You may not think it is important, but editors, reporters write and read for a living and they do not tolerate poor grammar, or the use of conjunctions to make long sentences. I read an article in Press-Release-Writing titled “Get a Grip on Grammar“. It has a lot of the tips I give my pr clients. Let me share with you a few of these from the article.

Q: I’ve heard the terms biweekly and semiweekly used interchangeably. Are they really synonyms?
A: A bimonthly appointment occurs once every two months. A semimonthly appointment occurs twice a month. If you’re a gardener, it will be easier to remember the difference between “bi” and “semi” - just think of the term “biennial” and it’ll be a cinch to remember.

Q: When is a comma used before the conjunction “and”?
A: A comma should be used before coordinating conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or) to join closely related sentences. A comma is optional, but recommended, with and before the last item in a series of three or more items. In most of their other roles as joiners (aside from joining independent clauses), coordinating conjunctions can join two sentence elements without the help of a comma…

Q: When are “state” and “federal” capitalized?
A: State and Federal are capitalized when they exist as part of a proper name such as “Federal Reserve Bank”; however, “state law” is not a proper name, so it is not capitalized.

These are just a few common problems that any pr professional, pr client, or novice writer should keep in mind when writing any releases, or articles. If you need further help with your current publicity campaign, give Carson Marketing, Inc a call at 949-477-9400. Ask for George Carson.

Hey, if you think this is just marketing bull, then you need to read a recent article in B-to-B magazine about the top Fortune 500 C-Level execs using the Internet. They are not asking their employees to do the work; these C-Level execs are doing it themselves. The research done by Google reveals that eighty-three percent of C-Level execs use the Internet on a daily basis. These are companies doing over $1 billion in sales! What are they doing when surfing? According to the research, 64% of these execs are locating business information everyday. Maybe now you can begin to see how important it is to have an updated, professional web site. These top-level execs could be looking for information about your company. Is your web site or social networking campaign current? If you still think this is a lot of hot air, then you are definitely missing an opportunity to increase sales.

Here is another great bit of information. 1 in 5 of these executives prefer to see videos on the companies they research to reading text. That shows you it is time to include podcasts, or YouTube videos with your site and social networking. So what are you waiting for? It isn’t too late to get a powerful pr marketing strategy together, if you have the right pr team. If you need help, then give George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc a call. If you choose to do nothing, it could be your company that soon appears in the “auction sales” listings.

Do you now get the point of my headline? Are we becoming that lazy or not willing to use our brains that we want a computer program to help us make these types of decisions? What happens in the next 10 years, or sooner, is going to be really interesting.

But not to be overlooked, Microsoft is still pushing to be king of search. They too have revamped their ZUNE seo for the new Bing. Know what BING stands for? Get this, But Its Not Google. Sorry Microsoft, the “but” is still Google. Although the graphics might give BING a new look,  Google will easily overshadow any changes Microsoft makes, quickly with their development team. Remember, we just saw the WAVE recently. Well, I am sure Google has a few other wild tricks in their lab that will launch soon and take the thunder away from BING, and possibly from hunch, after it launches.

So, listen up all you pr clients, publicity experts, and novice publicity people. Keep using these tools as they become available. Because when you use them for the advancement of your national pr campaign, or local publicity event, it could just get the attention you need, or learn something to make that pr event a success. When you need a web marketing pro to keep your publicity campaign in the front of your competitors, call George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc.– it could be the best call you make this year!

Google’s design team who developed the Google Map, are the lead developers of this unique program. It is difficult to explain how the WAVE works in this short blog, so be sure to check it out. But here are just a few of the highlights.

WAVE has incorporated all the other forms of communicating, which are Instant Messaging, Twitter, eMail, and even integrating what I believe is their version of video conferencing. The main point about Google WAVE is how it works instantly. Uploading pictures is instant. Typing your message is instant, by character. Unlike Instant Messaging, you wait until the person types before you see their message; WAVE shows each character typed immediately! This 2-year in the making program will be available by the end of the year. You can see the demo video; it is over an hour long, to better understand all the great features.

