In yesterday’s post my guest blogger, Darren Northeast, shared 4 reasons why PR is an effective way of promoting your business.
Today he reveals another 4, including how PR can help your online success. You can also download his guide to writing a press release.
Over to Darren…
5. PR is vital to online searches (SEO)
PR is now one of the most effective weapons in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and is proving to be one of the most powerful weapons in helping companies achieve the highest possible rankings.
Take up of your press announcements by wires and websites creates online coverage which in turn quickly gets picked up by the search engines.
The outcome?
Your business is ‘discovered’ by people using search engines in ways you’d never previously imagined, because of the sheer weight of search terms that produce a result with links to your website.
For this reason, online PR is now becoming a key element within a switched-on company’s PR strategy.
6. PR can improve your presence online
Managing a company’s reputation is no longer just a focus on the national or trade press, it can also involve infiltrating forums, pod casts, social networking sites and blogs to ensure that accurate and relevant information reaches the readers.
Often online journalists receive details from a third party or use the web to do research. By reaching out to these networks PR can make certain that a business is represented in the best possible light.
7. PR develops speaker and expert opportunities
Newspapers, conference organisers and other media and marketing channels are constantly on the lookout for experts, either for speaker platforms or to join panels, work groups or other types of event.
Press coverage helps position your experts as industry gurus, and press coverage is much more likely to lead to them (you?) being invited to participate in events.
8. PR is essential to recruitment and to staff motivation
Press coverage communicates to your staff that your company is going places. Keeping staff informed about your latest media stories is vital both to motivation, and to ensuring that staff act as ambassadors for your company.
Just as importantly, press coverage often stimulates interest from prospective employees. Companies often witness an increase in hits on the recruitment section of their website – and the arrival of new CVs – immediately after coverage appears.
So – 8 reasons to include PR as part of your overall marketing strategy.
Of course the challenge is getting your PR out there and accepted by the media. Often submissions to journalists, Editors or PR news release services are rejected because they are seen as a blatant sales pitch. Your story needs to be more subtle and ‘media friendly’. This PR guide shows you how to write a press release and how to approach your target media.
Darren Northeast
Spiral MPR
Thanks Darren, it’s always good to be reminded of the crucial difference between writing a direct response letter / advert and writing a press release.
Have any questions about PR? Click ‘Questions?’ or use the link in the right panel and I’ll see if I can twist Darren’s arm to give us some more insights.
In my next post on Finding new business I’ll be sharing an alternative to dropping your prices to gain more sales.
~ Carol Bentley
For my overseas readers nowt = nothing, and that’s what my guest blogger, Darren Northeast, is exploring with you over the next couple of posts.
Darren is Managing Director of Spiral MPR and in this first post he shares facts about PR and reveals 4 of the 8 clear benefits you gain – when you get it right.
In tomorrow’s post he reveals the final 4 advantages and generously gifts a fact sheet on how to write your press release.
The Benefits of PR
Bill Gates, the world renowned Microsoft billionaire once said that if he only had one dollar to spend on promoting his business he’d “spend it on PR”. I’m not too sure what sort PR he was planning to buy with one dollar but we do know he was right.
Good PR can achieve increased sales, greater brand awareness, potential client awareness, deeper understanding of your product or service and many other ongoing benefits.
PR is about the masses gaining awareness of your product or service, and it’s ultimately about getting people to talk about your company.
Consider this, if the owner of a restaurant sings the praises of his cuisine, you may listen, but you’d be at least somewhat cynical. If, on the other hand, you come across a media article of review of that restaurant who have no vested interest in its success, and that person raves about the experience, chances are you will not only believe that person, you will probably be eating there within the month. Business growth basically comes down to that very low-tech, old-as-the hills strategy known as “word of mouth.”
PR – The Facts
• 34% of businesses list PR as being in their top five essentials for successful business development
• Unpaid for editorial has enhanced value as the reader / viewer sees it as being endorsed by the media in which it appears
• Industry leaders state that editorial (PR) is three times more influential than advertising and suggests the real figure is in fact eight times
• “For business, PR is an increasingly vital marketing tool – especially as traditional forms of advertising struggle to catch consumers’ attention.” – The Economist
So let’s talk about some other specific benefits of PR especially in the present economic climate we find ourselves in here in the UK:
1. The media is the most powerful developer of reputations
Coverage in the media shapes the way your customers perceive you. Whether you’re a brand new company, or launching a new product, or you’re an established company trying to communicate alongside the market leaders, media endorsement can make or break your business.
