Merry Christmas …. Scheduling Means tasks are Less Onerous

WHAT ? YOU’RE WORKING ON CHRISTMAS DAY, ARE YOU MAD ??

Yep, I can hear you all shouting while I’m in front of the fire opening my presents hoping Father Christmas thought I have been good enough all year to get the iPod docking station I want

Of course I’m not working, but I have used the power of scheduling my blog to appear to wish you all Happy Christmas.

It goes to show that planning and executing a PR, blogging or Social media campaign does not necessarily mean you have to work at it every day. I’m writing this on December 1st,used my WordPress scheduling to put it up on December 25th and Networked blogs automatically puts it on Facebook for me and I’ve scheduled my Twitter message. It was the same day I wrote the blog that appeared on December 9th. So, a few hours and you can have your blogs written, scheduled and you can get on with other things.

For once, I sincerely hope that no one is reading my blog on the day it goes up. I do hope you had a Merry Christams and here’s to a prosperous 2010.

Make Contact with Industrial and Manufacturing Editors Using Twitter

At In Press we’ve helped hundreds of industrial and technical companies make the most of their marketing budgets using tried and trusted techniques including creative design, PR and web marketing.

But now Social Media Marketing is hitting the headlines and shouldn’t be ignored as part of the marketing mix.

Why do you think industrial companies don’t make the most of Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?

I suspect there are several reasons:

•   Misconception.        It’s only for kids, right?

•    Time.                           Don’t I have enough to do ?

•    Value.                          But we sell in such a niche market

 

But you know what? If you don’t try it you’ll never know.

 

I’m a great believer in making sure I try something before I recommend it, be it to friends or clients. So, I’ve been tweeting on Twitter. As part of my strategy, I’ve not only been tweeting about what we’ve been doing at In Press but also what my clients have been up to – making sure their key words are there in my tweets.

Guess what? An editor of one of the most important journals in the wind power sector Windpower Engineering picked up on the tweet and we are now discussing an article for publication in the new year – RESULT!

“But weren’t you talking to him anyway?” Sure I was, but in this case I wasn’t “pushing” the information, he was “pulling”, it meant he was genuinely interested.

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking on the button at the side and see the sort of tweets that can get results.

The Changing Face of PR

PR has changed in the past few years. The main difference in how PR works now is the speed of publication of information. When In Press first started in business almost 19 years ago, most information was still in printed form and it could take up to 3 months before we saw our information in the press.

Now, with the burgeoning number of websites and e-zines, not only do we have much more targeted information but also our news gets released much faster. A press release written today can be published online tomorrow – or sometimes even the same day. Our primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists.

By distributing and publishing press releases through online news services, responding to blogs and publishing them immediately on our clients’ websites, we start to bypass the gatekeepers and get our message direct to the buyers. That’s not to say the trade and technical press are no longer important – they are. But our audience is now bigger.

PRs need to hone their writing skills to ensure  releases  include important keywords, so when published they are picked up by the search engines. So, not only do  clients get valuable online coverage, the releases also achieve a high page ranking.

There is a disadvantage tho’. PR is now more difficult to quantify. There are no longer ‘bingo card enquiry forms’ as people are now expecting information quickly. Contact details will be published – either phone numbers or web addresses. It is important, therefore, to monitor enquiries coming into the office, although this in itself is not necessarily that accurate as they may say “we found you on the web” but they found you on the web after a reading an article in the press!

One way to help monitor activity is to put a unique URL on each release or article that goes out and create a separate landing page and enquiry form. However, with a number of releases going out per month, this could prove time consuming and slow down output.

However, In Press  monitors both online and offline coverage and copies of all cuttings, so we can calculate the amount of coverage we receive and ensure we are getting sufficient exposure in our target markets.

Need to Get Press Coverage?

Okay, these aren’t the fancy ideas, I’ll give you some of those later. But simple, “let’s get started with some straight-forward press relations”.

1. Press Releases

Short 200-300 word articles that are sent out unsolicited to editors, together with a photograph, if available, is a particularly cost -effective way of gaining coverage about products or company news. We have a comprehensive and up-to-date database of all the relevant trade and technical magazines.

2. Application Articles

These tend to be longer than press releases, usually 850-1,500 words. Rather than sent out unsolicited, they are ’sold’ on an exclusive basis and written to the style and length required by the magazine. For this reason, contact with the editors of various magazines is extremely important, as well as knowing in advance the editorial topics covered in the year. This can be a very  important part of a PR campaign. I know that many projects may take some time to come to fruition and then customers may not want to discuss their particular application. So, although I thrive to get these customer stories written and published,I recommend  generic articles are written that will encourage people to look at the added value they will get by using your expertise.

3. Feature Targeting

Another extremely important part of a successful B2B PR campaign. In Press subscribes to an online service that, by simply typing in keywords, will come up with the magazines that are covering that particular topic in a particular month.

4. Internet Activity

The internet is a valuable tool for sourcing product and technical information. There are many magazines that publish their issues on the web and have various directories where links can be made back to a company’s own website. It is essential, therefore, to ensure that the most is made of listings on the Internet. Make sure you  submit releases and company information to relevant sites.

And don’t forget social media. Start to explore ways of increasing your profile using sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and blogging.

The Power of PR

Many people ask how we can evaluate the results from the press relations activity. It’s really not an easy question to answer and  I’ll talk about what we do at In Press in a subsequent post. But this is a boast post, so I’ll tell you how powerful PR was for a client of mine last week.

There they were in the US negotiating new distributor deals with some major organisations. Talks were going well with one particular company when the company’s PR walked in with one  of the leading magazines in the marketplace.

“I was looking through this journal for our advertisement and any coverage we had, when I came across this.” she said as she showed the meeting a 3-page technical article from my client, as well as a mention on the front cover and on the index page.  ”Wow, it’s good to see you being so active in the US market as well as Europe. The article certainly adds credibility to your products and the brand.”

Deal, almost, done. Expect a big announcement soon.

So, although the PR wasn’t the deal maker, there is no doubt that it impressed the potential business partners. Worth a 100 ads and for a fraction of the cost.

So What’s Taken Me So Long?

It really is a case of the Cobbler’s Children isn’t it? But I’m glad  it appears that it’s not just me and the phenomenon is not an unusual one! Ben Dattner writing in Psychology Today suggests that it is common, so maybe I shouldn’t worry so much?

Okay then, I won’t spend the whole time making excuses about how I’ve been to busy sorting out my clients’ blogs and Twitter accounts, writing and publishing their press releases and articles… yada, yada, yada.

So time to practise what I preach. Buy my own shoes (my wonderful WordPress blog) and get on with it.

•  You should market your own company – right?

• You should have a blog – right?

Okay let’s make a start and see where we go from here.

Welcome to the Eileen at In Press blog. What do you want to hear?

I’ll talk about PR and marketing “stuff” until you let me know. However, it won’t be full of technical jargon, just down to earth straight-forward “stuff” .