Carson and Company

It is hard to believe that a year ago I made a presentation to the California Community Colleges on  “Job Behavior” as the first soft skills lesson. This year our company produced another lesson on Power Listening. Although many people, including pr clients, ad agencies, even many publicity professionals think this isn’t that important, or a soft skill. Well it is. In fact listening is the most important soft skill a person can learn.

Check out these facts:

Over 75% of what we learn is from listening. And get this, a person can only speak about 180 words per minute, but we hear over 500 words per minute. That means we get bored when people are talking, and therefore loose interest and miss what is said. So if you are a pr client, publicity professional, start listening, not hearing, but listen to what is being said.

It was a great presentation and many of the professors and other administrators at this conference for the community colleges were very pleased with the presentation. Several people commented that they learned a lot and will begin using this Power Listening lesson in their classes immediately.

My other point why I am telling you about this, it is an excellent publicity vehicle. Our company was well received by the 109 community colleges throughout California. This is one of the many ways a pr client can gain exposure for their company, or themselves. Give lectures; speak on topics that you know, or about trends in your industry. A few helpful hints:

• Contact your local Chamber Of Commerce to give a lecture

• Send an article to your local newspaper to the business editor and ask them to publish your article. Make sure the article is newsworthy and talks about a specific topic in your industry

These are just a few suggestions. To learn more about making presentations, or “how to listen”, give George Carson a call. He knows how to listen, and can show you how to gain favorable publicity when using this soft skill. Contact George at 949-477-9400.

Writing a press release is much different than writing an article, or a script, or copy for an ad or brochure. A press release should be written to a specific audience, or market. If you are a PR Client, then make sure that your in-house pr department or your publicity agency understands the importance of targeting a specific audience for each press release.

PR Clients need to understand that publicity is an art. It doesn’t just happen in the media. To get a press release published, you need to follow a few points. Besides writing it in the correct format, which you can check out this site to help you understand how to write a press release. What you need to also do, make the press release fit your specific audience. Don’t try to be general and reach the entire market. No matter how generic your product or service might appear to be, you can target specific markets and revise the release to target other markets.

One way to get your press release published is to see what you are saying. If you are opening a new office, or moved to a new location, then the release should be targeted to local media. It is also good to mention how this move, or new office will impact the area. For example, will you be hiring new people, how will your company affect the new area? Think in this manner and you have a good chance of getting published.

If you are a medical company, then ask how it will affect that industry. Does your release explain how your company (or what the release is about) changes anything in the industry? Of course, this release should target medical publications, and local newspapers that have a Health section. A short article on “Reaching the Right Audience” explains more ways of identifying how to understand your market so that your press release targets the right audience in order to get published.

Follow these simple steps and you will have a better chance of the media running your next release. If you need professional pr help, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

Get creative and break out of the publicity box

Whether you are a pr client or a publicity agency looking for a new slant on an article, try re-thinking how you approach a topic or subject.

We all tend to get into this hole of doing the same type od releases, articles for pr clients. Everyone wants publicity people to be creative, think of a new angle or invent a story for the media. Well, that isn’t always the best way to gain favorable publicity.

We need to think outside of the publicity box. A good article that addresses this issue is called "How to get Free publicity for small businesses". The author has some good tips to help you think outside of that box. For example, ask your customers (in a survey) that include some controversial questions. This can spark a topic of interest for your industry to get your company an article published.

A few other tips include:

• Create a top 10 list within your industry. If you have a bakery, or food manufacturer, do a "Top 10 of the most wildest food items made"
• Offer surprising facts about your industry or business. For instance, if you’re a recruitment firm write an article titled, "The Average Starting Salary of An MBA Graduate is 40 percent Higher Than Their Pre-MBA Earnings."
• Be first to offer something that no one else has in your industry. Such as a 200% double your money back guarantee. Make sure your product or service is really good.
• Do you participate in any local charities, or events. Try closing your office for the entire day and have everyone work for that charity. This can be a great headline "Local Print Shop Closed Doors to Help the Needy".

Ok, now you try it, get creative, break out of the rut.

See Also

• Get FREE publicity by getting creative
  learn how to look beyond the traditional publicity releases and articles

As a PR Client you need to follow the rules

Publicity agencies and pr clients sometimes loose sight of how to write a press release for the media.