And like a videoconference, you can have several people on your WAVE at once. And the wildest part, each person can comment, INSTANTLY! It is like talking to each other, or a group of people at once. If you want to send a private message so all the others cannot see, there are “private” buttons to use. Now the other neat part. You can have your WAVE be part of your Blog or Twitter. Yes, they are incorporating this instant emailing into social media. You can access your WAVE on your iPhone, or other PDA devices. Are you seeing the benefits for PR Clients, or how to further your publicity campaign?

Google went further and made this program easy to use, easy to organize and very easy to place attachments into your WAVE. The program has a unique spell checker. It uses a database that Google created and corrects the spelling and compares it to how it is used to make sure the proper word is chosen. Want more? Yeah, there is a lot more. For example, you can add links to web sites real easy. You can “go back” to see the conversation, or…well you need to view the video to see what I mean.

So, is your pr marketing strategy going to use WAVE? If after all my short descriptions of these great features you can’t see the benefits, then you are way behind. All I can say is you better look back once in a while, or you might get hit from the next WAVE!

Basically, you can now get more indepth info rather than surfing hundreds of  web pages. The new feature, listed near the top and next to the word “Web” is called Options. This neat feature will give you more options for your search. Such as, videos, forums, results in the past 24 hours, or up to a year ago. Then there is the wonder wheel. This is a circle with spokes that give you further areas to review and develop your pr marketing strategy. Let’s say you type the word “encryption”. With the Wonder Wheel, it gives you options that read: encryption samples, history of encryption, java encryption, and several others. If you don’t want all of these “options” you can click “hide options” and it brings you back to the normal Google search of web sites.

A writer pointed out that even Facebook is looking to Twitter to see how they can improve their pages to be more real time and usable. A WebProNews Blog Partner, Bill Hartz, commented “From what I am seeing, the ’search engine optimization’ industry is actually turning back around to what it used to be: good old fashioned website marketing.” This again is good news. Search was getting confusing, because the way you received results was ovewhelming. Now the SEO’s are answering our needs, finally.

I have said this in past blogs, we are just starting to open the door of the Internet Future. Who knows what we will be saying and using in the next 12 months. I don’t know about you, but I sure am looking forward to this new passage.

Yes, Twitter actually has a very good search and gives good results. You can get local publicity information. Unlike Google, or Cuil, or Yahoo, this offers a different type of searching. For example, an article titled ” Twitter Search Will Be Powerful” by Joe Marchese explains his experience. When the earthquake happened in Southern CA the other day, he did a Google search to get more info. Joe had just landed and was eager to find more about the local news in Orange County and Los Angeles and level of the quake. Google provided hundreds of sites, but nothing current to that day’s event. Then he tried Twitter. The search allowed him to read people’s reaction to the quake. He was able to see/read the effects of the earthquake immediately. This is how local publicity in Orange County, or Los Angeles can be accesses immediately.

This is not to say Google, or Yahoo, or even Cuil cannot offer this information. It now shows us that search has become more than an encyclopedia of pages, but can now become a tool for other uses. Twitter is opening the door to new search. And according to Joe, he believes that Google (or someone else) will purchase Twitter to gain this feature it doesn’t offer. Sounds right to me. Joe wrote an article in March about his perspective on this.

Remember, what we thought was a new way to do things just a couple of years ago, actually just last year, is old news. This fast paced social media is teaching us that we are going to see new territories and discoveries opening up shortly. Who knows, this blog site just might become old news next year, and I’ll be communicating in a different platform.

If you want to keep on track with social marketing, do it now. Call George Carson today. 949-477-9400.

Wow, didn’t these bright people notice this before? Seems like the food makers (advertisers) or is it the marketers (ad people) are just now discovering this new arena. To no surprise, it has been going this way for about 8 months or more. But then, when you are a large company (doesn’t matter if an agency or food maker) they all take a long time to realize what is in front of their nose.

Then when I read a statement like, “This is the time to advertise. We are going to innovate” by a self-proclaimed supermarket guru named Phil Lampert, I can’t help wonder who is this guy? Was he asleep all these months? But then, when you proclaim yourself with a title as his, I guess no one listens, or if they do, they too are always behind the growth curve.

