Tag Archives: pr client

Get more PR from your web site

Posted on by

PR Clients need to look at their web site for media attention and traffic

Publicity, publicity! All you want is some FREE pr, but your pr agency is just not getting the job done–as least you don’t feel they are.
Get more PR, Get Noticed!
If you want to get attention, then consider using your web site. This can be a powerful source to building a company’s image, establish a position in the market and can generate massive awareness. How? I’m glad you asked.

Whether you are a pr agency, or if you are a pr client who handles all publicity activity in-house, then it’s time to put some serious action in making your web site become part of the publicity team.

There are some current changes in SEO’s (search engine optimization) that are making it more difficult for company’s to get listed, but at the same time, it has opened a wide door for publicity.

Remember when I spoke about keywords? Well, I did. The fact remains that if done correctly, you can get your web site listed at the top of any category your company is doing business. Yes, I can assure you this is possible. We have been working with several SEO people and have tested and re-tested our secret strategies and it has worked every time.

If your publicity agency isn’t performing, or you’re a pr client who just needs some outside objectivity, give us a call. We have the secret tools to get your company at the top, which will get media attention as well as making it easier for reporters, editors, and publishers to find you. So give us a call.

We are not going to offer this to every company, so call to see if you qualify.

See Also

How To Extend Your Marketing

Posted on by

RSS is still a powerful marketing tool, check it out

There are many ways pr clients and publicity agencies can extend the reach into markets and drive traffic to their sites. By using RSS Feeds you can distribute time-sensitive information. And if done correctly, you can control how consumers find you and land on specific pages in your site to increase sales.

An article I read discusses the 10 different ways to use RSS in e-Commerce. I just mentioned one above. I’ll give you a few more.

• If you are an advertiser, pr client, or a manufacturer, consider advertising on content providers’ feeds. This can be done through FeedBurner and Pheedo.

• Another suggestion is to create channels for affiliate communications to distribute marketing content. When you use RSS, develop links that allow you to automatically push updates.

• You can extend your awareness by adding feeds from other sites and blogs. This is actually using syndicated information to supply related content on your site. Search engines like this.

That’s a few more suggestions. When used, you can then see the power RSS can provide your company and pr clients to gain more visibility and build traffic to your site.

RSS is trackable, and most pr clients do not realize this. This tracking does not identify the customer, but reports available through FeedBurner and SimpleFeed can give you detailed analytics. And don’t get disappointed at first if the results a small. Like everything, it takes time to get higher rankings, and time to build traffic.

So get RSS Feeds on your site. Or create a blog within your site and start talking about how great your company is.

See Also

How Are Your Communication Skills?

Posted on by
Reply

One in a series for publicity tips


Knowing how to write a press release, or an article for publication is in itself a talent, a skill. But do you know how to communicate your pr client to the media? Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re a pr professional, so how can you not know! Well, don’t be surprised, but many of the new people in the industry are just not "listening" to their pr clients. This is alos true of companies that have in-house publicity departments who are probably experiencing this same problem…no one is really listening.

This is a skill that seems to be lacking within the publicity industry. Everyone wants to be heard, but no one wants to take the time to really listen.

Listening is much different than hearing.

For example:

  • When we are asleep, we still "hear" things. That is how we wakeup to an alarm clock, or a dog barking.
  • Listening is when you are understanding to what someone is saying

This is the main difference. We are seeing that young publicity professionals are too busy THINKING of what to say in response to the person talking. That holds true with pr people not completely listening to clients about the new product or service they want to promote.

This skill is very important when communicating to the media. The way you speak to a reporter, how you "hear" and Listen" to what they are asking, can make a big difference in getting a story, or a press release published.

Look into getting a refresher course, or ask for help from professional pr people who know how to communicate. There are a lot of sources, courses and books. Make yourself be a good listener, it can only help you communicate better.

See Also

Let Reporters Find You

Posted on by
Reply

Publicity 101

How many times have you or a pr client tried to contact a customer about an important issuekeeping the press informed only to realize they are out of town? Wasted time? Maybe. More than that is the frustration of not reaching that person.

Now imagine a reporter, editor, or publisher trying to contact you, but you were unavailable. Maybe you were at a trade show, or at a new business meeting, or in a seminar, or just traveling.

