There are those seasonal stories that all media outlets cover every summer: Memorial Day and 4th of July celebrations, summer grilling, ways to beat the heat, vacation travel, etc. These story lines can get stretched pretty thin, so now is the time to start thinking about how your company or product can offer a new or unique approach. The media will appreciate the effort, and will be more likely to want to use your fresh idea on a characteristically lackluster story.

Also think about how your company will fit in with topics that will be hot this summer. The London Olympics will be popular, as will the Presidential race. But what about the weather? Will our mild winter have an affect on summer events or activities in which you are involved? Or what about your company’s economic outlook? Unemployment has gone down the last two months; what can that mean for your business?

Here’s another bit to keep in mind. From my experience as a news producer, I can tell you that there is one big angle the media absolutely loves: human interest stories! Do some digging around the office. Does your CEO have a dynamic personal story about how the company was created, or how he/she overcame obstacles to achieve a company goal? Take a look at testimonials and see if one of your customers has a great story to share about how your product helped their life.

If you have a great story angle, but need help pitching it to the media, give us a call. We’ve got contacts at most every media outlet.

“The best way to drive sales is through a simple marketing program including blogging (search engine optimization), social media and email communication,” says Jason, president of Burnsville-based Checkerboard Strategic Web Development. “The problem for many companies is two-fold: first the tool set they are using is outdated and often inefficient; second they don’t know how to get organized to deliver the steady stream of fresh content that connects with their customers and prospects.”

Busier than ever

Kocina’s team once specialized in creating custom websites for its clients. But as the need for social media marketing has grown, so has the demand for websites that don’t require an IT professional to manage them. Kocina’s solution was to change his product. “Marketing, sales, PR, customer service: these are all getting closer together. More than ever, it is important to have a communications tool set customer facing employees can manage.”

Calling their product MarketSmart Powersites, instead of trying to immediately construct a full content-rich website, Kocina’s team helps businesses set up a process to gradually add content that is of value to their customers and prospects. “This allows you to build that resource over time with every new update you make. You control the speed of growth and your web marketing budget.”

23,000 visits per month during peak times

One of the first local businesses to get a Powersite was Pahl’s Market, a garden center, market and landscaping company based in Apple Valley. “We converted Pahl’s Market’s existing website into a Powersite, and it became a content distribution machine!” says Kocina. In the first year after adding social media to its marketing mix, the Pahl’s Market website experienced a 78 percent increase in traffic from search engines, and 23,000 visits a month to its website. Its email subscriber list has almost doubled to an astounding 9,000 names.

“Our website traffic is now competitive with some of the larger nurseries in town,” comments Pahls Market Marketing Associate Jason Himmelwright, who credits his frequent blogs, Facebook posts, emails and Tweets with creating connections, especially with younger customers. “Nowadays you’ve got to do social media. But you can’t invest the time and money into a blog, for example, and think you’re done. You’ve got to continue to post regularly for your customers take notice.”

Himmelwright says maintaining his blogging schedule is easy. “I can write one post in WordPress, and it automatically gets sent to our website, Facebook and Twitter. I can even have it send emails. It definitely saves time. Plus I can schedule posts ahead of time. I can be fishing in Canada, and post new information while I’m away.”

Attracting national attention

One of Checkerboard’s projects for Pahl’s Market was to build an online plant library that features more than 1200 different species. “We now have people contacting us from across the

U.S. because we often come up higher in the search engines than the companies that created or grow the plants,” says Himmelwright. “We haven’t had to do a lot of promotion for our plant library because of the way it was created. Now because of our success, our competitors are playing catch-up, trying to create the same thing.”

Explains Kocina: “A lot of the credit for the success of the plant library goes to WordPress, and our ability to utilize all of its best capabilities to communicate with search engines. Because we now work almost exclusively with this toolset, we know how to take full advantage of what it can do.”

Free classes and local seminars

These days, Kocina spends much of his time meeting with marketing managers of large corporations, as well as local mid-sized companies, helping them to strategize about their Internet marketing. His free class on Creating a Social Media Plan, held at least monthly, is always filled to capacity. He is also a frequent expert panelist at marketing industry events, such as the upcoming panel on Monetizing Social Media, sponsored by Sales & Marketing Executives International of Minnesota, which takes place on March 29, 2012 at The Woman’s Club.

“Thinking your company isn’t applicable or relevant to the Internet, for example if you are a small local grocer, is growing into a bigger and bigger mistake,” says Kocina. “In the coming year, if your business isn’t running a website and getting found in search engines, then you won’t exist in the minds of your consumers. You should also claim your company in Google Places, Google Maps, Bing, Yelp and other local directories, and make sure all the information on these sites is correct to increase the volume of customers finding you.”

