Carson and Company

Web sites are more than places to buy electronic products, or collect information about a company. All industries, including the medical field, understand how important it is to have a visible image on the Internet as part of their pr marketing strategies.

Recently our company, Carson Marketing, Inc., was contracted to design a web site for a board certified internist. The web site was created for Dr. Hedyeh Golshan. Unlike the typical site that is sometimes difficult to find what you are looking for, this site is geared to be extremely user friendly. The clean graphics, and bright, yet subtle colors, creates a strong image for the doctor. We used her photo on the main page so that patients can feel they have a personal relationship with the name. This was all part of the pr marketing strategy we used in developing the web site.

The site is simple, with few pages, but enough information to help those seeking a medical doctor, like Dr. Golshan, to feel comfortable enough to further contact the doctor to arrange for an appointment. When discussing the site development with our pr client, we made sure to communicate in the site what was necessary for potential patient’s to know. This included listing a chart that shows the provider ID# for the different insurance plans. As simple as this sounds, it has helped those seeking a doctor by eliminating unnecessary phone calls to Dr. Golshan’s office asking for the doctor’s ID#’s.

So how does this all fit into a publicity campaign? As I have been saying for years, “Publicity is Everywhere”. That includes a pr clients web site. The Internet may be your only visible contact with potential, and existing customers, clients, or in this case, a patient. Having a clean and uplifting web site can enhance a company’s image and establish a branding identity. If your company needs to freshen up an existing web site, or need a new web site, call George Carson at 949-477-9400. Our creative and web marketing programs are designed to get you noticed!

Your pr marketing strategy should include a series of press releases each month. So what is the total number of press releases to send per month? We recommend at least three per month. You don’t want to issue the same release every other week, but rather find a new angle, or create new releases each week.

We do not recommend flooding the media with dozens of press releases, especially if they are not newsworthy. That will get you negative publicity and probably be recognized as a pest to the media.

Your pr marketing strategies should outline for your pr clients a series of releases to meet the objectives of your publicity campaign. For example, if a pr client is introducing a new product, that warrants a press release. When the product has an impact, or makes an improvement to something, this can be another press release. Basically, follow through with the first press release to see how you can continue to get media attention. Reporters and publishers need good content and stories for their readers, so when writing your pr clients press releases, give them solid information that will want readers to learn more.

Keep away from “sales writing”. Press releases need to be informative, give features as to why the product or service was developed. Tell how it will affect the market, or industry. That is what reporters are looking for in their publications.

If you need help in getting your pr marketing strategy, or publicity campaign in gear, give us a call. We have the contact and expertise to get you noticed. Make the call; it can be the step you take that advances you ahead of the competition.

If you are like a lot of media research people, or a publicity professional who is always trying to find useful web sites for your pr marketing strategy project, I have something of great value. First, realize the Internet is pack full of information that makes it difficult to find what you are looking for. Google has done an excellent job in allowing more than keywords, but allows you to use key phrases for a finer method of narrowing your search. Ever feel lost in the Internet? Im sure you have.

Publicity professionals, pr clients and all advertising companies use the web to gather information for creating marketing plans, or developing a pr marketing strategy. Knowing where to start can be a great help. But how do you do that? Is there a place that actually has grouped, or categorized sites for all us web surfers to find “stuff”?. The answer is yes. Ok, your saying, get to the point…here is a useful web site that has a good listing of subjects: PINAKES, A Subject Launchpad. The site has an array of topics to find most anything from Music, to high tech to arts and humanities to biotech and many more categories.

It may not be the super list of all lists, but as I said, you need a place to start and this is just one of the many useful sites that can get you pointed in the right direction. So the next time your pr client, or publicity professional has a research project, or you need more information to make that next presentation, check out PINAKES.

If you are really ambitious and want to dig deeper for information on a specific topic, then consider sites like DMOZ, the Open Directory, or About.com, or intute. Each has resources that will get you surfing. But beware, this can get habit forming. You might just find yourself spending hours looking and not doing the research project your had started out to do. Put a time limit on your research, and bookmark sites that could be of value. Then go back and make notes on those sites that can help complete your project. For more information on web site listings, call Carson Marketing, Inc. Ask for George Carson.

If you are still wondering how to get your company, or pr client noticed, then look at Business Blogging. It is one of the strongest pr marketing strategies you can implement. It takes some work, but the rewards are great. First you need to realize that just having a blog site isn’t going to make things happen overnight. You need a plan, you need to understand how the blog world works, and then your business blogging will all come together.

There are dozens of companies claiming to do blog marketing sites. Only a few truly understand how this mysterious cyberworld can get you noticed. We are one of those companies who have surrounded ourselves with many of the top developers and marketers that know how a pr clients web site can become listed or ranked very high on Google and Yahoo, as well as MSN. There isn’t any top-secret formula, just a lot of planning, consistency and hard work. Like any other web site, a business blog site may take a few weeks to get indexed with the search engines.

To make your blog site more business provide the visitors opportunities to make comments on the site. Have an area that they can signup for your company newsletter, or download and article that relates to your industry. If you need assistance in getting a solid blog site that gets noticed, call George Carson. He can help with the development and the web marketing.

