strategy

Are you accidentally doing public relations?

October 26, 2016

According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) the definition of public relations is “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

My translation is that public relations is any communication that benefits both the sender and the receiver. It delivers a value to everyone in the conversation. That sounds like a worthy target – after all, who wouldn’t appreciate hearing from someone that delivers information, stories, or news that adds value to their day?

In today’s vernacular public relations is earned media. In other words, you didn’t buy the coverage. I’m not suggesting that PR is free – just that you don’t buy placement like you might purchase ad space.

When most people hear the phrase public relations, they think media relations. Working with the traditional media to write a story about your organization is certainly one aspect of public relations but it’s just part of the picture. I’m guessing that you’re accidentally dabbling in public relations, you just don’t realize it.

Many would argue that social media community building, helping a client avoid a crisis, or making an event something special are all PR tactics. See – you’ve already started down the PR path – why not try these less common but very effective tactics?

Reach out to bloggers: A kissing cousin to traditional media relations is connecting to bloggers who write for an audience that matters to your company. Bloggers are often more accessible than a traditional journalist and may be more open to helping you tell your story. A great tool for identifying bloggers who cover topics that relate to your organization is www.alltop.com.

Remember that top bloggers receive dozens of pitches every day so do your homework. Ideally, you’d spend some time getting to know their content before you need to make your pitch. Bloggers notice people who contribute to the conversations they’re having on their site so jump into the comments section and add value.

If you do all of that, you’ll know exactly which blogs are the best fit for what you’re trying to do and they’ll be glad to hear from you because you won’t be wasting their time.

Own a branded study: Thought leadership is one of those buzzwords that has almost worn out its welcome. The only reason it hasn’t is because the logic behind it makes so much sense. Again keeping in mind the PR credo – benefit your audience as well as yourself – the PR spin to thought leadership is that you share what you know. Identify something that your audience really needs to know and invest in getting the information for them. Then shout it from the rooftops and go out of your way to make sure that anyone who would gain from knowing what you learned, hears about it.

The key to this tactic is that you don’t hold the information hostage. Be absolutely reckless in how you give it away. The beautiful thing is that pretty soon you’ll be known as the company who went out of your way to help others and you made them smarter along the way. Every year, they’ll actually look forward to hearing from you. Soon, you’ll be branded as the organization that A) seeks the information every year and B) shares the information every year.

Who wouldn’t want to do business with a company that offers that combination? The cherry on top is that you can probably garner the media’s attention as well.

That’s actually the secret sauce of PR. The more you help others, whether that’s a reporter or a member of your target audience, the more attention you earn for your own organization as well.

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If they don’t care, are you even there?

June 18, 2015

Your creative needs to be creative.  No doubt about that.  But sadly, many people think that’s enough.

I received an email from a college student, asking if he could interview me. Two of his questions in particular caught my attention because they put the spotlight on a dangerous mistake that many seasoned marketers make.

It all revolves around the idea that marketing needs to be wacky or groundbreaking with the end goal being that it’s memorable. I can think of a lot of crazy, funny and touching marketing tactics that I’ve remembered for years that never prompted me to buy the product.

Should your creative be fresh, interesting and different from what everyone else in your category is doing? Sure.

But you can’t stop there. And you can’t start there.

You start with understanding your own product or service as objectively as you can (how does it rock, where is it weak, etc.) and who the ideal consumer for that product or service happens to be.

And you end by telling those ideal customers enough about your product or service that they understand why it’s the perfect fit for them.

You have to match your sweet spot customer with the benefits that make them the right buyer for what you sell.

I thought at it might be useful to you to see what he asked and my replies.

Q: When developing a concept do you try to go with something new and groundbreaking or do you have a more straightforward, proven approach to getting the message out to the target audience.

The truth is – what sells is the truth. We begin by understanding our audience and what they care about. We learn as much about them as possible. Every product/service has a “perfect fit” customer. It’s our job to figure out who that is and then craft our message to appeal to that person.

What is new today will be old hat tomorrow. So gimmicks and shock value and crazy aren’t good marketing strategies. Look at the Kmart “Ship My Pants” ads. Are they funny? Are they memorable? The answer to both those questions is yes.

