Publicity Tip #2431

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Photos can make a you look better


When you write a release, or better yet, an article to pitch to the media, it is a good idea to include photos.

Wow, what a great idea, bet this isn’t original! You’re right, but read further to learn what I mean about including photos.

Believe it or not, most pitches are only text that the media receive. Just adding good quality photos can make your story become more interesting to the reporter because now you are providing a visual.

This alone needs to be given careful thought. Just as you want the story you are writing to not look like an ad to the reporter, you need to plan the types of photos to include.

One publicist, Joan Stewart, wrote an article on this subject. She gives you about 11 tips on what to look for when shooting photos to be included in your pitch.

What I like about her article, her advice goes beyond what to take for photos. Joan provides tips on what not to do. Such as groundbreaking, or ribbon ceremonies. These are overdone, and unless you are a major real estate developer, or a high profile company, forget these types of stories and photos.

Your publicity campaign and all your public relations activities should be part of the overall business and marketing plan. There will always be some last minute pr projects that your pr client’s need created immediately. It is the master marketing plan that should set the guidelines for all the publicity. Be sure you have a solid database of the reporters, editors and publications you want to target.

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Branding And Publicity

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The new age in Branding is Sonic Branding


It is another new term that is getting the buzz these days. Sonic Branding is the next level of branding for a company’s image.

I have written about building your brand image several times. Now it is time to look at Sonic Branding and how to make it work with publicity and pr clients.

First, what is Sonic Branding? It is the use of sound that works with your branded image, logo, or tag line.

If you have listen to any commercial from Intel, or a manufacturer that uses Intel products, then you heard the chimes of the Intel brand. That’s Sonic Branding.

About two months ago there was an article in Brandweek that spoke about this new branding campaign. Get the full story by reading about it.

Not all companies can benefit from this type of branding. Obliviously you need to be doing some broadcast advertising, or have a podcast site, or maybe you can use it on your voicemail (I highly NOT recommend that idea).

If you can do Sonic Branding, then make sure your publicity campaign or publicity agency uses this new technology  (branding) in the overall program.

A press release alone isn’t going to get much attention. But consider putting the sonic branded message in your email to the press. Or do an announcement using a greeting card idea that has jingles in it. You can purchase these custom cards offshore and it could be the start of making your public relations program get a jump-start.

No matter what you do, keep in mind that building a brand cannot be accomplished overnight. It requires constant implementation and use of the branded image in all your communications.

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Marketing and Publicity

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Intergrate these to be successful


Marketing and publicity need to interact and not be treated as separate departments. Often times, marketing directors and pr directors want to do their own thing in a company to show how successful their creative programs are working.

But this can work against you if you do not pool your talents and work as a team. Many times campaigns overlap, as do the different projects within a company.

By using all the resources from your departments, like Marketing and Publicity, you stand a better chance in gaining a winning campaign for your company, or pr client.

For example in marketing 101, you are told to follow-up to customers at least every 90 days. Publicity people also know that communication is important. For this reason, publicity professionals make sure they contact editors and reporters frequently. The old saying, out-of-sight is out-of-mind is definitely true in business.

Another important point- do not cut back on your publicity budget when it is trade show season, or when sales are increasing. Same is true about marketing. You need to do marketing all the time, not only when sales are low.

Getting a story or an article in any publication is rewarding. More so is when you capitalize on this with the marketing people in your company. Using the resources available can gain more mileage for your campaigns than isolating the two departments from each other.

In summary a public relations campaign is just as important as the marketing you do for the company. Have interaction with the two, hold regular meetings to discuss what projects are in the works, and quite possibly you might discover a new path to success.

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Public Relations With The Media

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Get Better Relations With The Media


I’ve written about this subject a couple of times, but in different viewpoints. One of the articles was titled: Working with the press", the other was titled "Know the media". Each identifies specific issues that will help you produce better releases to get them published. Re-read these; you may find something you missed the first time.

Today I will focus more on having good media relations with the press. When possible, I like to use other pr pros that think the same to help illustrate another writer’s viewpoint. That way you can read theirs and possibly pick up more knowledge. One particular blogsite that has this similar viewpoint is PowerPR weblog. Check out his perspective.