When you submit a release to a publisher, editor, or a freelance writer, it is important to follow the basic rules when writing "newsworthy" releases.

All releases should follow these simple rules:
• WHO
• WHY
• WHERE
• CONTACT

Keep in mind WHO the publication’s audience is when writing. Sometimes it is necessary to modify a release if the audience varies even slightly.

Know WHY it is an important release. The product or service may be important to you, but what about the readers and your industry. Make it important to them and the editors will then not toss your release into the trash.

If the press release has a location, such as an event, seminar, or announcement of the unveiling, be sure to mention this. Otherwise, pr clients need to list the location as their main office, or headquarters. Publicity agencies need to also list the pr clients location, not theirs.

Finally, put the contact info for the pr client. The publicity agency should also include their contact info as the focal point. Be sure the person listed is available to respond in a timely manner.

See Also

• Make your press releases “publisher friendly”
  Each release should stand on its own

How to write for the web

A friend asked me if there is a difference in writing techniques when creating brochures, press releases and web sites. You probably know that my answer was YES. I directed him to my blog a few days ago that addressed this issue. Then today, I saw an article that was describing the writing habits for the web.

I was pleased to see another person realized the need to educate publicity writers how different it is when writing anything that appears on the web.

Let me share with you some of my findings and experience.
First you need to accept that the web is different when it comes to writing anything. Here are a few reasons how it is different:

• Text is hard to read. Most computers have low resolution, even the higher the resolution, and the smaller the type. This makes it more difficult for people to read on-screen text. They tend to read slower, comprehend less and recall less.

• The web allows you to link pages and sources. Unlike print, you cannot link to other articles, or resources.

Ok, if you agree with these two points let’s move into "How you should write for the web".

• Keep your articles down to 1,000 words. Why, because of my point above that says text is hard to read!

• Use sub-headings and bullet text when possible. This gives the reader a chance to scan the article.

• Give more info. This is where you want to use the links. Provide links to your sources, or references. It helps to build that link strategy you need for the search engines.

• Speaking of links, use keywords and phrases when writing. Don’t go wild and pack a lot of them into the article. That will get you negative action from the search engines. Use keywords wisely and the engines will treat you nice.

See Also

• Use good writing skills for the web
  Know how to write web articles

How to keep your brand going strong

What makes a brand? It takes more than one sentence to answer this question. As well as it takes more than doing just one press release, or an article to create or build a brand. It takes an entire campaign that can last more than a few years to build a solid brand image.

First you need to understand what it takes to build a brand, as well as how to maintain that brands image. A good thought would be why you are buying a particular car. Why do you prefer a GM brand over an import like Toyota, Nissan, Lexus, etc, or vice versa? Ask yourself, why is a brand important?

Brands are a big part of our daily life. It is how we make decisions on our buying habits. So knowing this much, you should then realize no matter your industry, branding is critical.

Oh, you think that your company is a B2B company, and therefore you don’t sell directly to consumers. Bad thought. All people, even business people are brand conscious. They too are consumers. Take another test. Why do your business customers buy from competitors? It’s the branding. Ok, sometimes cost is a factor. But if your brand was highly respected, one that delivers excellent service with follow up, then your brand will outlast the discount companies.

If you need to read some other thoughts on building a brand, then read a column from Rhonda’s Report. She will address the 5 points that brands are based on. It is time to build your brand before your competitors knock you out of the industry.

See Also

• How to build a brand
  A company needs an image before it can build a brand

Using the tools can help a publicity campaign

Most public relations service companies use e-mail to disburse the press releases or to send a mass mailing announcing a newsworthy event.

As with all mass mailings, publicity can become a victim of too much mail that it gets trashed. Sending out a mass blast e-mail may not always be the best solution for a publicity campaign. Sometimes it is best to target the few media reporters that best fit your press release or pitch for an article. e-Mail blast can be good for some news bulletins or to announce an event you might be holding. But I recommend that you are selective in that approach and choose the few media you really want to attend and send them a separate email with a personal invitation, not a generic one.

In our fast pace world of publicity, we need to slow down and target our audience, in this case it is the reporters or publishers. Doing this does require extra time, but it will pay off better than sending a blast and having no reporters attend.

