Carson and Company

It’s great to see when competition helps to change the Internet landscape. Since Twitter became an overnight smash, the big SEO’s like Google, and Yahoo are now learning their “searches” need to be more targeted. This is good news when developing pr marketing strategies, or a marketing and advertising plan. Have you checked out some of the new features that Google has added? If not, it is worth it.

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.

Just when the advertisng community thinks their pr clients have a good pr marketing strategy, it gets hit  with this comment: “Center Store Is Back!“. That’s a statement by a research company about the retail food stores that the center area is now becoming good prime advertising, again.

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?

In this tough economy it is necessary to keep your potential customers at your site and convert them to buyers. This pr marketing strategy is a must for you to have a successful eCommerce web site. So how do you do this? It all begins with Optimization. Yes, that word keeps popping up, but this time, I will provide you some pr marketing strategy tips to spot if your site is well optimized or if it is time to re-design the site and optimize it.

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.

Whenever you can use a top name to endorse your product/service that is associated within the industry your pr client serves, then do it! That’s exactly what we did. When planning our pr marketing strategy rather than hire a spokesperson like an athlete, or movie star, we choose to have one of the nations recognized guru’s in the tech industry endorse our pr clients product– SkyLOCK At-Rest encryption software. Leo Laporte, the TECH GUY, is highly visible, and he only endorses products that work!

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.

Carson Marketing, Inc. was recently selected by Encryption Solutions, Inc (a pr client) to develop a user-friendly web site for their B2Consumer campaign. As part of the overall pr marketing strategy, we began the branding campaign with the design of the logo for the name SkyLOCK. Then we created the web site. The pr marketing strategy for the web site was to make it consumer friendly. The navigation as well as the information was written to help the consumer make the right choice for their encryption needs. This included a useful comparison chart on the products page.

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.

It isn’t until after a press release, or an article is published, you then see the results of your pr marketing strategies take place. Well, have you thought about all the publicity in the news these past few months? Such as the financial markets, the auto industry and retailers?

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.

Ok, you want to know how do you get free publicity, right? It isn’t easy. You just completed your pr marketing strategies for next year and included publicity as part of the plan. Now you are looking at getting free publicity as part of the marketing strategy. Well, there are no special formulas, trick words, or how you “optimize” your press release that will garner you all that free publicity. When you think about this topic, what is free? Are you willing to not pay someone to write a press release, or pay a pr distribution company, like business wire, to submit your releases? What about the do-it-yourself approach? Sure, if you don’t value your time or pay yourself anything, then I guess you got the release for free. That still leaves the media. If you do not have the contacts, your release, or article may never get published.

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.

Every marketer, and publicity professional wants to keep update with the newest tools to help their pr clients, whether being a local publicity client in Orange County, to a national pr client, get the best publicity campaign available. Well, another new tool from Google can help. It is not a submission for releases, but instead it is a tool that helps find errors called crawl errors on a pr clients 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.

Publicity clients rely on their pr agency to provide various services such as press releases, promotional events and articles. As these are necessary, it is the innovative pr marketing strategy that we use to get pr clients noticed. There are many other marketing strategies that can be developed in a campaign to be successful. That’s what makes Carson PR and Carson Marketing, Inc. unique.

It is the ability to be proactive. The foresight to see market conditions and respond accordingly. It is the knowledge of knowing how to reach an audience. That’s what makes us different.

Am I bragging? Maybe. Why am I telling you this? Because I am frustrated in having new pr clients come to us after being hammered or taken by traditional pr agencies for thousands of dollars, then we only have very limited budgets to make things happen. And we do! Our direct pr marketing approach isn’t unique, but it takes on-going efforts (rather than pumping out press releases, or articles and sitting back waiting for them to be published like traditional pr agencies) to get pr clients noticed.

It is the combination of web marketing, social networking, blogging, as well as online publicity programs that creates a successful campaign to get pr clients more than noticed, but gets results.

When a pr client really needs a successful campaign, that’s when we are called. Why are we the last resort? Because we don’t take clients for granted, but work harder than most of our competitors to “make things happen“. If you are ready for success, give George Carson a call at: 949-477-9400. It could be the best call you make before you spend your budget foolishly!

A few months ago I had the pleasure of presenting to the faculty and administrators of the California Community Colleges a lesson on “Power Listening“. It was geared to students to better understand how to “listen”, not just hear, what is being said. This was a critical lesson when entering the business industry.

Today I saw a great article in Marketing Pros, that addressed this same issue about listening. It was from Todd Defren who has a blog called PR Squared. Todd puts the listening concept more in tune with the business world of marketing. Publicity professionals may hear, or listen to what is happening in a PR Clients market. But do they have the power, or knowledge to implement a program that responds to what they hear.

For example:

Defren says there are two ways you can “listen” to your customers:

• Many savvy brands use active listening to monitor social media and respond when appropriate. Defren on active listening: “Quick! Somebody said something about us! Say something back!”
• The next step is actionable listening. “The difference here,” he notes, “is that the folks doing the listening/responding are empowered to effect change within their organization, on customers’ behalf.

Much of what Todd is speaking about is social media. Knowing when and how to respond is critical. Having the power to do the response to what is said is necessary. By not acting quickly to social media comments about your pr clients product/service is a missed opportunity to gain a stronger brand and image. This is another example of showing a need to include social media and social networking in a pr marketing strategy for pr clients. If you are a PR Client, it is time to get your publicity campaign in gear with today’s pr marketing tools. Listen to what is being said about your industry, and products. Make sure you have a publicity professional or pr agency that can meet your needs.