PR: Am I Getting a Good Deal?

Keywords: Public Relations

You are getting a good deal when you accept the fact that the right PR really CAN alter individual perception and lead to the changed behaviors you need.

Especially when you recognize that people really DO act upon their perceptions of the facts they hear about your operations, and about you as a manager. Meaning you have little choice but to deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions by reaching and moving those key external audiences of yours to actions you desire.

Thus, you are certainly getting a good deal when your business, non-profit or association PR investment creates behavior change among those important outside audiences that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives. However, you'll be able to accomplish this only after persuading those key outside folks to your way of thinking, then moving them to take actions that allow your department, division or subsidiary to succeed.

Obviously, these managers are doing something positive about the behaviors of those important outside audiences of theirs that MOST affect their operations.

Why You Need A Marketing Plan To Achieve Ultimate Success

Keywords: Marketing Plan

Effective marketing plays a critical role in businesses that are successful. How effectively the marketing plan you develop markets your business, will ultimately determine your degree of success or failure.

The key elements of a successful marketing plan are to:

1. Know your customers--their likes, dislikes and expectations.

2. Know your competitors--their strengths and weaknesses. Only by identifying these factors, can you develop a marketing strategy that will allow you to anticipate and fulfill your customers needs, better understand your competitors and identify changes in the marketplace that can affect your bottom line.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to define your market, i.e.,identify your customers and competitors, to outline a strategy for attracting and keeping customers and to identify and anticipate change. It takes careful planning and a thorough understanding of the marketplace to develop a strategy that will ensure success.

Generally, the first and most important step in understanding the market is to study it through market research. For example, in the case of a franchise, the franchisor has already done the market research and developed a marketing plan, so you will need to review the plan the franchisor has provided. Look over the plan to determine what product/service you will offer and write a description of it.

How To Turn Freebies Into Sales

Keywords: Increasing Sales

You can increase sales and profits by offering freebies to people who buy your main product or service. They increase the over all value of your main offer and in return people feel they're getting more for less.

It's important that you have a high enough profit margin so you can afford to give them away. Some freebies can be created without a lot of expense; like electronic information products. With these type of freebies there's no shipping or physical material costs.

Below are some popular types of freebies. In the examples are some other benefits and a tips for offering freebies to your buyers.

FREE COUPON/GIFT CERTIFICATE

Offer potential customers a free coupon or gift certificate for a back end product or service you're selling. This will increase your chances for repeat purchases.

6 Steps to Using Trade Magazines to Reach Customers

Keywords: Trade Magazines

When developing a publicity campaign for their business many owners overlook the importance of trade magazines and journals as vehicles for reaching new customers. While mass media publications have widespread readership, the targeted nature of trade publications make the information that appears within them even more powerful.

Unlike general interest publications, readers of trade magazines and journals already have an established interesting a specific subject. for example, it is safe to assume that readers of American Printer are generally people who work in or have an interest in that subject.

Writing a how-to-article that appears in a trade publication establishes your business as an "expert" in that specific area. Think about it -reading an article written by your company in trade magazines provides a different level of exposure and a new image of your business to potential customers.

Here are a six guidelines for writing material for trade magazines:

1. Familiarize yourself with trade magazines in your industry - Trade magazines usually publish industry news, case studies and educational articles. New is primarily written by the editors. Case studies and educational articles are available for contributing authors. case studies describe how a service solved a particular problem. Educational articles teach the reader how to do a particular job or activity. These two types can be great in establishing additional credibility among potential customers, portraying the author as an "expert" in that area.

Affiliate Marketing Billionaires? -You'd Better Believe it!

Keywords: Affiliate Marketing

Can the sky be truly the limit with affiliate marketing? Just how much can one affiliate marketing web site be worth?

Well, 2 British guys may well have set the bar at a new all-time high for the affiliate marketing industry. The prestigious Sunday Times newspaper in London recently profiled the astonishing success of web entrepreneurs Duncan Cameron and Simon Nixon of www.MoneySupermarket.com. Their web site enables visitors to easily compare a massive range of financial products such as credit cards, insurance and mortgages.

