Time to Meet The Guru!

Debra Osborne Brown, APR, is a proven public relations and communications specialist. With more than 17 years experience creating strategic communications campaigns, carefully crafting meaningful messages, and writing articles that get published, she founded The PR Guru in 1999 to help organizations build credibility, confidence, and trust through communications.

Over the course of her career, Debbie has gained a wealth of experience managing all forms of public relations and communications for national and international organizations including the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, American Red Cross, CARE International, and IBM.

Debbie has been helping organizations focus on reputation management - going beyond brand management to building a strong reputation and relationships to successfully weather challenges and mobilize support when needed. Here is a very small demonstration:

• Strategic Counsel
  Counseled with the internal communications team for CARE International to create and carefully craft highly sensitive messages regarding new compensation structures to designated national and international employees.
• Website Design and Content Development
  Completely redesigned Unishippers’ public website and began a search engine key word advertising campaign. This resulted in an increase of visits to the site by 177% in 2003, and an increase in sales leads from the site by 410%.
• Crisis Communications
  Served as spokesperson for Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta during the E. Coli 0157:H7 crisis during the summer of 1998. Created a process to streamline the calls from local and national media and distribute the condition of the affected patients while respecting their right for privacy.
• Media Relations
  Created a strategic media relations campaign for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to help them distribute the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) in a multi-media format. We re-vamped the MMWR portion of the web site, created a weekly video news release, and produced information packets consisting of fact sheets, VNR scripts, Q&As, local contacts, etc.
• Internet Marketing
  Co-conducted an aggressive, multimillion-dollar Internet marketing campaign to launch the largest healthcare exclusive eRecruiting site, MiracleWokers.com. Successfully created and managed a viral marketing effort to draw nurses to the site during Nurses Week. We expected 200 qualified nurse sign-ups, we received 2,000, an all-time company high.
• Media Training
  Created and conducted personalized media training sessions for executive staff for Egleston Children’s Hospital, Coliseum Medical Center, and Unishippers.
• By-lined Articles
  Published more than 37 articles, both online and in magazines on a variety of topics.
• Training the Future
  Currently serves as a Professor at Plymouth State University teaching college students how to effectively communicate in a global business environment.

Debbie grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, spent 15 years practicing PR in Tampa, Atlanta and Salt Lake City prior to moving to New Hampshire. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Public Relations from the University of Florida, a Master’s in English and Technical Communication from University of North Carolina's East Carolina campus, and is Accredited in Public Relations from the Public Relations Society of America.