But will it sell more stuff? I don’t think so. And THAT is our job. We help clients sell stuff. If we don’t do that – no matter how funny or memorable our work is – we got it wrong.

So the creative approach depends on the audience and what will connect with them and help them see why what we sell is what they need or want most.

Q: I believe that promoting brand recall is the most important objective in a message strategy. What is your favorite way to do this?

First – I respectfully disagree.   I believe the most important objective in a message strategy is to help the audience understand how this product or service is uniquely positioned to benefit THEM. The most important objective is brand relevance. Again, it doesn’t matter if you are memorable if you aren’t relevant.

The best way to develop brand relevance is to understand your sweet spot customer and why they would care and then figure out how to deliver value towards that for them. A brand’s job is to be important to the consumer. Harley does this brilliantly. For Harley riders and prospects – no other bike will do. Anything else is a poor substitute. Harley is about living the dream of a biker – freedom, independence, camaraderie etc. No brand captures and sells that like Harley. Harley could run a bunch of ads that promote the name so we’d never forget it. But instead they promote the dream/fantasy of owning a motorcycle and tie their name to delivering on that dream.

I’d much rather have 100 sweet spot customers reach for their wallet than 10,000 people remember the ad. Remember that and you’ll enjoy a long career in this crazy business that I love. Good luck!

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Free isn’t necessarily cheap

March 5, 2012

I was having a brief conversation with @NealShaffer on Twitter yesterday and the gist of our conversation was:

• Half of small & medium businesses are using social media for marketing (Neal)
• Yes…but few are doing it well.  They don’t apply marketing smarts (Drew)
• True, but huge potential to maximize social business (Neal)
• No doubt.  But when done wrong, potential for damage is equally large (Drew)
• I agree completely (Neal)

See — that’s the problem with free.  Business owners (or many so called social media experts) look at the price of entry for having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or (fill in the blank for whatever’s hot in SM) and they think….”you can’t beat free!  Even if I suck at it, it didn’t cost me anything.”

Wrong. So wrong.

Would you buy a TV commercial that had misspellings?  Or instruct the announcer to swear or say something off color?  Or better yet…would you buy radio time and then not put anything there…so you basically bought :60 of silence?

Would you promise that your newsletter would be packed with useful information and then blather on about yourself, your sales and your products when you get around to sending it?

I’m sure you’re saying (or at least in my head) “No, Drew of course not.”  So why in the world do you (universal you, not you you) do it on your social media sites?

We see unprofessional behavior on FB pages all the time.  And abandoned blogs, Twitter accounts etc.  And the biggest sin of all — being boring because you can’t stop talking about yourself.

Here’s the thing.  People have gotten a little numb to selfish, self-centered marketing in the traditional marketing space.  It’s not right, but it’s been going on for so long — we accept it as the norm.

But social media is different.  Social media promises real people.  It promises relevance.  It promises a relationship.  It promises timely interaction.

And if you violate any or all of those promises, here’s what happens:

• The good feelings I had for your brand/company are gone
• I feel like you lied to me/tricked me
• I will simply choose to disconnect from you
• I won’t be interacting with you anymore…which means my feelings for you have no chance at turning more favorable

Keeping those promises takes a lot of time.  And keeping your eye on the big picture. It’s easy to get sucked back into old habits and begin marketing instead of connecting.  If you really want your social media efforts to work, you have to make a big investment.  No, it may not be money (unless you hire some help) but it’s a time crunch.

Maybe this analogy will help.  When you do social media badly — you are basically enticing someone to come close to you with the promise of a gooey, fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookie and when they walk in and reach out their hand for the cookie — you smack them with a ruler, over and over until they leave.

The cost is huge.  The damage is real.  And too many businesses are stumbling over themselves as they rush to a “free” marketing opportunity.

So what does a small business do, Drew? you ask. (again, perhaps it all takes place in my head).  You put together a social media strategy that is built on SMART goals and best customer personas.

How do you do that?  Come back on Thursday and download the absolutely free 18 page e-book that walks you through how to build that strategy, step by step.

It’s a tool we use at MMG with clients every day.  And we’re glad to share it with you.  Really.

And….there’s not a sales pitch or MMG promo in sight.  I promise.  Would I offer you a cookie and then smack you with a ruler?

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