PR and Advertising

“I don’t get no respect!” That was Rodney Dangerfield’s catchphrase.

I say this is terribly true today in the universe of electronic communications where, I point out, it is we that don’t give any respect. In our typing and our composition we are lazy, slovenly, careless, thoughtless, nonchalant — in short, downright disrespectful — and we don’t seem give a whatever about it…until we get no respect ourselves. Then we’re upset.

• We misspell names of people and businesses.
• We incorrectly name businesses and organizations.
• We ignore capitalization of proper names and trademark names.
• We misquote people, using incorrect words.
• We type famous quotes, but attribute them to the wrong people.
• We don’t check our sources to see if they are real or a hoax.
• We post and publish incorrect links.

Yeah, yeah, so what? Who cares? You know, you know what I mean.

Businesses can’t be so cavalier. Their success depends on enforceable copyrights, brand name identification, proper use of product names, tag lines, quotes, successful SEO, correct URLs, etc.

To start with, misspelling someone’s name is just plain rude. Our names, our choice of spelling, our inclusion of middle names, initials, nicknames are an integral part of how we present ourselves to the world, and how we see, hold, and validate ourselves. When you misspell or incorrectly capitalize someone’s name you are directly insulting them. In my opinion they have every right to be angry.

A misspelling could mean a reader couldn’t find a volume, and an author doesn’t sell a book. A misspelling could mean an innocent person can be harassed for the financial dealings of some ne’er-do-well.

For bloggers and online authors, misspelling other peoples’ names can alienate those folks, and the important trackbacks, reciprocal links and mutual admiration referrals and recommendations may never materialize for you.

When someone reviews our Business Plan Pro product but calls it, say BizinessPro Writer, we lose customers. It can, and will happen to your product as well. When you refer to a product or company or website, check to be sure you are using the correct name.

Ignoring capitalization of letters in names can cause confusion, and possibly a loss of copyright protection. For instance, we all know that Twitter is the proper name of a social communication network, and twitter is a bird song. The soft drink is spelled Coke, but coke is a narcotic and a coal derivative used in making steel.

As another example, take jello. Jell-O [note the capitalization now, if you haven't before] is the protected trade-name, but it has become a generic word for any type of gelatin-based dessert. Go to the store and you’ll see Knox, Royal, a local private label maybe, but to the customer they are all jello and they don’t care which one they buy. You can be sure that Jell-O cares.

Adobe’s Photoshop is well on its way to becoming an eponymous term. Now anytime someone makes a casual remark about manipulating pictures, they say they photoshoped it, regardless of which digital image editing software program they actually used.

It costs businesses billions annually in marketing branding efforts to keep their brand names visible, unique, known and purchased. But lazy, thoughtless, careless typing works everyday to negate the value of your marketing efforts.

No end of trouble, misinterpretation, bad feelings, feuds, lawsuits, destroyed public images and reputations have come about because of misquoting. Something as small as a single letter or two (could, would, should) can change the entire meaning of your business’ publicly made statement of concern to one of callous indifference, and the survival of your company.

Many quotes from literature and famous people from years past have slipped into our vernacular. They are often misquoted and misattributed. Brush up your Shakespeare by Michael Macrone has an entire chapter on popular phrases which people think came from the Bard, but did not. “The long and the short of it” “Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d” “Fool’s Paradise” are just few.

This problem is certainly not limited to age-old authors. “Play it again, Sam” – was a line never spoken by Ingrid Bergman or Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. “Houston, we have a problem.” This is a misstatement of the actual communication between the Apollo 13 astronauts and Mission Control in Houston. Your credibility suffers when you incorrectly quote, or assign the words to the wrong person.

Recently, the U.K. mainstream media was caught not checking their sources adequately. They printed quotes from an elegy for Michael Jackson, from a Twitter post ostensibly by Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The tweet was actually by a Twitter impostor, a case of identity theft. A significant lapse in due diligence. It damaged the public position of the Foreign Secretary, and discredited the reputation and trustworthiness of those media.

Posting bad links is sloppy and unnecessary. At best, it irritates readers who get the 404 Errors, or end up on a page that has nothing to do with the original publishing. Worse, a bad link loses customers/visitors/business at the intended link. If the author gets affiliate or click-through revenue, publishing a link without checking its accuracy is like throwing money away.

