1. What’s your message? What’s unique about your business, why are you better than the competition? What can you do for people? How can you make this engaging?
2. What channels suit your message? Traditional press, websites, blogs… national or local coverage? What content providers write about your specific topic and where? What’s their contact information?
3. How are you going to get the attention of a distributor/ reporter? Have you researched their style, policies and latest pieces? What’s hot right now? How are you going to convince him/ her that you’re an expert with something interesting to say?
4. How are you going to start the right conversation? Phone or email… have you read their work and pitch how your press release will be the perfect fit? Can you be authoritative, energetic, positive and give a definitive viewpoint? Can you do all this and grab their imagination by giving them something fresh, something unexpected.
5. How will you build on conversations to create strong relationships? Trust, credibility and thoroughness are key… do everything you can to make a reporter’s/ distributor’s job easier – research, sources, support material etc. Be eager, helpful and flexible to make yourself a reliable source.
6. How will you foster these relationships? Use social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Make sure your profiles are optmised for searches by content creators/ distributors and succinctly identify you as a valuable source without the hard-sell. Connect, communicate and be useful… get involved in their conversations. Promote their work, link to, like and retweet.
7. Can you attract inbound coverage by creating quality content? Establish yourself as an expert in your field, take a unique viewpoint or engaging style… anything to stand out and attract press attention. There’s nothing better than valuable content to draw press coverage or to support your credentials when ‘selling’ a press release.
8. Are you being social? Not just with potential reporters, journalists and distributors of your press releases, but with your audience. Plenty of comments, conversation and social sharing is a sure sign of quality content that people want to consume. And that’s what content creators/ distributors and searching for.
9. What results are you getting? How well is your press release being shared? Links, shares, likes, tweets, comments and bookmarks… how many people are you reaching, is it popular? How many referrals, leads and customers can you attribute to your press release? This helps you measure ROI, optimise future press releases and give content providers figures to back up the value you place on your press releases.
10. Can you keep delivering? It only takes one ‘duff’ press release – poorly researched, thin content that bombs – to destroy your credibility as a reliable source Maintain high standards, never cut corners or take advantage of your connections.

It takes time, luck and considerable work to build, maintain and capitalise on a profitable distribution network for your press releases. There are many tools, platforms and resources out there. These will help, but they’re no substitute for this list of 10 ways to maximise your press release coverage.

1. “The design is ready, you can add the content now”

Copywriter’s don’t want to hear this because it means what they write will be confined, not enhanced, by the design.

With web design projects most people focus on graphics. After all that’s web design isn’t it? Approach most web designers and the conversation will very quickly become a visual one, taking place via Photoshop. The needs of the content are largely ignored. What is a design called when it’s not built around its content? A template.

From the right structure, layout and navigation to knowing where to put emphasis, whitespace and visual cues… it all starts with the content.

Your copywriter wants to hear you say “Let’s work on the content so we can get the design started”.

2. “I’ve done the branding… look, here’s the logo”

What would copywriters see wrong with that? That’s what branding is, isn’t it? Image is everything.

When was the last time you had a conversation about branding that wasn’t about logos? But image isn’t the same as images. Your brand is how you are perceived, not what you look like. Sure, graphics are important, but what you say and how you say it is equally so, Effective web copy stimulates emotional/ psychological triggers and uses the right tone-of-voice, rhythm and word choice to influence reader perceptions.

Your copywriter would love you to see how much more there is to branding than just a logo.

3. “The site’s fully SEO’d, now can you write the content?”

Google/ SEO professionals will tell you that quality content is the key to SEO. So how can a site built on ‘Lorem Ipsum’? be optimized?

Search engines index and serve-up content.. They factor in everything from site architecture and link structure to the relevance and freshness of content. An optimized website is therefore built on optimized content. Not to mention, most off-site ‘SEO’ is just content strategy by another name

Your copywriter will die a little inside if you don’t grasp that SEO is all about content.

4. “I don’t know…”

At key moments, this is the biggest thing copywriters don’t want to hear. You can’t have answers to absolutely everything. But, “I don’t know” answers to questions like “Why do/ don’t people buy from you?”, “Where are you better/ worse than the competition?”, “Who are your different audiences?”.