As you plan your publicity campaign and finalizing the press releases to send to the media, make sure you have identified who will be receiving these releases and articles. Although it takes more effort, you should make revisions in the releases that meet the criteria of that specific media. Here are a few helpful tips:

  • Identify a specific person, or a couple of the reporters and send the releases to the one person most suited for your release
  •  Modify the release to fit that publications audience. If the media release is being sent to a few trade or consumer media in the foods industry, then adapt the release accordingly
  •  Know the deadlines of the media. Plan to send releases at least 2 weeks before the next issue is due, or a few days after it is published
  •  Check the media calendars. You might see in their editorial calendar that your product or press release is best suited at another time

This one-on-one submission of releases is more time consuming and does require a targeted approach. The results will be rewarding when you treat the media as you do your clients.

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Free Publicity, Does It Exist?

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How to get the most of a PR campaign

GET US FREE PUBLICITY!

These are the words we hear most often from clients. So how Free is it?

Publicity is a powerful method for getting your message to potential customers, but only when you know what you are doing.

Remember, nothing is free. If you have an in-house person, you are paying for that pr director, or manager to spend the time to write, distribute and meet with reporters.

Hiring a publicity firm has basically the same costs.
When you place an ad into a publication, or run a spot on radio or TV, those are controlled forms of media which can become costly for smaller companies.

When you get a release or article published, in comparison, it didn’t cost anything to have that visibilty in that, or those media. The cost was in the preliminary stages of developing the article and getting it to the right media.

Knowing how to write an article, or a press release (these require different writings) is critical of getting something published. Reporters and editors want to publish stories of interest and be informative for their audience.

I spoke about distribution before. This is also important. Shot gun mailing to all media will not do you any good. Targeting specific media will help to control the distribution and makes follow up more productive. Use the Internet news media whenever possible. Here you can modify the press release or articles and use keywords in the body of the information. Using a professional pr firm can help a public relations campaign become more successful, because they have the contacts and knowledge to get these published.

Bottom line. Is publicity free? I guess It all depends on what you consider free.

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Building A Brand

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Branding is still the leader for name recognition

Creating a branding campaign is more than doing one ad, or placing a tagline onto your web site.
It is a constant image builder of your company’s name/tagline.

The ultimate goal is to have your brand recognized by your potential and existing customers. But it is important to make sure that the branding is a positive image.

What makes a Brand?
First, you need to identify what makes your company, service or products unique. With Avis, many years ago they positioned themselves as being the #2 car rental company. While everyone was fighting for the top spot, Avis figured out that no one is proud of being second, so they took that position and it worked. The "We Try Harder" campaign is still memorable.

Also a few years ago, 7-up bottling company played on the fact that their product was clean (clear) free of any added chemicals like caffeine, The healthier campaign help to position the "brand" as an alternative to the different and unhealthier colas. The UNCOLA brand made a strong hit.

Build the brand from within the company
Before you get the image to the consumer, or to your B2B clients, you need to start the brand awareness campaign inside the company. This includes the top management from the CEO and President of the company to the receptionist.

Branding includes a variety of things from slogans, to pictures on the walls, how you answer the phone, and the email signatures used in daily correspondence.

Finding that special brand for your company
Building a brand doesn’t happen by chance. And you should not borrow another company’s slogan, or idea to make that your branded image.

Find what separates your company from the industry. What is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? Find that one or two points to help create your branding. Don’t go overboard and use this branding campaign throughout the entire office…there is a point of over saturation. Be practical and be proactive when using the branding campaign. It can be your chance in becoming the next 7-up.

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Getting Listed With Search Engines

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Publicity is everywhere, even on the net

Just about every traditional (brick and mortar) company has a web site. Beyond the fact that you need to have a web site today to be recognized as a real company doing business, clients and customers want the ability to gather information or place orders via the web.

With that said, we need to now see how publicity coupled with marketing can make good things happen.

Web sites are only as good as the marketing that supports it. Just because you have a site doesn’t mean it will be picked up and listed at the top with the major search engines. It requires strategic planning and implementation to make things happen.

To begin, you need to have the site optimized. That’s an overused word, but it still needs to be said. This alone is not enough. The SEO’s are battling again for power and that means more challenging times for web masters and programmers. You now need to include a plan that includes “back end marketing”. This can be a series of things like a blog site, eNewsletters, and above all a strong publicity plan.

Yes, publicity is a major element in getting listed higher. There are two methods used to see a sites value. Page Ranking and Site Listing. Page Ranking shows how you are rated (ranked) on search engines, like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista to name a few. It is based on a scale of 10. Sites with anything in the 5+ ranking is excellent. Even with a 3 you are doing fine. Remember, that there are over a billion pages, and several hundred million sites. Even in any vertical market, there are at least several hundred thousand sites.