For additional information about Powersites, visit www.MarketSmartSites.com. For class information, visit www.Publicity.com.

When we examine the attendee demographics after each show, the overwhelming majority of people who walked through our doors are part of our intended target market. The benefits to our show sponsors and exhibitors are obvious: they know ahead of time that most of the attendees will fall within specific demographics.

To make this happen consistently for 12 years, we’ve had to be very good at target marketing.

Target marketing is when you focus your promotional campaign on a specific market segment. It might be all people within a certain geographic region, people within certain age groups, or people who share a common interest.

Creating a target marketing campaign for your events

To create an effective target marketing event, be smart about where you reach you reach your audience and what you say to them once you have their attention. You should have a good idea of what will cause them to sit up and take notice, and what will make them want to make plans to attend your event. Reach them on intellectual and emotional levels.

Here are just a few of the components we use when promoting our targeted expos:

• We customize our messaging for the media. While it may be tempting to promote the show as having something for everyone in an effort to increase foot traffic, that tactic can easily backfire. While we want people to enjoy themselves at our events, we don’t want them walking through our doors simply because they were bored and looking for something to do with the kids. By carefully crafting messages that hit home with our target audiences, we stand a better chance of attracting people who are seriously looking the type of for products and services that our exhibitors will be selling.

• We include targeted media in our publicity campaign. While placing media stories in major TV and radio stations, and in major newspapers is valuable, we also realize the importance of finding special interest media targeting the same audience as our expo.

• We support the events on the Internet. Our expo websites and social media pages are created to speak directly to members of the target market.

• We have marketing tools in place for our event participants to use. We make it easy for exhibitors and sponsors to attract their own sales prospects to the show, and to draw the attention of new prospects through our promotional channels.

Results speak for themselves

Here are some highlights demonstrating how effective these tactics can be:

• 85% of 2011 Body Mind Life Expo attendees told us that they buy organic and/or eco-friendly brands.

• 58% came to the Body Mind Life Expo to find new ways to get physically fit.

• 97% of our Fall 2011 50+ PrimeTime Living Expo attendees were age 50+.

• 73% of attendees at the 2011 Girlfriends Expo & Getaway made a purchase.

Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies specializes in targeted marketing campaigns. With our expos, it’s particularly fun to see all of the results come together in during each two-day event.

Your marketing dollars should be well spent. The most effective way to approach an expo is to use it as a lead-generating tool rather than expecting people to purchase at the event. That point is more important than ever in this economy, when people are re-thinking every purchase. You need to fill your sales pipeline with quality leads. An expo is one of the best ways to add people to your database, and make a great first impression on them.

Here are some key questions to ask when evaluating whether or not you should exhibit an expo:

1. Will the show reach your target audience? Crowds can be deceiving. You can’t sell siding to apartment dwellers, no matter how many pass by your booth. Companies frequently ask about attendance, when it’s far more important to get demographic information from previous shows. An exhibit booth is only money well spent if you are primarily face-to-face with people within your target market.

2. Is the booth price within your budget? In this economy, your absence from a show can put doubt in people’s minds if you are still around. Can you afford for your competitor to be there and for you to be absent? Many companies are taking advantage of our Buy Three Booths Get One Free offer, saving them money and giving them valuable face-to-face marketing exposure year round.

3. How well is the show promoted? Ask for a full marketing recap from a recent show. It should feature a comprehensive list of promotional channels and results. For example, we have an entire team of professional publicists who work with the media to place articles about the show. They are part of Media Relations, which is the top performance-based agency in the country. We also have experts who handle just our Internet presence. We go out to events to hand out tickets. Our media sponsors (generally radio, TV and print) run our ads and articles and run ticket giveaways; and we frequently partner with our expo participants to increase exposure.

4. What is included in the booth price? Read the fine print! Some shows charge extra for a skirted table and chair. Some shows have also stopped listing exhibitors by name on their websites. Because the Internet and social media are so important, look for shows that have robust websites and that offer you free pre-show and post-event marketing options on their website, and on popular social media websites such as Facebook.

5. Ask for referrals. When you talk with other exhibitors, be sure to ask not only about the expos effectiveness as lead generators, but also about the event producer’s customer service. Was it a positive experience? Happy exhibitors almost always translates into happy attendees. And people who are in a positive frame of mind tend to be more willing to listen to you explain about your product or service.

Call 612-798-7200 for information about exhibiting at our expos and about our expo marketing classes. Or, if you know of someone who could benefit by spending two days in front of a few thousand people within their target audience, give us a call and we’ll be sure to contact them.

- Publicists saying “I can arrange an interview for you”. Well duh, that’s your job.

- “Please read”. Oh, really? That’s what I’m supposed to do with your email?