It is time we electronic digital communicators put some polite respect back into our writings. Use spell checkers, proof read, double check and spell correctly the names of people, businesses and products. Don’t assume you’ve got it right. The power of the Internet is just a click away.

After all, if you expect to be respected, you have to show the same respect to others.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Tags: branding, business writing, capitalization, copyright, names, news, polite, proof read, quotes, respect, spelling
Posted on October 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

We need to start using some new improved superlatives in our marketing copy. “Great!” you say. Yes, that’s the one. Great really grates on me. Great is so overused that it may as well be blank space. Great carries all the impact of a cotton puff.

Now, there was a time when great really meant something. Take Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, conqueror of lands, founder of cities for example. Now, he is great. Somehow I just can’t see Product XX’s great online resources changing the political and demographic history of three continents.

Or maybe Ramesses II, Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty, known as the Great. Can you imagine the great new flavor of Processed Food XXX ruling unchallenged for 66 years, causing the building of cities and monumental sculptures that survive for 3,500 years? Or inspiring poetry such as P.B. Shelley’s Ozymandias “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”?

OK. Actually, I CAN look on Processed Food XXX and despair. But Processed Food XXX great?!?! Not a chance.

The Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s east coast is truly Great. The reef system is thousands of kilometers long, and hosts a diversity of corals and sea life unmatched on the globe. Somehow it just seems insulting to compare it to the great customer (dis)service system of Company XXXX.

So let’s stop claiming every new and old product or service is great. After all, when every thing is great, nothing is great.

There are plenty of under-utilized superlatives available. Pick up a thesaurus or a dictionary and take a look. Click over to Thesaurus.reference.com, Merriam-Webster.com’s Thesaurus or any of the other online thesauri and peruse some of the

august, capital, chief, commanding, dignified, distinguished, eminent, exalted, excellent, famed, famous, fine, glorious, grand, heroic, high-minded, highly regarded, honorable, idealistic, illustrious, impressive, leading, lofty, magnanimous, main, major, noble, notable, noted, noteworthy, outstanding, paramount, primary, principal, prominent, puissant, regal, remarkable, renowned, royal, stately, sublime, superior, superlative, talented, able, absolute, aces, adept, admirable, adroit, awesome, bad*, best, brutal, cold*, complete, consummate, crack*, downright, dynamite, egregious, exceptional, expert, fab, fantastic, fine, first-class*, first-rate, good, heavy*, hellacious, marvelous, masterly, number one, out of sight, out of this world, out-and-out, perfect, positive, proficient, super-duper, surpassing, terrific, total, tough, transcendent, tremendous, unmitigated, unqualified, utter, wonderful, abundant, ample, big, big league, bulky, bull, colossal, considerable, decided, enormous, excessive, extended, extensive, extravagant, extreme, fat, gigantic, grievous, high, huge, humongous, husky, immense, inordinate, jumbo, lengthy, long, major league, mammoth, mondo, numerous, oversize, prodigious, prolonged, pronounced, protracted, strong, stupendous, terrible, titanic, towering, tremendous, vast, voluminous,

alternatives to great. It is time to spice up and enliven our marketing language.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Tags: adjectives, advertising, creative marketing, descriptors, great, marketing copy, news, spelling, super, superlatives, tips
Posted on September 3rd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Take a systematic approach to small business public relations.

PR (public/media relations) is a powerful small business-marketing tool. By PR, we mean getting positive press mentions about your firm in local, trade and national publications.

These mentions are so powerful because they are seen to come from unbiased third parties, so they are more believable. People may think ad messages are just sales hype, but when they read about how great you are in the local business journal…well, it must be true!

A lot of people think that gaining positive PR is luck. No! It’s the result of a systematic commitment to generating media coverage.

The hardest part is getting the PR machine rolling. Once you get coverage, it just keeps on coming. The more coverage you get, the more the press will keep coming back to you.
Here’s our step-by-step system for generating positive press coverage.

