Marketing | Words For Hire

Is Your PR Strategy Crazy?

March 10, 2011 by Karen Swim

Image by Picture Taker 2 via Flickr

There is an old adage that all publicity is good publicity and I vehemently disagree. Visibility at all costs is not only ineffective but can be dangerous to your brand.

The discipline of Public Relations (PR) seeks to communicate, and influence perception. It is not carried out in a silo, with haphazard strategies but harmonized with marketing, branding, sales and every other part of your business. The symphony of your efforts are ultimately judged by customers, for if they’re not paying to hear the music you have no reason to play. Visibility in and of itself is not the goal, but being visible, relevant and respected by the right people.

These days, I can understand why many would confuse visibility with sustainability. Losing it seems to be an effective media relations strategy. Become a train wreck and people show up to watch by the millions. Get arrested, drive drunk, flub the lyrics to the national anthem or just plain lose your grip on reality and you become a media star. In spite of the seemingly effortless publicity generated, I do not recommend ‘crazy’ as a PR strategy. However, if crazy is your brand and you want to be known as an unhinged bag of nuts who is the punchline of loser jokes, go for it. For everyone else there is a better way.

Outside of the realm of comedians and celebrities, your PR efforts should help you gain respect. You want to gain attention for what you know and offer; for being a leader in your space rather than an unfortunate break with reality. Visibility at all costs is not the best path to creating longevity in your market. Trust is an essential component of the sales cycle, but also of your staying power. People need to trust your brand and brand promise to purchase from you. Bad behavior may grab headlines but it does not translate into sustainable relationships with your customers. Further, eventually someone else will trump your bad behavior and you will become old news.

A far better approach is to build your brand with purpose. Be strategic and purposeful about who you are and how you present yourself to the market. Brand perception is in the eyes of your consumer but you can influence that perception for good or bad by what you do and say. Be visible for the value and solutions you offer to your market, and leave the meltdowns to those who are pros at entertaining.

Ur Doing It Wrong: How Not to Suck in Social Media – Advertising Age – DigitalNext

February 17, 2011 by Karen Swim

The access and ease of using social media platforms is not a guaranteed formula for success. Utilizing social media in your campaigns and outreach should not be approached with a half-hearted effort or ill-formed plan. This article from AdAge (reprinted below) recaps social media gone wrong and how we can learn from these failures. What examples would you add?

Lessons From the 2011 Suxorz Awards Teach Us How to Avoid a Campaign Catastrophe

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on 02.16.11 @ 02:50 PM

Rebecca Lieb

Quick! Which is the worst social media faux pas?

Inviting consumers to follow your company — via a locked Twitter account; or
When a customer posts a negative comment about your business, track his identity and learn where he works. Then, contact his employers with the suggestion he be fired?

New York’s Social Media Week featured wall-to-wall sessions on how marketers can do social media right, but nothing can hold a candle to the sheer Schdenfreude of watching the brands and agencies that are doing it wrong.

Horribly, horribly wrong.

Enter the Suxorz Awards. Brainchild of Blogads CEO Henry Copeland, the Suxorz have been calling out the worst in social-media marketing since 2008 (disclosure — I was a panelist at the inaugural SXSW session).

Here’s how it works: a panel of four marketing experts nominate their picks for worst-of-the-worst social-media campaigns. Then (this being social, after all), the audience picks a winner in each category. Competition can get fierce, and no one on either side of the stage is discouraged from opining. It makes for a lively evening.

Herewith, the contenders for the 2011 Suxorz awards — together with some lessons learned, because really, we’re not just here to laugh at them. Really.

Category 1: Meme Purgatory
No, you can’t bottle viral. Nominees were VW’s Sluggy Patterson, star of videos, tweets and a blog. An irascible old coot, Sluggy invented a complex game in which he punches people every time he espies a VW. Smirnoff’s BrosIcingBros.com, a site that basically encouraged binge drinking; and another awkward character, Dell’s Dr. Ashley PDA who has bad hair, hypnotizes patients with a GPS device and thumb-wrestles with them when they’re out cold on his couch.

And the winner is: Cisco’s Ted From Accounting series, an unabashed attempt to cash in on Old Spice’s popular video campaign. The videos were as long as they were utterly baffling. The audience actually begged the presenters to hit the “stop” button.

Lesson Learned: Character development counts. So does some sort of obvious link to the brand. But do try not to make it an overtly negative one, e.g. advocating hitting people, drinking irresponsibly, or simply boring their socks off.