Why is it that a pr client will not listen to us smaller pr marketing people who have the insight and capability to move faster than the snails pace like the major pr and ad firms? I guess when you pay the high fees you have to believe these are the smart ones. Wrong! They are the onses who finally listen to the real movers and shakers. It’s us, the proactive marketers and pr consultants who are seeing and working with programs and campaigns that get noticed. We can change directions quickly and become proactive rather than re-active. Maybe we should charge more for our services, but then again, I’d rather be the leader of a marketing direction than be another follower. What’s your take on this?

For example, companies like Amazon and Domino have learned the hard facts and how to control your social network campaign, only after getting hammered by fans and other online followers. Remember, if you use this media, like Twitter, you better realize it opens you up to all sorts of people. You need to use the social networks as a tool to market your pr client or your products and services. But don’t treat these like a TV commercial. That isn’t why you have followers, or fans, etc. These can be your best approach to getting the word out, if done properly.

On the good side, look what Ashton Kutcher did for CNN. Yeah, he outpaced them with followers, but CNN got a lot of exposure and they used this to help strengthen their position by hiring the person who began the CNN “Breaking News” account.

If you want to start using this new and powerful social network (like Twitter), be sure to know the game.  It is best to get a professional to guide you in the right direction. Then you will be able to use it to your advantage; otherwise you can get destroyed faster than it was to build your company. Need help? Give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. His company, Carson Marketing, Inc. can get you into the social game so that your pr client, or your company will get great results.

Before you begin to use social networking for business, you need to answer these questions. First, do you have a pr marketing strategy? If not, do you have a pr marketing plan? Ok, if these are not in your business plan, then it’s time to develop a pr marketing strategy that includes social networking. It would also be an excellent pr marketing strategy to start a blog site for your company. All successful PR Clients have a solid pr marketing strategy that has social networking as part of their plan.

I have written about using of MySpace and Facebook as a means to market your business. And I wrote a lot on blogging, which in all should be a continued program with all companies and PR Clients looking to be successful in the next 12 to 16 months. Now let’s look at how you can use Twitter as a business tool.

What makes Twitter so exciting? When used properly, Twitter is a great way to reach out to new prospects and keep a trusted connection with existing clients.

Some important issues to know: Unlike the many other social networks, Twitter followers do not like in-your-face marketing. And unlike MySpace and Facebook, Twitter has “followers”. These are usually friends, and other people that you may not know directly.

The rules for using Twitter:

1- Don’t add people you don’t know. This new social group gets annoyed if you just add people who follow others you know. Start slowly, add people you know, and then let it build. The main reason people like Twitter, they can leave if they don’t want to follow you because of your content.

2- Look for people that are in your industry. If you find people that are recognized in your industry, or are smart, then getting them to re-follow you is easier. That’s provided you offer something they want to follow, or know more about. Remember, no one like spam, so don’t start the hard sell with followers.

3- Be genuine about your business. When you begin to tell about your business, tell it from the heart. Not like a sales pitch. Twitter followers will respond if they see you have a passion for what you do.

4- Be active. If you choose to use Twitter, you need to invest at least an hour or two during the week. Just like other social sites, keeping it fresh is important. But with Twitter, people follow because they feel they are getting up-to-the minute info about you.

Still want to Twitter? If not, at least build a social network that includes the blog site and the traditional Facebook site to keep your business alive. Need help with social networking? Then give Carson Marketing, Inc. a call at 949-477-9400. Ask for George Carson, he will personally assist you with your social networking needs.

To understand the right way, you need to know the “failure” signs of a poor web site. For example here is a short list of what a poor failing web site contains:

1- Poor Copy. Too often the copy talks about too many things, and is not focused on how your site, or the products will benefit your customers.

2- Difficult to navigate. If you have visited a site and thought how poorly it was to find things, or navigate, then use this to really see if your site falls in this category.

3- Difficult to find items. Many web sites try to pack as much products into their site, only to get the visitor lost and confused as what to buy. Keep your products limited to a few, or to a specific category.

4- Broken links to web pages. This happens too often. It will also cause you to get poor ranking on the search engines. Check all your links, make sure they work, and if you have links to other sites, make sure they work as well.

5- Poor design. This should be at the top. If your site is too busy, or lacks interest, then you need to re-design the site to be more pleasing for visitors.

6- Contact Information. Again, this important area is one of the main causes of people moving on from your site. If visitors have questions, or want to contact you, give them an easy email, phone number, or form for them to get in touch. People want to know you are real, so don’t provide a “yahoo” email account, or a PO Box for an address.

