Category Archives: Public Relations Service

Does Your Publicity Campaign Include Tagging?

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It’s not graffiti anymore, it’s pr

When you first hear or read the word TAGGING, you probably think of taggers who do graffiti on the walls. Well, think publicity and then think Internet, now you’re getting closer to tagging in today’s terms.
tagging and video publicity marketing
It is the linking of web sites. This old term is what describes how we use links to each other sites making search engines locate us faster.

It seems that this "linking" has been around in the earlier days of the Internet. Spammers were probably using this technique of marketing and when we were all hit hard with spam, search engines became more intelligent by counter acting their tactics.

You or your web designer, programmers often use tagging with your site. You have heard the words meta tags, keywords, right? Well, that is a form of tagging.

When a company wants to optimize your web site, this is one of the tagging areas that are often refined.

If you are in publicity and think this stuff is too deep in conversation and you don’t have an IT person, then use this handy tool for creating links. It is Yahoo’s Del.iclo.us. This is a tool bar that you can download from Yahoo’s site.

Tagging can help your publicity in many ways. For example, tagging can be done with pictures that are in your press release (which should be in your pressroom’s web site), or online video. Many sites have this available such as Yahoo 360, or Technorati’s blog that addresses tagging.

Publicity campaigns are no longer a list of releases or articles; it is your web site and making it SEO friendly with tagging, as well as other unique optimizing tricks. But that’s another subject.

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Build an SEO Web Site

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Make your web site a publicity magnet

Do you currently have a web site? Is it attracting clients? What about the media?

If you are ready to launch a new web site, or about to modify your existing site, you need to do these things first!
What I am about to explain, is based on your site being SEO friendly. That means it has been optimized correctly, the use of flash is correctly displayed and that your site is NOT built with frames. Optimizing a site is more than placing a bunch of keywords into your HTML or in your main text. If you are not sure if the site you are about to launch, contact a company who understands web marketing to help you increase the traffic and publicity attention your company needs.

INCOMING LINKS
You have heard this many times before, but building external links is still a high priority with all the major search engines. Make sure the links you setup are with those who have a Page Rank in excess of 3/10.

PRESS RELEASES
I can’t stress enough that this section of your site can be a main channel to the media. Your site should include a "press room". In this area you should place all your press releases that are optimized. Yes, even press releases, articles and short stories about the company need to be optimized. If not, then your pressroom is only another page. Also, be sure to submit the releases to all the appropriate online media. If you need help with your publicity, hire a company that can help you.

PURCHASE TEXT LINKS
Yes, there are times that you need to make some purchases to get the site in a high position and to attract clients/customers. Be wise in your purchase. One company that can help is called text link ads.

LINK EXCHANGE
Another excellent marketing tip. Be sure to get as many relevant links exchanged. Make sure these are companies in your related industry.

BLOG SITE
I cannot say this enough times. A blog "company" site, or a blog site from the CEO, President, or other noteworthy person in your company can be another excellent marketing tool. It does require daily attention. This can be done with the assistance of other staff members of the company that the author can then review the blogs prior to posting.

Want more leads, more traffic? Try these tips and if you really want to jump start a Publicity program, give us a call.

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Viral Marketing or Is It Publicity?

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Getting visual with publicity

The popular term in today’s marketing on the web is Viral. This is becoming a hot subject as well as a new marketing tool that advertisers, not all, are embracing. Getting in on a new technology is sometimes a good thing. But not knowing how it will fair out can be risky business.

viral videos and publicityRecently, a viral campaign was put to the test. A viral video was created using mentos and Diet Coke. The visual showed a geyser being created when mentos was put into the 2-liter bottle.

The video was viewed 600,000 times on such web sites as YouTube. This can be a great number when shown to potential advertisers. As with all new publicity and marketing tactics, there are the pros and cons of this new media.

One the good note, you can get your message, or visual of the product viewed by hundreds of thousands quickly. The negative, you cannot control how and when or where the video is viewed. It’s possible that your video is sent to a bunch of people who want to alter it, or place it near a porn video. No to do anything intentional, but again, no control on where it is viewed.

Another point, it is difficult to really track the effectiveness and direst sales results. Although the people at Mentos believe it worked well that they created a web site to encourage viewers to create their own videos.

This story about Mentos, and viral videos is getting a lot of media attention. In turn it is now part of the publicity phenomenon. Good or bad, a company needs to deal with the new media and be prepared to handle the direction it takes–good or bad.