The UK-based entrepreneurs only started in the affiliate marketing business in 1999 and their business is now valued by the Sunday Times at an astonishing $925 million– Yes, you did read that correctly by the way, although I did fall off my chair when I read their real life true story. This makes them near-billionaires, and achieved largely via affiliate marketing in less than 5 years! It also makes them probably the wealthiest affiliate marketers in the world today!

More importantly, what does their success tell us about the affiliate marketing industry and what can we learn from their astonishing level of success?

Why You Need A Marketing Plan To Achieve Ultimate Success

Keywords:

Effective marketing plays a critical role in businesses that are successful. How effectively the marketing plan you develop markets your business, will ultimately determine your degree of success or failure.

The key elements of a successful marketing plan are to:

1. Know your customers--their likes, dislikes and expectations.

2. Know your competitors--their strengths and weaknesses. Only by identifying these factors, can you develop a marketing strategy that will allow you to anticipate and fulfill your customers needs, better understand your competitors and identify changes in the marketplace that can affect your bottom line.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to define your market, i.e.,identify your customers and competitors, to outline a strategy for attracting and keeping customers and to identify and anticipate change. It takes careful planning and a thorough understanding of the marketplace to develop a strategy that will ensure success.

Generally, the first and most important step in understanding the market is to study it through market research. For example, in the case of a franchise, the franchisor has already done the market research and developed a marketing plan, so you will need to review the plan the franchisor has provided. Look over the plan to determine what product/service you will offer and write a description of it.

Marketing For Just Cause

Keywords: Cause Marketing

Cause marketing is a relationship between a for-profit and a nonprofit that brings in money and resources for the nonprofit, while providing credibility and goodwill for the business. According to the IEG Sponsorship Report, this category grew to $733 million in the US in 2001. There are a number of reasons for that growth. A Cone Communications survey found that: - 80 percent of Americans have a more positive image of companies that support a cause they care about - nearly two-thirds of Americans say they would likely switch brands or retailers to one associated with a good cause - more than half said they would pay more for a cause marketer’s products or services - 87 percent of employees at organizations with a cause marketing program feel a strong sense of loyalty to their company as opposed to 67 percent of those at companies that do not support causes

As you can see, adopting good causes can be beneficial, but your company’s involvement should be planned just as you plan any other business activity. Here are five steps to developing an effective cause marketing program.

Choose Your Cause Strategically. Search for a single charitable cause that you and your employees can believe in, as well as one that helps advance your business objectives. For instance, a company may choose an educational cause to ensure it has a continuing pool of well-educated workers. Many companies seek issues that align with their products, services or geographic service area. Others look for issues that resonate with niche audiences or that differentiate them in the marketplace. You may want to consider choosing an emerging issue. This way, your company will be a pioneer rather than just another in a list of companies.

Go Ask Alice

Keywords: Market Research

One of fiction's finest marketing minds, The Cheshire Cat, once told Alice in Wonderland something all business owners and marketers should remember:

"If you don't care where you are going, it doesn't make a difference which path you take."

For businesses bent upon success, it does matter which path you take. A positioning statement helps you chart your path to success because it lets all your audiences - internal and external - know where your organization stands in the battle for your consumers' minds.

Positioning: What Is It?

You should not confuse a positioning statement with your market position. As Harry Beckwith states in his book Selling the Invisible, "A position is a cold-hearted, no-nonsense statement of how you are perceived in the minds of your prospects. A positioning statement, by contrast expresses how you wish to be perceived. It is the core message you want to deliver in every medium."

Your positioning statement will be found where three items intersect:

- your business acumen/aspirations
- your market
- what truly differentiates you

Grandma Says Stay Out Of The Newspaper

Keywords: Publicity

Southern grandmothers have often said, "there are only three times a respectable person's name should be in the paper: when you are born, when you are married, and when you die."

This is the one area in which I part company with my grandmothers. Publicity is more critical today for the success of a business than it has ever been.

Why do I believe it's critical? Let's review what publicity - particularly publicity in business and trade publications - can do for your business.