If you want to do other publicity activity to get noticed, then consider these other tried and true efforts. Many of them I have spoken about, but sometimes when you read it by other publicity professionals, you might listen more. These are just a few suggestions I saw that was written in an article called “How to Get killer PR“.

• Attend Events. Introduce yourself to other business people, check to see if there is a special area for networking at these events, or if they have guest speakers.

• Find something that makes you unique, a compelling theme (as the writer states). Find the strengths and uniqueness and talk to reporters about those qualifications

• Be accessible. When anyone form the press calls, or sends you an email, you need to respond in a timely manner. That doesn’t mean when you are ready, it usually means within a couple of hours or sooner.

These few tips are common sense, but often not used. Make your publicity part of your overall business plan. It should include the blogging as well as the many other campaign elements I have spoken about in the past. Look at topics on my blog like “How to write a Marketing Plan“, or “Write a Press Release for the Media Not Your Company”; another good article is “Where to send your press release”.

If you are serious about developing a blog campaign, check out “Social Media Keeps Growing…” and “Internet Marketing Tips“.

Now get back to your business blogging.

Advertising agencies and publicity professionals use different advertising marketing strategies to promote a pr clients products or services. Do you know what marketing strategies are being developed for your company? If you are not sure, then use this information as a guide to get a better understanding of what marketing strategies are about.

First, if you Google the term “advertising marketing strategies“, you will see that Wikipedia defines it into three main areas. They are:

1-Weak Strategies

2-Middle Strength Strategies

3-Strong Strategies

I want to concentrate on the strong strategies in this blog. When you see an ad campaign, or even a publicity campaign, and you feel good about it. That’s what strong strategies are about. It gets to the inner feelings of someone. An example would be, in wikipedia, the Geico commercial. Although it does have the qualities of a strong marketing strategy, I do not feel it is the best example. Not everyone feels good about or relates favorably to that the little Geico character.

Think of yourself when buying something that you really liked, such as a new car, or when you booked that vacation to Hawaii. It made you feel good. And why did you buy that specific car, or plan that special location for your trip? It is because you felt good about it when you were first exposed to the campaign. It was the creative marketing, or pr marketing strategy, or the special publicity surrounding the product that started to give you these great feelings.

As the definition says, creative strategies promote great publicity campaigns and sales promotions. So now that you, as a pr client, or even a publicity professional, know what the advertising marketing strategies are, start using them to improve your campaign. It can only make it better.

A retail store, Beauty Source, recognizes the need to have an eCommerce web site in addition to their retail outlets. Why? Because consumer activity of eCommerce is still growing and the need to keep customers is greater today than it was just four years ago.

Web marketing is no longer for the part-time designer, or artist. It requires savvy marketers who understand how to grow a company and what eCommerce is about. That is just one of the many reasons why the PR Client, Beauty Source, chose Carson Marketing, Inc for their web site development. Creating the site is one small segment to a successful site. You need to have a clean design, the right placement of products, create an easy navigation system, and above all establish a solid optimization program that is constantly updated.

PR Clients rely on marketing professionals, like Carson Marketing, Inc. to help guide them with their pr marketing strategies. Unlike vertical agencies who specialize in one area, such as web development, or media advertising, Carson Marketing was chosen for their complete knowledge of all areas including publicity, promotions, web marketing and the ability to recognize trends when other competitors are learning where the industry is going. Since 1980, Carson Marketing, Inc. has been instrumental in helping pr clients and manufacturers discover how to increase business. The “core branding” approach is what makes Carson Marketing successful in helping pr clients reach their goals. This includes a pr marketing strategy plan that ties directly into the overall business plan. If you don’t have a direction, it makes it difficult to know where you are going. Carson Marketing will show pr clients the path to success.

Search Engine Marketing is both an art and full time business. Knowing what makes them angry can help any pr client avoid being tossed off the list.

If you are a pr client, or an ad agency, or better yet, a web design company, make sure you know the rules of good web development and understand what makes SE’s (search engines) mad. You may already recognize a few of these “don’t do” rules, but I am sure you will find some that you did not know and should avoid.

Remember, if you engage in any of these “don’t do rules” your web site can be banned or dropped from their rankings. That can have serious effects on your web site traffic, and ruin a pr marketing strategy campaign that might have included keywords, optimizing, banner ads, reciprocal links, just to mention a few. These are a few of the things to avoid.

1- Re-Directs. Sometimes called cloaking. This could include hidden text or showing different content to se’s than what your actual site displays.

2- Doorway pages. This is a familiar term and was once accepted as a marketing tool for web designers. No longer is this accepted.

3- Linking to poor sites. Sometimes referred to as “bad neighborhood” sites. These sites have broken links, are usually part of a link farm for thousands of other sites linked together.

4- Broken links on your own site. Getting a “404 errors” is not good. Fix any broken links or pages that cannot load properly.

Many other don’ts exist, these are a few to help you learn what not to do. We have other articles that address similar helpful tips, such as “Build Web Links With Publicity“. Other good reading articles you should read are: “Web Site Marketing in Orange County“, Social Networking is changing how we search“, and finally “Web Site Marketing and Publicity“.

