Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
With the financial crisis looming ever larger, it is no surprise that some businesses such as AT&T and General Motors are slashing marketing budgets in an effort to stay afloat in this volatile economic environment.According to recent articles, advertising agencies will be among the first shops to feel the impact of the economy as companies cut advertising budgets and fewer new business opportunities arise. Further data from Epsilon Data Management LLC supports this trend with reports that suggest approximately 65 percent of chief marketing officers say they will decrease advertising spending because of the current economic situation.
Emily Steel with the Wall Street Journal provides an interesting perspective on the current economy and its effect on the digital media industry. She notes in a recent article, entitled “Marketers Cut Back on Digital Media,” that as businesses cut their advertising budgets the money that was set aside to experiment with new digital media technologies will no longer be available to pursue these innovative ideas. She goes on to say that these “experimental advertising techniques, which were hailed as the next big thing, will be among the first to hit the cutting-room floor.”
As consumers cut down on discretionary spending, it’s critical to continue building brand awareness and to increase consumer demand for products and services. Here are a few reasons why engaging consumers – even during a budget crunch – is important for companies:
- Maintaining a strong and positive image drives consumer’s perception of a business
- Engaging with consumers allows them to develop a more personal connection with the company’s products or services
- A downturn in economic conditions allows proactive companies to stand out and take market share from businesses that don’t creatively and proactively engage with consumers
So how can companies continue to engage customers despite tight marketing budgets? Creative advertising, marketing and PR campaigns can definitely help bolster an organization’s image and increase appeal with the broader public. Emerging media such as social networking will be a key component to help meet these business objectives and is an affordable option for companies to invest in to engage with and generate a significant audience.
Some other cost-effective ideas that enable companies to strategically promote a positive company image through media relations include:
- Desk-side briefings
- Speaking opportunities
- Blogging and engaging with social communities
- Proactively generating editorial opportunities
- Issuing relevant press releases
The bottom line is, if you want to stay connected to your customers during tough economic times you need to get creative and execute proactive campaigns that truly engage your customers and keep you top of mind.
These days, the national media seems to be focused on two stories: the upcoming presidential election and the economic crisis. In the past few months, the media has churned out thousands of stories with hundreds of different angles on each of these topics – everything from how the economy will impact the holidays to how the crisis is affecting pets. It begs the question: How can companies leverage noteworthy events and trends?
There is genuine value in leveraging national news events and trends to spark a feature story for your company. We regularly counsel our clients on how to proactively reach out to editors in order to align their companies or organizations with relevant trends. We’ve found that this type of activity can help keep a company top of mind with editors and reinforce the company as a thought leader and innovator.
One of the most effective ways to insert a company into a feature story is through buddy e-mails. These e-mails often include a suggested topic for a story and offer a company’s perspective on trends impacting the industry. In addition, you may consider offering a customer perspective on a particular topic which can go a long way in helping an editor pull together the components for a compelling story.
An example of a buddy e-mail could include:
Dear XYZ,
The current economy crisis is top of mind with everyone these days, from small business owners to large corporations. If you’re planning upcoming coverage on how the economic crisis is impacting XX initiatives and the XX industry, we’d like to offer XX’s perspective on the current situation and how its technology and customers are not only surviving, but thriving.
Please let me know either way as we would be happy to be a resource for you. Thank you in advance for your consideration. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Best regards,
XX
Proactively reaching out to editors with buddy e-mails and other story ideas can result in big results. So the next time you’re reading the newspaper, take a moment to think how current events could potentially create new opportunities for your company.
Colleen and I are putting the final touches on our book Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR. As we prepare to deliver the final manuscript to the publisher, we solicited feedback from an experienced CEO friend asking him to read the entire book to determine if the content was valuable to him and if it flowed well.
While he was overwhelmingly positive about our book, he did have some constructive feedback for us and suggested we excerpt some of the information and make it available in white papers.
We loved all his suggestions – especially the one about leveraging the material in the book to create white papers which can be posted on our Website or e-mailed to potential clients. As we have begun working on this, we took a few minutes to think about what makes a high-quality white paper and came up with the following list:
- Know Your Audience – First and foremost, you should know who you’re trying to reach with your white paper.
- Understand Their Needs and Interests – Consider your audiences’ needs and interest. Leverage this understanding to establish credibility. This is critical at the outset of your white paper.
- Recap the Problem – Summarize the problem your audience confronts and provide a high-level description of how you can help solve it.
- Provide Realistic, Step-by-Step Guidelines – Provide the reader with clear, concise instructions of steps they can take to resolve their issues. Remember this is where you genuinely add-value and demonstrate your expertise.
- Develop a Compelling Conclusion – Make sure to explain the benefits or rationale for your approach, and affirm the reader’s commitment to moving forward.
- Use Graphs or Photos – Bring your white paper to life with a well-placed graph, chart or photo.
- Solicit Feedback – Before finalizing and publishing the white paper, solicit feedback from independent, third-parties.
To find out how Communiqué PR can help you author and publish a white paper, contact Jennifer Gehrt at [email protected]. In addition to developing our own white papers, we have experience working with clients on these and have found them to be quite successful in helping companies meet their business and communications objectives.
Do you have insights about white paper writing to share? If so, leave us a reply.