Provides Neutral Third-party Endorsement. Even though many think the media are biased, consumers still cling to the belief that people who are quoted by the media have something worthwhile to say.

Boosts Your Competitive Advantage. Positive publicity confirms for your customers that they made the smart choice when they elected to use your products or services.

Enables Referrals. Your "smart" customers become evangelists by handing out articles about you to their business contacts.

Santa - The Brand

Keywords: Viral Marketing

Every Christmas Eve, a burglar named Santa busts into homes around the world, but he has never been charged with B&E. He has one of the best, most positive brands around and it continues to inoculate him against any hint of impropriety, as it has for generations. Why does Santa's brand remain so strong? Because Santa is:

* Consistent
* Unique
* Customer-focused
* Viral

Let's examine these to see what lessons we can learn. First off, Santa has a positioning statement and has used it to stay true to his mission for decades. (For more on positioning, see: http://www.hoover-ink.com/think_newsletters/think_may2002.htm)

It is this consistency that has helped him build a brand franchise that is the envy of other marketers. No matter what kind of communication vehicle he uses, the message is measured against the positioning statement.

Marketing Expert Calls For A Marketing Moratorium

Keywords: Marketing

All across America, companies of all sizes are throwing dollar bills out the window…and calling it marketing.

Ask these companies to equate their so-called investment in marketing with incremental revenues and profits, and they’ll tell you that they can’t do that. In most cases, that’s because the marketing doesn’t generate anything more than fees for printers, telemarketers, seminar hosts and party planners.

Let’s look at the issue another way: would intelligent businesses pay millions of dollars for business processes that suck? Not if they understand that this is the case. The problem is most companies fall victim to a series of marketing myths that prompt them to throw good money after bad in a dead-end attempt to grow their businesses through ineffective and sometimes ridiculous initiatives all under the guise of “marketing”.

“With this in mind, I suggest that companies halt all non-essential marketing for a week and ask themselves what, if any of the money they are spending, is delivering results,” says Mark Stevens, President of the global marketing firm of MSCO.

During the moratorium, consider the following myths and realities of marketing:

Partnership Between a Business' PR Counsel

Keywords: Public Relations

Of the multi channels of product and service marketing, public relations seems to be the one most often misunderstood to the degree that it's sometimes viewed as an amorphous promotional device, a little like ectoplasm that occasionally takes solid shape as media stories. Some corporate marketers see it as the stepchild of advertising, and still others find it so mysterious, that they adopt a laissez-faire policy with their PR people until it's time for them to account for how they spent the PR budget. This is fine if the company and its PR people could read each other's minds, and since that's not possible, the next best thing is verbal communications. The corporate marketer must communicate goals and objectives, and the PR representative must advise client or employer of how it intends to fulfill those goals and quantify results. Information sharing is at the core of a successful PR program. This means that the company must provide the tools for PR, including feedback and a budget commensurate with the level of PR activity.

Blog Your Customers

Keywords: Blogging

Blogging is the newest method and fastest growing trend for businesses to connect with theircustomers because the blogs (web logs) allow customers and businesses to instantly publish to theweb to share ideas, concepts and news.

So, What Is a Blog? Directly from the people who started blogs at www.Blogger.com, “A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly—from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction. Blog posts are like instant messages to the web.”

How Businesses Are Blogging With Their Customers

Companies are using the blogs is some highly creative ways! Check out these four examples:

• Nokia Nokia recently used http://www.projectblog.com to find ten bloggers, who they asked to take pictures with a free new Nokia 3560 phone, along with two months of cell service. Eight of the ten bloggers posted positive reviews on the blog. This fall, Nokia intends to roll out a bigger campaign at five colleges where advertising students will make a 30-second Nokia commercial and journal their progress on their own blogs hosted on a Nokia microsite.

• Nick Usborne Nick Usborne, copywriting expert, author and consultant, hosts a blog for his tremendous following where he enthusiastically points out new trends, theory and discussions at http://nickusborne.typepad.com/.

