Create A Direct Mail Campaign That People Will Notice

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Direct mail is a very competitive. And if you are selling a service, a direct mail campaign needs to stand out and be compelling. You can do traditional mailings using a fancy postcard, or a letter. That is one way, but it will get lost with all the other mailers. If you hire a publicity agency in Orange County, or find a national publicity agency, you might get some very creative shop that wants to develop a mail campaign with a gimmick. For example if you are a financial advisor the public relations agency might mail a small baseball bat in a box with a clever headline that reads “We Hit Home Runs For Our Clients”, or “How NOT to strike out in Retirement”. Although these concepts might win awards at a banquet for publicity Orange County agencies, it isn’t going to bring customers to the client.

You might even try some publicity techniques. Get articles or press releases written about the unique direct mail campaign. But are these really going to get you customers? Maybe, but it isn’t going to make you stand out. So what will? And how do you create a campaign that gets results?

email videosThere are several things you can do. One for example is to send prospects and current customers an email video. Yes, a video. This is just one example of being creative in a different and less costly venture than mailing the baseball bat.

I am not against direct mail campaigns. They should be part of your overall campaign. When you include a video with your mail campaign, you now have set your company apart from the masses. Plus, you will have a different perspective by the viewer. No longer do you need to rely on that single sheet to tell your story, but you can tell it on video.

Just remember to keep it short. These are sales tools, not feature films. Your potential customer will watch the video, if short, and will listen if the information is both entertaining and factual. Here are some sites to learn more about sending email videos: Image Mind, if you use Outlook 2003 try this link, Google has a list of many email video companies to consider.

If all else fails, give us a call. We’re here to make great things happen for your company.

Re-Branding for an old Name in Snack Foods

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Building a brand takes a well planned and coordinated effort by the publicity agency, the pr clients and in most cases the marketing department who develops the pr marketing strategies. But when you need to re-establish a name, that can become a different challenge.

branding with pr marketing strategiesRecently we were contracted to help market the Laura Scudder’s brand. Many of you may not remember this name, but it was one of the best known brands in Snack Foods during the early 50’s through the mid 70’s. Although the original company started in the late 1920’s, it wasn’t really popular until the early 50’s. If you are a PR client who was in business during that era, or publicity agency in Orange County during the 60’s or 70’s then you know the name.

In order to re-build back the name recognition, we began with the logo. Keeping the scrip style type is important. The style that is used today is a modification of what was used in the late 80’s. The publicity it garnered over the years was positive, so it was decided to continue with that font. The images will now include many of the “past” illustrations, such as the Mayflower sailing ship, which was used during the 60’s. Other designs will also be picked up from the era past.

No matter the product, re-branding a name requires the same tactics as it would when building a new brand. The only advantage, the name Laura Scudder’s had a position in the marketplace, we just need to re-ignite that name and image through a publicity effort. The literature we created for the newer items, such as the dry dip mixes capitalized on the freshness and the original illustrations from the packages.

As we progress further with the branding of the Laura Scudder’s name, I’ll keep you posted with the pr marketing strategies and creative we use.

Newsletters Tips for Publicity

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Another great topic is newsletters. They are excellent communicators to keep potential pr clients and customers aware of the products and services offered.pr newsletters

It doesn’t matter if you are a national pr client, or local publicity Orange County agency, newsletters should be included in your web marketing campaign. Newsletters need to be on-going, just like any ad campaign, or publicity campaign. When you start a publicity newsletter for your pr client, or are doing one for your Publicity Orange County Agency, make sure someone is assigned to handle the task.

Writing Tips for Newsletters:

  • Tip for the month. No matter the industry, it is easy to develop at least a dozen tips to help pr clients or customers improve their business.
  • Have examples of how these tips have helped a pr client or how a publicity campaign has created awareness for your service or products.
  • Create a TO-DO list. Make a list of important things that will help a pr client during an interview, or how to prepare a press kit.

If you use your web site as the main vehicle for marketing the newsletter, be sure to capture some information about the company signing up for it. Most important, have someone follow up to the newsletter list every 6 months to make sure that contact is still at the company. Keeping your data current is as important as the information you write.

Local Publicity and Speaking Engagements

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All pr agencies, whether local in Orange County or national will tell you that one of the best ways to gain publicity and become recognized as an expert is to be a guest speaker.

For example if you are interested in finance, investing or retirement programs, or need legal guidance, you always look to the “speaker” as an expert. More often than not, that person usually gets accounts from those presentations. So if you are a pr client, or a publicity agency in Orange County, it is time to get out there and start speaking. First you do need to get prepared. So what do you do?

