. But then there's also the question of getting a signal up to them. So I learned a lot, you know, over there. And also the diversification of the audiences. Yes, I mean the federal government reaches the entire population for some things, depending upon what it is, might be just a smaller part of the population, but the government. Working for them is a whole different system as compared to working for the private industry people.

Joshua Altman: 10:50

Yes, and you know you were dealing with. You know satellite uplinks and downloads More recently. You know we do webinars, just like.

Peter Woolfolk: 10:57

That's right with agencies.

Joshua Altman: 11:00

It's, you know, zooms and team webinars and go-to meetings, and you know it's a very different situation. So you don't have to worry as much now about, you know, dealing with those satellite links which, of course, were very expensive. Running webinars still has costs associated, of course, but in terms of budget-conscious spending taxpayer dollars, it is a much lower number of dollars when you are working on a GoToMeeting or Microsoft Teams webinar or Zoom than you are when you're trying to do satellite uplinks and downloads.

Peter Woolfolk: 11:38

Well, yeah, I was at the beauty of my age when I was doing that, you know, I mean that was a big thing. Then You're absolutely right, it was, and it wasn't that long ago.

Joshua Altman: 11:50

And it wasn't that long ago.

Peter Woolfolk: 11:51

And it wasn't that long ago, I remember doing them.

Joshua Altman: 11:54

I remember earlier in my career we would use satellites and special virtual systems. You had to call it and get special internet for it. It was not as easy as it is today at all, which I think is great, because it means private companies and government can be in more places and reach people much more directly than when you had to be at the community college, where they had the satellite connection available.

Peter Woolfolk: 12:24

That's right, you know. One of the other things I mentioned in the opening is that you began to craft strategies and you also used some behavioral sciences in some of the projects.

Joshua Altman: 12:46

Talk a little bit about that, how that interacted, how that was involved in how you developed some programs. Yeah, so behavioral science covers a lot of things, things like decision-making biases, you know, social influences and just, of course, our habits. So when we're kind of using that, we think about, you know, in terms of communication, such as, you know, corporate or government communications how people are going to get that information and what makes sense to them. So that frame, that message, how are they getting it? But a great example that's kind of easy to understand in a podcast setting is you can't just say it once, you can't just say it twice. There's an often repeated statistic and it might be apocryphal, especially it's changed over time that people need to hear things seven to 14 times to really internalize an act, and that's been repeated for a long time. So we think how can people get that information 7 to 14 times or as often as possible? And now one thing I really like to focus on is how can we get it out there over as many touch points? As possible.

Joshua Altman: 13:59

So of course, phones, desktops, computers, tablets are where people are really getting things. Tv, of course, still very expensive and not used the most by a lot of the businesses I'm working for and a lot of you know the smaller government agencies are using it less. Uh. You see a lot for um, medicare, open enrollment. You see the government using uh tv, but for me it was mostly, you know, getting it out there online. So it's using things like paid ads, which there are different biases towards paid ads. Either oh, it's an ad, I ignore it. Then that was kind of sneaky. They used sponsored content and it was light gray that it said sponsored, hard to see on white, I'm not sure that's a little deceptive. So that was a different bias towards it. So you've just got to really be repetitive with that and that's something we try over and over again to be effective doing.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:05

You know, one of the things that as I listen to you talk about that, that comes to mind that some years ago I was doing some lobbying for AT&T here in Nashville because they wanted to get cable systems into all over the state. But the biggest issue for them were and where the tough spots came were rural areas. You know you don't have a lot of people, but you've got to put out a lot of cables to get the system there and the government required it. So there was a lot of negotiation that had to go on about that, you know, in terms of how people receive it, but it was imperative that they did if they wanted to receive the license to do that. So you know they had to sit down with the government to decide what they were going to do and, you know, make the arrangements. I mean that's the bottom line. So those are some of the other things that have to be.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:59

When you talk about experience you have to deal with. You know how do people get their information? Yes, I mean they get the newspaper, but the government. If you want to have that cable TV system out there which they wanted them to do because the government also uses it, then you've got to put the wires out there, like it or not, and expensive or not, and you find some way to pay for it. But it has to be done.

Joshua Altman: 16:21

Yeah, actually I've always found the economics and social area around wiring Today it's fiber, but getting that cable laid across the entire country just to be one of the most interesting communications challenges. I think it's been done very well because we have, you know, first cable, first phone, then cable TV and now, you know, high-speed Internet across a lot of the country.

Joshua Altman: 16:53

And it's a lot of land to cover. So you would know, having done that with AT&T, it's just, even in one state it's a lot to cover and we do a great job Overall. There are, of course, patches where it's not present or it's slower, but over time it does reach.

