Carson and Company

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.

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.

If you need to ask this question, then your publicity campaign must need help. The answer is a simple, YES, corporate blogs can help improve and increase awareness.

I have mentioned how blogging is more than a place for people to vent, or comment about what they like, their lives and hobbies. It has become part of the mainstream business cycle, which should be included into your publicity plan, or marketing plan. All publicity professionals and most pr clients understand that awareness is what makes or breaks a company. So why not get in control? With a corporate blog site, you and your publicity professional, or in-house pr staff can now control what is said about the company. When a blog site is part of your PR Marketing Strategy, it will further create a solid branding for your company, or PR Client.

An article in the Washington Post by Sarah Halzack discusses the corporate world is getting into blogging. I have said this many times before, and again we are seeing more of the mainstream media addressing this topic.

So why should a company, or PR Client want a blog site?

There are many reasons, but before you make the plunge, see if a blog site is going to help or benefit your company. Not everyone needs it, but most pr clients will benefit.

• A blog will allow executives in a company become more visible and voice the concerns that customers are having

• By addressing customer issues you gain control on harmful rumors that could spread and cause a decline in business

• It is a smart marketing strategy and a vehicle to introduce customers to new products

• It can attract good employees by becoming more visible

These are just a few reasons to have a corporate business blog site. When designing a blog site it needs to be different from your company’s web site. In addition, you need to have someone dedicated to maintain the blogs on a daily or weekly basis at the least. Keeping the blog site active shows the company is interested in informing customers about them and adds credibility to their brand.

If your company needs a blog site, or writers to maintain your site, give George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc a call: 949-477-9400. He can get you noticed quickly!

The first thing you probably thought I was going to say was creating a series of articles, or press releases, right? Wrong.

The most profitable way to increase sales is to develop an in-house publicity program designed for your current clients/customers. Most publicity professionals will have these in-house programs for their pr clients. Sounds simple, but this is one of the most overlooked areas of publicity. Think about it. Just because you have a customer base, or just sold that new account, doesn’t mean they will continue buying your service or products. Many other competitors are constantly after your customers. The best way to retain and grow your sales is with your existing customers. This should be part of your company’s pr marketing strategy. Whether you are a local orange county publicity company, or a national hardware store, this is something all companies should practice.

Here are a few tips:

• Develop a follow up program. When a customer purchases a service or product, be sure to contact them within a week after the purchase to see if everything is ok. You may find that this can be very rewarding. You might find that the delivery was delayed, or the product was not working properly or had some problems when arrived. When you follow up the customer feels that they are important and will be confident in purchasing more from your company.

• Thank you note. Again, this is not brain surgery, but how often do you receive any thank you notes from a company that you made a purchase? If you did, you probably would consider them more often than their competitor. Thank you notes, or thank you emails are very powerful publicity  gestures.

• Send a gift that relates to their industry. Depending on the purchases, one example would be a book. There are dozens of books on all business situations. Consider something that deals with communication, leadership or customer service. Or a bio on a leader in their industry. Make sure you include a short note with the gift telling them “thank you” for purchasing your product/service.

• eNewsletters. I have written about this several times on how a company newsletter is a sure way to keep your name in front of existing customers. It is good practice to mention these good customers in your newsletter, but make sure they are willing to be recognized as doing business with your company. Some customers prefer to not have others know whom they do business with.

If you company needs an in-house publicity program, call George Carson at Carson Marketing, 949-477-9400. He will show you how to retain and increase sales with a publicity program.

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.

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.

When creating a pr marketing strategy for an email campaign, you want to make sure it is delivered. That can be a problem if you are not using proper email best business practices.

No matter the type of email campaign, or the size of your list, you should follow the best business practices and strategies. One tip is to earn the trust of the ISP’s. Why? Think of your own in box, or junk mail. If your ISP let all mail through, you would probably receive hundreds more of junk mail a day. Internet Service providers protect their customers from spam, or junk by providing standard protocols and policies that block unsolicited bulk mail. Wouldn’t that be great if our Post Office had a similar program? I would like that!

