PR and marketing

You have to be in it to win it

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the 2009 Mosman Daily Business Achiever Awards with one of our clients - Jill Keyte. Her business Starlight Cinema (an open air cinema held over summer in North Sydney) was a finalist. Even with very stiff competition in her category, Starlight Cinema won and was also a finalist in the Readers’ Choice and Best Overall Business.
Business awards are a fantastic way of increasing the profile of your business and yourself. When you win an award you not only achieve recognition but get heaps of free publicity.

Even if you don’t win, just the experience of writing down all of your achievements can be inspirational. As business owners we often just keep moving forward and writing award entries forces us to sit down and review how far we have come.
Entering business awards can be time consuming, but it is a worthwhile activity – and you have to be in it to win it!
When we do PR strategies for our clients we always build in potential awards they can enter – both industry specific as well as general business. Here are some awards currently open:

NSW & ACT Small Business Champion Awards
The Australian Small Business Champion Awards provides you with the opportunity to be acknowledged for your commitment and drive required to succeed in small business. Being involved in these Awards will also enhance your business reputation throughout Australia. Entries close 7 September 2009

Anthill Magazine Cool Company Awards
The inaugural Cool Company Awards were launched in February 2006 as a way for Anthill Magazine to publicly acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. Entries close 23 September 2009

B&T Awards
The B&T Awards are designed to recognise excellence in all areas of marketing, media and communications. The Awards are an all encompassing industry event showcasing excellence across 20 categories. Entries close 25 September 2009

The Mobius Advertising Awards
The Mobius Awards is an international awards competition and is open for entry to any and all associated in the creation and/or execution of advertising, whether it is related to consumers or business-to-business. Entries close 1 October 2009.

Top 7 tips for developing story angles

There is no guarantee that when you pitch in a story idea to a journalist they are going to run with it. However you have a much better chance if go the extra mile - research every show or publication before you send your pitch, and give it a targeted, relevant, timely story. Here are some tips for developing the story angles:

Read the daily paper
This sounds really obvious, but get into the habit of reading newspapers (online or printed). Scan the headlines of each section and ask yourself, “What is in the news today that ties in with what I want to promote?”

Read the publications you want your story in
Reading through the publications you want to be featured in will give you a good idea about what angles they are looking for, and what sections they have so you can develop angles specific to the section.

Use surveys to craft solid story ideas
The media views quantitative data as newsworthy, accurate, and sidebar-friendly. Launch a survey, or piggyback on survey results that relate to your industry to create a strong story.

Listen to questions your clients and customers ask you
Are you suddenly hearing lots of people asking the same question? A trend may be starting that you can tie into.

Read trade publications to spot industry trends
What is the buzz in your trade publications? What are new developments in your field? Use your access to this information to shape a story.

Give evergreen stories topical new twists
Have you noticed that new year’s resolution articles fill newspapers and magazines every January and tax tips are published every March? Editors have a pressing need for evergreen stories, but demand fresh twists that are relevant to their audiences. A “top ten” list of tips is always welcome.

Work with holidays
Create a story angle by tying in with regular holidays or with a little-known but highly relevant holiday. You can even make up your own special day or week and get publicity for it. For example ING DIRECT launched Savings Week 2009 to link their bank with saving.

Use the power of publishing podcasts and video podcasts

A podcast is a digital file that is distributed over the internet for playback on portable media (Mp3) players, iPods and personal computers.

Podcasts involve recording either audio or video material for other people to listen to when they want and where they want. They are extremely useful in a society where people are constantly on the go.

Podcasts are the perfect way to get your message heard and all you need is a computer and microphone to record one. Once you have finished recording you can post your podcast on several websites such as iTunes.

You can use podcasts to market your own business messages or those of your clients. You can also search for other people’s podcasts and listen to the information they have recorded. 
 
Podcast Alley is one example of free podcast software. You can search for topics and download them easily onto your computer.  One of the most popular programs for recording podcasts is Audacity. This program is easy to use and, most importantly, free!

Depending on the business, a videopodcast might be an interesting way to visually show your products and services to the public. A videopodcast is more than just audio, it also includes video. You can use a digital video camera and upload it to iTunes. You may even consider putting video footage on YouTube.

The first step is to create a concept, and when it is time to shoot keep in mind that it will be watched on an iPod, so get close and don’t use wide-screen or high contrast.

