Stop Selling and Just Answer the Question
Posted on | April 20, 2009 | melea mauldin
PR professionals are so often the victim of the vicious label “spin doctor.” The common thought is PR pros make people believe in your products or services, no matter how unimportant they may be in the lives of others.
If you are good at PR, there is no need for spin or even a pitch. All you have to do is tell the truth. Give out the information you have and answer questions directly and concisely. Really. No used car salesman tactics needed. No neuro-marketing research required. If the products or services are important to the audience, they will bite. The days of the hard sell and mass press releases are over.
With the rise of social media, and public relations merging and meshing into the technological world, being transparent and concise is absolutely critical. Take full advantage of the uber-niches that social media provides. Don’t pitch these people and talk at them. Engage and talk with them. According to the Bad Pitch Blog, participation is key.
Northland International Launches
Posted on | April 6, 2009 | drew stauffer
This past Tuesday Northland Baptist Bible College went through an enormous rebranding process by changing their name, logo and website to Northland International University. The announcement was made by Northland President Matt Olsen and Northland Chancellor Les Ollila during the week-long Missions Conference.
Northland International University was founded in 1976 and exists to train pastors, teachers, missionaries and godly laymen of tomorrow. Northland is located in Dunbar, Wisconsin, and enrolls 650 undergraduates and 100 graduate students, representing 45 states and 11 foreign countries.
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What Do Leading B2B Marketers See in 2009 That You Don’t?
Posted on | April 1, 2009 | joshua lyall
Twice a year, the Duke University Fuqua School of Business conducts a survey commissioned by the American Marketing Association. They sample marketing leaders at Fortune 1000 and Forbes Top 200 companies; nearly three-quarters of participants are at the VP, CMO or higher level. The February 2009 results were recently released and there was a clear contrast between the perceptions and plans of the B2B marketers and the B2C marketers.
Don’t Be an Entourage of Suck-ups
Posted on | March 19, 2009 | melea mauldin
When PRNewser interviewed social media innovator, Guy Kawasaki, at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) this week, Kawasaki made no apologies for still clinging to his PR firm. (See the originial interview at http://bit.ly/KHvbQ)
“I may know a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I know every blogger. Take something like Mashable, they have ten reporters. I don’t know all ten of them. I don’t know which one is the most logical for me,” he said.
He pointed out that in addition to providing “arm and leg” support such as scheduling media briefings, PR pros should provide strategic-level thinking–which outlets to use, who to contact, clarifying the message, etc. ”You wouldn’t just buy QuickBooks and then decide to do all your books, you would hire an accounting firm. And this is the same thing, you hire the pros who know how to do it.”
Kawasaki also said it’s important for PR firms to “just beat the crap out of you and get you prepared for the tough questions.” He doesn’t want his PR firm to be an “entourage of suck-ups.” Kawasaki said it is PR’s moral obligation not to do this and to provide constructive feedback.
Is There Such Thing as a Full Service Agency?
Posted on | March 10, 2009 | drew stauffer
Ever wonder what a full service marketing and advertising agency can really do for your company?
Take a look at our promotional video and find out how Jackson-Dawson in Greenville South Carolina can take your company to the next level and incorporate your brand into every possible medium.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Jackson-Dawson.
Why PR Matters in a Down Economy
Posted on | March 9, 2009 | brett turner
A lot of people have come to me since October - clients, colleagues, PR pros, students, etc. - asking what they should do PR-wise to survive in the down economy. The answers vary for each group and individual, but the basic truths remain the same. Here’s my Top-10 reasons why PR matters, especially in a down economy:
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SEO Quick Tip: Keyword Research
Posted on | February 9, 2009 | drew stauffer
Do you find yourself struggling when it comes to finding new ways to research keywords?
Sure there are a lot of good tools out there but if you think about your keyword research in a logical manner than chances are you’re going to get the same keywords as everyone else.
Wordtracker, one of the industry’s most used keyword research tools is more than just a tool. Wordtracker also has an academy section that references numerous ways to get more creative with your keyword research.
The Wordtracker academy has various sections on:
- Keywords
- Keyword Research
- Keyword Creativity
- PPC
- SEO
- Link Building
The next time you have to research keywords for a new site, try thinking about things in an illogical manner. Often times you can stumble across keywords that have a lot of traffic with very little competition.
Did It Get Good Reviews?
Posted on | January 27, 2009 | joshua lyall
Remember a time when if you wanted to read a review of a product you had to search through back issues of Consumer Reports? They would even include a little index in each issue to help you find the month you needed, but if they hadn’t gotten around to toaster ovens in the last year you were just out of luck. How did we survive in such conditions? Was there even indoor plumbing back then?
Now if you’re in the market for a great toaster oven (and who isn’t?) you can find three different independent reviews (including Consumer Reports) and hundreds of personal opinions on just about any model after .15 seconds of a Google search. Product research has become so easy it has forever changed the way we shop and even the way we define shopping.
Dissatisfaction with Customer Satisfaction: Why Consumers Unwittingly Deceive Researchers (and What We Can Do About It)
Posted on | January 16, 2009 | steve whigham
To do our jobs properly, marketers need to predict future consumer behavior. But how?
The problem is this… as an industry, we’ve got a lousy track record of accurately predicting consumer behavior.
Even though we have all these research tools and methodologies (focus groups, mall intercepts, attitudinal questionnaires, Likert scales, multivariate cluster analyses, perceptual maps, conjoint analyses, demographic and psychographic profiles, semantic differentials, etc.—all of which we stole from behavioral scientists many years ago) we still seem to get it all wrong. We have the capacity to know a lot, but we don’t seem to learn what really predicts behavior. Are we guilty of bad science the same way surgeons were guilty of bad medicine by blood-letting bad humours out of the human body just a handful of generations ago?
Book Review - The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Posted on | January 15, 2009 | mike zeller
The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Here’s a “must read” book that in my opinion, does a great job of presenting how the web has changed things in a big way for us marketers. The full title is The New Rules of Marketing and PR, How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.
The author, David Meerman Scott, is a well qualified authority and internet veteran having launched a marketing strategy with online content to reach buyers directly on the web way back in the early ’90s. He’s spent the last 18 years or so speaking and consulting with corporations on how to use web content to sell products and services. This book evolved out of David’s vast blog experience and an ebook he published called The New Rules of PR. After more than 200,000 downloads, David decided he had a hot topic on his hands so he went full bore into writing a hard cover. He broadened the subject matter to address marketing as well.
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