Have a Point
In one scene of the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, Steve Martin goes off on a rant after spending the past several hours with John Candy’s character, Del Griffith. Earlier in the day they were sitting together on an airplane and Del Griffith had lots of stories to tell. Steve Martin attempted to politely express his lack of interest in the stories by reading the “vomit” bag.
Later, they end up sharing a hotel room and during his rant Martin’s character offers some helpful advice about Del Griffith’s stories:
“Didn’t you notice on the plane
when you started talking,
I started reading the vomit bag?
Didn't that give you some clue
that this guy's not enjoying it?
By the way,
when you’re telling these little stories,
here’s a good idea.
Have a point!
It makes it more interesting for the listener”
(Pulled from: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/p/planes-trains-and-automobiles-script.html)
While that was an amusing scene it was actually some good advice as well. When you write your blogs or articles, it’s a good idea to focus on just one point. Obviously, you need to keep posting fresh content. However, just like you, your readers have a lot of information coming at them from all sides. You want people to read your message and get your point, so make it easy to do just that. The faster people can absorb some useful information and get back to their lives, the better.
If you a lot to say on a particular topic, consider breaking it into multiple topics and posting a series of articles instead of one long one. If you have a lot of detailed information (including examples) to share on your topic, consider creating a case study or white paper. Then you can post a link to these sources in your article.
As busy as everyone is these days, people still find time to enjoy learning new concepts that are relevant to their lives. It’s much easier to digest a single point from a short article than it is to sift through a lot of content to amass several ideas from one source.
Public Relations Strategy: Achieve Your Objectives Through Strategic Planning and Implementing Tactics
Objective = Strategy + Tactics
This formula clearly indicates that strategies and tactics are two different things. Any time you set out to execute a public relations campaign, you start out with the above formula. You establish a clear objective of what you want to achieve with your campaign, you decide on a strategy or set of strategies, and then you determine what tactics are necessary to carry out that strategy.
When you want to make any changes or improvements to your current business status, implementing a public relations program is a good approach to use. A productive way to carry out that change is to determine some business objectives for achieving this change. For example, one objective might be to capture a larger portion of your industry’s online customer base.
A strategy is a game plan or method that you will carry out in order to achieve your objective. Therefore, to accomplish this particular business objective, you might start by creating a strategy that aligns with your target audience’s habits of online interaction. One approach is to ask yourself the following questions:
What do people go online to look for?
- Unless people are just surfing for entertainment or relaxation, they’re usually seeking information.
When someone lands on our site, what would keep their attention?
- Useful information (such as how-to information or a new approach to something), money saving opportunities or tips, possibly entertainment or humor.
- People are likely not looking for promotional material or advertisements.
The fact that they have reached a reputable product or service.
What compels people to return to a site once they have clicked away?
- Possibly a reliable source for products or services.
- The promise of more useful or entertaining information.
Your strategy here then might be to enhance your online presence by enhancing your web site to be graphically appealing and contain easy-to-use interactive features. Make sure that you are up-to-date on the latest social media components. You might also want to inform your potential customers about ways to save time and money.
Embedded within your strategic plan are your tactics. A tactic is an action item on your strategy’s To-Do list. In other words, tactics are the steps you complete in order to fulfill the strategy you designed to achieve your business objective. Some potential tactics might include:
- Get acquainted with top bloggers in your industry by interacting and commenting on their blogs. You can offer your point of view on particular topics or become a guest blogger.
- Create a blog on your site that provides useful information about saving time and money or new ways of doing things. This is an on-going process because fresh content is critical to a successful blog.
- Exhibit your industry expertise by publishing how-to articles on other industry related web sites, trade publications, and forums.
These are just three of possibly several more tactics that can meet the requirements of your strategy. You can create any number of strategies to achieve your objective, just make sure that all components of the strategies and their accompanying tactics have a clearly defined lifecycle so they can be measured and improved as needed.
Communicate Where Your Customers Communicate
When you are running a business, promotion and marketing is a necessity to bring in customers and grow your business. One of the most effective methods of marketing your products and services is to get your message to your customers when they are in a position to make purchasing decisions. Social media is an avenue to communicate with your customers where they themselves communicate. Social media tools such as blogs, twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are considered online hangouts which is where you can promote your startup business.
Blogging
The beauty of blogging is that any of the billion people on this planet who have access to a computer can read what the rest of us are saying. You can even use your blog to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. When people enter your keywords into search engines, you can get all kinds of exposure to your blog and Web site. Your blog could be one of your strongest marketing tools so get talking.
Starting a blog is easy, but it takes a long-term commitment to sustain it. Before you start a blog, it’s a good idea to have at least 50 topic ideas so you can post new content often. Also, to ensure your blog has value, make sure you are saying something worth saying. Your audience will return to your blog and Web site often if they enjoy or benefit from the information you provide.