These are just a few of the pr marketing strategies that you can do to improve the conversion rate of visitors to your web site. If you want a FREE analysis of your web site, give Carson Marketing a call. We will give you FREE tips on how to improve your site. Or you can keep going on as usual and watch your competitors take all the business from you.

Our client, Encryption Solutions, Inc. developed the encryption software. The SkyLOCK At-Rest product is NIST/FIPS Certified encryption at 140-2, level 2 at 256 bits, HIPAA Compliant, and DAR approved. That may sound like a lot, and believe me it is. This stuff really works, and is used by the military and the US government. It is so powerful, that it is restricted to be sold to certain countries. Now that’s security at it’s best!

So when we wanted to make this available to everyone, we could only think of one way to publicize the product, use Leo Laporte. When he tried the software, he quickly learned how powerful and easy it was to use. ” I am encrypting everything now…hackers can never, ever, ever access your data…even if you email it through an unsecured system,” commented Leo. When we heard that, it was a natural for my pr client to run radio spots on his Saturday show (11 AM to 2 PM) the local KFI radio station (640 AM) in LA. You can also hear Leo on his Tech Guy Labs web site. To further prove that this is the best encryption software; our pr client is allowing consumers to download a FREE 30-Day Trial. Just go to www.skylockesi.com for a Free Trail. Then if you like it and see how easy it is to install and use, you might just want to let your friends know so they too can protect their data. One more thing, if your laptop is ever stolen, your data is protected. No hacker can crack this encryption software.

So if your pr client has a product or service that is truly great and meets the needs of today’s consumers or businesses, think of the best way to jump-start your pr marketing campaign. Think of someone that is visible, believable, and will endorse the product. Need help; call George Carson today for a free consultation about your pr marketing strategy needs.

You can find a lot of information about SEO optimization on the web. If you do a search in Google for the words “seo optimization” you get over 6 million searches. Too many to read, and which ones do you choose? You can’t only select the top 5 or 8 searches, because most of those only give a definition of seo’s. Well, I’ll make this simple and easy enough for any local publicity agency or even a novice web designer to do.

It’s no secret but here are the basic rules to keeping the web site fresh and seo friendly:

1- Keyword and keyphrases. Although many web marketers might dispute the fact that keywords and keyphrases may not be the pr marketing strategy to use, it still holds a lot of attention for seo’s and their methods of rankings. To keep your keywords and phrases current, you need to do some research. It is necessary to find what are the most requested terms/words for your specific industry and place them into your meta keyword/phrases. But do not overload or stuff your keyword, meaning do not put more than 12 to 15. This is what I recommend. Otherwise the seo’s will move you down the rankings.

2. Page titles. Very, very important. Do this correctly and it will pay off. Each title should be different for each page, and include the keywords you use. The best way to understand using titles is to think of yourself looking through books at a library. If the title helps you to stop and look deeper into that book because it relates to what you age looking for, then that’s how the titles work in your web site for the search engines.

3. Meta description. Similar to your page titles, these help the seo’s provide the description to your listings. Each page of your site should have its own meta description. Keep in mind to not have the description be more than 155 words. This is one of the areas that you can control since the seo’s will grab your descriptions for the listings.

4. Keeping the site fresh. You should make it a point to refresh the site every 3 or 4 months. Not change the site, but modify the text, refresh the keywords, and re-visit how the elements are positioned on the site. Then after doing this, re-submit the site to all the seo’s and directories.

There are many other things that will help keep your site listed and ranked high, for example these would be: a) blogging, b) publicity releases, c) articles published, d) RSS feeds, e) social networking, f)  have an on-going pr marketing strategy plan to assure the site meets it’s goals, just to list a few.

There are over a billion sites/pages and millions added everyday. If you do not have an on-going web marketing plan, then it’s time to implement one. Do you need professional help that is affordable? Give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. Carson Marketing, Inc has been helping pr clients with their web marketing needs for over 10 years.

Let me explain what has been happening between these two pr marketing strategies that has direct mail the winner at this time.