Browse through many of the other articles on local publicity, pr marketing strategies, and email campaigns. I am sure you will find something that can improve the publicity and marketing campaign for your pr client.

Be sure the pr marketing strategies for your company includes promotional events. It can be an excellent media for building a company’s brand.

You can develop a local publicity event that can be as effective as a national campaign.

Our pr client, Extreme Karting, held their first promotional event at K-1 Speed in Irvine, California. It was an indoor racing go-karting event. The turnout was great and the fun was at an all-time high. Drivers ranged from dad’s to son’s who participated. As usual, the younger group showed the dads their skills by outperforming them. The event gave an opportunity for new customers to experience go-karting while getting to know our pr client. This was a great pr marketing strategy that worked.

We completely handled the publicity with K-1, developed and created the special eMail invitation to the event, and coordinated the activity including taking photos. In addition to the promotional event, Extreme Karting has a shifter GP go-kart on display for all to see. The kart was set between a formula race car and an off-road race vehicle, making the display area more exciting. Potential customers took handouts from the go-kart display giving more branding exposure to Extreme Karting.

Branding for Extreme Karting was lifted several more levels as many of that company’s customers and potential customers became familiar with the Extreme name and products. We are planning other promotional events as part of our overall pr marketing strategies for this year and next. We enjoy seeing our pr clients get results.

If your company needs to uplift its branding image, then it’s time to contact Carson Marketing Inc. Ask for George Carson. He can create a special event to make you smile from the results.

To get into this elite club you need to earn a gross of at least $14 billion. Just ask Nike, who this year is rated number 499 with a total revenue of $14,954,000,000 (that’s billion dollars).

Ok, so it might not be in your near future to be on the list, but if you don’t set a goal that is at least attainable, then you are doing business for nothing. So how do you reach those goals? Set some pr marketing strategies that the top executives in your company will all agree on and create a plan. Not just any plan. It should be a marketing plan that includes the marketing strategies, publicity and how you intend to develop your company’s branding.

Hey, if you don’t include branding into your marketing strategy, then your efforts are for what? You need a focus. Oh, you think that increase sales is your marketing goal, right? Ok, that’s part of it. But you cannot sell products alone. No matter how much better or improved your product is than the competition, branding will outsell and outlast all products.

To help illustrate my point, Fortune magazine commented that this years issue people thought the “high tech” companies would be at the top of the list. Well to those people…surprise! It was again the big corps, with Wal-Mart as #1 ($351+ billion), Exxon Mobil #2, BP (Arco gas) #3, General Motors #4, Toyota, then Chevron and the list goes on. No high tech company appears until HP  which placed #33. Microsoft was #140 with $44+ billion in revenue. This is “BRANDING”. These names are all well known. Even Nike which placed #499 has a strong branding campaign. It took years to build these. So don’t think a one-time campaign will establish your brand.

To start a branding campaign, a pr marketing strategy needs to be implemented. Along with an aggressive publicity campaign. Whether you are a local Orange County company, or a national or worldwide company, all PR Clients need to continue with their marketing campaigns to become successful.

If you have a limited budget, then get “street smart”. This is what we do for our clients. We develop programs, campaigns that will focus on the PR Clients core business. Many times companies will loose sight of their core business and then failure kicks in. To stop this from happening, you need to identify your position in your industry. Know your competitors strengths and weaknesses. Develop your product or service to meet customers demands and start a marketing strategy that communicates these benefits/features you offer. The way to capture more market share is to take it from your competitor. If they are on the Fortune 500 list, then it is easier, because as a smaller company you should be more flexible and quicker that they are.

If you want to discuss more about this pr marketing strategy, give us a call. We can make “great” things happen for your company.

Building a brand takes a well planned and coordinated effort by the publicity agency, the pr clients and in most cases the marketing department who develops the pr marketing strategies. But when you need to re-establish a name, that can become a different challenge.

Recently we were contracted to help market the Laura Scudder’s brand. Many of you may not remember this name, but it was one of the best known brands in Snack Foods during the early 50’s through the mid 70’s. Although the original company started in the late 1920’s, it wasn’t really popular until the early 50’s. If you are a PR client who was in business during that era, or publicity agency in Orange County during the 60’s or 70’s then you know the name.

In order to re-build back the name recognition, we began with the logo. Keeping the scrip style type is important. The style that is used today is a modification of what was used in the late 80’s. The publicity it garnered over the years was positive, so it was decided to continue with that font. The images will now include many of the “past” illustrations, such as the Mayflower sailing ship, which was used during the 60’s. Other designs will also be picked up from the era past.

No matter the product, re-branding a name requires the same tactics as it would when building a new brand. The only advantage, the name Laura Scudder’s had a position in the marketplace, we just need to re-ignite that name and image through a publicity effort. The literature we created for the newer items, such as the dry dip mixes capitalized on the freshness and the original illustrations from the packages.

As we progress further with the branding of the Laura Scudder’s name, I’ll keep you posted with the pr marketing strategies and creative we use.