Step 1 – Build relationships before you ask for the order! Target your media sources, including a growing list of internet-based media and news resources. Start networking with these media targets today by requesting editorial calendars, sending industry information, commenting on stories they write, passing on surveys and data, inviting them to workshops.

Tip: Network with the advertising sales folks at the publications too, they will give you lots of good information about who does what and where in the course of trying to sell you an ad.

Step 2 – Create three or four central media themes for the year that support your core-marketing message.

Step 3 – Create a list of ten to twelve minor, but interesting, marketing related themes for ongoing PR. You need to fill in with volume while you are working on the front page feature.

Step 4 – Create a PR calendar (download one here) and assign a PR theme and goal for each month. Focus on one publication or one writer and you will be amazed at how much you can accomplish. Remember to target editorial calendars (Publications will often assign monthly themes, so match your pitch to the theme.)

Step 5 – Write a fully developed pitch, for each of your major themes—a pitch is a story idea that you can “pitch” to a member of the media. This is not a press release, but more of a sales job. Wrap your story idea around a news angle or trend and package the pitch to interest the readers of a specific publication you are pitching. You can change and repackage your pitches as needed. These are reserved for your central media themes.

Step 6 – Formulate one-page press releases (Send for the free Press Release Creator we talk about at the end of the article) with catchy headlines for each of your minor themes.

Step 7 – Once a month, target your core media list and distribute a press release or pitch for a major theme. Post all press releases on a national wire service, such as PRWeb, and send copies of your press releases to clients and prospects. Don’t forget op-eds and letters to the editor.

Step 8 – Follow-up with your core media list by telephone and offer some new piece of news or trend angle that you did not include in your pitch or press release.

Step 9 – Track media coverage in local and trade press, set-up Google Alerts for a number of key related terms and reprint for marketing purposes any media coverage received.

Step 10 – Send handwritten thank you notes to members of the media to thank them for an interview or mention.

Are you starting to get a glimpse of how combining advertising, PR and referrals can build momentum and create marketing energy? Try it and see the results.

You can get a free online press release creator that allows you to instantly create powerful, attention grabbing, perfectly formatted press releases in an instant at: www.ducttapemarketing.com/Instant-Press-Release.htm

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

Tags: Duct Tape Marketing Coach, PR and Advertising, PR and Media, press release
Posted on August 13th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

The Wrap-up

So you’ve completed your webinar. You had good attendance, the subject was well received. Your slides were sharp and supported your talk in a way that left everyone excited about your topic.

Everyone has left the webinar room and returned to their regularly scheduled day.

Time to wrap it up!

Links -  More than likely, you mentioned some resources during your presentation. If you thought ahead, you had a slide dedicated to information and resources you talked about. Make sure to tell people they’ll be able to get these links or even be able to download the slides very soon. Perhaps on a special post on your blog or in a follow up email.

Special Offer – You’ve more than likely presented this webinar to conntect with customers or potential customers, so give them something worthwhile as a thank you. A special deal just for the people who signed up or attended.

Follow up -  Don’t forget them! You worked hard to find and cultivate these new leads. Don’t just leave them hanging. Keep in touch with your webinar attendee’s. Send out a survey asking what they liked and what they didn’t like. Connect with them about what they’d like more of in the future.

Mistakes will happen-   No matter how well you plan or how much effort you put into making the event the best one ever, you’re going to have some mistakes. Own up to them. Apologize for them and then move on. Learn from them so they don’t happen again.

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: tips, webinar
Posted on February 26th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

We’re happy to welcome Mark Macias, author of  “Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media” as a guest poster today.  Mark Macias is a television journalist living and working in New York City.

You will never be the first person to call a reporter or producer with a story idea. Every day, viewers and readers bombard the media with poorly written emails and long drawn-out voicemails requesting coverage for events that are usually not news worthy. Sadly, this dilutes the credibility for everyone else trying to pitch a legitimate news idea. People frequently complain the media is unresponsive to their calls and emails, but there’s a reason for this discourse.

It’s not that reporters and producers don’t want to listen to the public; it’s impossible to field calls from every person, especially when one rambling caller can quickly eat up 20-minutes of time. Making matters worse, it’s easier for a reporter to hit delete on your email or voicemail than to review your entire message. Unfortunately, you can never shape or influence the media’s coverage without getting over this initial hurdle of making contact.

