Carson and Company

Web Marketing may not be new to pr marketing people, or web developers, but pr clients do not truly understand the power it has. For example, it takes weeks sometimes months to get a press release published, or even an article in a trade or consumer magazine. When you use web marketing correctly, your publicity efforts can happen within days, sometimes hours!

It is important if you are a pr client to not forge ahead and start calling your publicity agency to do web marketing. That’s not their strength. What you need to do is have your pr marketing strategy team develop a solid web marketing campaign that targets your specific audience. If you do not know how to implement a web marketing campaign, who do you call? Web designers are not likely to know or want to do this. Your publicity agency isn’t prepared to create online campaigns; they are best at submitting traditional media. It is best to contact a company that knows what and how to get your company noticed.

Web Marketing is more than sending out press releases to online newswire services. It is a complete program that analyzes your web site and does more than optimize it. Knowing the language on each page that has links to those sites and pages within your site is critical in optimizing a site. Keywords are not the big thing anymore. You can include them, but keywords or key phrases alone will not get you noticed. What about buying adwords? I prefer to not do this. Yes, we would consider buying some adwords for clients that really can afford it, we prefer to use specially designed programs at Carson Marketing, Inc. to include a vast array of elements. These may include the optimizing I just mentioned, marketing to social networks, writing blogs, to publicity releases, links with credible sites that are ranked high, to an on-going publicity program for online media. These are just a few examples to let you know that web marketing isn’t the simple task of sending a bunch of press releases to the online media. It’s time to get noticed so that you survive this slow time in order to be on top of the competition. Let us show you how without burning a whole in your wallet. Call us at 949-477-9400.

A good pr marketing strategy is to keep current and use new technology when it is hot. Just like online social networking. But are you using it? If so, are your pr marketing strategies in place? Do you use banner ads, or is it a place you visit once in a while?

If your pr marketing campaign consists of only placing banner ads on these social networks, then it’s time to re-think your pr marketing strategy. I have written several articles about using this hot media, to help pr clients. For example, banner ads on social networks only benefit the media, such asMySpace, or Linked-In, or even Facebook. Unless you have a very generic product or service, your wasting money. The first rule in marketing is to understand and know your audience.

A recent article in iMedia Connection by Michael Estrin speaks about this. I share a lot of his views about using social media web sites. This can be a productive media source when understood and planned correctly. One example in Mr. Estrin’s article is how Visa worked with Facebook, not using banners, but for downloading an application. The deal was worth $2 million to Facebook. This is one way to gain maximum exposure and get your customer to react to your product/service.

In last week’s newspaper, an article about Linked-In told how the company grew rapidly with advertisers (banners, etc). This is great for the company and it’s founder, Reid Hoffman, who is making money, but are the advertisers? Again, this is fine for the few major companies. It is best to target your audience, and get them involved. That’s the way to establish a strong branding image for pr clients. All professional publicity companies know the power of marketing and connecting to your audience. But are these professional publicity people really using the media or are the media buyers at the ad agencies just rushing in on this trend? I feel most ad agencies and many publicity professionals do not understand the social network market.

If you are a pr client or publicity professional, don’t just launch into this media, be sure that you, guide clients by learning how to utilize social network to the max.

Do you have a pr marketing strategy that is ready to include social media?

We hear a lot about social media and all the new web sites that are popping up to get in the action. Now it seems that AOL, the 4th popular search engine, is gearing up to show it is part of this new social era.

The problem might not be that AOL needs to think like everyone else. When you visit the ParentDish.com site, it is targeted to a specific audience. As a marketer, I think that is a smart move. Because you cannot have a social media site that is too broad based. It just won’t work. Even the AOL Blog tries to stay within their own profile.

On the other side of this popularity with social media, one major segment is still not considered. Know what it might be? I believe in the near future we will start seeing “social media for business”. I wouldn’t be surprised if a programmer, or a search engine company like Google, isn’t already developing this. The problem I see is going to be how the business model will be presented. Probably more general in scope. Like MySpace. But I truly believe that segmented social media business sites will be part of a pr marketing campaign for all pr clients.

This may take a few years to mature, just like Facebook and the many other sites that exist today. Why do I believe this to be true? Because blogging in the business community is already happening. It is in major companies as well as small to mid size companies. PR Marketing strategies now include blogging as part of the business culture. Just as it was among the youth a few years ago, now social media is the place to be. So it only makes sense that “business” will soon begin to embrace this media as a pr marketing tool. It will be an excellent way for executives and all businesses to exchange their philosophy, their business culture to others, and possibly become a place to learn how to grow a business from a CEO’s perspective.

If you want to give your pr clients exposure to any of the new products or services they offer, create a promotional marketing program. The PR strategy is to get the ultimate customer involved with your pr client’s product. Sounds rather obvious, right? It should if you are a pr professional. If you are a pr client looking for ways to increase visibility, then consider using this pr marketing strategy.

I’m sure you have all seen these types of “consumer involvement” campaigns. Currently there are many showing up on television, direct mailers, and in print media (magazines, newspapers). One example is the show “Smallville”. Toyota has discovered to compete in a crowded auto industry you need to get the consumers attention and get them involved with your product. They run a series of “superman cartoons” and ask the viewer to figure out the next sequence. Another is for the new release of the movie”Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” This time Verizon Wireless has learned quickly that customers love to play games. In this promotion, which the media, Promo Magazine calls Buccaneer Marketing, asks the participants to choose their own adventure for the game. Based on the movie, it is a first for this type of game-movie tie-in. Read the article and the others that offer good suggestions to gain visibility through promotional marketing strategies.

I have been a believer that when you get your audience invloved in the products that pr clients offer, your return is greater. We did this for years with our client’s in the auto dealership industry.

When done correctly, you can create a pr marketing strategy that can be very powerful when you include publicity.

Build your image with SEO’s

Traditional branding is something a company, a pr client or advertising agency will do that may include a corporate identity program, collateral materials, and possibly purchasing media.
The media can be print (newspapers, magazines) or broadcast such as radio or TV.

Branding is the building of a name, a product or the overall company’s image. It is the consistent use of the brand in all the different areas of communication. As clients and customers become familiar with the brand, it makes them become loyal to that brand. Therefore, it takes time to build this loyalty among customers and clients.

With Search Branding, we see a new era of marketing and how we use the branding tools. Clients and potential customers now use search engines to seek the information about a product. When you optimize your site correctly, and have a solid web marketing campaign, that should include a good blog site, you will begin to establish a branded image. The buy-cycle is different on search engines than traditional branding, because people now can collect the information they want to make a buying decision sooner. That means you need to get your company listed in several areas so the potential customer feels good about your brand when making the decision to buy.

When people see your brand two, three and four times when searching, they become familiar with the brand making them more loyal to it. So as you can see, by using search engines as Google, Ask.com, Yahoo and many of the other specialty engines, it can make your brand a winner.

See Also

• Use all the Branding Tools
  Know what works for your company