Once you have your video you need to compress it so it is optimised for the web and iPod viewing. You also need to tag your movie so it can be easily found online. There are instructions on the internet, so Google this. 

You need to let people know that your video podcast exists. To reach as many people as possible, submit your podcast to iTunes. You can also provide a URL for your podcast by including it in your blog. First create an RSS feed so that you can attach your video to your blog.

Then create an entry in your blog and place a link to your video. You can also add your podcast to the Podcast Directory and podcast alley.

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Last week seemed to be a week of writing case studies. Marketing Magazine has a Media Survival Guide coming out soon and we pitched a few of our clients' case studies into it – and they were accepted.

When we were writing the case studies, it made me think – how many businesses tell their stories through the experiences their clients have? Have you thought about writing success stories to put on your website, sales material or even to pitch to relevant media?  If we don’t share our successes with our clients – who is going to?

I also had the experience of needing to be my own client – having to prepare for a media interview. I quickly needed to review what I tell my clients to do before an interview! As per usual I over prepared, but it meant I got my key points out about how small business can use the power of social media. I have included in this newsletter some key points about how to maximise every media opportunity.

 

 

Are you sharing your successes through case studies?

Case studies provide ideal opportunities to leverage business successes and can be used to reinforce your core messages through “story telling”. They provide audiences, including journalists, with a picture of the benefits your business provides its clients.

Market research consistently shows managers refer to the experiences of their peers when making purchase decisions. You most likely have many “stories” and it would be a shame if you didn’t tell your audiences about your successes.

Case studies follow the same format:
•    Identify the challenge a particular customer faced.
•    Describe the solution provided by the company.
•    Illustrate the measurable results gained from using the service.

Many publications require case studies to be written in a specific way, for example Marketing Magazine submissions require the following structure:

•    Background – what were the contexts of the case study?
•    Objective – what did the company hope to achieve?
•    Strategy – how did the company plan to achieve the objective?
•    Execution – how did the company actually implement the strategy?
•    Results – what were the results of the execution? Did they align with the objectives? What did the company learn from the whole experience?

When writing a case study we interview our client as well as their client so we can include quotes and get both sides of the story. The story should demonstrate how your company’s product or service was a key factor in solving your client’s problem. It doesn’t have to be solely about your product or service, but your influence must be vital to the success.

As with any written material used to build credibility it needs to be written well and not be overly promotional. See a sample case study that we have achieved fantastic print and online media coverage, or read a simple 'written for the web' case study. 

 

 

 

Media interview survival tips

The most important thing to remember in a media interview is that it is an opportunity for you to get your messages to your audience.

For print, it is important not to respond to any questions on the initial call. Ask the journalist what information they are looking for and the format of the interview (if it is over the phone, one-on-one, live or taped).  All journalists work to a deadline, so find out what their deadline is and set a time to call them back. Make sure you call them at the agreed time.

Online media are often working to a tight deadline and need an immediate response. In this case, only participate in the interview if you know your topic very well.

•    Setting your agenda. Before you undertake the interview you will need to write out a game plan. The game plan covers key issues, possible questions about the key issues and the answers for each possible question. It is important to write these out - don’t do it from memory. If you are doing a phone interview, have the plan and media release in front you for easy reference.

•    Develop compelling messages. What are the critical messages that you want to communicate? Key messages are the core messages you want your audience to hear and remember. They create meaning, headline the issue and allow you to control the interview.

•    Understand the journalist’s role. The journalist’s role is not to try to catch you out, but to establish the facts and report on them objectively. Journalists are looking for the truth. If you try to get a story by making claims that cannot be substantiated, it will not lead to a story. The article will not be published and they will never ask you for an interview again.

•    Practice, practice, practice. After your preparation, you should review your game plan and do a practice interview. Close the door to your office, take the phone of the hook and spend 10 minutes going over your key messages and answering the questions from your game plan. Remember this is your opportunity to get your messages to your audience, so make full use of it.

Read more about media interview preparation in our resources section on our website.

 

Get the LinkedIn advantage

Unlike Facebook and Twitter where you can mix personal with professional, LinkedIn is specifically for businesses and professionals. There are over 25 million registered users from virtually every industry and profession.

LinkedIn is a non-intrusive way of staying in touch with business contacts. Even better, it’s an easy entry point for small businesses looking to get into social media, because it doesn’t take much time and it’s pretty easy to use.

When you join, take time adding your profile – add a summary of where you are working now, and your previous positions. Don’t forget to add a professional photo. Also include what you want to be contacted about. At the bottom of your profile, you can select interests like reference requests, consulting offers, or career opportunities.