In a recent interview with CNET, Gartner research analyst Adam Sarner predicted that 50 percent of social-media campaigns taken on by Fortune 1000 companies will fail. Sarner states that this is in large part due to the fact that companies aren’t engaging with social communities with a mutual benefit in mind – they are not considering ways to serve both the company’s campaign and the audience interacting with it.
Should this deter a company who’s considering ways to leverage social media into its campaigns? Absolutely not. The social media landscape is ever-changing and one that everyone is trying to wrap their heads around. It’s important to understand the basic elements of social media (podcasting, video blog, blogging, photo sharing, and social networking) to determine if this is a viable strategy to incorporate into your next campaign.
Consider the following when deciding if a social media campaign is right for you:
Know your audience
Social communities are typically formed because of a shared interest or goal. Are you looking to reach mothers? College students? Gadget geeks? Find out what social media tools your target audience uses. Mothers may be more prone to sharing photos through photo blogs as opposed to gadget geeks who are interested in social media applications on their mobile phone. Do your research to find out how your target audience is using social media.
Have a clear understanding of the campaign’s goals and objectives
What do you ultimately want to get out of your campaign and how do you want your target audience to engage? Do you want to drive Website traffic? Content uploads or downloads? Do you want your audience to voice their opinion? Understanding the end goal will go a long way to building a sound strategy and help you determine if social media is the right avenue.
Devise a social media campaign that’s transparent and engages the community
Social media is all about transparency and engagement. If your campaign can’t fulfill those two critical elements it’s more than likely it will not be successful. For example, if you have an executive from your company blogging or responding to other blogs they need to identify themselves and avoid aliases or fake names. The whole point is to be seen as an active and thoughtful member of the social community. It’s important to devise a campaign that is compelling for the social community and is upfront about the goals of the campaign.
The bottom line is look at social media through a strategic lens. Throughout the planning process you may find that incorporating social media elements may not be the best course of action to get the results you want. On the flip side, if you feel that social media can really help you drive home a campaign, engage, engage, engage!
On Sept. 22, one of Communiqué’s newest clients Attachmate announced the availability of Verastream Host Integrator 6.6. Click here to see the full press release.
Attachmate’s Verastream Host Integrator 6.6 is a mainframe application integration solution that eliminates the technical complexity and code generation associated with legacy integration, offering IT organizations a low-risk, low-cost approach to legacy-to-SOA integration. The latest version modernizes mainframe functionality by integrating mainframe and enterprise host applications in service-oriented architecture initiatives through service-enablement. In addition to functionality upgrades, the new product includes FIPS 140 certification which is the gold standard for security software.
Communiqué PR envisioned this launch as an opportunity for Attachmate to re-engage with both media and analysts and begin to establish new relationships. We took a two-pronged approach with media conducting outreach to both IT and developer outlets as well as government and security publications to spark interest in the news.
Analysts were particularly excited to re-connect with Attachmate and received positive feedback across the board regarding the product, company roadmap and go-to market strategy. For the media, how Verastream Host Integrator 6.6 played into service-oriented architecture (SOA) trends was the biggest hook for securing briefings and coverage.
Overall, this was a very successful launch for Attachmate and established momentum which we plan to build and maintain over the year.
The Results:
Twelve press and analysts meetings booked including: DBTA, Integration Developer News, System iNews, Agile, Developer, SearchSOA, IT Jungle, IDC, Ovum, Forrester, Gartner and AMR Research.
Eight pieces of coverage secured including: DBTA, IT Jungle, DM Review, SOA World Magazine, Network Computing, z/Journal, Integration Developer News, Enterprise and Open Source Magazine.
Key Coverage:
IT Jungle
“FIPS is for Private Enterprise, Too”
September 23, 2008
http://www.itjungle.com/fhs/fhs092308-story04.html
Integration Developer News
“Attachmate Tunes Verastream for Mainframe-SOA Projects”
September 25, 2008
http://www.idevnews.com/IntegrationNews.asp?ID=791
DBTA 5 Minute Briefing: Data Center
“Breaking News – Attachmate Beefs Up Legacy-to-SOA Integration Tool,”
September 22, 2008
(no link available)
SOA World Magazine
“Attachmate Unveils New Version of its Mainframe SOA Integration Solution,” September 22, 2008
http://soa.sys-con.com/node/684770
You’ve probably been hearing a lot about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a particular Web site. You are likely aware that you need to make certain your company’s press releases and other media materials receive high rankings on search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN, but you may have little knowledge about how to do it.
From our experience, there are three easy steps you can take to improve a press release’s ranking on search engines. They are as follows:
Identify keywords. Think about the words or phrases people would use if they were looking for information about your product or service online. After you’ve determined these words and phrases, try to use them in the headline, subhead and body of your press release.
Embed hyperlinks. By creating a link from keywords or phrases used in your press release back to the appropriate Web pages, you can help your readers learn more information about your product or company, and you can increase your rankings. This works because search engines often look at the words used in a hyperlink when they’re ranking a site.
Add images and videos. By adding multimedia and/or images to your press release, you are not only creating visual interest, but you’re increasing the likelihood that readers will find your release in image search engines.
For more information on these steps, we encourage you to download and read PRWeb’s whitepaper, entitled “A PR Professional’s Guide to SEO.” You may need to contact PRWeb to get a copy, as ironically we could not find it online.