Without this kind of fundamental grasp on your business, getting the website, sales pitch and marketing strategy/ messages written is going to be tough.

The upshot of this is… whether you are hiring a copywriter or supplying the content yourself – it’s integral to the success of your website. What you say and how you say, how you structure and navigate it… your copy has a big impact on conversion rates, SEO and integrating offsite marketing/ PR. Don’t overlook it.

#McDStories – not ‘lovin it’

McDonald’s is one of the world’s super-brands. As such they spend a not-too-small fortune on advertising, marketing and PR every year. And have done for a long time. Surely too big and too experienced to PR fail?

The buzzword right now is ‘stories’ and social media platforms are the golden arches, the gateway to marketing nirvana. Get your happy customers to tell their heart-warming and inspirational stories and build your brand for you.

But what if your hashtag gets hijacked? The hashtag attracted ferocious and intensely brand-damaging responses citing everything from diabetes to worm-riddled food.

Everything McDonald’s PR is designed to combat, it armed. And they paid for the privilege (it was a promoted hashtag). They had to pull #McDStories after just 2 hours. But, despite stopping its promotion, it’s still going strong.

#QantasLuxury – when twitter PR boomerangs

Qantas is the oldest continuously operated airline in the world and has never had a jet airliner fatalities (and no fatal accidents at all since 1951). It’s a strong brand.

The Qantas PR team ran an experimental contest on Twitter. Entrants just had to tweet their “Dream luxury in-flight experience” using the hashtag #QantasLuxury. What could go wrong?

Well, strikes had recently grounded flights and stranded thousands of customers. This against a backdrop of a perceived decline in standards (dropping from being voted 2^nd best airline to 8^th by Skytrax over the last decade). There was a monumental backlash.

Peaking at about 25 tweets a second, the hashtag became a torrent of negativity, abuse and jokes at their expense. Picked-up by mainstream media this was a PR disaster on takeoff.

Just sticks and stones? Sure, but just ask Goliath about that

If huge global brands pulling in billions in revenue can fail at hashtag PR, anyone can. A Twitter storm in a teacup will blow over for these brand giants. But it could be disaster for a smaller brand trying to establish itself.

Sure, the bigger the brand, the harder they fall. Less known brands by definition wouldn’t attract such a big backlash. But they are less resilient and even a ‘non-epic’ fail could spell PR disaster.

Running any social media effort is risky. You’re trying to spark a conversation, to get people talking. Trouble is, that conversation is largely out of your control.

The takeaway…

McDonalds face highly polarised and fiercely vocal public opinion. Millions enjoy fastfood and millions see it as a social blight. Asking for unbridled stories was naïve. Qantas simply showed spectacular mistiming.

Here’s my top 5 hashtag PR tips

1. Timing – social media doesn’t operate in isolation. Outside events have impact.
2. Freedom of speech – you can’t dictate the conversation only try to shape it.
3. You can’t cherry pick -  remember social media means you get everyone’s opinion
4. Be specific – open-ended, broadly-termed hashtags invite any response. Think of how you can ‘shape’ the conversation and steer it away from negativity.
5. Be prepared – closely monitor your campaign and plan what you will do if things go sour. Can you nip it in the bud? Deflect it with humour? Admit mistakes but commit to fixing them? Respond honestly and show you’re human?

Just a publicity stunt? Oh yes…

Wikipedia, WordPress, Google and hundreds more high-profile sites have joined the blackout protest against Protect IP and SOPA. This video pretty much sums it up:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Millions have signed Google’s petition or got social media buzzing with Anti-SOPA sentiment. Not to mention all forms of media (new and old), petitions and phone calls.

In just a few days, a piece of previously unopposed legislation has seen supporting congressmen distance themselves and talk about the need to reform flaws in the bill. That, ladies and gentleman, is the result of a mere publicity stunt.

Blackout is a phrase associate with war. So are accusations of propaganda, censorship and threats to liberty. The battle lines are drawn… traditional entertainment moguls desperately attempting to repel the seemingly unstoppable digital insurgency spearheaded by Silicon Valley. Let’s see how you can go beyond naivety about the power of online PR further…

How to lose a PR war

1. Be sure that your opponents have the drop on you

The element of surprise is a well-known military asset which allows smaller forces to overcome more powerful ones. To be absolutely assured of defeat the best way is to not even realise you’re in a PR war. All that chatter on that internet thing… it’s not like it could effect governments is it?