- Don’t talk to me like I’m 14 yrs old, OMG.

- Do you know my kids? Do you know when my birthday is? No? Then don’t try and be my Facebook friend.

Yikes, these reporters can be brutal. But behind their sarcastic and sometimes rude demeanor, these journalists are really helping us do our jobs better. When you read “the more your write, the less I read”; that should tell you that your pitches need to be concise and to the point. If you hear “I hate phone calls and voicemails”, that means you better start honing your typing skills. When speaking to a reporter for the first time, ask if it’s ok to contact them by phone, or if they prefer emails instead. No two reporters are exactly the same, and good publicists will find out which ways their contact likes to be pitched best.

Getting complaints and rough comments from reporters can be dejecting, but it’s all part of the learning process. Yes, some journalists can be just plain mean to deal with no matter how you approach them — ask any publicist; boy do we have stories to tell. These jaded journalists deal with as many as hundreds of pitches daily, so for them to tell you what works and what doesn’t is extremely helpful. It will make you better at your job, which in return will help you better represent your clients.

When developing a marketing and PR campaign for any event, you must think like a PR person. You must be detail oriented, possess creative and excellent writing skills, be able to multitask, and be organized and energetic.Then of course, you’ve got to do the work.

Research

• The first and most important step is to identify your target audience and research the media that will reach this audience. This is a process of contacting local papers, TV and radio stations, speaking with key contacts and asking the right questions.

Brainstorm

•  With my media identified now I can develop my tool kit. What is interesting or unusual about this event and any marketing partners? Develop a press release around creative pitch points.

Our Body Mind Life Expo coming up March 17 &18 will feature a local inspiration, O’Neal Hampton. He was a contestant on season 9 Biggest Loser and has been reaching out to help others transform their lives. This pitch point works well with the media. A “feel good” or inspirational human interest story that is localized will drive the media interest.

Strategize

•  Prioritize your media. When I start promoting an expo, I look over my media list, determine lead times for each publication or station, and approach the reporters and producers accordingly.

The longer the lead time the earlier you will need to pitch your story. With a little less than two months before our Body Mind Life Expo, I am contacting regional magazine and weekly publication with story ideas.

Get excited and develop a plan. Your answer to most questions that begin with, “Do you think it’s possible to…” should be  “yes.”

Think like a PR person and your event marketing will thrive.

Jim Cook, owner of Investment Rarities, Inc., gave me a copy of this booklet 20 years ago. I read it and have tried to practice this concept ever since. Hill’s advice made an important impression on me and I hope it will be of value to you as well.

Lonny J. Kocina
President
Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies, Inc

Download The Habit of Going the Extra Mile

The tremendous need for quick, dynamic content is a fact of life for our writing team. Each month, business leaders approach us for help with writing everything from case studies to promotional emails introducing new features on their websites. They don’t have enough work to warrant having a writer on staff. They simply need someone to be available on relatively short notice for projects that crop up now and then.

Our on-call writing services save the day and are simple to use. You just open an account with us, and let us know when you need something written. Nearly all of our writing clients have come to us as referrals, which says a lot about the quality of our work.

Call us to set up your company’s on-call writing account.

Last week the team participated in a webinar hosted by editors from four of the country’s top women’s magazines. The top dogs at More, Family Circle, Working Mother and Marie Claire gave us an inside look into what kinds of stories they’ll be covering in 2012, the best ways to build relationships with their writers, and the best and worst pitch tactics.

The tips and insights we learned will no doubt prove to be very helpful. The editors shared with us which topics they like to cover a lot and which topics they won’t touch with a ten foot pole. They talked about the importance of reading their magazines to know what articles they recently wrote, and even that it’s beneficial to mention those articles when conversing with them. Each editor also stressed the importance of knowing that pitches should be customized to each magazine, because each have different target audiences.

What are some easy ways to build a good relationship with a magazine? Many of the editors’ tips were simple enough: present yourself in a friendly, personal way; be a source of usable information and not just promotional materials, and make sure you are dependable and will follow through on what you say you can deliver. The editors made it clear that once you leave a bad impression with them, you’ve basically axed your chances of them ever wanting to work with you again.

This exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how these magazines operate is invaluable. Our team is really excited about our new knowledge, and is confident it will boost our ability to get some fantastic national coverage for our many clients.

“The gatekeepers of traditional media outlets do not tolerate commercialized messages. They know their readers want only quality content, not ads. The same applies to readers on social media networks. There are specific guidelines for creating social media posts that appeal to the audience,” says Danielson in his article. He warns that, “A common problem for many businesses today is old-guard marketing gurus with salesmanship mentalities who don’t completely understand the frailness of social media.”

You can read Mike’s White Paper on this subject here.