Every journalist is constantly measuring the value of a story during that first interaction with you or your business. Most experienced journalists believe they can tell within seconds of listening to a pitch whether it is a story or not, and they are usually right. Their attention span is limited over the phone, which is why you must be concise, comprehensive and coherent with every pitch. The quickest way to lose credibility with a reporter or producer is to ramble on for several minutes before explaining what your story is about.

There are no written rules for that first encounter with a reporter or producer, but just like life, there are unwritten rules to making sense of random chaos. There are ways to navigate this media maze so your emails and phone calls don’t get lost in the shuffle. There are also better hours and days to pitch reporters when their time is less pressing and their attention is more focused. But before you even make that initial contact, you must first learn how to effectively identify, pitch and communicate a news worthy idea.

Newspaper and television reporters should not be approached the same way when it comes to writing email press releases. The two mediums face different time constraints with their stories, and that will dictate how long or short you should make your pitch.

Let’s begin with television where white is always good. The more white space on the email news release the better. No one wants to open an email and see eight, long, single-spaced paragraphs. Your initial pitch should never have more than four paragraphs. This is a stereotype but television moves so quickly that no desk assistant, reporter, producer or news manager will take the time to read a release that resembles a novel. They might make it to the second or third paragraph, but they are not going to read three pages of single-spaced sentences.

Here is a formula that seems to work with my peers and me. Try to think of a catchy headline to put at the top of the release, then follow-up your pitch with one paragraph explaining the story. The second paragraph should tell the reporter why viewers would be interested in your idea. This might seem like a challenging task for the rookie publicist, but by applying the five W’s you will be able to narrow down the focus of the story. The third paragraph should be devoted to explaining what you bring to the table or why you are the person to tell this story. If you have more statistics, articles or research for the reporter, tell him in the email you can provide it upon request.

Why not give the reporter all of the research at once or send it as an attachment? It can be intimidating for any reporter to open an email and see several attachments because he won’t know which one to open. When time is of the essence, no one wants to waste time opening useless attachments. However, if a reporter asks for a specific request, you will know which attachment to send.

Many publicists make the mistake of trying to cram everything into one press release. The purpose of a release is to get the reporter or producer interested in the story. You are only trying to make them aware of the idea, and pique their interest. Don’t worry if the release doesn’t answer all of the questions. If it is a good story, the reporter will give you a chance to answer those questions later.

Your approach should change when pitching newspapers but you should still start with the same principles cited for pitching television: begin with a catchy headline, apply the five W’s to narrow the focus of the story, and explain why you are the person to tell the story. Your email release should be more in-depth, depending on the topic and news outlet you are pitching, but it should not exceed one page. You can add credibility to your idea by attaching recent journals or studies that support your idea, along with a paragraph that explains what knowledge the attachments will provide.

If you aren’t getting responses from your pitches, you might want to reconsider your entire approach. Perhaps your story idea isn’t focused or you are pitching to the wrong reporters. Maybe you haven’t properly identified why your story is newsworthy. Take the time to re-evaluate your press release to see if you are communicating the essence of your story. Remember, public relations is not advertising, but there is a home for every story. It’s just a matter of finding the proper niche and tailoring the pitch directly for that niche.

You can learn more about Mark and get more great advice by going to: www.BeatthePressBook.com

Tags: expert advice, press release, talking to journalists
Posted on February 25th, 2009 | No Comments »

With another webinar in our “Back to the Fundamentals” series under our belts, I thought I’d speak a little to the power of offering your customers a value add of webinars.

Last Wednesday we had the fabulous John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing in to talk. He did a great job as usual and gave some really useful tips to the attendees. (You can listen to this webinar by going to the Back to the Fundamentals page)

Putting on a webinar is a lot of work. But if you plan right, it will go off without a hitch. Hosting free webinars or training sessions is a great way to give added value to your customers.

For instance -Palo Alto Software, in addition to the B2F series, hosts informational training sessions for all our software products every single month. The archived sessions are hosted on our website for people to watch them “on demand” and are always free.

In this first piece, let’s talk about the set-up.

