Name Your Web Site Well
Acronyms have their place… but not on the URL of your web address.
Unless you’re 3M or IBM, companies that have spent decades branding an odd assortment of letters and numbers, your web address should avoid that kind of “alphabet soup.”
Instead, whether you’re a new service provider in the equipment leasing and finance market, or your company has just merged with another, or you are launching a new site or corporate identity, you’d be wise to name your web site well.
Think about it. Online promotion may be limited to a banner message consisting of just a few phrases. Or, at a trade show or convention, passersby will only see the top half of your booth signage. Your web site address will be everywhere, from your business card to your give-away golf balls.
When, I launched my web site back in the pioneer days of the Internet, www.scapr.com was to stand for Susan Carol Associates Public Relations, but it was a choice I have regretted. It’s better to say who you are or what you do - World Leasing News is a good example.
Now with more than 20 years in business, my site and my company are known in the niche markets that my agency serves. When we re-brand, I will follow the advice I give clients and opt for a clearer message.
Consider:
(1) Make sure your web address is short and easy to remember. It should suggest your strengths or say in a word or two what you offer.
(2) Chances are what you think of first has already been used - a quick Google search will tell the story.
(3) Play with the words in advertising messages; consider what they will sound like on the radio. Then, make sure no others have the same site already registered and trademarked.
When branding, a fresh and creative perspective is needed. Consider consulting a marketing professional, and employing focus group research to develop a strong concept that you and your target audience will embrace for years to come.
How Green Can a PR Firm Be?
We’ve been in business since 1989 as a virtual agency serving clients in North America and Europe with a focus on delivering top quality work most efficiently. We were on what we used call the “Information Highway” well before most people had discovered the Internet. Thus, our 10 to 12 associates usually were able to avoid routine commutes on the gas hogging Interstates around Washington and other major hubs for 20 years.
In that same time period we have consumed far less paper and each of us only needed to reserve a room in our homes that was going to be heated or cooled anyway. While we have always kept current with technology, we have recycled computers by donating them to charitable organizations or passed them to our children for their school work.
We were doing what was good for the environment long before there was a social push for this. But that is just part of our culture. We’re a PR agency that is frequently acting in ways that are only noted in the news as trends much later. That’s pretty green. What about you?
Are You A Digital Native or Digital Immigrant
I heard an interesting description today for people who grew up in the digital era….” digital natives.” That makes me a “digital immigrant,” one who is still trying to learn the language, the culture, and new rules of engagement. I hope eventually to feel like I really belong and will be accepted by the “natives.” At a luncheon conference today on “social media” we arrived to a meeting room prepared with the biggest screen ever filling up almost an entire wall, and the screen was the Windows desktop I see on my various computers. My internal reaction was that I was comforted by this–that I anticipated the presentation would involve looking around on the Web with our Web- savvy presenters. The experts–from DOD’s interactive communications division–were impressive, but they wasted too much time trying to get a Power Point presentation to work, rather than just going online and giving us a tour of where they go to interact online. I did appreciate that they took time for our questions and that they genuinely shared what they thought about the possibilities for applying social online networking tools in our businesses. The greatest take-away for me was the notion of being a digital immigrant. The term gives me something to talk about with my immigrant friends in my real life networking where I am just as comfortable talking to real people, having a refreshment with them, listening, laughing and letting it all disappear into thin air while my Blackberry is off–or at least on vibrate, and the conversation ends there.
Recession-proof Your Business Through PR
Today’s headlines are dominated by the ‘R’ word—recession. While pundits disagree about whether we’re already in a recession or on the verge, the time has never been better to recession-proof your brand and market share through more targeted and strategic promotion.
In today’s economic environment, market research in the form of customer surveys, focus groups, and Internet surveys is more critical than ever to ensure that campaigns are well aligned with audience interests and priorities—and marketing dollars are wisely spent.
It’s also a good time to step back and evaluate your Web site to see how it can be more engaging. The Web continues to be a prime marketing tool, but only when sites are dynamic, interactive, and continually refreshed. More and more, online communities, social media, and Web 2.0 tools—from blogs to user groups—are key to promoting customer relationships, building brand awareness, and reinforcing the perceived value of your products and services.
Try Video
The cost of video production has diminished as the availability and affordability of cameras has increased. When You Tube became a go-to place on the web, a new communications trend emerged. However, as was the case during the desktop publishing trend of the 1980s, everyone will try it, but only some will last. A good production still requires professional writing, design, narration, quality shoots, lighting and professional
production. Our sample is only the beginning of what we can do, but it reflects the new casual shoot, edit and upload ability the You Tube generation brings to our arsenal of communication tools. In a studio, with professional broadcasters and a well developed script, a high quality production can help our clients take their web sites to the next level and for a fraction of the cost once required to employ broadcasting in campaigns. See video clip as sample of first cut.
New Media Downside
I usually look at the glass half full, but something about new media’s potential effect on American society leaves me feeling more empty.
I find myself seeking out the NBC network news at 7 with Brian Williams, or the BBC or national public television …looking for that feeling of belonging that I had watching Walter Cronkite when I was a kid. He was speaking to all of us as a united nation with common interests and desires for our common good. While I love the creativity that new media unleashes, and the opportunity it gives for expression of all kinds from anyone, anywhere, I hope that some avenues of professional journalistic reporting remain to bring us together for messages we may not want to hear but need to hear. Where will the objective reporting coming from?
Paul Saffo said it best in a recent Economist.com article…. a futurologist described as “one of the world’s most enthusiastic technophiles,” said that on the downside, “Each of us can create our own personal-media walled garden that surrounds us with comforting,
confirming information and utterly shuts out anything that conflicts with our world view,” he says. “This is social dynamite” and could lead to “the erosion of the intellectual commons holding society together…We risk huddling into tribes defined by shared prejudices.”