Peter Woolfolk: 17:10

Mm-hmm, tell us a little bit about, let's say, maybe some of the more compelling projects that you've been working on that had the biggest mountain to climb to solve the problem. You know but through you know, your experiences and joining with other colleagues, that you did come up with a way to get the job done. Have you had those kind of experiences?

Joshua Altman: 17:32

Yeah. So there are probably two big you know buckets companies will fall into. One is they are a total blank slate, they really haven't done much in terms of their communications, and the other is they've done a lot and it's a little disjointed, and both of those present two very different challenges. So let's talk a little about you know, the blank slate one. You know they're a company. They have been around for you know maybe 10-ish years, but outside of their kind of small community they're not as well-known as they'd like to be.

Joshua Altman: 18:23

A lot of that's kind of working with them and building up audiences, because you kind of have to have that first. So we look at do they have email lists Like what can we use that they have already in place, because they're really not starting as much from zero as they often think. They've collected emails over however many years of clients, of vendors, of whomever they work with. They have their LinkedIn networks. They might have a Twitter X page that they occasionally used. So what can we do with that to make it work a little better and leverage existing things?

Joshua Altman: 19:18

And once we kind of talk with a client about that I was working with a firm that did a little bit of work in the energy sector firm that did a little bit of work in the energy sector. I don't want to give them away because I don't want to disclose what they've done, but they had a lot of that because they've collected these things and once we told them here's what we can do, they were a lot more comfortable, because when they think they have nothing this is true with a lot of companies, not just this one they get a little nervous. Mm-hmm.

Joshua Altman: 20:00

And when they're nervous, you know they may make. You know this goes back to behavioral science. You know irrational decisions are based on poor information. People are more comfortable in their decisions. Mm-hmm.

Joshua Altman: 20:16

So we took everything they had kind of assigned some value to it. Okay, we can. This is a really valuable email list you have, really valuable email list you have. We can use that and start creating email sequences for everything from onboarding, you know, to get people on, and also just email marketing, you know, tell people what you're doing, just updates, mm-hmm. And once we kind of started from that, it was able to grow a little more.

Peter Woolfolk: 21:32

One of the things that I think has come out in terms of what you sort of just described there, and I think it's important for public relations people to understand, is that part of your job is problem solving. How do you help a client get over this particular hump or clear this particular hurdle to get this particular message out, or whatever it happens to be? So the more and the wider your experiences have been, the more exposure you've had to a lot of operations and processes and electronics and computers and so forth really helps to solve those problems, because that's why they have you there. How can you help me get this job done? And the better prepared you are, the better off you're going to be.

Joshua Altman: 22:19

Yes, and you know we are, you know we look at things as a particular job. Of course they have a goal they want to accomplish a particular job. Of course they have a goal they want to accomplish, but we think of it. You know, we are, you know, chief communications officers for our clients, uh, which means that we are fractional.

Joshua Altman: 22:36

So it is much more. We are integrated into what you do. It's not you know we are here to do your email marketing. You know we are really here to shape perception and build trust, maintain that trust long term. So it's not we are just here to launch a product. We are just here to manage your social media. It's how are all these things working together?

Peter Woolfolk: 23:05

Now have you also been in a position where you had to introduce them to new programs and or platforms that could facilitate the work that they're doing?

Joshua Altman: 23:17

All the time, okay, all the time. It's a very common thing, and you know, one of the reasons for that is you know, we are the communications experts.

Joshua Altman: 23:31

We're the experts at communicating your expertise. You are the expert in whatever it is you do, be it healthcare, energy, it, government. We don't expect you to know every platform or every tool out there, just like we are not experts in, you know, performing surgery if you're a healthcare client Like we just aren't because we are not experts in performing surgery if you're a healthcare client, we just aren't because we are not surgeons. So all the time it's kind of bringing them in and there are ways we do that to introduce these new products or new platforms for them and usually it's easy. There isn't a lot of pushback in general because you know we're not saying use product A or use this email delivery system. It's much more. We you know like using a couple of these you know for email and we'll give a list.

Joshua Altman: 24:28

I'm not trying to endorse any particular product or service third-party service here so I'm not going to start selling them, but here's a list of three or four that we've used.

Joshua Altman: 24:40

Here are the benefits and drawbacks to each, because every platform has ups and downs. Nothing will do everything and nothing will do it all great. So we lay it out that way and I found that when you provide those options not limitless options, but a discrete list of three or four that kind of do similar things you know, email marketing or social media management or research, if you know, we're in an early stage and we kind of want to just know the lay of the industry, get that lay of the land there, how we do it, and then they feel they are a little more comfortable and a lot of times I get a response of well, it doesn't really matter to us which platform you use, as long as we get a result. They're a little less concerned with is it product A or product B, they just want their thing done. They don't care if I use Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Joshua Altman: 25:50

It makes no difference to them who my email provider is Same thing. They just want to see that value come out.