If you want people to believe in you, make sure the press believes in you first.
2. An editorial is the ultimate advert
It’s true that advertising allows you to communication your own message and gives you complete control over the way your brand is promoted. It’s also true that when it comes down to editorial it’s down to the media to write whatever they like.
But that’s why PR companies exist. A PR professional makes certain your company and its messages are communicated to the media in the most effective way, ensuring not only that the journalist covers the story, but also the coverage reflects you in the best possible light.
When it comes to comparing powerful advertising and a successful PR campaign, there’s only one winner. Top-quality editorial endorsement is the greatest PR exposure a business can ever experience.
3. PR is the most cost-effective marketing vehicle
PR is a far more cost-effective tool than advertising, database development and e-marketing through brokered lists. Yet PR support is available at a fraction of the cost of traditional above-the-line communications.
One positive endorsement in a high circulation – or highly targeted – media title often produces a sharp rise in traffic to your website or call centre. If you’re a trade operation, positive coverage can stimulate direct enquiries, and make your business targets more responsive to your sales and marketing campaigns.
4. PR doesn’t just get customers interested in you!
Press coverage doesn’t just develop sales, it also activates market-wide interest in your brand.
Typically, coverage can lead to requests for strategic partnerships, such as affiliate relationships, endorsements and sponsorships.
Darren Northeast
Spiral MPR
In tomorrow’s post Darren reveals why a properly developed PR Strategy has a great impact on your online presence and, of course, you’ll be able to download his PDF gift.
~ Carol Bentley
In this post I’m going to describe how to use a datacard to help you choose a mailing list from a list supplier.
The information supplied by mailing list suppliers varies, some are very informative, others slightly less so. I’d advise using these datacards purely as a starting point. Once you feel you’ve found the right list for your product/offer you can contact the list supplier for further qualification before buying.
A Hypothetical Case
Let me introduce you to Lee Walker (an imaginary business person for the purpose of this story).
Lee produces a valuable and informative newsletter for property owning landlords. He wants to reach as many private landlords as possible to promote a subscription to his monthly newsletter.
Lee’s target audience is predominantly male with a good income level. He wants prospects who have shown a clear interest in Property Investment as these are the people who are more likely to have purchased properties and then decided to rent out until the current housing market recovers; effectively becoming Private Landlords.
The challenge for anyone targeting landlords is finding them, especially if they don’t use Letting Management Agents.
Lee decides to check what’s available from mailing list suppliers and gets a datacard from Hilite* that may match his requirements.
Let’s take a look at the card and see what he’s basing his decision on.
Click to open the PDF so you can check what I’m describing.
- In the description, top of the first column, it says Recently Updated. Lee needs to check just how recent ‘recent‘ is.
- The list contains people who are serious about property investment (they must be to spend £1800 to attend a property investment workshop)
- The description of some of the workshops these contacts have attended include ‘Marketing to Tenants & Investors’ – which matches the profile Lee has defined.
- It states the list contains 71% male prospects with 81% being in the middle – higher income bracket. This implies they will have the means to pay a monthly subscription for quality information that could save them time, money and landlord legislative problems.
- The list is described as Direct Mail Responsive. This is an important consideration because Lee intends to promote his newsletter via a direct response mailing campaign.
- The list complies with the Data Protection Act and is MPS cleaned before supply. Lee needs to verify the MPS cleaning takes place immediately before his records are selected. MPS requests do take time to filter through to marketing companies. It is important to check the data against the very latest MPS list.
Although the minimum order quantity is 3,000 records, smaller numbers can be supplied for a higher outlay. This is worth considering so Lee can run test mailings before committing to a large scale promotion.
So – on the face of it – the people on this list seem to match Lee’s requirements.
The next step is for Lee to talk to the supplier and check the answers to the questions I mentioned in the previous post.