Listings are where you are positioned on that search engine. Everyone wants to be on the first page of a listing, and not further than the third page. But again, with hundreds of thousands of sites, not everyone can be on top.

Once you get there, you need to be more aggressive with press releases, keywords added and updated, keep daily blogs going just to maintain a solid position (listing) with the engines. No guarantees can exist. The only way to stay near or at the top is to have an on-going plan.

A couple of our clients are getting their time in the spotlight. Partition Specialties now has a solid listing using several keywords such as modernfold, tate access floors and skyfold. They are listed with the various SE’s in either a #5 or #12 position with Google and Yahoo, MSN, etc. That’s out of 1,500,000 other web sites in a specialized industry. We are using several marketing tools with the publicity to maintain this.

Foundations Financial in only 6 weeks got a high PageRanking with Google of #3. We are using the blog site and a lot of publicity releases, TV interviews and links on the site to gain this positive momentum. Keeping this will be an on-going battle that we plan to win. Within a few more weeks, they will enjoy the high listings as many of our other clients do.

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Using RSS To Get Publicity

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Publicity needs to keep up with technology

To keep in this fast pace of publicity, we are always searching for and want to find access to a lot of information. One of the sources to use is the RSS feed.

This stands for Real Simple Syndication. It allows you to access current news about any topic. It is great for those publicity firms or advertising agencies, or pr clients who are in a vertical market.

It seems the more information we have available to access, the more we want. RSS will satisfy your hunger for all the information you desire.

Sometimes I can’t read that days different feeds coming to us. What I usually will do is scan through the news and click onto those that catch my attention.

Public relations people will find this marketing tool very helpful. When you get into a habit of learning how to take advantage of RSS feeds, you will find it a great source for information, as well as a marketing tool for your client’s pr activities.

Many different weblogs are built around RSS feeds. That is one of the reasons how RSS became a solid marketing media for the news industry. Reporters, publishers and broadcast media use these feeds because they can publish and retrieve up-to the minute news.

For those of you who want to learn the history and how RSS became a daily media, I suggest you visit an article called “Dive into XML”, by Mark Pilgrim.

And for those of you who want to get RSS feeds to your web site, this is one place you can get information on how-to, it is FreeNewsFeed.com. There are many others, just type in RSS into Google, or Yahoo and a Billion sites will be there ready to explain more.

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The Costs Of Publicity

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In-House or Outsorucing?


Companies are always faced with keeping overhead costs low. The first area that gets cut is the marketing and publicity budget.

So how does any company justify cutting these areas and maintain a constant campaign?

One solution that most pr clients and marketing clients think saves them money is to do all the work in-house. But does this really save money, or does it cost you (the client) more in the long haul? Let’s take a look.

To go in-house, you need to hire a marketing or pr director. Typically this person, if professional, and knows what he/she is doing, will have a salary of about $80,000 per year. An assistant would cost $40,000 a year as a starting salary. These figures can be more depending on their experience.

Now you have someone to do the entire writing, planning, meeting with reporters, publishers, coordinating marketing and pr activities and sometimes designing the sales and marketing materials.

Let’s just say this person, for now, needs to do a few releases. How are you going to distribute them? Do you do send them one at-a-time to the handful of media? Or do you go through a news bureau like Bacon’s. Well, Bacon’s costs about $3,000 per year membership and then you pay per release on top of that. In addition, the select few that are to your favorite media, need postage, envelopes, and what about the follow-up?

On top of the distribution costs, we need to again look at this person you hired. They need medical coverage, you need to pay the FICA costs and provide space for them and a phone line. The phone bill will now increase as well. An article that supports my viewpoint is called "Debunking the myth that B2B marketing is cheaper in-house", by John Elliott.

In addition, the person may not have the close contact relationships with the different media as your pr firm.

Ok, did you save any money? Most likely not. The costs when added together are probably more than a moderate publicity campaign for the year would have cost. And you can be sure that the outsource company will get the job done because they won’t be interuppeted with daily problems associated with an in-house publicity person.

No matter how many times we see this happen, it just seems that clients need to learn from their mistakes. Hopefully this brief lesson will give pr clients and public relations service companies the chance to see what really is best for them.

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