You need to realize the average person receives thousands of junk email a month, and some may get that much a week. Then consider how many hundreds of email you get from vendors you know, clients, newsletters you subscribe to, etc. Although once an important pr marketing strategy, email is now getting numb to the receiver. Our inbox has become so full with emails that we are now trashing things that are not directly needed at the time.  A well-known professor, Andrew Razeghi wrote a book called “The Riddle…” and explains it is time to be creative with your marketing strategies. In his words, Mr. Razeghi said, “direct mail is more physical, less disposable and more sensory than digital media (email).” This alone should tell you why direct mail is clearly becoming the winner.

I am not saying to abort all email campaigns, but to re-consider the safe and true value that direct mail has, and it has a higher return rate. That’s because customers are often skeptical and more so when the economy is in a recession like now. By keeping a tangible image with something for the customer to touch, gives a positive perception of a company. With email, it is difficult for the person to get that feeling, especially if they can easily “click” your message into the trash without opening it. Another point, we hate getting bills in the mail. So it has been known that consumers will open a direct mailer because it is not a bill, or something that could be negative. Basically, we want to be entertained and junk mail can help relieve the fear of another bill.

Want to know some of the secrets to a successful direct mail program? Give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

The header area changes scenes with the words that show different people using their computers in different environments, letting the consumer know that your data can be hacked anytime, by anyone. Even if your laptop, or desktop were stolen, the SkyLOCK encryption will protect the computers data from any situation.

The branding campaign for the pr client will consist of blogging, social networking, and a local media broadcast campaign. We plan to launch the various pr marketing strategies within the next 10 days. The campaign will run for26 weeks, and will expand to various markets.

If your company needs a branding campaign, or a new branding approach, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. It could be the best investment to get your company ahead of the competition in today’s market.

Loren’s web site plays up his talent, by making the face cards on the left change and his eyes shift left to right. The navigation buttons make a puff of smoke and disappear when the mouse rolls over them.

The logo was more challenging. To create the mystic and surreal feeling, we used black and white as the colors and then designed his initials LMZ with a free flowing hand lettering style. The letter “M” is invisible until you stare at the logo. You then notice it is the negative space between the L and Z.

Many pr clients may not want their branding campaign to be this aggressive, but Loren is that exception. With the competitiveness in any industry, it is important to build a branding that is positive and memorable to your audience. Our pr marketing strategy will continue the path of this direction as we begin a new series of publicity releases for this pr marketing campaign. If you need some magic in your pr marketing campaign, call Carson Marketing at 949-477-9400.

There are still other social networks that are free. And new ones are entering the crowded market, such as Twellow.com (still in beta). So how do these social sites profit from an industry that is hungry to meet others? Place banner ads on the sites? Collect the personal data and sell it to prospects? Or begin membership clubs to keep from all the commercials and banners?

I am not sure what the answer is, or if there is going to be an answer that meets what people will be willing to accept. Only time will tell. In today’s rapid pace of social media, we can only wait and see.

I thought this short blog will help my pr clients and “friends” in the publicity industry, as well as publicity professionals are informed about the latest direction for social networks. If you are a pr client, or publicity firm that needs help in developing a social visible network, then give me a call. I’ll be willing to guide you in the direction to take your business to the next level. Good luck, George Carson.

It’s amazing how the advertising industry is running scared about social media taking away their market share. Maybe because they are the last to recognize or admit social media was not a fad but a new way of communicating. For over a year, I discussed this at length. I mentioned how social media needs to be part of any pr clients marketing strategy, or media plan. But then again, I am one of the few in this marketing and publicity industry that embraces new technology and uses it to my pr client’s advantage. Why do ad agencies, even pr firms keep ignoring opportunities like social media, social networks? Because they do not understand it! And most importantly, cannot figure out how to make money off this technology, because they were too comfortable doing the same old stuff for over 40 years!

What got me on this topic was an article I read today in FT.com (Financial Times) by Tim Bradshaw. It is titled “Social networks threaten advertising growth“. Powerful heading, and even more eye-opening as how fearful this industry is about technology. Yet, our industry communicates to consumers about new products, services and why you need them. But these same people who profess its greatness, fear it.

I have learned to adapt to new technologies and make it beneficial for my pr clients. For example, web marketing has been part of our company for over 6 years. That puts us light years ahead of many others in my industry. We continue to learn about how to improve client’s visibility, increase sales all through web marketing. Yes, we do mix traditional marketing techniques when needed to further a clients publicity campaign or awareness program.