Ok, back to getting optimized email campaigns. To make sure your list is valid, follow these few rules:

Have relevant lists

Make sure your recipients are allowing your messages

Have a professional email that is well-designed

Be sure to use email authentication

These are the basis of getting your pr marketing strategy campaign to be professional. If you need to know how to get authentication, then check out Sender Policy Framework (SPF). If you have specific questions about the basics, or doing a roll-out email campaign, check out the FAQ here. Remember, potential customers are just like you, no one wants to be hammered with hundreds of junk email, so make sure your message is something customers would like to know more about. Email marketing builds or destroys a company’s reputation. Read my blog that talks about “email reputation” to learn more.

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.

When developing your pr marketing strategy for your web site, ask yourself, is buying my branded name as a keyword important?

We recently had this asked by one of our pr clients. The answer isn’t a simple yes, or no. You might think, wait, my product or company name is important, how can you say it isn’t. The reason to consider buying it or not, is purely an emotional decision, mixed with a business decision. To help me further explain this pr marketing strategy, I read an article in iMediaConnection that is titled “5 Reasons to pay for branded keywords“. The five reasons are based on a study he uses to show ten top companies, and lists those who do, and those who do not. For example you would think that McDonalds would purchase their keyword with Google, wrong. What about IBM, wrong again. Both of these companies, along with Intel do not purchase their branded names as keywords on Google, or any other search engines.

So why aren’t these big companies buying their names as keywords. Here are a few of their reasons:

• “We are already in the number one slot in the natural search results, so why waste the money?”
• “We have not integrated search into all of our marketing campaigns.”
• “We believe other companies should not be allowed to bid on our branded terms, so we take the same approach.”
• “We have not given it much thought.”

So as you can see, this may or may not be a good reason for you or even the big guys. But it is their decision. The article points out good arguments why you should consider buying the keywords. They are:

1- Consumer Behavior

2- Your competition will

3- More control, there are two others, check them out on the article.

Yet other major companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz do purchase their branded keywords. I usually tend to tell my clients, if you can budget purchasing your branded keywords, then it is a good pr marketing strategy to do so. Most companies are not worldwide and should make the decision to do it or not, before their competition does and they have no choice to make.

To learn more about web marketing, or to improve your pr marketing strategy, give Carson Marketing, Inc. a call. They can get your site noticed and positioned high on Google, Yahoo, and MSN, among many others.

The old way to identify a pr marketing strategy or media profile was to check the TV programs, or the radio station and place your ad accordingly to the age, and type of people you wanted to reach. That is what the media rep would tell you. This was also true for print media. But now you need to re-think how you buy media.

If your pr marketing strategy, or media plan is based on the old school of demographics, then you are probably wasting money. Today, the new media of social networking, as well as the more sophisticated means of identifying demographics for traditional media has changed, and for the better. Let’s say your pr marketing strategy is to reach the average male/female in the mid 20″s to late 30’s. You would probably think that MTV is the best deal. What if you had a client that wanted to reach an older demographic (over 40-45), would you consider MTV, probably not. But think again. MTV actually has only 36% of its audience is in the 18-34 age category.

Here is another example of how we “used to think”. Let’s look at ESPN. Usually a heavy male and football station, but times have changed so has the demographics. No longer it is a male dominated station. Over 24% of women watch ESPN.

Want to hear another wild statistic. How about the AARP.org web site? What are your first thoughts when you see the letters AARP? Old, grey hairs, and probably in an assisted living complex, right? You would probably create a pr marketing strategy of 55+ targeted at this audience. Not true anymore. Over 46% of the AARP site visitors are under 55 years of age.

It is getting more difficult to find and target your media when you use the old school of thinking. Internet media is more focused on specific demos, and actually reach the people you want. And it is monitored easier. You can find more of these facts and a lot of great information in an article called “Time to give up on demographics”. Well written, and makes a lot of sense.

Do your research and check out other media sources for the latest ways of making sure that your pr marketing strategy is on target.

It is best you start thinking of habits, rather than age, or gender. Buying habits or viewing habits will be a good pr marketing strategy not the old school of buying media.