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10 Tips To Get Reporters Familiar With You

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Basic but important

It seems that publicity firms, pr people and some publicity professionals fear calling the media unless they have something to give to them, like a story.

Helpful tips on publicityI’m not saying to just call them and talk about the weather. I feel that publicity people need to contact the press more often to know what they are looking for. Each writer, reporter and publisher of a magazine, has particular interests. Knowing this can further your relationship to have a public relations campaign get more exposure for your pr clients.

Use these 10 tips to get to know the media better:
1- Explain new trends that your pr client is experiencing and how it relates to the industry
2- Inquire about the types of subjects THEY prefer to write about
3- Get to know them, ask what they do during off hours, their hobbies, etc
4- Be sure to give a reporter all your contact information, office number, cell number, email address, even your home number if it is a reporter that might need to contact you during off business hours
5- Don’t be afraid to ask them how else you can be of help to them
6- Always send them a thank you note when something gets published
7- Provide names of people in your company that can be available to answer questions in your absence
8- It is ok to submit stories, but first make sure it is the type of stories they like to publish
9- Become an expert..or get your pr client to be a resource expert by offering them for information
10- Read these again. Then visit the Publicity Hound that adds a few more to this list.

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Do You Have A Media Press Room?

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Start with your web site

News room onlineEveryone knows that journalists are constantly on tight deadlines. In order for them to do a good job, they need to get the information fast and easily.

Your web site should have a pressroom that showcases all the releases, media fact sheet, personnel profiles, among other important media information. Your online pressroom makes it easy for even the sales team to direct clients and potential clients to see how the media views the company.

Yes, I did say the sales team. What pr clients and pr professionals need to do is work together. Everyone in the company, from the front office person to the warehouse and shippers, need to work together. They all contribute to the culture of the company, which in general is your branding. But that’s another subject.

Let’s get back to the pressroom.

If you feel that you don’t have anything to put in thebrainstroming in a meeting pressroom, then it’s time to have a meeting with the sales people, the marketing staff and the publicity members. Bringing everyone together to contribute to this can be rewarding. It can also get out-of-hand. So a clear agenda needs to be in place for the meeting to adhere to.

I saw a blog on PowerPR’s site that discussed working in groups. This is kinda like that idea. In his blog, they speak of brainstorming. Well, if that’s what it takes, then go for it!

If you need some help in developing a brainstorming session, then read this article in Business Week to help inspire your team. Thanks again to PowerPR for this tip.

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Regal Medical Group Chooses Carson

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Medical account sees positive marketing

Not very often do we get the opportunity to shout and let the world know of our new accounts. But this was one we need to mention.

Regal Medical GroupRegal Medical Group is a new company that offers the services to its doctors and patients’ bringing them health plans and government programs for better family healthcare.

As we do with all new accounts, we had a fact-finding meeting to review the goals and objectives with the different marketing and publicity strategies to make "positive things happen" for Regal Medial Group. Priority for the company was to develop several brochures for the doctor’s directories for the different regions in Orange County, CA. The challenge was to meet a rigid deadline. It was successful and we did it all in record time, and within budget.

The medical program has quickly grown and now we are developing literature for the Inland Empire. Regal Medical is having us work closely with them to identify the best marketing and pr strategies to target their audience.

I’m telling you these things, because it is great when clients fully trust your input and work together as part of an overall team. It is this open relationship, which we started from our first meeting that will have positive impacts on both sides.

We will be working on all areas of web marketing, publicity, direct mail, incentive programs, literature and marketing.

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How To Get Emails Read

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Its all in the subject

Good publicity writers think the only way to get an email read is to give the facts. A copywriter believes it is how creative you are that gets people to read an email. So who is right? Both.

email tips to marketingYou need to put on the creative thinking cap when writing powerful emails that can generate a publicity story, or get an article published. So what are the tricks to getting emails read? No silver bullet when it comes to the media. Just keep the creative in check. Don’t lie or twist (pr people like a publicity twist when possible) the truth. Give your recipient a reason to open the email, then provide them with the information you said you would. Otherwise, your name, company, can be put into the "do not read" list.

There is a top 10 list of ways to make your emails read, and this can apply to B2B, consumers and even the media. Just keep your mind open to the audience your are addressing to.

A good report titled “Ten E-mail starters to break writers block” will give you some good sampling of what I am telling you to do.

Publicity people and pr clients need to read these top 10 and see how to make the rules apply to your specific situation. The writer is giving you some tools, now you need to adapt them to your publicity campaign. If you are developing an email campaign, then all you need to do is follow the steps.

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How Can Optimizing Be Bad?

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Know what you are doing first

optimizing web sitesEveryone who builds a web site claims to know optimizing. The same is true about those small startups saying they can get you listed at the top of SE’s (Search Engines). How is this relating to publicity? Because “Publicity is Everywhere!” If you direct the media to your site, but they forget the URL, they probably will type specific keywords in the SE to locate the web site.

Ok, first let me say not all these companies are out to make a fast buck. But it appears that most of them are selling software or just doing a blast listing to all the SE’s out there. How can these really help? Well, you won’t see any progress for weeks, maybe a couple of months at best. That’s how they get your money and then you just shake off that bad experience when nothing happens and your still listed 348 on Google, or Yahoo.

Web Site Optimization is more than placing a bunch of keywords into the HTML of your site. It isn’t the key phrase either. Because if you do this incorrectly, the search engines will pass you by!

The keywords you selected…how did you find them? If these are the most popular, then you are going to get zero traffic for a long time. Knowing which are the best keywords and what people are using is completely different. Plus, using multiple words can be even more productive and generate traffic. Ok, stop for a moment. Is traffic what you want? I hope not. Because I can get you thousands of people a month easily, but they won’t be qualified to purchase your products or services.

Qualified buyers are what you need. The number of visitors is important, if they are qualified. Keep that in perspective. We can give you the optimization to get listed at the top of Google, Yahoo and MSN among other search engines.

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Optimizing Press Releases and Web Sites

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How to get productive in pr

blog site optimizingI am sure that the word "optimize" is overused, over said, and most likely is more than overdue. How can it be overdue? When it relates to publicity. Such things as press releases, or articles for the media all should be optimized for maximum exposure.

The Internet has re-born how we write press releases and how they are distributed. Just as know that a web site needs to be optimized, so do your press releases.

There are a lot of articles that help people learn what to do to optimize their web site. One for example by Yaro Stark gives his 10 tips for web site optimization.

Many of the same optimizing tips for web sites apply to press releases. Let’s look at a few of them:

  • Title Tags. Make sure your title has the important words that best describe your release.
  • Keyword density. Use your keywords and any phrases wisley, don’t repeat them too often. Your text should read clearly, not like a book on all your keywords.
  • Structure. Keep the structure simple. Unlike a hard copy, an Internet media release should follow the traditional rules for online publishing.
  • Links. Yes, with those allowing to use HTML, use links properly and that will help SEO’s find your site faster as well as the media.
  • Contact Info. Without this, the reporters cannot waste time locating the person to interview or ask questions. Make sure all contact information is easily noticed.

If you need more help with the web site or press release optimizing, give us a call. We can make things happen for you. Call us at: 949-477-9400.

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Presenations Are Part Of Publicity Skills

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One in a series for publicity

Not everyone can be a great presenter, or speaker. But anyone can learn the skills required to improve your presentation to the media.

When you are arranging for an interview for your pr client, you need know how to present and pitch the story to a specific media. This is one of the many skills that takes time to develop. Unfortuantely, time isn’t going to help you when that story needs to be in the news immediately. So what is the answer?

Try to learn from others who are more experienced. Take notes when you see a presenter or a seasoned pr professional make the pitch. There are a lot of things you can learn. If you have the opportunity to meet with the press use some of these suggestions.

Some helpful tips:

  • Keep your hands out of your pockets
  • Always look at the person you are speaking to
  • Know your subject (topic you are pitching) well in advance
  • Allow the reporter the opportunity to ask questions
  • It is ok to be selective on which questions to answer, that will help your pitch go smoother
  • Be sure to leave all your contact information
  • Speak clearly and not fast. Don’t be a slow talker, but keep the pace moving
  • Don’t digress and begin a new topic thinking it will help get the story published

I can go on, but as you can see, these are easy skills to improve. It doesn’t take a lot of time to learn, and no books are required.

If you want to learn more there are a lot of resources. For those wanting to improve personal presentation skills, the SkillsStudio in the UK offers training courses. If you need to speak better, there are also many resources like Impression Management. Just Google the term "pesentation skills" as a start.

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