And something else he would do well to ask:
- How often has the list been rented/sold? Lee doesn’t want to have a list that has been swamped with offers – at the same time he might think twice about renting a list that has never been used – why is that?
- When was it last used? If it was mailed last week it might be better to check the viability of an alternative list. Lee could ask specifically for the records that were not previously supplied – but those may be the people who have been on the list longer or who are not as responsive as the first record selection might be.
Of course, even with a datacard or other extensive selection criteria, you can’t guarantee these contacts will generate a high response – you are approaching a cold audience. Your offer, its relevance to these people and your mailing content all have an impact on the response you might expect to get.
Guest Blogger
In my next post we’ll explore how to find new customers using PR. I’ve invited a PR specialist to write that post for you – should be very interesting.
~ Carol Bentley
*P.S. I am not recommending you use Hilite for your mailing lists, they are one of many you can approach. It’s simply that their datacard is an easy one to view online.
Many businesses, especially if they are breaking into a new market, purchase mailing lists to reach new prospects.
Over the next few posts I’m going to explore finding the right mailing list and we’ll take a look at the information supplied on a mail list data card.
Types of Mailing Lists:
When you buy a mailing list you do not necessarily ‘own’ the list, you cannot always use it ad infinitum. Mail list brokers frequently offer different arrangements:
1. Rent the list for one time use only
2. Rent for multiple use within a specific time-frame
3. Rent/buy for multiple use without limitations
The price they charge per record will depend upon which of these options you choose and the information they supply. And they seed their list with dummy contact details so they can check a list is not being used more times than has been paid for.
For example a generic list (Managing Director/Marketing Director/Buyer) which does not contain named job holders usually costs less than a list giving you the name of the specific person to contact.
A list including telephone numbers and email addresses could cost more.
If the list has been created from people who’ve responded to a particular offer that aligns well with your business you may have to pay a premium rate.
Selecting Your List
These will be cold prospects but you should still try to select a list that matches your target audience as closely as possible.
This is easier with some list suppliers than others.
For example HiLite supply a data record describing the list content, how it was generated, when it was last updated and what the prospects are likely to respond to – I’ll be going through one of their data cards in the next post.
Experian provide a ‘Prospect Locator’ in which you make selections to match the contacts you are looking for. They also offer a free handy Direct Marketing Guide you can download.
Selecting Your Mailing List Supplier
There are huge numbers of mailing list suppliers. Some generate the list themselves, others broker lists from other companies – effectively acting as a ‘go-between’.
Where the list is brokered the list owner may have a condition that your mailing must be approved before the list is released. Personally I think this is a good requirement because it demonstrates the owner’s integrity in making sure their customers are not inundated with irrelevant, junk mail. And that, in turn, means they are more likely to be responsive to what you are offering.
Here’s a few things to check when sourcing your mailing list – any professional list supplier will meet this criteria:
- Accuracy of the list. How well prepared is the list; correct spellings, correct titles (Mr, Mrs etc), correctly typed town names and postcodes… are the postcodes in capital letters? Inaccurately typed addresses gives the wrong impression to the recipient as well as risking your mail going astray.
- When was it last updated? If it is more than a month or so I would be a bit sceptical about its usefulness. Some mailing list suppliers state they will run an update process on the list before it is supplied, if they do check exactly what that update covers.
- Is the list examined against the preference services:
Mailing Preference Service MPS*/Corporate Mailing Preference Service CTPS
Telephone Preference Service* TPS
Fax Preference Service FPS
[*Crucial if you are targeting consumers].
- Is it checked for duplicates, gone aways, deceased?
- Do they offer a deliverability guarantee? Always include a return address on your outgoing envelope. I use purely the address – not the company name – on the back of the envelope. This is so any letters that can’t be delivered are returned. It allows us to keep our database up-to-date and will let you check how many addresses in a purchased list are inaccurate.
Got the list – Now what?
It’s tempting to believe a newly purchased list is going to deliver a landslide of new customers. The reality is you may not get more than 1% or 2% response – sometimes even less! Obviously how targeted your list is has an impact on this result.
So – it’s down to testing to make sure you don’t waste your money or effort. Select a portion of the list you have purchased (especially if you had to take a minimum number of records, some list suppliers will not supply less than 5,000 records at a time), send your offer and measure the results before committing to a full roll-out, which could be quite expensive.