• AYA Convention - AYA, an association for pilots, created an International Convention blog, which is a perfect example of an event blog. Their convention took place June 26-29, 2000, and their blog documents the activities and participants at http://www.aya.org/aya2000/daily/.

Present for Success

Keywords: Presentations

Tomorrow’s the day and you’re dreading it. You’re scheduled to give a presentation to the senior management team about the new program you’re proposing. You’re excited and enthusiastic about the program but nervous and anxious about the presentation. You don’t know how you’ll manage to sleep tonight. These thoughts keep running through your mind; What if I stumble? What if I talk too fast? What if they get bored? What if they ask questions and my mind goes blank?

Do any of these sound familiar? If you answered yes, don’t worry! Try some of these simple strategies for your next presentation to help you build confidence and credibility with your audiences.

Developing your presentation

Change the paradigm: Think from your listeners’ perspective If you can change your focus from "What do I want to communicate?" To "What does the audience need to hear and understand", you can be a more relevant and engaging presenter. By focusing on your listeners’ needs, rather than on yourself, you can relax and let that focus guide you through the development and delivery of your presentation.

Here are the essential questions that will help you stay on track. Who is your audience? What is most important to them? What is their current level of knowledge on your topic? What do they want or need to know about this topic?

6 Steps to Using Trade Magazines to Reach Customers

Keywords: Trade Magazines

When developing a publicity campaign for their business many owners overlook the importance of trade magazines and journals as vehicles for reaching new customers. While mass media publications have widespread readership, the targeted nature of trade publications make the information that appears within them even more powerful.

Unlike general interest publications, readers of trade magazines and journals already have an established interesting a specific subject. for example, it is safe to assume that readers of American Printer are generally people who work in or have an interest in that subject.

Writing a how-to-article that appears in a trade publication establishes your business as an "expert" in that specific area. Think about it -reading an article written by your company in trade magazines provides a different level of exposure and a new image of your business to potential customers.

Here are a six guidelines for writing material for trade magazines:

1. Familiarize yourself with trade magazines in your industry - Trade magazines usually publish industry news, case studies and educational articles. New is primarily written by the editors. Case studies and educational articles are available for contributing authors. case studies describe how a service solved a particular problem. Educational articles teach the reader how to do a particular job or activity. These two types can be great in establishing additional credibility among potential customers, portraying the author as an "expert" in that area.

Writing Letters to the Editor

Keywords: Editorials

Letters to the editor can be a great way to express your views on an issue that has importance to you. Many politicians and other decision-makers read the letters page to gauge public opinion. A well worded letter can bring up information not addressed in a news article or can create an impression of widespread support (or opposition) to an issue. Here are some tips to writing letters to the editor:

1. Write about an issue which is current. Try to write within two days of when an article appears. Specify the item to which you are responding.

5. Do not be defamatory or obscene. Rather, be polite, even when you disagree.

10 Steps to Successful Networking

Keywords: Networking

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

This old saying rings true in everything we do, especially in business. Finding contacts is key to the success of your business, and a great place to meet these contacts is at networking meetings or events. It is not enough just to attend networking gatherings, you need to know how to network. There are many sources of networking tips and information, but the following are ten tips that I find most useful.

1. Set a goal prior to the event Figure out who will be in attendance. Decide who you would like to target and what you would like to take away from the event. Having a specific goal will ensure that you remain focused and will have success.

2. Pre-plan personal greeting You need to get a person’s interest right away or you’ve lost your chance. Planning a personal greeting before hand will be very helpful. The greeting should be not more than thirty seconds long, interesting, informative and about you. You need to sell yourself before you can sell a product or service.

3. Be first to arrive and last to leave The longer you stay, the more contacts you will meet.

Writing Letters to the Editor

Keywords: Editorials

Letters to the editor can be a great way to express your views on an issue that has importance to you. Many politicians and other decision-makers read the letters page to gauge public opinion. A well worded letter can bring up information not addressed in a news article or can create an impression of widespread support (or opposition) to an issue. Here are some tips to writing letters to the editor:

1. Write about an issue which is current. Try to write within two days of when an article appears. Specify the item to which you are responding.