Category 2: Missed Connections
That’s why they call them the “basics.” Thousands of Hungarians launched a Facebook campaign to launch Starbucks in Budapest. It worked — Starbucks opened a restaurant and erased the fan page, along with its 3,000 biggest fans and brand advocates. Pharmacy chain launches on Twitter. Their pages features the legend: “@CVS_Cares’s Tweets are protected. Only confirmed followers have access to @CVS_Cares’s Tweets and complete profile. You need to send a request before you can start following this account.” (And no, requests to become a follower are not acknowledged.). Leo Burnett’s you have to see it to believe it “HumanKind” video in which Chief Creative Mark Tutssel drones on for so long even he seems to regurgitate the Kool-Aid.

And the winner is: Denny’s menu footer call-to-action (visible right underneath dubious-sounding Senior Country Fried Steak) inviting diners to follow the chain at twitter/.com/dennys. So far so good — until you click through and learn “dennys” is some guy in Taiwan named Dennys Hsieh. He tweets in Mandarin — or maybe it’s Hokkien?

Lesson Learned: Hire a proofreader. And a copyeditor. Dot those I’s and cross those T’s.

Category 3: Mean People Suck
Does not work well with others. In the U.K., Dr. Pepper launched a Facebook status takeover campaign. Motto: “What’s the worst that could happen?” Answer: updates like the one to a 14-year-old Glaswegian girl’s page, “I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards.” Oops. Nestle fared no better on Facebook when a protest erupted against the company practices that are endangering orangutan habitats. At best, Nestle replied to comments with phrases like “Oh, please.” It also threatened to sue users for infringement when they modded the Kit-Kat logo. Finally, Mercedes Tweetrace campaign, which forced people to “like” the campaign before they could participate in what amounted to an attempt to spam Twitter with Mercedes-oriented tweets.

And the winner is: Hands down, PriceChopper, the supermarket chain that tried to get Jonathan Hoster fired from his job for being “negative” after his tweet negatively compared one of their stores to the rival Wegman’s chain.

Lesson Learned: Don’t hate on your customer, clients and prospects. Duh.

Category 4: You’re So Vain
Even celebrities must learn social graces. Up was Kenneth Cole’s very un-PC tweet during the demonstrations in Cairo, and Fast Company’s Influencer Project, which proved “influence” is really a code term for “spam” and “affiliate scam.” And LeBron James opened a Twitter account at the height of speculation about where he’d land, and tweeted nary a word to address the speculation.

And the winner is: Alicia Keys’ oh-so aptly named Digital Death campaign. The cause was noble: to raise a million dollars to fight HIV/AIDS in the third world. The means? Less well plotted. Keyes enlisted a host of celebs to put the kibosh on tweeting, blogging, and general social-media’ing until the target goal was raised. When it wasn’t, rather than rally with calls to action, all this social-media firepower was under a self-imposed moratorium to do…nothing.

Lesson Learned: It’s not as about you as you think it is. And when it is about you, it’s not necessarily about the part of you that you think it is. Plan accordingly.

The floor was then opened to audience nominations, which were not in short supply. The TSA’s attempt to wrangle bad publicity on full body scanners at airports, BP’s response in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, Charmin’s Facebook page (because it’s a Facebook page about toilet paper).

Following a spirited debate, PriceChopper was awarded the 2011 Suxorz for, well, pretty much violating every precept social media is supposed to be based on. The evening’s “social-media DJ,” John Accorino, posted a note of congratulations on PriceChoppers Facebook page.

It’s not there any more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Lieb is a digital marketing consultant specializing in content, SEO and social media. Learn more at rebeccalieb.com or follow her on Twitter.

via adage.com

Get Media Coverage and Build Your Brand

October 13, 2010 by Karen Swim

: Image via Wikipedia

This is a guest post by award winning and Emmy-nominated TV journalist Dwann Holmes Olsen. One short year after coming off the air to focus Media & Marketing for Non-Profits and SMBs, Dwann was named (1) of 30 Future Leaders of America by Ebony Magazine. With a long history of success, Dwann now helps ministries and business owners with marketing and media relations.

Years ago when I first started off in business on my own, it seemed like I was featured in the media all the time! Every where you looked, there was my head-shot with a different story.

Once the first article came out, I noticed something. More and more reporters started calling and with every new article, there seemed to be a new burst of energy from within and even on the outside.

No, the phones didn’t start ringing off the hook, but there was some clear indication that overall interest and website traffic spiked every time my company was featured in the media. Then next thing you know, one article led to another, to another …all without me having to spend a dime on lofty magazine ads, although I always made sure to have some sort of affordable media presence in my community so that by the time the articles and coverage started flowing, my brand was somewhat recognizable.

Then years later as I began to study what kind of stories seemed to draw the most attention, it was quite obvious.

HONORS & AWARDS!

Anytime you can win some sort of award, trust me, the buzz about your business will keep building.