2. Always underestimate the opposition

Especially if they’re those meek bunch called ‘the people’. History loves generals so full of confidence they can’t contemplate defeat, even as their heads literally rolled. Farmers are gentle country folk, don’t worry about where angry mobs get their pitchforks. Let them eat cake.

3. Be sure to arm your opponents

Be generous with the ammunition. Don’t worry about a thing – in this day and age what are the chances of something coming back to bite you? If you can open your mouth wide enough to put one foot in, then why not see if you can’t get both in there? For example… if you’re defending copyright (say you’re Lamar Smith), use unattributed images on your site.

4. Don’t waste time planning

Monitoring the situation? Making contingency plans? Reacting and managing crises? Why spend your time worrying about what others are doing or about things that might not even happen? Military history would be filled with this kind of bold strategy if only generals who followed it had survived to write about it.

Here’s a nice video from that other social Google platform – YouTube:

What this boils down to…

This is what Google say:

With personal results, you’ll see relevant tips, photos, and posts from your friends right alongside results from the web […] You can even expand your world by discovering people related to your search.

What they want is a search engine that makes results more relevant, richer and more social by adding and using information about people you’re connected with.

Simply put, so far this translates as:

1. Google+ content in SERPs from folks in your circles (photos, posts, comments…)
2. Google+ profiles in SERPs related to that person (including in the autocomplete dropdown)
3. Related Google+ people and pages also appear to the right of search results.
4. Social share buttons – ‘like’ and share content, add people to circles… all from within the SERPs.

Sounds good right? Anything that makes search results more relevant and lets us see more interrelated data in one place has got to be good. No downside is there?

Twitter’s feathers get ruffled

Alex Macgillvray, Twitter’s general counsel and ex Google employee, tweet in response to Google’s announcement was less than friendly or subtle.

Now I’m no legal expert, but that’s not the usual cryptic and subtle speak you expect from a lawyer. Twitter’s problem is one which we might all encounter. In essence it’s how this new wealth of information is being integrated.

Google are desperate to push Google+ and take a slice of the social media pie off Facebook. So, with all this personalisation, the concern is that we’ll all have to wade through a load of Google+ content to get to anything else. Twitter say if news is breaking it’s breaking on their platform so don’t want it buried. For the rest of us, we like trimmings sure, but not if it means we don’t get to the meat.

More social, more personalised searching

Social search or personalised search, whatever you want to call it. this is the next big thing internet pundits have been predicting for a few years now. I say ‘predicting’ but when something’s so predictable, it’s closer to say ‘waiting’.

I don’t think anyone who thinks about such things didn’t ‘predict’ Google would integrate it’s social platform with it’s search engine. Some cynical folk might go further and say Google+ is simply designed to harvest valuable social data. Some might say Google will attempt to lock us into their platform and bombard us with all things Google-branded every time we search for anything.

After all, it works for Facebook and that’s who they’re trying to beat.

But what if it’s not managed well? What far-too-common Twitter crimes are businesses still committing?

The usual suspects…

1. The invisible man (or woman)

THE CHARGE – wilful neglect of a Twitter profile.

It takes minutes to set up a Twitter profile and it’s easy. If you want folks to follow you then anything less than a complete biography, avatar and branded background won’t cut it. The invisible man/ woman prefers anonymity which, to everyone else, looks lazy, unprofessional and untrustworthy.

THE SENTENCE – 10mins easy labour (updating said profile)

2. The spam monkey

THE CHARGE – going equipped to sell

If an incomplete profile is original sin, then creating a ‘hard sell’ profile is mortal sin. The spam monkey has a Twitter background that screams ‘corporate sales machine’ and has some lame SEO-spam drivel for a handle like “UsedCarsRomford”. Everything about the spam monkey’s Twitter presence is the hard sell. That’s not relationship building, there’s no reason for people to follow, it just screams ‘block’.

Every tweet is a sales pitch, and not even a thinly veiled one. There’s no value being added, no inclusion, no fresh insight or interaction just “buy, buy” which is the quickest route to “bye, bye” and an unfollow.