As with anything, you need to do your homework. Choose a topic that you have a vast amount knowledge to tell your audience. But before we go too far, here are a few tips on public speaking.

  • Practice in front of a mirror. Check to make sure your posture is good. Have good eye contact.
  • Do your presentation in front of family, or friends. Ask for criticism.
  • Practice, practice what you will say. It is good to be prepared with a speech, and it is best to be comfortable to inject some humor, or “live” comments to keep the speech fresh and entertaining.

Get more tips from other sources like Public Relations 101.

Prepare a list of different topics. Look at your market, or industry. If you have been in your industry for several years, you probably gave a lot of advice to customers or your staff over the years. Some of those pieces of advice can become great topics.

Work with your publicity agency to polish them up. If you do not have a local publicity agency in Orange County, then hire a consultant for a few days. It will be money worth spent. Get some additional points from other pr clients, or other publicity professionals. Getting people to listen will be easy once you are in front of them. So make the best of it and get out there!

Building Web Links with Publicity

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This topic can never get enough attention. The problem with web marketing, or pr marketing strategies, there are too many books, sources and people offering information and you just cannot absorb all that great stuff.

Sometimes we need to go outside for web marketing help. Even PR Clients ask us to do their web marketing knowing they cannot keep the pace and keep up with the many changes the Internet encounters almost weekly. If you are looking to do some of the web site marketing in-house, then go to sources that can guide you along. If you get too deep in this stuff, I strongly recommend sourcing this out.

One particular person who is very helpful is Aaron Wall. He is an expert on SEO and does seminars all around the country. His SEO Book is an excellent read, but again, not for the novice. PR agencies as well as pr clients doing their own pr marketing strategies, should also consider contacting a professional to get the web marketing program started. Then once implemented, you can maintain the program yourself.

His book and tips concentrate on Links. How to create them and how to get them. Sounds easy, and in a way it is. But like any project, you need to devote the time necessary to really benefit from a web marketing program. Publicity alone, and having web site alone cannot generate sales. You need to have solid pr marketing strategy to make things happen. And that’s another subject I will talk about later.

How To Market eCommerce Web Sites

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web marketing and pr marketing strategiesAfter your company has developed an eCommerce web site, you now need to attract people. Not an easy task. You probably learned the hard way, the web company you contracted doesn’t do optimizing, or web marketing. And you spent all the budget to get a great looking site. Or worse yet, you hired what you thought was a pr marketing strategy agency to do the web marketing and that turned out to be a failure. A lot of traffic, but no conversions to sales isn’t what you need.

So what do you do now? First you need to understand what web marketing and pr marketing strategies are all about.

Let’s define web traffic. This is the amount of visitors to your web site and the pages they visited. It also refers to the amount of data that visitor received from your site. You need to make sure you get reports to review the specific pages visitors viewed and how long they visited each page.

Many pr clients and web marketers get confused with “hits” and “visits”. Hits are those times people will view your site, but may move on quickly because they came upon your site by accident, or were surfing and found the site, but did not stay. This is also how you are charged when you “buy keywords” from Google, or Yahoo. They don’t care if the person clicked on your ad and didn’t buy or stay. They got paid because of the “click rate”. Don’t misunderstand these types of visitors.

Learn how to measure the visitors. For example, a) the number of page views for each visitor, b) duration of the visit, c) duration of page viewed, d) most viewed pages by the visitors and e) the source of links that lead them to your site.

Develop a solid pr marketing strategy for you eCommerce site. Here are a few tips to improve your web traffic. It should include links to and from your web site. Create promotional programs as well. Establish a newsletter for visitors to register. This can build a database of potential customers.

If you need help with any of these areas, of want to discuss your eCommerce needs, give us a call. We’re ready to help your company grow.

Marketing Strategies for Web Sites

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If you are reading this blog, then you probably have a web site. Whether you are a pr client, a pr agency, a local public relations agency in Orange County or a national company, you need to know these marketing strategies.

All companies want visitors to their site, but how many are converted to sales, buying products, or subscribing to your service? If the percentage is less than 4 or 5%, you may need to evaluate how you are using the pr marketing strategies. You have probably heard about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how it can generate traffic. Done correctly, this can improve sales. Done poorly, it is then money and time wasted.

web marketing strategySEO is one part of a comprehensive pr marketing strategy for web sites. You need to constantly update the sites pages. This can be done moderately, not complete re-designs. Next, re-evaluate the keywords, phrases and update those. Another tip is to make sure all the out bound links are still valid and are with higher page ranking sites.

Here are a few more tips for pr marketing strategies for web sites. Linking is still one of the best ways to gain a high positioning and ranking with Yahoo, Google and other search engines.