Twitter
Twitter is much like blogging. In fact, it’s often referred to as micro-blogging where the posts are shorter and more frequent. Some people twitter several times in a single day. A lot of good word-of-mouth advertising goes on in twitters. One of my colleagues actually hires employees and subcontractors from his twitter interactions.
Facebook
Facebook is like “free market research,” says Alicia Rockmore, owner of an organizational products company, “People talk about what they like.” You can set up a Facebook account for your business and you can get some good dialog going among your customers. I read a comment from a colleague who said she treats her clients like gold, always following up with them and keeping them updated on new practices and techniques. Facebook is a good vehicle for this type of interaction.
LinkedIn
You can use LinkedIn to request references and recommendations from other industry experts. When you use LinkedIn, you align yourself and your company with other industry experts and colleagues. This is a good way to get acquainted with other people in your industry. LinkedIn gives you an opening to contact the people in your network to do informational interviewing and set up business transactions.
There are numerous other social media sites and tools that are worth your while to learn. Social media is a great way to interact directly with your current and potential customers. When people engage in online activity, they are usually in a position to immediately respond and act on your information.
You Are the Message
You would be amazed at the number of professional gaffes you unknowingly make in your business dealings on a given day. As a business professional everything you say, do, and wear is a representation of your level of professionalism. This applies to everyone in your company—particularly those who interact directly with your customers.
The day-to-day interactions (both internally and externally) that you and your company’s staff engage in each day is an on-going public relations campaign. Every type of communication (emails, blogs, tweets, memos, press releases, product literature) that is sent out or posted from your place of business represents your company as a whole.
This is particularly critical when it comes to social media. With the Web 2.0 tools, writing often tends to be abbreviated and lack proper punctuation. This might be okay on your personal social media accounts to close acquaintances, but it’s still not recommended.
When you allow yourself to get lax in your personal communication, you risk it becoming a standard for all of your communication. It’s best to invest the time necessary to make all of your interactions be professional and relevant.
This goes for how you present yourself in terms of your attire, personal grooming, posture, and handshake. Give each of these areas the proper amount of attention. When you focus on the details, the bigger picture will take care of itself.
“In a technically sophisticated, performance driven and bottom line oriented society, success in business today still depends on the mastery of soft skills,” says Ellen Reddick, Managing Partner of the Utah-based Impact Factory. “How you present yourself, your grooming, your body language, and your business and social etiquette skills speak volumes about your credibility.”
As a business professional, you work hard to position yourself and your company in your industry and marketplace. Don’t let minor oversights in your professional demeanor undermine your efforts and the progress you worked hard to establish. Invest in your professionalism by taking the time to develop proper social etiquette skills.
Are You Actually Communicating with your Audience or Just Writing Content?
I have several routes mapped out for my morning run. Each route has a different length or level of difficulty depending on the type of workout I want for the day. There is a particularly challenging route that I try to do at least once a week. During my first run on this route, I approached a yard with a solid, high fence. As I got close to the fence a large dog vociferously (this is a 5-syllable word. I know I’m violating a word usage rule here, but I think this is a great word) announced its presence followed by me promptly jumping out of my skin. After collecting myself, I continued around to the other side of the fence where I noticed a “Beware of Dog” sign.
This was useful information, but not communicated very well for my purposes. If I saw the sign before I got close enough to feel its breath on the back of my neck, I would have been better prepared for the encounter.
On another occasion, I was at a medical clinic undergoing tests for some stomach issues. The attending lab worker handed me a small bag and told me to breathe into it. Immediately I thought of the hyperventilation thing where you breathe into a paper bag. So I did that. She said “no you need to fill it with air, like a balloon.” Both of the instructions were accurate, but they created two different mental images in my head.
This concept applies equally well to how you communicate with your existing and potential customers. People process information differently—particularly when it comes to receiving instructions. Like me, a lot of people form a mental image that essentially becomes a visual aid to help understand the information. Your responsibility is to ensure that your audience is creating the correct mental image.
This is where understanding your audience is critical. How to they process new information? What type of language do they use to communicate in conversation or their own writing?
When you read other people’s content, what mental images come into your mind? Do they align with the intended message? This is a good way to determine if your information is clear and gets the intended results. When you have other people review your content, see what images they get. If your content potentially has multiple meanings, you need to spend some time with your message to make it clear.
It’s How You Say It
If you’re a savvy business owner, you are probably striving to take advantage of all the social media devices to market your business. If you’re not, you should. Still, while there are numerous sources where you can post your messages, you need to ensure that your message is clear, concise, and free of errors. These important aspects of writing will never go out of style. Given the fact that messages are shorter, your writing must be done well.
If you post blogs, tweet, use Facebook, send emails, or even jot down something on the back of a napkin, every bit of writing you do is a reflection on your professionalism. You clearly want existing and potential clients to value your product and/or service and benefit from the work you do. Therefore, it’s worth your while to put some effort into your communication abilities.
