While countless media and PR firms inside the Beltway simply dissolve with the passing of each election cycle, Congress or Administration, Strategic Media Inc. enjoys a 16-year track record of excellence creating and managing highly effective media and communications campaigns for corporate, political, association and private clients in Washington, D.C. and state capitols across America.
SMI and its principal, Gordon Hensley, have been an integral part of award-winning strategic communications efforts that have helped healthcare providers secure billions in new federal and state funding, shoot down governors’ proposed cuts to key state eldercare programs, and advance state medical malpractice reforms. And in addition to making a key difference in competitive late-cycle statewide GOP campaigns, op-eds and other content prepared by SMI for private clients have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and major metro dailies across the nation.
The fact that generally half of SMI clients at any given time are mid-size and large public relations entities who retain the firm to help devise communications strategy, create media content, or write major speeches and op-eds for their own existing clients, speaks volumes about the quality and skill level associated with Hensley's work.
Rejecting the traditional post-campaign/Capitol Hill route of apprenticing at large DC and NYC pr firms, Hensley has long believed maintaining independent vendor status not only preserves absolute objectivity in assessing performance when working as part of a broader consulting team, but results in more accountability and better outcomes for clients. As 100% of SMI's business is referral-driven, this provides Hensley with the flexibility to work for the private sector, association and campaign clients he chooses to work with -- a critical variable when it comes to enthusiasm for the mission, and going that extra mile to achieve a business objective.
Whether working for a client directly, as part of a team, or managing other vendors, Hensley has a longstanding reputation as a positive, lead-by-example professional who insists upon results and is blunt when assessing problems. Hensley's longtime operational premise is that a sustained, across-the-board message offensive is pivotal to achieving a public policy objective, defeating an opponent, and maximizing a client's investment in lobbying, research, grass roots and paid media.
He places a premium on what he calls "The Four Pillars of Successful Message Management”: Salient research, a concise rationale, message clarity, and dominating message output via all available platforms.
Surrounded in his Old Town Alexandria office by a variety of TV and computer monitors to follow breaking news, C-Span Senate and House floor action, key wire, RSS and other online news sources, Hensley produces timely, high quality content for real-time use in clients’ niche news marketplace. Proactively shaping the discussion, quickly and effectively reacting to breaking developments, and staying ahead of the news curve in our ‘permanent news cycle’ environment is a longtime hallmark of Hensley’s public affairs and campaign work.
Needless to say, Hensley’s operational and business model is not premised upon sitting around DC green rooms chasing cable interviews in hope of business -- it’s about getting the best possible product, when it’s needed, out the door and in a client's message mix. The bottom line? SMI holds an enormous competitive advantage over standard PR firms as the velocity of news coverage continues to increase, as the news marketplace itself becomes more fragmented and diffuse, and as greater skill level is required.
Depending upon the project or nature of client need, SMI partners on a bipartisan basis with a variety of other specialists, including GOP and Democratic research firms, pollsters, media production specialists and others. TV spots for health care clients like the Texas Health Care Association (THCA) and Louisiana Nursing Home Association (LNHA), for example, were produced collaboratively with DMM and Schmidt Public Affairs.