THE SENTENCE – solitary confinement with no chance of an audience

3. The Twitternator

THE CHARGE – going equipped to sell

Whether it’s automated tweets or just chunks of 140-character verbal diarrhoea clogging-up the twitter stream – there’s nothing like over-tweeting to get a whole bunch of unfollows. The Twitternator will bombard you – often repeating the same thing and often in hit-and-run sessions with a dozen tweets per minute. Whether it’s over-promoting something, constant status updates from some linked service or simply filling your twitter stream with constant drivel… the Twitternator never tires, never sleeps and will never stop.

THE SENTENCE – deactivation (block and report) preferably involving time travel.

4. The stalker

THE CHARGE – following with intent

One dead giveaway of the stalker is an imbalance between followers and followees. In extreme cases it’s a spambot using an automated follow tool to collect followers like Tesco ClubCard points. These are the phantom followers you have no idea where they came from, who they are and often vanish as quickly if you don’t follow back.

THE SENTENCE – an ASBO (otherwise known as ‘block’).

5. The preacher

THE CHARGE – obtaining prophets by self-deception

The preacher is a self-declared guru who has an unholy craving for followers. You will find the priest delivering 140-character sermon after sermon from their Twitter pulpit all on the subject of their glorification. Don’t confuse the loathing of these false idols with the jealous sniping that the genuinely praiseworthy attract. The preacher won’t debate, see the points of others or admit mistakes (other than yours). It’s not a 2-way conversation, there’s no miraculous insights or practical advice… just holier-than-though rhetoric and raining brimstone down on unbelievers. It’s just not social.

THE SENTENCE – loss of followers

Time to SWOT up…

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is an effective tool and a great starting point for designing your marketing resolutions.

Strengths – where does your competitive advantage lay?

Whether it’s a cost advantage or strong differentiation, what sets your business, products or services apart? What do your customers value that competitors find hard to compete with?

Weaknesses – where is there risk?

Are there customer needs you’re not meeting (that a competitor could)? Where are you vulnerable to changing market conditions? What do your customers value that they could get from a competitor but not you?

Opportunities – where will profit and growth come from?

What customer wants could you fulfil? Are there market segments you’re under-exploiting? Can you beneficially reposition your brand, products or services? Where are your competitors weak? What changing market conditions can you exploit?

Threats – what potential changes could damage profits?

How exposed are your products/ services to economic downturn or competitor activity? How price sensitive is your market? Is your brand robust and value-adding? Are changing consumer tastes/ focus devaluing your offering?

Conduct SWOT analysis across your products/ services in each of your target market segments. Then do the same analysis for each of your competitors’ offerings in those segments. The 3 fundamental strategies driving your marketing resolutions should be:

1. Exploiting opportunities and competitor weaknesses through strengths.
2. Opening up new opportunities by overcoming weaknesses.
3. Defending weaknesses from threats.

These strategies aren’t mutually excusive. Can you, in a single marketing effort, exploit current opportunities, create new ones and eliminate a weakness?

Successful marketing and strategic business planning both use SWOT analysis. Both maximise strengths and opportunities whilst minimising weaknesses and threats. The difference is business strategy is about how you do things, marketing is about how others perceive what you do.

Think about how you can influence your target market’s perceptions to achieve each of the 3 fundamental strategies.

About perceptions when times are tough…

When economic conditions start biting and purse strings tighten it can seem that your marketing choices are made for you. Drop prices, launch special offers and dig in for a drawn-out price war. SWOT analysis can give you more options.

If your strength is a strong brand or a differentiated product then competing on price will undermine that strength. If you have the low cost choice then, if your competitors drop their prices, how will you counter that threat?

When times are good and sales strong, you and your customers are more willing to overlook shortcomings. But when times are tough perceived weaknesses are under far more scrutiny. A ‘missing’ feature, a negative review or an unstated benefit can all lose a sale or let a competitor in.

Instead of money-off what opportunities are there to increase perceived value? How can you overcome people’s reluctance to make a purchase? What can you do to reduce perceived risk? When money is tight, people want to feel that they’re making a safe investment. Instead of money off, think about guarantees, warrantees, support etc.

Get analysing and strategising – set your New Years marketing resolutions.