- Use action verbs as much as possible (go, use, insert).
- Ease up on the “being” verbs (was, are, is, seemed).
- Use common language (instead of saying utilized, just say used).
- Vary the length of your sentences. This helps your sentences and paragraphs flow more smoothly.
- With online content, make your sentences and paragraphs short (four or less lines per paragraph).
If writing is just not your thing or something you don’t have time for, consider hiring or partnering with a professional copywriter. If you have an important message to get out to your readers, don’t get in a rush. I see typos, misspellings, and unclear content almost everywhere I look online.
I know that urgency is necessary in getting your message out online, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take a little time to get it right.
For a Successful Online Marketing and PR Effort be ready to do Some Mining
At the risk of sounding cliché and redundant, I am going to say that we owe a lot to the Internet for changing the dynamics of our marketing practices. There, I’ve said it, now let’s move on.
There was a time when just having an online presence (a web site) was enough. It was a good place to provide product and service information and establish your brand. Eventually, we needed to dig below the surface and provide more information on the site because more people were going online for information about products and services.
Now you’re going further below the surface by incorporating social media into your marketing mix. This is one area where marketing and public relations overlap. At one time we paid for advertising and prayed for PR. Now with your blogs, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even interactive features on your web site, you can mingle directly with your current and potential customers. You can employ your own PR by exchanging comments and replies with your customers to better find out what they like, don’t like, and need more of. Then respond to those needs that will better accommodate your clientele.
Use comments and testimonials on your web site. This enables you to connect with the public and establish a high level of trust among those you do business with. Just remember that social media does not run on auto pilot. You need to commit some time and effort to it and be patient. It will take a while to build up a following and start seeing results, but it will happen.
Make a Mistake? Make it Right then Make it Better
It’s no secret that we live in an imperfect world and bad things happen. When they do, use it as a wake-up call to find out what you can do differently and even better.
When my wife and I were college students our apartment was burglarized. We filed a claim with the insurance company who held our renters insurance policy. They initially tried to disallow the claim, but we pushed and they finally agreed to a payout. Immediately after we filed our claim, they dropped our policy. Their reasoning was that since we were robbed once, we were at a higher risk for it happening again. That was their thinking.
To my way of thinking, since we were robbed we would we proactive in elevating our security measures. We would do what we could to prevent it from happening again or at least significantly reduce the chances of it happening again.
Fast forward three years to our college graduation and subsequent celebration. For the party, we went to Subway and ordered one of their giant sandwiches. On the day of the party, I went to pick our 8-foot-long meaty comestible only to discover that someone misplaced the order and our colossal Club didn’t get assembled. Upon discovering the error, the store manager leaped into action and took responsibility. Instead of trying to rush through the project or sending us away empty handed, he rallied the whole crew and assembled several party trays—free of charge. It was a winning situation all around and I am still a Subway customer for life.
In the business world, we are going to make mistakes—sometimes big ones. Over the years companies like Exxon, Toyota, BP, Enron, Walmart, etc. have made some pretty noticeable gaffes that have harmed lives, reputations, and the environment as well as their own brand name and industry. On one occasion, a speed skating coach cost an athlete an Olympic gold medal. Tragic as they are, unfortunately these things happen.
Following a monumental faux pas, some companies take the path of pointing fingers, skirting the blame, or attempting to sweep the situation under a rug. Other companies choose to own up to the mistake and do everything in their power to not only make it right, but make it better. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about who took which path.
Mistakes will happen, but you can recover. It might be painful and costly, but how you choose to deal with the mistake says a lot about your integrity, professionalism, and ability to continue performing in your industry.
Use Public Relations to Stretch Your Marketing Budget
As a business owner, you’re constantly on the lookout for ways to cut operating expenses. I’m sure that your marketing efforts get a lot of attention to ensure that you are making the best time and cost investments possible. This is where a public relations campaign can be cost effective and beneficial. Contrary to the belief of many, PR is not just for crisis management.
Public relations should be an integral part of your marketing mix because it’s low cost and in is in many ways more effective than paid advertising. People are more likely to believe and trust your company when your story is endorsed by the press. Still, public relations is similar to advertising in that it does take some time and effort to start producing results.
Think of the public relations part of your marketing plan as gathering grains of sand on the beach to build a sand castle. Every form of communication (letters, brochures, emails, etc) that goes out to your customers and the general public is part of your PR effort. Just don’t lose sight of the big picture. You can gather sand all day, but remember that your objective is to build the castle.
Evaluate all of your interaction with your customers, the public, and your community. Does it collectively paint a favorable picture of your organization and people? It’s important that the public perceives your company as an organization that symbolizes integrity and goodwill. When you have a good story to tell, the editors of the various consumer and trade publications that you approach will gladly help you tell it. Eventually, through your PR efforts, your company will be a recognizable entity in your industry. And people will remember your name when it comes time to use your product or services.
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