To wrap this up, we are not fearful of technology such as social media; as a matter of fact we are looking for the next revolution and are ready to use it to our clients advantage! If you want your publicity or marketing to move forward fast, then give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. It could be the best call you make to put you ahead of your competition.

Publicity is everywhere! That’s what I have professed for over a decade. As we all read about how bad something is, we tend to shy away from them. So let’s talk about the auto industry. The big three–GM, Chrysler and Ford. The negative pr these companies have had is going to hurt FUTURE sales. Yeah, they are having great deals on cars, trucks and SUV’s. But now people hear about them going broke, or having serious financial trouble. Would you consider buying from any of them? I don’t think so. Why? Because if you need a part in four years, or have trouble with the vehicle, you begin to ask…will they be there to help? Will the dealership I bought from be around anymore? A recent article in Media Post gets deeper into this topic discussing a survey to illustrate this point. Service is a major concern with any product. That too is what causes the slowdown on many retailers. Why buy from them, if they are closing?

What all this negative publicity does is help the competition. Again, look at the auto industry. Sales are going to increase for all the imports. Not just because they build better vehicles, or are price competitive. It’s because there hasn’t been negative publicity about any of the better known imports having financial problems. At least we do not hear about them like we do with the domestic auto companies.

This also applies to the banking industry, and retailers. If your company is in a good position, financially, then consider creating a “positive publicity campaign”. This is when branding should be a major part of your pr marketing strategy. This window of opportunity is now open, take the leap. Just make sure you work with a professional publicity company to help guide you through this timely event.

Carson Marketing, Inc. will be developing various materials for distribution and create a unique pr campaign to promote Illusionist Loren Zwick. His illusion web site is: www.zwick.tv

The publicity division of Carson Marketing, Inc., www.CarsonPR.com, has been servicing clients from Fortune 1000 to startups since 1980. Located in Santa Ana, California, George Carson (Marketing Director) said “Loren Zwick is the type of client we all enjoy, because it allows us to be creative without limitations.”
For further information, and how your company can get noticed, contact George Carson at 949-477-9400.

Just like a well planned publicity campaign, your well-designed web site needs to be submitted to get the site ranked by the SEO’s, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Whether you are a local Orange County company, or a national company, the submission process is basically the same. Here are a few tips to consider:

1- Submit your site after it is complete. Too many times a pr client, or web designers want to submit the site even if you have a couple of pages that are still in construction, or are not completed. This will hurt your rankings.

2- Hand Submission is best. If you hire a local web marketing company or have your  local publicity agency do the submission, make sure it is not done with software.

3- Beware of promises by web companies. If someone promises you top rankings…buyer beware. Check them out, make sure the company can produce what they claim.

4- Use keywords, phrases that relate to your location. It is good practice to include in tyour title page, or in the body text that tells where your company rsided. Although your company may do business nationally, local web marketing will further the exposure and your chances of being ranked higher with the SEO’s.

Doing the submission to all the search engines and directories is a long process. And you should only submit to about 5 SEO’s per week. Doing a blast will trigger red flags to the “bots” and cause your site to be overlooked. In the long run, using a professional web marketing company will assure your site is properly submitted, and optimized.

In today’s tough economic times, the companies that will survive are the ones who continue their 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.

When people say they got “FREE publicity”, ask them if they paid for any of the services I just mentioned. In reality, free refers to the media. Unless you pay for an advertorial, or a press release to be published, then it is free. Unlike an ad, which you pay for that space (this even includes traditional publications, online media, social networks, etc) publicity is something that editors will allow to be printed in their media without cost. You need to realize that the editor, or publisher has the right to refuse, or publish any releases or articles. Whether it is about a new product, or service, it is up to that publication if they want to run it.

So how do you really get Free PR? Hire a professional company that knows how to write press releases/articles and has the media contacts, Then you may get the FREE PR everyone is bragging about. If your company wants free publicity and can’t do it in-house, give Carson Marketing, Inc a call.

Just like a solid publicity campaign, email marketing should have a plan. Here are a few tips.