Once someone has responded to your offer they become your customer/prospect and you can continue to communicate with them even if the original list contract was for a one time only use.
A Final Thought
Because email marketing is such a low-cost way of reaching out to your prospects you may consider purchasing an emailing list.
Be careful. In the UK you cannot send unsolicited emails to individually identifiable people.
So ask yourself… is it worth sending an email to a generic company email address? Is it likely to reach the person it is aimed at? And if it does, are they likely to respond, especially if they do not know you or your company?
Personally I do not (and never recommend) buying emailing lists. I prefer to communicate with people who have opted-in, have said they would like me to keep in touch.
You can get these warmer prospects when you send out your mailing simply by giving them the option to visit a web landing page (or squeeze page) to subscribe for your informative emails or including an opt-in checkbox on your response (order) form.
~ Carol Bentley
This is probably one of the most difficult to put in place – but can be lucrative when implemented successfully.
In my previous business – before I threw myself ‘body and soul’ into professional copywriting – we developed and delivered computer training courses to business people. (I’d been in computer software training & support for 20+ years so I knew a few things about how to use them effectively in the business).
A major part of my marketing activity was business networking, I attended many business meetings – even helped form one of the most successful networking clubs in my area ( I was affectionately known as the ‘Networking Queen’, well… I think it was an affectionate term!)
It always surprised the people I met when I said ‘I don’t have competitors – I have potential alliances’.
I worked on the premise that if my team couldn’t accept a request for training (either we were too busy or were asked about a software application we didn’t cover) then I was happy to pass that enquiry over to a computer trainer/training company that I knew and trusted to deliver a good course. I got paid an introductory commission and the other trainers reciprocated in the same way when they got enquiries they couldn’t handle.
Actually in my situation we went a step further. If either side won a large training contract and needed extra trainers we’d also hire each other to deliver the course as a member of the training team.
It worked very well and, even now, I still have contact with those associates and refer people to them if I’m asked to recommend an IT training company.
And I’ve taken that philosophy with me, recommending other marketing services suppliers where appropriate.
Use Your Competition To Generate Income
So that’s what I’m suggesting you do.
Set up an arrangement with a competitor you rate and trust and pass on any enquiries you can’t convert into sales. It may be you don’t supply that particular service; your pricing doesn’t match; you’re too busy to take that project on or you just didn’t gel with the prospect – there was no rapport between you… hey, it happens!
If there’s likely to be an equal amount of opportunities coming from your competitor you can agree to just pass them over. If there’s no real certainty then agree a percentage commission that suits both sides.
After all – the enquiry you’re passing over is a warm lead they haven’t had to do any work to get, so why shouldn’t they be prepared to pay the introductory fee?
In the next Finding new business post I’m going to explore purchasing mailing lists. And there’s also a link to download an extremely handy free Direct Marketing Guide.
~ Carol Bentley
Marketing in Times of Recession – Lessons from the Past is the name of the article written by Matthew Carlton who contacted me for my views just before Christmas. His article is included in a consultancy report: Communicating in a Downturn: Recessionary Marcoms Tactics & Strategies from Xtreme Insight.
Matthew’s research explored the effect of recessions since 1923; how businesses reacted to those recessions; which companies survived (and in many cases grew) and why. Amongst other insights he shares the findings of the Canhers Publishing Company’s report produced in 1982:
Companies that actually upped advertising spend during recessions gained on average 1.5 points of market share, however the study revealed that such forceful marketing was only carried out by a quarter of the businesses surveyed.
In the survey I held the week before last 87.25% of the people who participated said they intended to increase their marketing activity, so that is far more encouraging than what came out of the study in 1982. Of course these days we have the added benefit of using the Internet as part of our marketing strategy – there’s a general feeling the Internet will have a greater role in our economic recovery this time.
This PDF: Communicating in a Downturn: Recessionary Marcoms Tactics & Strategies contains the article and other extracts from the report, which you may find interesting. (You need Adobe Reader v6 or later to open the PDF and – please note – it is a largish file; just over 2 Mbytes). You can, if you wish, order a copy of the full publication (details in the report).