At first you would think, hey, they’ll leave a message. Not really. These are reporters who have deadlines to meet. They will pass you up and go to the next person on their list.

How do you avoid loosing the call? Simple, leave a voice message on your phone that says, "if you are a reporter or from the press, please call me at (leave a cell phone number), or leave your number and I’ll call back within a couple of hours.

Make sure that you check your office voice mail messages frequently. And if it is your cell phone that you give to the press, be sure to check that message box often as well.

Being available to the press for a story that you are pitching is extremely important. The media works on their time, not yours. Keeping this in mind should make your pr clients realize that positive publicity can only be accomplished when you make yourself available to the press.

What you should not do is send emails of your schedule to the media. That is a waste of time and the reporters are not your secretaries, so respect them and not bother these media people with nonsense emails.

See Also

Are Your Photos Funny or Serious?

Posted on by
Reply

Photos are important for publicity

Before you send out that press release or article to the editors or publishers of a magazine, make sure you analyze the photos. This means to make sure the photos are:

  • Not boring
  • Has a visual that is of interest
  • Captures the mood you want
  • Is creative

These are a few tips to consider when submitting photos in any publicity campaign for pr clients.

Another tip is to make sure when you include people that the photos are not showing a smiling person if the release, or article is of a serious nature. A book titled "How to use Photos and Graphics in your Publicity Campaign" sums up a lot of the mistakes publicity people make too often. Whether are in the publicity industry, working for a pr firm, or happen to be a pr client doing your own stuff, this book could help. It is not telling you things you probably don’t already know, but it will keep you in line with the things to look for when including photos with your pr campaign.

In addition, you need to consider different angles of the subject. Of course, if the release is about a product, there are only so many ways to shoot it, right? Wrong. Be creative, but not too creative. The purpose of the photos is to help visually get the message across and offers the publisher, or other media, an option to use when publishing the release or article.

Just like a good ad has more potential of being noticed and read, a well written release with good photos has a greater chance of being published.

See Also

looking For A Good PR Angle?

Posted on by
Reply

Look inside the company for possible new articles

It is the job of the publicity professional to find that special slant, or angle to get an article visibility in the media. Without going into controversial issues, you can find lots of potential publicity articles by looking at your own company closer than normal.

Most of the media will accept these as possible articles, but it only takes one publisher to run the article to make this a successful campaign. It will also keep the company name visible to editors, writers and other media, so when you send other releases, you will be a familiar name to them.

There’s and article titled "What’s Your Backstory?" that hits my point home. For years I have tried to get clients to think outside of the publicity box. This isn’t always easy, because new ideas tend to scare pr clients into thinking, "who wants to read that?". But that isn’t always true. A publicity expert can transform a good story into an interesting article, without adding false or misleading information.

An example the article gave was for a doctor. Here is a short list of topics for a doctor:

  • What experience led the doctor to enter the medicine field?
  • What was or is the most difficult case ever faced
  • Humorous situations the doctor encountered
  • Try an angle on interns, the doctor mentored

I am sure you see how digging deeper into a company can uncover other publicity angles. When your publicity agency begins to develop the pr campaign, the best public relations service you can do is to provide something in the "backstory" or a human interest on a specific executive. Try it, you can only gain more exposure with the press by doing this.

See Also

More on Multi-Tasking

Posted on by
Reply

Publicity is Everywhere Series

I’ve mentioned Multi-Tasking earlier, but now I am going to tell you that unless pr clients and their public relations agencies are aware of the craze, you might fall behind in your market.

Let’s review the latest area of multi-tasking. Ever watch a teen at a computer? If not, this is a typical teen. They are very much into the "Social Networking" scene. Just like we refer to the peer-to-peer, which is the technology that you receive an email from a business colleague or friend asking to join a "network", teens are into social networking. For example, many business people are probably involved in networks such as Plaxo, Soflow, or Linkin.

Teens have the ability to multitask while at the computer. They can be answering and speaking to someone in a "chat", while downloading music, and talking on their cell phone. This is nothing unusual to them.

Now that you know this, as a pr client, or as a marketing publicity company, you should focus on this networking of teens. Make sure that social networking is part of your business-marketing plan. Obliviously, your company, or product needs to be something that would appeal to teens. This still works with adults, when you discover their networking patterns.