1- Offer something of value. Don’t fall into the trap of discounting. Most emails will be shouting the price cuts, or discounts in the subject line. Instead provide value, such as information, or use the subject line to mention how your product or service provides helpful tips, or increases their profit margins.

2- Start a discussion. The first and last things we do in any day is check our emails. Just like a social network posts questions, try this in your email. It could be something that is passed along and soon your company is the focal point of that topic/product.

3- Follow-ups. Use email to follow up to a customer who made a recent purchase. Ask them about their experience with the sale, or with the product order. Get customers involved, it will show them you care.

These are just a few tips to creating a successful email marketing campaign. It still is one of the most powerful marketing strategy tools that a pr client can use during this difficult business climate. So start to make things happen. Use email marketing wisely and see the results. If you need help, call George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc. He can be reached at 949-477-9400.

If you don’t have a web site marketing strategy, then it’s time to sit down and write one. You can’t do affordable web site marketing without a pr marketing strategy plan. To help you get started, let me provide you these tips.

1- Is Your Web Site Google Friendly? Since Google is the grandaddy of search engines, all others will follow this practice. Make sure the site is well designed. Not just with graphics, but well structured. That means all links are working, and pointing the the correct source that relates to the topic of your web page. Make sure it has ease of navigation for users.

2- Optimize from the inside out. More than just adding keywords and phrases. You need to research what are the best keywords for your market, product or service. This changes frequently, so make sure you update this information at least every quarter. Be sure that the title pages make sense. These should be part of your keyword strategy campaign.

3- Link relevance. Are the links to your site and from your site relevant? Just having hundreds of inbound links from sites that are not related to your site can lead to lower positioning on the search engines.Fewer higher ranked sites that link back are better than hundreds of low ranked sites.

These are just a few tips to get an affordable web site marketing campaign together. It will require some solid and serious commitment to maintain a web marketing strategy. Once you have this in place, then you can begin an aggressive pr marketing campaign that includes social networks, blog and podcasting as well as a publicity online press release and article campaign.

Let me give you some of that inside scoop.

YOUR SITE

B2B web marketing needs to begin within the “core” structure of a company’s web site. As shown in this simplified illustration, a pr clients web site is the starting point. Now lets see how each phase works:

SEO

From there you build outward to the SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I have spoken about this many times. This consists of keyword research, meta tag and content, link building. It was said that over 75% of clicks are ORGANIC searches, not paid links. So you see how important this phase is. Hang on, were getting to publicity.

SEM

Then comes the SEM (Search Engine Marketing). As powerful as Google is with it’s AdWords campaign, you should also consider using Yahoo Search Marketing as part of this SEM.

LOCAL MARKETING

The heart of most B2B web marketing sites. Although we all want to be world wide, you should use local networking to build your B2B web site. There are local marketing tools like Marchex Adhere to help start your local campaign. Ok, here is where you begin to include local publicity.

PUBLICITY

This should now be the emphasis of your pr clients campaign. A solid local and national publicity campaign should include press releases, articles in various media, and seminars. That’s only part of it. Be sure you research the online media. These will include social networks, as well as online media news outlets.

EMAIL MARKETING

Not too far behind your publicity campaign should be an email marketing strategy campaign. There are two main methods: eNewsletter and email blasts. The eNewsletter should be listed on your B2B web site for customers to sign up to receive them. The email blast, although can be costly, should be used when targeting a specific market or industry group.

Ok, I don’t expect any pr client, or pr agency to handle this type of B2B marketing, but some of them do try and fail. If you need a professional publicity agency that knows this stuff, call George Carson at 949-477-9400.We have been helping B2B companies grow through unconventional marketing techniques. Let us get you noticed.

These are important questions, and you as a pr client, or an eCommerce client should take seriously. If any of these are problems, then re-think your web site. Here are a few tips to make sure that your web site is consumer, or B2B ready.

1- DESIGN. Believe it or not, a poor design will actually hurt you. The SEO”s reject poor design sites for indexing. Also, customers will run away fast if the site is hard to read, confusing, and the graphics are screaming for attention.

2- WEB LAYOUT. If you have a lot products, or services to offer, make sure customers can find everything easily. And your content needs to be something your customers will enjoy reading.

3- NAVIGATION. This goes hand-in-hand with the design and layout. When those are done correctly, then the navigation should be clear and concise, or customers will get lost and you will loose business.