Peter Woolfolk: 26:00

Well, and I think it's important, as we just mentioned, that you do point those things out to them, because a lot of folks who have been in some of these jobs, when you talk about the government, they've been there for years and you know maybe they don't get the exposure to the different platforms that are coming out, because maybe their agency just hadn't had a need for them and you know they continue to do things the way we as a lot of folks. Well, this is the way we've always done it. Well, maybe that started back, you know, years ago and things have changed and so they do need things. I mean, yes, it's expeditious, it's there to help you do your job better and faster, I guess is the best way I put it to people and the government, for the most part, can't afford them because, I mean, some of this stuff is really not outrageous in cost.

Joshua Altman: 26:58

It's just effective in terms of being able to use it and it helps you get your job done quicker, faster and, in some cases, better it is. And you know you kind of touched on, you know kind of laying these options out. That's what I do in pretty much every situation with a client or on a project I'm working on is. You know, I start with my very first conversation before they are even officially a client at that point, and it says my job is not to tell you only things you want to hear, it's to give you options, it's to wait, tell you pros and cons, it's to tell you challenges and help you make a decision. And I'm here to work with you through that, but not only to tell you the things that you want to hear. And I think that does help build some confidence that they know okay, from the very beginning. It's not all rosy. There are pros and cons across the board and I will be very upfront with that.

Peter Woolfolk: 27:56

And I'm glad you mentioned that too, because that was the very next thing I was going to say that all decisions have consequences. So the more you know about what it is you want to get and you want to have done and how you want it to be done, here are some of the platforms that can help you get there. Maybe there's some pros and cons a little bit about this one or that one, but you know, rather than you're still using some. You know old equipment. Here's some new stuff that is better, is faster and it's making your life a lot easier.

Joshua Altman: 28:29

That's what a lot of folks like to hear yeah, and I think what they like to hear is that, plus, you know especially you mentioned this- lower cost a lot of a lot of these services. You know they're out there and they seem like it's just another subscription. I know we all have subscription fatigue, but they can when used judiciously, improve results. It doesn't mean go buy every subscription to every service, but the right ones can really help you, and some of these products do make a huge difference.

Peter Woolfolk: 29:13

Well, you know the other thing too, that you know particularly whether it's the government or otherwise. There are a lot of platforms that are out there that do excellent jobs for you, and they happen to be free. Oh yes, I do my recording. I'm recording on Audacity right now. It's one of the better audio platforms in the world. As a matter of fact, I've been using it for years and it is maybe number one in some people's eyes and number two in some others, but it has a lot of features, it can do a lot of things for you and the cost is zero.

Joshua Altman: 29:46

Yeah, I've always been a fan of free, especially open source, software and tools. Some people knock it because, oh, it's free. I'm like, yeah, it's free.

Peter Woolfolk: 30:00

And it's good.

Joshua Altman: 30:01

That's the other part of it Well, some of them are great.

Peter Woolfolk: 30:05

Right.

Joshua Altman: 30:06

Some of them I wouldn't want to use. Some of them I wouldn't want to use. But the great ones really are on par or, in some cases, better than subscription options. They might require a little more technical knowledge to use, but some of these free, open source platforms are great. They're out there.

Peter Woolfolk: 30:30

And they've been around for years, which sort of validates how well they've been working.

Joshua Altman: 30:35

And you know you look at some of the platforms, things like Audacity, others out there. You know some web hosting content management systems. They have great communities behind them that do this open source work and some of them, some of these platforms, actually have resources in major companies that, since they use them, those big companies put teams on maintaining them.

Peter Woolfolk: 31:09

Well, Jonathan, this has been a great discussion on some of the things that you've done and how you've gone about doing those. Any closing remarks for the audience?

Joshua Altman: 31:18

Yeah, I would always say, you know, one thing we talk about is, you know, communicate strategically, not voluminously. Be smart about your message.

Peter Woolfolk: 31:31

Well, I certainly tip my hat and go along with that one. That's a hugely important thing to say, and let me say this I want to thank you for coming on to the Public Relations Review Podcast and sharing your wisdom with our audience.

Joshua Altman: 31:45

Thank, you for having me.

Peter Woolfolk: 31:46

And I'm sure you're going to get a great deal from this. From my audience, I'd like to say thank you for having me, and I'm sure they're going to get a great deal from this. From my audience, I'd like to say thank you for joining us once again. You continue to make us a global podcast and if you've enjoyed the show, we'd certainly like for you to go to the publicrelationsreviewpodcastcom website and leave a review for us, and also share the fact that you've enjoyed this particular episode with your friends and colleagues, and listen to us for the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast.

Announcer: 32:20

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.