This is true with press releases and press kits for pr clients. Not every release needs to be blasted to hundreds of media. Taking this easy approach only gets bad publicity for you and your company.
Knowing how to use e-mail marketing can be a major benefit to a company. It allows you to measure the response sooner than traditional mailings. And you have a stronger of reaching your prospect, media, than placing the release in an envelope and hope that it isn’t filtered (tossed out by the secretary) before it reaches your chosen destination.

See Also

• How to create an effective e-Mail campaign
  Know the source of your press release

Make Publicity Work For You

No matter how much you read about optimizing a web site, or how to design it for ease of navigation, we are always asked by clients how to improve their image via the Internet.

The best and most oblivious media is through your web site. Simple, yet companies tend to crowd everything they have about the company into hundreds of pages deep, or they make one page be a couple of thousand words long.

You can talk to a dozen different web-marketing companies, or web designers, and all they know is that small segment. Few understand the power of publicity. Those progressive web companies will work with the pr clients, or the publicity staff, or the pr firm to discuss how to incorporate their areas of expertise into making the web site proactive.

For example, each pr clients website should include a newsroom, or press section. This will have company press releases, articles, white papers, etc that can be viewed by the reporters, publishers, or any media.

Other important pages are:

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Products/Services
• Blog Site

The Press Room or Publicity section should also be in this list. The above areas are the main sections to a good web site structure. Planning these pages within these sections is also critical. Don’t go wild and have a dozen pages deeper. If you need to, break that heavy copy page into another one or two sections for visitors to view if desired.

Too much information is not as good as you may think. Instead, condense your information with solid content. Your visitors will learn more and come back often.

See Also

• Creating an effective web site for the media
  A Web Site can be a valuable pr tool

PR Clients need to deliver more

I have written several blogs and articles about involving the publicity departments with the marketing departments. Well is finally catching on. But only in few situations, usually when a company cannot meet its sales goals.

Public relations firms need to step-up to their pr clients and request meetings with the marketing staff as well as the sales departments. Discussions about how each is handling their departments to increase sales will open conversations to work collectively. Competition is not going to get less, but more intense, no matter your industry.

We are seeing that end users (customers) are expecting more from manufacturers. For example, when you make a major purchase like an automobile, you expect more than the rebates. You may negotiate for free oil changes, or extra large tires, etc. When you buy furniture, or appliances, you expect the company to provide free shipping, or some other added incentive. One of our snack food clients will be offering an “instant rebate coupon” that is on the package. It is this type of quick gratification that customers are looking for.

At PowerPR, the company’s blog also had a comment about this. The blog titled "Publicity to a Public that wants More". PowerPR’s clientele is mainly in the manufacturing industry, so they see this as a need for publicity people to get more creative with clients to help sell products. They refer to the extras as being “surprised”.

As professional publicity people we need to address issues like this in order to have clients gain more visible and favorable publicity. 

See Also

• Be creative with publicity
  How to let customers know about you

How to generate traffic

Sometimes it is difficult to explain to pr clients how to get more traffic to a company’s web site in these short blogs. The reason is that it takes more than just a few keywords or phrases embedded into the HTML codes. It requires a plan to get fully indexed and recognized by search engines (SEO).

For those of you who understand the behind-the-scenes, and for those who have a fair knowledge of web marketing, then this is for you.

Before launching your new web site, or your updated site, you need to make sure the following has been completed.

• First, make sure your domain name is registered, or renewed
• Review your home page and the other key pages, these could be up to 5 or 6 different pages
• Make links to your page with other high ranking pages that are already indexed. This will give your site immediate recognition by the search engines
• Develop a PR campaign with releases on your site. These can be releases that have been distributed to the media
• START A BLOG SITE! Not that I haven’t said this a few times before, but a blog site with your company web site will build high rankings with search bots as they crawl the different sites and your links
• Make sure you write articles that are relevant about your company, the products or services you offer. Write articles about topics that you can later submit to other Ezines

One last item for this blog. Get links from other indexed sites to your company site. That completes the cycle.

If you need help with web marketing, give us a call.

See Also

• Building traffic to web sites
  Using the right Web Marketing Tools builds traffic