For instance, when I was named one of Ebony Magazine’s TOP 30 FUTURE LEADERS of America, it seemed like everyone I knew was just as excited as I was. Not only did my local paper do a blurb on it but my hometown I grew up did one, so did my birth city. But that wasn’t it. My Pastor announced it from the pulpit, the Chancellor of the University I graduated from sent me a letter and the college paper announced it as well. It was like INSTANTLY, my credibility was being leveraged, in ways I never imagined. All because I had a goal of wanting to be featured and I had a magnificent producer who worked to make sure my “entry” packet was stellar.

So, today I want to encourage you to set your sights high and GO FOR IT!

No matter what industry you are a part of know that there is always some sort of award, honor or competition you can strive for that could potentially net you spectacular complimentary press from all kinds of media outlets. (TV, print, radio etc…) (Tip: Use AwardSync to find awards by topic, region, role and more)

Just follow these simple steps to get started.

Get Research: Take your time and find out about the prestigious local and national industry awards that you or your business may qualify to compete in.
Get connected: Do your best to join at least (1) local and (1) national industry specific trade organization that will help keep you in the loop regarding competitions
Get Busy: Once you’ve done the research and gotten connected it’s time to GET BUSY and start apply for competitions. Since there is normally a cost associated with the application I recommend doing this on a quarterly basis and budgeting a certain amount of your funds for competitions.
Get Coverage: Once you start winning or even placing in the TOP 5, it’s time to GET COVERAGE by creating and distributing professional press releases regarding your recent honors.

There’s NOTHING like being honored by a group of peers, especially those who are clearly at the top of their game in your industry.

Unfortunately, many solo-preneurs seem to forget or don’t seem to realize that good news surrounding winning a local, national or even international award is definitely worthy of announcing.

Meaning, it really is okay to brag on yourself when you are singled out for a stellar contribution. What’s even better is that the news media are the ones reporting on you, which in turn helps add a little bit of influence and integrity to your brand.

The great thing is that after you win, you are then able to create a press release that any local news outlet would want to highlight, especially if it looks like you’re a local SUPERSTAR right in the midst of your community.

That’s when you have to be prepared to Tell Your Story Like a Pro!

Is media a part of your marketing strategy? If not, why haven’t you leveraged this tool yet?

About Dwann Holmes Olsen

Dwann Holmes Olsen helps small to medium sized businesses, entrepreneurs and ministries with their media and marketing strategies through coaching, consulting and producing. You can learn more about her signature media coaching program for business owners at Tell Your Story Like a Pro .

Think Big, Act Practical

October 12, 2010 by Karen Swim

: Image by cinnablythe via Flickr

In part 2 of my interview with Solo Business Coach and Entrepreneur, Trish Lambert she tells all about her Fuzzy Bunny Slipper Contest and the lessons learned in putting together the promotion. If you missed Part I, you can read it here.

Contests can be a great marketing tool for solo and small business owners. It’s a fun way to promote your business while giving something of value to your community. So Trish, tell us about your contest?

I have wanted to find a way to really celebrate solo business owners for some time. We should be proud of ourselves for what we achieve and how committed we are. So I conceived the Fuzzy Bunny Slipper Contest (named after one of the elements of the Success in Sweatpants logo). It asks entrants to submit a photo and an essay that answers the question, “Why are you a solo business owner?” in a creative and interesting way. To make the effort of preparing a submission worthwhile, I’ve put together a great prize list that includes: 64G iPad (Grand prize), networking Blu-ray disc player(2^nd prize) , and a Flip HD Mino videocam (3^rd prize) . There is also a bunch of business building products and programs in each prize level, courtesy of our expert panel: Donna Amos, founder of International Association of Solopreneurs; Peter Bowerman, The Well Fed Writer; Mike Michalowicz, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur; Adam Urbanski, The Marketing Mentor and Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad.

Submissions are open until October 19. Then the entrants need to kick into high gear and get everyone they can to vote for their entry. The 12 entries with the most votes will be passed on to an impressive panel of judges, who will select the winners.

How can people enter?

Go to the Success in Sweatpants page on Facebook and go to the “Contest” tab if you have already landed on it. “Like” the page to get access to the opt in box. Fill this in, and you will get directed to the contest entry page.

Can you share some of the things you have learned from running this contest?

I am learning a lot with this contest. One thing is that you need to be prepared to launch a very aggressive promotion campaign. By “aggressive” I don’t mean “in your face.” I mean that promotional activities need to start well ahead of the contest (a month is not too long a time frame) and they need to continue at a high volume every day once it is launched. I have been amazed at how much promotion is needed to get noticed by people.