The aim of your promotion

What you want to achieve from your promotion should be what shapes it, drives the decision making process and measures its success. Set specific goals. E.g. Do you want 20% more sales, 30% more renewals or 50% more prospects signing up?

Not all promotions are about directly generating sales. Information is the currency of online business… promotions are an excellent way of capturing the contact details of prospects.

Return On Investment

In most businesses the mere mention of giveaways has the bean counters choking with incredulity, “You want to give something away for free?”! Quite right too, and if you’re considering a giveaway then you should be equally tough on yourself.

As with any marketing or promotional activity, the most important thing is ROI. With your aims clearly laid out, you should be able to put a figure on the value you believe the promotion will deliver.

Don’t decide what to giveaway before you’ve got some cost-benefit projections worked out. There’s no problem in giving away a Ferrari if it will generate 10 times that in increased profit.

Who’s on your gift list?

What will work best for you… spreading your net as wide as possible, or just having a handful or even one item to giveaway? Should your promotion be open to all or just a selected audience?

What’s the optimum balance of perceived value and reach? Will one high-ticket item get a better response than many low-value ones? Is a particular market segment likely to respond more? Will different offers work better for different segments?

Will 1 Ferrari do better than 10,000 ipads? Will 10% off for everyone do better than 25% off for a select audience?

5 key factors to successful offers

Here are some tips on to make sure your online promotion achieves your aims and delivers the greatest ROI:

1. Know your audience – what offer will trigger the response you’re looking for from your audience to achieve the goals you set? Don’t sacrifice effectiveness for scale. There’s no point hitting thousands of people with an ineffective offer.
2. Relevancy – offers are stronger if they support your products/ services. What would customers who use your products/ services also appreciate? What would enhance the need/ desire to buy from you?
3. Stretch your budget – Discounts reduce margins but they don’t require outlay – no uptake, no cost. What valuable information could you package up for download? ‘Digital’ products for download save on delivery costs/ admin time. What loss leaders will generate upsell? What guarantees or warrantees could you add for free?
4. Brand building – tie your offer in with your brand. What fits your corporate image? Does your giveaway carry your branding? Make sure the offer doesn’t cheapen your brand.
5. Timing – the best offers are ones that have a definite end date to them. This encourages action. It also pays to create topical promotions that take advantage of what’s on your audiences’ mind now. Whether that’s seasonal, a specific event or a change in the marketplace. Run promotions when the timing’s right, not to some arbitrary marketing schedule.

And as a bonus, here’s a 6^th tip:

6. Add a bonus – think of how you can separate your offer to create a ‘bonus’. Whether that’s an ‘extra’ product or service, free delivery, an extended warranty or a coupon for money off their next purchase… you can greatly increase the value of your offer simply through the structure and wording of it.

No single magic formula will work for all landing pages. Fundamentally, an optimal landing page is dictated by the optimal sales pitch. And that is ultimately determined by the target audience. Successful products or services deliver what people want and successful sales pitches ensure that gets across loud and clear.

Pitching it just right

The driving principle of an effective landing page is therefore to get the right sales pitch across loud and clear.

Before you get designing your landing page you need the right sales pitch. That’s a massive subject way beyond the scope of this article, but the common building blocks are:

1. Be clear and engaging
2. Keep focused on the key selling points
3. Show how your product is exactly what the person wants
4. Build trust and credibility
5. Close the deal
6. Don’t do anything else

The last point is a crucial but often overlooked one. Focus on the sale. Now’s not the time to raise general awareness, for lengthy informing, social networking or trying to sell everything.

Here’s how that translates into landing page design.

The key elements of a landing page

1. The headline – should be engaging and intriguing but also make it clear what the page is about and where the visitor is. It should match what was promised in the source link (e.g. email, ad or webpage) and get the core message across.

2. The lead – exactly how it sounds. Lead the reader from the headline into the sales pitch itself that has your key selling points. Be clear and concise, but not at the expense of personality. You want smooth and flowing, not cold and corporate. And then lead seamlessly into a strong call-to-action.

3. The call-to-action – make this highly visible but don’t make the mistake of making it isolated. People don’t just click on it because it stands out. They click on it because your headline grabbed them, your lead pulled them in and your pitch made the sale. You’re just making it easy for the deal to be closed.