Part One -Before the Event:

Create some goals- How many people would you like to register? How many people do you want to actually attend? (This number will typically be a smaller number than the number who registered). Will you push your product or service during the event or offer them a special price afterward as a thank you for attending.

Make all these decisions before hand because they will change the way you map out your webinar plan and market it.

Google Docs – If you’re working with a team of people, ie your webteam or IT person, a guest host, etc, it’s best to have your milestones and work flow written down so no one misses a deadline. Even if it’s just you, this is a great tool to keep your thoughts in order and you can access it from anywhere. I use Google docs because it allows me to share with all the people working on the event and allows real time collaboration without having to juggle multiple versions of a word doc and play “who has the most recent schedule” with everyone.

Webinar platform – Webex is arguably the most popular webinar platform out there. It’s a powerful and useful system and can handle a large amount of attendees. But it’s not the only game in town. There are other companies out there like  iLinc, or  ooVoo for very small one-on-one video webinars… do some research to find the one that works best for your needs and budget.

Topic – Have an engaging subject to talk about. While I’m sure you’re very excited to talk all about the product you want to sell, most people wouldn’t give up an hour of their day to sit through your demo. But? You’re an expert in your field, share your knowledge. Find a topic and focus on a portion of it. Give the attendee’s action points and give them something they can use right away. Information doesn’t count for much if they don’t understand how to put it into action.

Outreach- How do you plan to tell people about your event? Use your customer base to start with. These are your evangelists! Do you send out a newsletter? Include an article as a preview of the subject along with a link to register for the event. Send an email blast with just the basics of the event. Don’t overwhelm with too much information. You want to entice people to the event, not give them all the information before hand. Create an event alert in your Facebook or Myspace. Twitter and write blog posts supporting the topic and always include the link to register. You might think about creating a “badge” that goes along with everything. Think of it as the “logo” for the event.

Create excitement- You don’t want to flood your attendee’s but you do want to create excitement that they’re going to get a lot of good and valuable information by attending your event. Consider sending a survey a few days before the event to ask what they hope to get from the webinar. Listening to your audience will not only give you insight on what they’re expecting but also gives them a feeling of being engaged and included in the event and give them more incentive to attend.

Next time we’ll go over tips for the webinar itself and what goes on after the event is over.

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager, Palo Alto Software

Tags: Marketing, tips, webinar
Posted on February 18th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Our next guest post is from Todd Brabender,  President of Spread The News Public Relations, Inc and a long time friend of Palo Alto Software. You can read more of Todd’s articles by going to bplans.com articles. His business specializes in generating media exposure and publicity for innovative products, businesses, experts and inventions.

The call came into my office and the voice on the other end was very energetic, almost giddy: “I have finalized my marketing budget and need your help launching an advertising campaign for my new product,” he breathed. “Congratulations,” I replied, “but before you implement an ad campaign, I want to make sure you have explored potential publicity & PR opportunities that could generate some cost-efficient media exposure first.” Then, silence. “I never thought about that,” he sighed. “Frankly, I don’t know much about it.”

It’s a common conversation. Although many entrepreneurs or business people know a bit about publicity or media exposure, the majority simply don’t understand the full benefits of media exposure or how to go about generating features successfully. Media exposure has always been a cost-efficient way to market a product or business and generate clients or customers, but because of lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of what media exposure is and does, many entrepreneurs don’t take full advantage of these publicity opportunities — and that can lead to missed marketing chances.

I recently surveyed a few dozen business owners and entrepreneurs in some newsgroups and business chat rooms about their knowledge of media exposure and publicity. I found out that only 37% knew that a simple “product profile” in a magazine was generated as a result of publicity or public relations efforts. Most thought the company had paid the media outlet to run the feature, much like an ad. And of that 37%, less than half of them knew HOW to generate a similar placement.

Another interesting fact, because of the recent slowdown in the economy, expensive advertising budgets have been slashed. As a result, many businesses are turning to media exposure/PR campaigns as a more affordable means of marketing to compete with other companies. Here are some ways to use media exposure and publicity placements to help your business:

(more…)

Tags: guest author, PR, public relations, publicity
Posted on November 21st, 2008 | No Comments »