Another thing is certainly thought-provoking for me. You know how we are told all the time that we need to think big, go beyond our comfort zone? I think I need to come up with an edited version of that…something along the lines of “think big, act practical.” This contest is definitely a result of big thinking: photo PLUS essay, popular vote PLUS judging panel, “sexy” prizes. And in addition, I plan to create an ebook of all the entries and a 2011 calendar of the 12 finalists. If I had it to do over again, I would have scaled this down quite a bit. Perhaps just a photo contest, with winners selected by popular vote, because I have found that making it as big as I have has also added layers of complexity, both for me and for the entrants. I promise you that the 2011 Fuzzy Bunny Slipper Contest will be much simpler!

Any other words of wisdom for solos?

It is so very important to remember why you started this journey, because going solo is always a challenge. Always. Sometimes the challenges are small, and sometimes the challenges loom above us. Progress can seem slow, results elusive, tasks disorganized. And there are simply those days where nothing is right, you wonder why you went out on your own, and thoughts of spiffing up your resume and going back to the old way flash across your mind.

Remembering why you are flying solo is your anchor any time the going gets tough. When you are in the middle of one of those big challenges, getting in touch with the real reason for all this will help you get through.

And celebrate yourself. You achieve more in one day than three people do back in the corporate world, and you need to stop and acknowledge that from time to time. It takes courage and commitment to be a solo business owner, and we need to keep remembering that!

Well said Trish, thank you!

Do you have promotion or small business questions for Trish? Please feel free to add your thoughts or questions in the comments. Don’t forget to enter the contest and please tell your friends and colleagues!

Trish Lambert is a solo business coach and entrepreneur. Her coaching helps solo business owners to stop spinning their wheels and produce the right results in their business. A fervent believer in no gimmicks, just RESULTS, she helps solos to move forward toward their goals.

Secrets of a Solo Business Owner

October 10, 2010 by Karen Swim

I had a chance to interview, Solo Business Coach and Entrepreneur, Trish Lambert recently. Trish has decades of experience as an entrepreneur and was leveraging remote and distributed work teams long before it became the new work model. She has a particular passion for solo business owners to which she devotes, Success in Sweatpants a division of her long standing business, 4R Marketing. In this 2-part interview Trish shares her passion for solos and offers some words of wisdom for solo business owners.

Your practice focuses on solo business owners, what drew you to this segment of the business community?

A mix of things. For one thing, I became a solo business owner for the second time in 2005, having finally run metaphorically screaming from the corporate world. I know I’m not alone in finding corporate life stifling and unsatisfying, and I have great empathy with other “defectors.” Second, I have probably hit every pitfall and pothole in the process of building my business, and I would like to help other solo business owners avoid at least some of those as a result of my coaching. Another thing is that I think solo business owners are taken advantage of, whether unintentionally or on purpose, by a lot of business experts who are more interested in their own fame and wealth than in following through on the claims they make to attract clients. I want to offer an alternative that delivers on its promises.

What are the key differences between solo business owners and other small business owners?

I think that the key difference is in their objectives. The solo business owners I work with intend to stay solo. They will certainly delegate parts of the business to subcontractors, but they have no desire to hire employees, have a big office, or stockpile inventory. They want to stay solo and maintain a lot of agility in their businesses. They want to have what I call a 360-degree life—that is, they want their businesses to fold seamlessly into the other parts of their lives. Small business owners, for the most part, have different objectives. They may be building something to pass along to the next generation, for example. Small businesses are not as agile as solo businesses because they have an infrastructure with employees, capital equipment, business loans and other things that limit their range of movement in the marketplace.

What do you think 2011 holds in store for small and solo business owners?

I wish I could say that I think we are going to get out of the hole we’ve been in. After all, “they” have said that the recession is over. If that is true, that’s great, but I think it will take some time to trickle down to us. I think the best approach to 2011 for small and solo businesses is to expect another year of the same, and take the right actions to stay in business. If things get better, that is excellent, but I think we need to err on the conservative side.

What are the key things that solos can do right now to prepare for a strong 2011?

This is the time of year when I encourage people to look really closely at their books. What can they do now to ensure that there won’t be a revenue dip in the holiday season or a lull in January? What expenses can they pare down or eliminate so that they are more streamlined financially?

I also encourage people to review their marketing activities. How effective are they? What needs to be changed or dumped? What needs to be added? Can you get more creative in your marketing? Put plans in place to have a big marketing push after the holidays, because people are in “renewal” mode then and they may be more likely to purchase products and services that they would either not buy or would waffle about at other times of the year.

Do you have questions for Trish? Please ask away or add to the discussion in the comments. Trish is currently running a contest for solo business owners and in part II she will share the behind the scenes experience and the lessons learned from developing and executing a contest. I hope that you’ll not only enter the contest but come back and read part II of the interview.

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