About – Thorne PR

Who we are

Duncan Thorne founded the eponymous agency in 2008.

His career began with postgraduate training at The Times and The Journalism Centre, Harlow College – Britain’s oldest journalism school – before working at Guardian newspapers and freelancing nationally.

He is a housing specialist with experience spanning over 20 years in private and public sectors. Key projects include in-house management of Bradford Council’s £1.2bn ‘Birth of a New City’ regeneration and housing masterplan; large scale voluntary transfers for both Bradford and Liverpool Councils; and, mergers and organisational restructures.

He works for a range of registered providers and consortiums providing advisory services to create communications strategies that manage positive and negative crisis issues.

Long-established relationships with housing’s leading editors and reporters results in his work regularly appearing in all sector titles as well as local and national media across print, online, radio and television

What we do

We offer a highly organised, professional service that delivers results every month, year-on-year for all our housing clients.

Excellent people skills are a key part of our offering.

We operate directly at executive level to set the strategy before working closely with departmental teams to deliver plans.

We do this by providing a clear-eyed, common sense approach that is well thought through.

An agency of strong independent financial standing with high quality management standards, we operate transparently with clear targets and measures in place to offer an outstanding return on investment

Our approach

Analysis

By getting to know you, questioning, understanding and reviewing your organisation

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First of all we invest time getting to know your organisation, listening carefully and getting close to the business to unearth exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

We question and challenge where necessary

– What you want to achieve and why?
– Who are you targeting?
– What is the story you want to tell?
– What are your key messages?

We also review all your existing communications and their suitability.

Strategy

Underpins all communications and is aligned to meet your corporate plan objectives

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Our analysis lets us develop a strategic approach that is fit for purpose - one that delivers your objectives.

This concentrates on:

– Knowing your objective
– What do you want to achieve?
– Identifying the audience
– Establishing the best reach
– Creating key messages

From this we devise the content and delivery plan.

Delivery

Using the most appropriate services and channels to reach your target audiences

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We implement the agreed plan using the most appropriate services and platforms by asking ‘what is the best way to reach the target audience?’

Detailed planning in the strategy phase allows for a structured and consistent editorial profile that resonates with the target audience whether it is external media, internal staff or directly to stakeholders.

Crucially, our work is time efficient, minimising the input we require from clients so not to impinge on their core daily activities.

Measure

Everything in a meaningful way to understand the impact

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Reviewing and measuring results forms a vital part of our work.

We us specialist software to collate and measure our editorial coverage and apply AMEC’s Barcelona Principles 3.0 to report to clients the impact our communications work is having.

It allows us to better measure and clearly understand the outcomes of our media coverage while accurately proving the value of our work as a crucial business asset in a meaningful and credible way.

Innovation

Our clients’ needs are constantly changing so in turn, we continually seek new and better ways to serve them

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The rapidly fragmenting media landscape, 24-hour rolling news and the dangers posed by fake news requires us to regularly assess the best ways of communicating.

We monitor and test the latest technologies, explore how best to use data and stay at the forefront of digital and social media advancements while evaluating their relevance and potential impact on each client’s communication strategy.

We make recommendations supported by a clear business rationale, to deliver results.

Vision

Our vision exceeds more than just financial success.

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It encompasses managing risk, operating responsibly and enhancing our reputation - all vital parts of our business.

Our key values focus on customer satisfaction, quality, reliability, continuous improvement, encouraging innovation and delivering genuine value to do things better.

We believe success stems from collaboration. We work with businesses to develop long-term partnerships, which can be seen in the length of time we have been retained by our clients – many for over a decade.

Some of our partners

We build long-term partnerships with our clients.

Our longest include Torus (previously Liverpool Mutual Homes) since 2008 and from 2011 with HMS and JV North