Connections
LinkedIn allows you to quickly add your contacts via Outlook. You can search for people you want to link with and LinkedIn suggests people you may know, and then you can send them a message asking them to join your network.

LinkedIn isn’t a popularity contest – it’s the quality of connections rather than quantity. Having said that, the more connections you have the more networked you are. As with ‘real-life’ networking, people would much rather work with people who their associates are connect to.

After each networking function I attend I add the people I have met to my LinkedIn connections so I can easily stay in touch with them without having to email or call. I also take a look at my connections’ connections to see if I know anyone that I would like to reconnect with.

Ask and answer questions
LinkedIn Answers  is where you can ask and answer business-related questions to your network and the extended LinkedIn network. Participating is a great way of gaining trust and building your reputation, as well as the chance to show off your own expertise to others.

You can also get business referrals through answering or asking questions. Recently, a colleague (and great marketing strategist), Clodagh Higgins emailed me a question she saw on LinkedIn “Can anyone recommend a good PR firm for professional services. Location specific: Sydney Area", Australia”. This was a great new business lead for us.

Join Groups
There are thousands of Groups on LinkedIn. Joining groups is a great way to build your online networks of connections on LinkedIn. They allow you to find communities of professionals who share a common experience, passion, interest, affiliation or goal. You can join a Group or even create a Group. For example, Tony Arena started a number of business networking groups called Lets Do Biz and created a LinkedIn group to connect all of the participants both online as well as offline.  They can then create discussions, make news announcements and even upload jobs that go specifically to members of the group.

Read more about how to use LinkedIn including recommendations, improving your Google PageRank and Public Profile on our blog.  

 

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I can relate to the expression: the cobbler's children have no shoes. We have been so busy writing enewsletters for clients, we haven’t taken the time to write our own! So finally, after eight years, we are launching our own enewsletter. We aim to share our PR expertise and interesting happenings in the world of strategic and online PR.

Recently I was reminded how important networking is.

Last week we had a new client start with us through a referral. I met the person who referred us at a networking function around three years ago and he kept my card! When we develop PR strategies for SMEs we always build networking into the strategy. I believe it is essential to personally build your brand through developing relationships. So if you haven’t got a networking function booked into your diary this week, or a coffee catch-up with a potential associate – this is your reminder!

 

Do you have effective key messages?

In PR we are always going on about key messages. We use them in everything from preparing for a media interview through to writing websites and corporate brochures. But what are they?
Key messages are the core message you want your target audience to hear and remember. They are really important because they allow you to control communications and enhance relationships with your target audience.
For a media interview, key messages are the information you really need to get across on the topic. You use them irrespective of what questions the journalist asks. For a business, key messages are an extension of the elevator statement you use at a networking function.
You should have around seven messages that are:
• believable
• easy to understand
• distinctive
• agreed by key staff
• credible.

 

 

The power of Twitter

Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@catrionapollard) or reads the Public Relations Sydney blog knows I love Twitter! As part of our online PR solution, we have been integrating Twitter into the work we do with clients.

Here is an example of Twitter's reach. One of our clients, Mindset, has a fantastic free Leadership Survey that we have been promoting. The Survey helps managers identify the areas that need to be improved to increase employee engagement and improve outcomes for the entire organisation.

Detailed information about the Survey was added to their website. To specifically target business leaders and CEOs an ad was placed in an enewsletter that is distributed to over 6000 CEOs. The Survey information on the website was linked to the ad.

 

From the enewsletter the ad received a 1.1% response rate. I tweeted about the survey with a link to their website – which was also rewteeted by Mindset's @aarondodd. This single tweet achieved a 3.4% response rate. So we got three times as many click throughs from Twitter.

It is certainly worth taking a look Twitter and integrating it into your communication strategy.

 

Blogging- the essential marketing tool

We all read blogs - but have you thought about creating one for your business?Blogs create marketing opportunities that allow businesses to interact with customers like never before. As the blog has evolved – and because it is an interactive medium where readers can comment on the articles, or ‘posts’ – businesses have embraced the blog's ability to build rapport with customers and humanise the business.

No matter the size of the blog or the size of the business which ‘owns’ the blog, they naturally attract search engine traffic and have optimised site architecture. They have the added advantage to be well linked to other blogs and websites.

Read more about the benefits of blogging and how to set one up. 

 

 

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