Since 1995, social networks have grown from the original site of Classmates.com to a wide array of sites that add up to over 200 social networks today. Even Google launched one in 2004 called orkut. And recently in March, Yahoo made the move of its own network called Yahoo 360. So don’t think this is going to fade out next year. Just like blogging was thought to be a short-lived fad, it has grown into a major marketing tool for businesses.

See Also

Branding Through Search Engines

Posted on by
Reply

Build your image with SEO’s


Traditional branding is something a company, a pr client or advertising agency will do that may include a corporate identity program, collateral materials, and possibly purchasing media.
The media can be print (newspapers, magazines) or broadcast such as radio or TV.

Branding is the building of a name, a product or the overall company’s image. It is the consistent use of the brand in all the different areas of communication. As clients and customers become familiar with the brand, it makes them become loyal to that brand. Therefore, it takes time to build this loyalty among customers and clients.

With Search Branding, we see a new era of marketing and how we use the branding tools. Clients and potential customers now use search engines to seek the information about a product. When you optimize your site correctly, and have a solid web marketing campaign, that should include a good blog site, you will begin to establish a branded image. The buy-cycle is different on search engines than traditional branding, because people now can collect the information they want to make a buying decision sooner. That means you need to get your company listed in several areas so the potential customer feels good about your brand when making the decision to buy.

When people see your brand two, three and four times when searching, they become familiar with the brand making them more loyal to it. So as you can see, by using search engines as Google, Ask.com, Yahoo and many of the other specialty engines, it can make your brand a winner.

See Also

Branding

Posted on by
Reply

Are you Multiplatform with your brand?

Branding a product or licensing a product can be a big step for any company. When developing a branding program for a pr client, or your own company, you might want to look at how your product branding, or company branding is marketed.

Today, we are seeing multiplatform branding by major companies. This can be applied to any size company when implemented correctly.

First let’s back up a step. When branding your company, or product is not an overnight campaign. It usually takes several months and in some cases years to build a solid brand image.

Ok, back to multiplatform branding. Why is this new catch phrase important to publicity and public relation campaigns. Because if you are not watching how the consumer, or your customers are reacting to today’s activities, then you are missing out on how to reach them.

Multiplatform brands make use of the different forms of what consumers, like kids, are doing. They are multitasking!

We are all multitasking. It has become a way we do business, how we have business relationships, how we interact with families, and how we buy goods.

It is necessary for you to identify the market you are in, research your audience and then identify what multi-markets, or multi-activities those potential customers are involved in.

This is one way to keep your brand awareness high with potential, and existing customers. Customers will now see your brand in all the places they visit and are multitasking.

Your publicity program can then gain extended exposure with reporters, editors, and various media. How? Because you are reaching out into those customers other markets they are multitasking in. So get your media together and have the pr people start a multiplatform branding program for your company.

See Also

Why RSS Is A Great PR Tool

Posted on by
Reply

Twelve reasons to use RSS


RSS is here and you need to make this tool part of your business plan. Why?

If you need to ask, then maybe your company or pr agency is not ready to become a leader in your industry.

But if you are considering the advantages, I’ll give you about twelve reasons how RSS, Blogging, or a Blog site can improve your image, and gain favorable pr AND increase sales. Now remember, that publicity or an ad campaign cannot close a sale, but it can bring traffic to your site, or to your office.

Reasons to get a blog started:

  • Because blogs are short articles, they are best read when you have a strong headline.  Create news type headlines and make the article a story…but short, about 300 words and not more than 750 words.
  • Tell pr clients, or customers about upcoming events through your blog
  • Choose a specific day that you just have your thoughts expressed. It can be about a competitors product, or about the industry in general. All from your point of view
  • It’s a great way to announce new products, or the addition of staff
  • Tell potential and current clients about unique sites that they can benefit from, show the links to these sites
  • Newsletters. You probably do one now, or have a lot of saved information that can be written easily in short articles. Share that information and become recognized as a company helping customers, or pr clients with problems that usually arise in your industry

Well, I only have time to give you six of the twelve. Need to know the rest. Contact me and I’ll share that and more with you.

See Also