In the next post we’ll continue with the ‘Finding new business’ series
~ Carol Bentley
P.S. I’m sure one of the views I shared with Matthew will come as no surprise to you: “No business can survive without customers, and if people don’t know about your business then they are not going to buy. So being visible in your market place at any time, and even more so during a recession, is crucial to survival and growth. That’s why continuing your marketing activity is so important – but it has to be the right type of marketing for your business otherwise you will not get a viable ROI.”
Having exhausted your customer base – well almost – my next suggestion is to look at your suppliers and other businesses. If you sell Business-to-Business, this particular tactic might give you another resource from your customers too.
It’s one I’ve shared before, but I think it is worth re-visiting. Especially if you’ve not previously considered it pro-actively.
Take a look at who your suppliers sell to; where is their target market? If you sell to businesses check who their target market is.
Is their market the same as yours… but supplying a different product or service?
And take a look at other businesses – those you currently don’t have a relationship with – which ones have the same target audience as you?
Now, if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know where I’m going with this. 
Put your negotiating hat on and contact those businesses you’ve identified. Aim to speak to the owner, Managing Director or Marketing Director because you need someone who can recognise the potential of what you are proposing and can make a decision.
You are looking for an arrangement that suits both parties – you and them.
One thing before you make your first approach… check the quality of what they supply and their reputation. You do not want to be associated with a company who does not match your standards because, apart from being detrimental to your reputation, you wouldn’t want to introduce them to your customers would you? And if their customers are not that happy with the other company they may not value any recommendations they receive in which case there’s no benefit to you.
So what arrangement are you looking for?
You want the other business to recommend or endorse your offer.
You ask them to write to their customers recommending your product or service or with an exclusive offer. Be prepared to write the letter for them (they agree the content, of course) and expect to cover the costs of printing and postage if you are using an offline mailing campaign. Of course, the most cost-effective promotion is via email – but you have to be confident your partner’s customers do read and respond to emails sent.
Anyone taking up the offer responds direct to you.
You need to code your offer so you know exactly what response you have got. One advantage of this arrangement is it complies with the data protection act because the other company is writing to their customers; they are not exposing their customers’ details to a third party.
Recompense: Agree a percentage or fixed amount as commission for each sale/lead you gain.
Or – agree a reciprocal arrangement to introduce them to your list.
Depending upon what you are supplying you may be asked to offer a special price to the other company’s customers rather than paying a referral commission – or both. Or the company you approach may have a favourite charity they support to which you could pay an agreed proportion of the profit you make.
If the organisation you’ve approached makes regular deliveries to their customers you could suggest including a brochure/flier inside their packages. This is not as effective as a direct recommendation but may be all you can get them to agree to. Again coding for monitoring results is important to make sure you’ve got sufficient new business to justify your expenditure.
Barriers To Arrangements.
The process I’ve described is prevalent on the internet… I’m sure you’ve come across the term affiliate. An affiliate arrangement is the same as I’ve described. An affiliate recommends a product, course, newsletter or program to the people on his/her list. S/he gets paid a commission for each sale made as a result of that recommendation. (In fact setting up an affiliate programme may be something you might want to consider).
Although it is a widely accepted practise on the internet, bricks and mortar businesses are not always as open to the idea. Which means when you approach a company you’ve ‘indentified’ as being suitable for this arrangement the idea may be quite alien to them.
They will be sceptical about whether there are any advantages and they may be concerned about losing or upsetting their customers.
It’s your job to reassure them your product or service is top quality and explain the satisfaction guarantees you offer. You need to demonstrate your commitment to customer service – that’s where your existing customer testimonials support your claims. And you need to clearly explain the answer to the other business owner’s “What’s in it for me?” question. If you are suggesting a commission payment explain how much you expect to be paying each month – remind them this is money going into their bottom-line profits without any expenditure from them.
I suggest you send a personal letter explaining you have a proposal that could be mutually beneficial to both your businesses and suggesting you meet up for a no obligation exploratory discussion.
It is not necessarily an easy arrangement to achieve, you’ll probably meet a lot scepticism. But it is one that is worth persevering with because effectively you are dipping into a pool of warm leads that could result in hot prospects.
In the next post we’ll explore a slightly different take on this tactic.
~ Carol Bentley
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