Listing your web site on the proper directories and with the major search engines is also important. These should be done by a person (webmaster), not software.

Finally, the last part of these tips is to have a business blog. Not just any blog, but one that actually speaks to your audience. Business blogging is more important today than it was just five months ago. It can be easily set-up and monitored. Writing the daily blogs might be a task for some companies, but there are professional blog writers available to help with your writing.

These are just a few suggestions. If you need professional help with your web traffic and are on a limited budget, then give us a call. We want you to be successful, let us show you how.

Web Site Marketing in Orange County

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Not all companies feel they are ready to sell to everyone who uses the Internet. The thought of someone purchasing a product that is 3,000 miles away from your pr client might be scary for some companies. Even if you are a local Orange County company, or a local Publicity Orange County company, you can do business anywhere with almost anyone.

When pr clients set up their eCommerce web site, it seems only logical that they are ready to sell across the entire Internet. This might be part of their marketing plan, or marketing strategy. Unfortunately I come across pr clients and other companies who have a web site, and maybe even a traditional brick and mortar store, but they feel selling out of their local Orange County area is too much trouble. That type of thinking is what causes companies not to grow. PR Clients need to better understand how to market themselves and use the Internet to their advantage. Think of your web site as an eBay store. If you are willing to sell something on eBay, or purchase something at one of these other web sites, then why not do the same with your products or services? When you have a product that people want, let them have the right to by locally or across the country from you. It can add up to increased sales, which will help your bottom line. That in turn can make you be more than an Orange County company, even if you still think you are only a Publicity Orange County company.

Promotional Marketing and PR Strategies

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If you want to give your pr clients exposure to any of the new products or services they offer, create a promotional marketing program. The PR strategy is to get the ultimate customer involved with your pr client’s product. Sounds rather obvious, right? It should if you are a pr professional. If you are a pr client looking for ways to increase visibility, then consider using this pr marketing strategy.

Promotional PR marketing strategiesI’m sure you have all seen these types of “consumer involvement” campaigns. Currently there are many showing up on television, direct mailers, and in print media (magazines, newspapers). One example is the show “Smallville”. Toyota has discovered to compete in a crowded auto industry you need to get the consumers attention and get them involved with your product. They run a series of “superman cartoons” and ask the viewer to figure out the next sequence. Another is for the new release of the movie”Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” This time Verizon Wireless has learned quickly that customers love to play games. In this promotion, which the media, Promo Magazine calls Buccaneer Marketing, asks the participants to choose their own adventure for the game. Based on the movie, it is a first for this type of game-movie tie-in. Read the article and the others that offer good suggestions to gain visibility through promotional marketing strategies.

I have been a believer that when you get your audience invloved in the products that pr clients offer, your return is greater. We did this for years with our client’s in the auto dealership industry.

When done correctly, you can create a pr marketing strategy that can be very powerful when you include publicity.

Press Release gets Google Exposure

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To achieve any publicity exposure you need to have something that is more than unique, and more than newsworthy, right? Well, that’s all we hear from the media. If it isn’t newsy, or has a great angle to it, or national in scope, your press release for that pr client just might not get much exposure.

Creating a campaign for a pr client needs to be a well orchestrated campaign. One that includes all forms of media: print, broadcast, as well as the Internet. I have addressed this issue several times, but it still remains a mystery to me that pr agencies, for the most part, are not using all the resources. Maybe it is the unfamiliar area cyberspace pr that is not understood.

Even with the vast exposure and opportunities the Internet provides, pr clients are still faced with high costs to get listed on Google News, Yahoo News, or other business news formats on the web. Our agency have been using as much of the tools available when necessary. We are budget conscious as well. Not all pr clients can afford to have a press release or campaign reach all the news opportunities. It just isn’t realistic for anyone’s budget.

Which brings me to my reason for writing this blog. Recently, April 19 to be more specific, we submitted a release that now has been posted on Google News (as of April 26). It is for one of our pr clients who wrote a book. You now think, oh yeah, well a book, that is going to get exposure. Not true. It depends on the topic. In our case, the client wrote a book to help companies in HR find and secure the right people in their company. Not exactly a coffee table book, very niche market. But guess what, we got it on Google. And without the high costs usually associated with pr agencies who charge a high monthly fee and might get you some exposure in 3 to 4 months.

There is still room for us who work hard to get the rewards for our clients. Not everyone has million dollar budgets, but it feels good when we get that kind of exposure for our pr clients. Check out some of the different resources the web offers. Such as PRBuzz.com,
or PRWebdirect.com .