4. The ‘break’ – the first 3 elements are enough to close the deal. If your pitch is right and the offering good (i.e. the person wants it) then ‘click’, you’ve closed the sale. Adding a visual break at this point helps keep the pitch clear and the person pause on the call-to-action.

5. Trust-builders – testimonials, guarantees, independent ratings… these are all powerful ways to build the trust it takes for people to turn a decision into action. Put them after the break to try and catch those who are wavering, or above if building trust is a crucial part of your sales pitch.

6. Last-chance – Don’t do anything else in your sales pitch, but, despite your best intentions, people don’t always hit your landing page at the right time. They may need more education on your product/ service or know enough about your business. Put a secondary call-to-action with little emphasis, that leads elsewhere onsite after the ‘break’.

Graphics and layout play a key role in supporting these 6 elements. They should tie-in with the sales pitch made by the copy and create the right visual hierarchy to guide visitors’ attention. Every design choice and pixel added should have a specific supportive role. If it doesn’t then it’s decoration… it’s not obeying the 6^th building block of a successful sales pitch – ‘don’t do anything else’.

 Be flexible

If product aesthetics are crucial, or showing folks enjoying using your product/ service, or an inforgraphic is the best way to get your product/ service across… then make that centre stage:

If trust-building is crucial, focus on that:

Build landing pages that maximise the effectiveness of your sales pitch, whatever that takes. Don’t look for magical templates.

Kia ora from the land of the long white cloud. Yes, today us lucky kiwis got our hands on the new Facebook timeline before most of you were even out of bed! It’s ironic that New Zealand, which generally lags a decade behind in technology, is quite often used as a testbed for up-coming gadgets and gizmos. We’re small (about 4.5 million), English-speaking (arguably) and are a nation of inventors and tinkerers, not afraid to ‘give things a go’.

The magazine-style layout

The magazine-style layout is far less cluttered, less chaotic and haphazard than the ‘traditional’ Facebook look. It doesn’t look like ‘waffle vommit’ as I’ve been known to call the old style random bombardment of crud.

Right up top are 2 of my favourite new features. The cover photo instantly makes the page more personalised, engaging and instantly more attractive (even if it’s got my ugly mug in it). To the right a quick way to navigate down to a particular date range. Notice I can go right from the day I was born and fill my timeline in the ‘pre-Facebook’ days. That opens up decades worth of crud for me to bore people with. Fantastic!

The timeline itself

I actually enjoyed scrolling down the page and seeing hundreds of things I’d ignored previously whooshing by. There are comments, photos and actions… a history of every interaction between me and my friends and everything I’ve liked.

Sure that may have been there before. But now it’s so accessible. It’s all neatly grouped and summarised, ready to toggle into more detail if I want to. And I found myself wanting to (more about why that’s a big deal at the end).

To add something to my timeline I just click in the appropriate place on the line and a menu pops up with what kind of content I’d like to add. Simple.

If I choose ‘life events’ then I get to choose from all kinds of events from Work & Education to Travel & Experiences. Each different type (and there are plenty) has it’s own template specifically suited to that event. For example, if I chose ‘new job’ I can fill in the company name and position. If it was travel it’d be places visited and some photos.

I can also remove things (including what Facebook has automatically populated my timeline with) or click ‘feature’ and they’ll expand out to the full width of the page for added ‘pow’. Cool.

My thoughts… or why the mountain Google+ has to climb just got higher

Now I would just like to say at this point that I’m not a big Facebook fanatic, I barely use it if I’m honest (in NZ social media is what we call graffiti in the urinals). It’s because I’m in my mid-thirties and a businessman. I’ve never seen Facebook as more than something to keep illiterate teens quiet.

I know, I know… Facebook is a great platform for business and there are huge opportunities to reach and engage massive audiences. But I’ve never felt that Facebook is anything other than that, it’s not something I wanted to use.

But I have to say that introducing the timeline has, for the first time, made me look at Facebook and think “I could actually use this”. That’s something I wasn’t expecting. And that makes me think Google+ is going to have a tougher time differentiating itself as the ‘non-teen’ (my personal impression of what they’re aiming at) social media platform.