Bottom-line– have a professional work on your web site. If you already have a site then make sure it meets these simple tips. If not, contact a web designer, one who understands marketing. Otherwise, they may just create a nice design for them to enter in a web site contest, and doesn’t meet your needs. After all this is completed, then the optimizing is next. If you are serious about building customers on the web, make sure web marketing is part of your advertising and marketing plan.

And this all relates to publicity. A great looking site will generate positive publicity. A poorly designed and difficult site will also generate publicity. Which type of publicity do you want for your web site?

You’re probably saying how does this help with improving a publicity campaign? Well, it does. An article by Jason lee Miller gives a good example about “Google Helps Find Missing Links“. Ok, maybe not directly if you are a publicity professional. But this gives you the opportunity to work with the IT staff, or the webmaster. Why? Because if a web site has broken links, the SEO’s, like Google, Yahoo will punish your site. This can cause you to fall many pages back on a listing, even loose a listing altogether.

By knowing about this web tool, it makes any pr professional smarter knowing how the web works. Because if you post your pr clients press releases on the web site and the site gets poor ranking (due to broken links) then it is time and money wasted. This is even more true when visitors or media visit the site. Broken links are not liked by anyone, especially anyone in the media– editors, reporters, etc.

Protect your pr clients publicity by including this into your pr marketing strategy. It can only improve your relationship with clients. And in this touch economy, loosing a client can be very costly. If you need help with your web site, then give George Carson a call at Carson Marketing, Inc. (949) 477-9400.

Unlike Google who used “Blogging” to get social with it’s “Follow this Blog” link, Yahoo tried being another Facebook, or MySpace. Now Yahoo has learned a lesson and has re-invented itself in terms of social and blogging. This time Yahooo  is claiming to be more of a social destination. According Stoneham, who says the following about the new yahoo social direction:

I want to make it clear that this new profile is not intended to be a new social destination on Yahoo!. Rather, our plan is to integrate “social” as a central dimension into the services you use every day. For example, if you’re on Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, you’re already seeing Yahoo! Buzz, Mybloglog, and Twitter updates as part of your friends’ status messages. Soon you’ll see social capabilities added elsewhere across Yahoo!, beginning with places where you start your day. The new homepage we’re testing will soon have an application that lets you stay up to date with what your friends are doing across the Web. And Yahoo! Mail will be delivering a smarter inbox, displaying emails from your most important connections first.

Developing a pr marketing strategy for your pr clients, or if you are a pr client, don’t feel these attempts are showing a crowded market for social networks. I still feel the industry is growing and maturing. Yes, there will be fallouts, and that in turn builds a stronger understanding of where the next level of social networks is going. In my opinion, it is going to be more “business” related. There will always be consumer sides to social, but the business community is hungry for this as well, but on a mature level. So keep your pr marketing strategies in touch with the changes and keep an eye open for new social BUSINESS networks, it is only a matter of time, and the time is not far off.

For some reason the people in these departments do not like to share their information, nor help each other. That’s because each wants to show how great they are. Well, if they work together, they might be more productive and more successful for pr clients, or themselves.

Ok, time to get into the meat of high ranking on Google. To get your web site ranked high on Google, or any of the other major SEO’s such as Yahoo and MSN, you need some background on how this process works.

Ever wonder when you do a search and type a keyword or phrase into Google how all those results pop up? It starts with a massive “index“. That is where the Google crawlers begin their search. Google uses Googlebots that search updated pages on their index, as well as new site. There are billions of pages on the web and this process isn’t easy even for a Googlebot.

A query is found by Google by matching the results to your query that are the most relevant. There are over 200 factors that rate this, and PageRank is only one of them. This brings in publicity. Yeah, a long way around to get here, but it’s important to know in simple terms how the process works. Since you now know the basics of website page rankings, now you can use this to improve the publicity releases you write. Remember what I said several days ago, that a press release needs to be optimized as well in order to help your web site get higher ranking–listing. Knowing that relevancy is important, make sure you have good content in your press releases and they are submitted to all the proper online media outlets.

You should look into having a professional publicity person help with the distribution if you want to get noticed and ranked/listed higher on Google. Remember, I’m here if you need the help to get your company noticed in a positive way. Just contact George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc.