Tag Archives: publicity company

How to INCREASE your brand awareness without increasing your budget

Posted on by
Reply

When the economy worsens it seems companies, pr clients as well, always cut back on everything, and that includes advertising. If you want to increase your brand awareness without increasing your ad budget–and actually reduce your budget, then read on. This approach works great for local pr clients and national pr clients.

In today’s tough economic times, the companies that will survive are the ones who continue increase brand awarenesstheir marketing and brand awareness. You can do this by spending less money than your current ad budget! How? With a creative publicity campaign. Being a publicity professional since 1980, I recommend starting an aggressive local publicity campaign. This should be a series of publicity releases and submission of articles to the media, etc. Then continue with a social media network campaign and a web marketing/publicity campaign. Those are the main elements. To be successful during these difficult times, you need to be consistent. Other things smart publicity professionals would recommend would be your blog site. Start making your blogs work closely with your web site.

Did you realize that I haven’t said to “spend any media money”? Rather than spending media money (print, TV, radio, banners, keywords), allocate 50% of your advertising budget for publicity. Don’t get caught up in buying keywords, or key phrases either. The money you allocate to the local publicity or regional publicity campaign will generate more awareness than the media budget. That’s smart marketing. Impelmenting this will get your pr clients web site listed in all the major search engines. And in return that will create traffic and increase sales. Knowing how to put this all together could be a challenge. In the long run, even if you hire a professional publicity company, like Carson Marketing, Inc., the costs will be much, much less than the media money you would spend just to get “limited” awareness. A well-designed publicity campaign will garner many months of awareness while building your brand. Then as the economy improves, your company will be the one customers will remember and continue purchasing from.

How to use publicity to increase sales

Posted on by

The first thing you probably thought I was going to say was creating a series of articles, or press releases, right? Wrong.

The most profitable way to increase sales is to develop an in-house publicity programemail marketing designed for your current clients/customers. Most publicity professionals will have these in-house programs for their pr clients. Sounds simple, but this is one of the most overlooked areas of publicity. Think about it. Just because you have a customer base, or just sold that new account, doesn’t mean they will continue buying your service or products. Many other competitors are constantly after your customers. The best way to retain and grow your sales is with your existing customers. This should be part of your company’s pr marketing strategy. Whether you are a local orange county publicity company, or a national hardware store, this is something all companies should practice.

Here are a few tips:

• Develop a follow up program. When a customer purchases a service or product, be sure to contact them within a week after the purchase to see if everything is ok. You may find that this can be very rewarding. You might find that the delivery was delayed, or the product was not working properly or had some problems when arrived. When you follow up the customer feels that they are important and will be confident in purchasing more from your company.

• Thank you note. Again, this is not brain surgery, but how often do you receive any thank you notes from a company that you made a purchase? If you did, you probably would consider them more often than their competitor. Thank you notes, or thank you emails are very powerful publicity  gestures.

• Send a gift that relates to their industry. Depending on the purchases, one example would be a book. There are dozens of books on all business situations. Consider something that deals with communication, leadership or customer service. Or a bio on a leader in their industry. Make sure you include a short note with the gift telling them “thank you” for purchasing your product/service.

• eNewsletters. I have written about this several times on how a company newsletter is a sure way to keep your name in front of existing customers. It is good practice to mention these good customers in your newsletter, but make sure they are willing to be recognized as doing business with your company. Some customers prefer to not have others know whom they do business with.

If you company needs an in-house publicity program, call George Carson at Carson Marketing, 949-477-9400. He will show you how to retain and increase sales with a publicity program.

Publicity Professionals Know How Important Social Networking Is, Or Do They?

Posted on by

Are professional publicity firms and their staff really using social networks for their pr clients? Or are the pr clients telling their publicity professionals and pr agencies to look into getting more involved with social networking. If you are a publicity professional, you will say yes. Ask a pr client, and you might get a complex answer, or just plain “no”.

If you have a pr marketing strategy plan, or a publicity plan, then include marketing to the social networks. It is more than asocial networking group of kids connecting. There are a bunch of different networks on the Internet today. If you recall from my article titled “Social Media keeps growing…” you will learn about the different types of networks. Including those that reach seniors.

Today I read an article, front page of the business section, in the LA Times. It was all about MySpace and how it is now keeping up with Facebook. At one point Facebook took the lead with the social networks. Now, the owners of MySpace, News Corp, has hired hundreds of programmers who speak to this audience to create a slew of new features to compete with Facebook. Good article. In more than just how the two are competing. It is telling publicity professionals that social networking is a mainstay and you need to make your pr marketing strategies part of the overall campaign for pr clients.

It doesn’t matter if you are a local publicity company in Orange County, or a national publicity agency, you need social media networking. I spoke about other types of business networking such as linkedIn. These are geared to business professionals, but soon you will start seeing “business networks” similar to MySpace where companies of all sizes will share their thoughts, strategies, and business philosophy. So get going and get into social media networks. Not sure how to do that? Then give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. He can get you noticed!

How to increase business with a referral program

Posted on by

This publicity program should not be restricted to local areas, such as Orange County.

Sometimes pr clients, advertising agencies, and publicity firms are too busy developing campaigns to lure new customers than using the resources at hand. The best new business approach is to establish a strong referral program.

If you have a multi-million dollar advertising and pr budget, then this inexpensive program may not be of interest to you. On the other hand, if you are a wise, local Orange County Publicity agency, or a pr client, or a national company that seeks other methods of generating additional customers, then listen up.

referral program, increase businessFirst let me tell you that I am not the only person who uses referral programs, nor am I the only person who enjoys telling others how to create one. You will find many other business people and consultants who do this as well. One particular person who has broken down the referral program is Daryl Logullo. His concentrates on building strategies for business people needing to develop strong referral programs. Mr. Logullo created these three key concepts for redirecting any local orange county publicity company to a national software company’s marketing efforts.

1- Ensure that your existing clients understand the full scope of your services. If you company provides several different services, or products, but certain clients only know a handful of them, you need to let those pr clients experience the other services/products. To do this, you need to have the pr clients recognize that you can improve their lives/business when they understand all that you offer.

2- Discuss the subject of growth with your pr clients. Most of the time we tend to be shy about expressing to clients about our advancing. In reality, pr clients are like anyone else. They would appreciate knowing you are positive and optimistic about expanding your company. And more than often, they become thrilled to know you are sharing your growth plans and requesting their help.

3- Reward referral-generating behavior. When you acknowledge and reward a person for a referral, it is more appreciated. But beware to not only reward a pr client when the new lead becomes an active customer. It should be done even at the early stages of giving you a name to contact.

These are just a few tips to consider when implementing a referral program. Now you can see that referrals should not be restricted to local areas such as Orange County, or publicity in Orange County, but it can be in any market that you can provide the services to customers.