Aren’t we doing this already? What do you think?
5 Time Tested Advertising Tips for Success
Growing up I had the pleasure of dining with a successful advertising executive almost every evening. He entertained our family with his original jokes. What he really wanted to do was write jokes for comedians. And, he was good. That same creative spirit enabled my dad to succeed during more than 35 rewarding years of managing his own agency and producing award-winning campaigns for major banks, shopping centers, insurance agencies, politicians and a myriad of other organizations.
What I learned at the dinner table was subliminal, because I really wasn’t paying close attention when he talked about client concerns or issues that come up in his line of work.
However, today I can draw on knowledge I must have gained over more than a decade or so of dinners with dad.
Today as the owner of a public relations agency I find that we are integrating advertising tactics with public relations. Our clients want an integrated campaign built around common themes and powerful messages. I counsel clients to apply many of the things I learned from the advertising pro—my dad. Here are 5 tips that still apply:
1. Campaigns need to run consistently over time; short-term placements are a waste of money unless they are designed to advertise a single event.
2. Great purchased space or time whether on signs or within media is wasted if the professional and creative development is not there.
3. The message has to be simplified—ideally to three meaningful words or two to three short and powerful phrases, accompanied by images that evoke the right emotion.
4. Advertise when business is going well, not just when it slows.
5. If you want to distinguish your product or brand, consider the more creative concepts; the ones you initially favor are likely to be the ones you recognize; they are probably spin-offs of concepts you’ve seen many times before.
Today my dad’s agency is specializing in billboards, and the concepts work well online.
We’re moving into a new era together. I still have much more to learn from Dad!
Super PR Value Comes from Authoring an Article
One of the most powerful and influential tools used by public relations practitioners is writing articles for magazines that reach a targeted audience. It can reflect an expert’s knowledge or a CEO’s leadership. The article can create understanding of a difficult issue or a complicated product. It also can establish credibility, like advertising rarely does.
PR professionals measure the success of such placements by multiplying the advertising placement value of the space gained three times. So a full page of text featuring an individual or an organization in an article would be valued at $15,000 (given an ad rate of $5,000 per page).
What’s more important though is to produce a high quality story with valuable content and your key messaging–that is timely and relevant to readers. It is critical to ensure that the angle matches up with the editorial mission of the publication. Keep in mind you want to be invited back for a future opportunity.
The best PR professionals for this task are former journalists who have worked within the media. They know what editors are looking for, respect deadlines and are usually very good at identifying a strong story angle. The first step is to thoroughly research your target publication, examine their editorial calendars and then see how the client’s stories might fit into the story plans. A pitch is then created. This is usually no more than a paragraph or two that is prepared to be spoken by phone and also e-mailed. It may take several or more attempts to pitch and win the opportunity.
A lot of time is saved by doing the advance research because there are many publications that will never consider a submitted article no matter how great the pitch is. It is usually cost efficient to work with a PR agent who knows the industry you are in and has connections or can quickly make them in that segment.
After the opportunity is gained, the PR agent and/or his writers and editors produce an outline for the story which is then reviewed by both the client and editor. This is a good step to take because it can save time and money. If a 2,000 word article is written in fully and then rejected, you are back to the “drawing board.”
Before employing any writers, review samples of their work and ask them what questions they would pose, what sources they would tap, and how they would create the article. There is an art to succeeding with this PR tool; it takes planning, communication and coordination, as well as understanding of media.
After you are published, take advantage of this by ordering reprints to distribute to your customers, and note the article on your Web site.
5 Criteria for Managing a Virtual Firm
Some 20 years ago when I launched Susan Carol Associates, a public relations firm, just outside of Washington, D.C., I felt that I had to hide, or at least down play, the fact that my company was virtual—without the bricks and mortar. My concern was that clients may perceive the business as being less serious or unable to provide full-service capabilities.
Within five years we were heavily promoting the fact that we are virtual because it is cost-effective, responsive and successful in meeting many clients’ needs in full. Our customers benefit from a wide variety of talent, but only pay for what they need; they value our proven executive counsel at rates the larger brick and mortar firms can’t begin
to offer. Not that we’re cheap!
However, in managing a virtual firm, there are unique challenges. What brings us together? What keeps us together? There is a core group within my firm that has been loyally working collaboratively since the early 1990s!
Here are five criteria important to growing a virtual firm and serving clients well:
1. We are self-motivated, and disciplined to organize priorities.
2. Our various strengths and weaknesses are clear and acknowledged, recognizing that our interdependence and cooperation is what makes us great.
3. Established business hours and work routines separate our work from our family interests; we’re dedicated to meeting business expectations, yet we carve out the needed time for our families and ourselves.
4. All of us harness technology, and adapt to the latest tools that make sense, so we can
connect and respond swiftly, easily share knowledge, and work smarter than our competitors.
5. We have common values, high integrity and the highest professional standards.
Virtual isn’t novel anymore, but it still makes sense!
Looking for News in All the Wrong Places
For two years now I have gone to bed at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. expecting to find a summary of world news on cable TV networks, but I felt disappointed—in fact, starved for news. I’ll admit it, I am a news junky.
If you are reading this post, perhaps you did the same thing. But, we were looking for news in all the wrong places.
I was not satisfied to watch every network cover the same tasteless details over and over again …celebrities in and out of detox, missing people, talking heads or You Tube re-runs..
I never learned anything new.
I started going around complaining about it. People pointed to the Web but my only access was in the office and I had left there. Then, after a recent tour of CNN with my daughter, the guide said most of their viewers are getting their news from CNN’s web site, not from television broadcasts. It was an “aha” moment. I must turn to the Web if I want more than People magazine or tabloid type content. Here I am!
Can you recommend any good blogs for world news?
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