Archive for April, 2010
Newsletters: Prs Biggest Overlooked Strategy
If you were to ask most potential and perhaps even current PR clients about the strategies that are involved in public relations most would give an answer that in one way or another involves media relations. While that’s certainly the cornerstone of the business it’s not the only valuable tactic by any means.
Newsletters may not be as commonly used as other PR tactics but they can be an affordable effective businessdriving inclusion in almost any campaign. While their purpose like any other element in a PR campaign is to increase a company’s visibility and/or sales the great thing about them is they market a business almost in a stealth fashion since they also serve up valuable information on products and services that relate to the industries in which the company that publishes the newsletter operates.
While the decision to launch a newsletter may seem like the hard part in reality once a company moves to start a newsletter it has a whole host of other things to determine. For starters you have to determine whether it will be electronically distributed printed and mailed or both. While electronic distribution is certainly cheaper one downside is that the readership is generally limited to existing subscribers. Contrast that to a printed newsletter where a company can engage in a number of tactics to encourage existing recipients to pass them along such as sending extra copies to current/potential customers and clients orincorporating them into new business kits etc.
Next you’ll want to think about its design; the biggest factor here is to make sure there’s uniformity with all your other existing marketing materials. Care should be taken to ensure that the use of colors graphics and other important elements agrees with any other existing material. If it’s going to be printed consideration should be given to paper size and orientation. Most businesses opt for conventional 81/2 by 11inch paper but firms occasionally go with a broadsheet feel that will support larger photos and graphics. As far as photos go while digital cameras in theory can make everyone a photographer if you’re publishing anything other than a grip and grin photo consideration should be given to hiring a professional photographer who can come in and stage a variety of shots so there is a selection of photos to choose from. The best thing about Web publishing is it allows you to incorporate color photos and graphics much cheaper than before. Even though it will be more expensive once you’ve made the decision to also offer a printed version it’s best to stick with color there too even though there will be a price premium.
The best kinds of stories to include are those that deliver information to clients and prospects. They can range from information on new legislation and/or rule changes affecting a particular industry to effect tactics on helping customers streamline their business. The best type of contentare stories that are written specifically for your customer base. They don’t have to be long; in fact given the increasing amount of content delivered electronically short is best since people have become accustomed to shorter stories that fit in electronic formats. If you don’t have time to create original content you can turn to any one of several syndicates that make content available for a fee. However your readers will be able to tell it’s canned and may not treat it as seriously as information written specifically for them.
The best way to determine the format in which to send it to subscribers is to send emails to contacts in your customer/prospect database announcing the newsletter and giving them options to subscribe to either format at the bottom of the email. Giving a choice is critical since some corporate email systems will either strip attachments from emails or automatically move them to the spam bin.
For those who opt to print the most reliable format local printers can arrange to have your newsletter printed and mailed to a subscriber base providing you have a subscriber database in a popular database file format. Be sure to allow for up to 2 weeks to have the newsletter printed and mailed; that schedule allows for any unexpected printing issues and/or mailing delays. For those who will mail an issue in December you might want to increase that buffer to three weeks.
While the hard work is over once the initial issue goes out to customers a newsletter should be viewed as a marketingcampaign element with a continual evolutionary cycle. The most successful newsletters solicit and even include feedback and/or contributions from readers including your customers. It’s a natural human trait to enjoy seeing your name mentioned in any respected publication; given that including customers serves as another way to engender loyalty among existing clients.
Going forward the most important element to making a newsletter successful is to ensure you stick to a reliable publication schedule. Doing so helps ensure readership will stay level and most likely increase over the long term.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Cyrus is president of Astoria Communications a New York Citybased PR consultancy serving clients in financial/professional services technology and real estate. His clients include law firms legal organizations technology companies and several nonprofit organizations. Before opening his PR consultancy in 2004 Afzali worked at several New York agencies as an editor and as a writer at several media outlets ranging from small daily newspapers to CNN Financial News.
You may also find articles by Cyrus at the TalentZoo.com website under Very Public Relations.
Rising Exhibiting Costs Places New Premium On Efficiency
There is good news in the world of tradeshow research: according to a recent study by Exhibit Surveys an industry research group a considerable number of new attendees are coming to tradeshows. At the same time 39 percent of attendees report that their buying decisions are favorably influenced after viewing a company’s exhibit.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the rising fuel energy and transportation costs that are impacting every sector of the economy have not skipped over tradeshow exhibiting. The cost per attendee has risen nearly 20 percent. A typical exhibitor is spending 261 per attendee that they speak with a number that is up 15 percent over the last two years.
The question then becomes how do you make the most out of every exhibit? It is no longer sufficient to simply generate a positive ROI. You need to ensure the maximum ROI possible in order to justify these spiraling costs.
Here are the top five ways to get the most out of every tradeshow:
1. Do Your Homework
To realize maximum ROI you have to ensure that you’re exhibiting at the right shows. You will not generate a positive ROI much less a maximum ROI if you’re not positioning yourself in front of an audience likely to be interested in your products and services.
Research shows carefully before making a commitment. What shows are the largest? Which shows attract your target audience? Some exhibitors have had great success setting up shop at shows outside of their traditional industry group this may be a strategy you want to consider.
Bear in mind some larger organizations have their own shows. This trend has obvious positive and negative ramifications but a savvy exhibitor will be able to make the most out of the opportunities this change affords.
2. Emphasize Preshow Promotion
Preshow promotion is the single most important determining factor in generating show traffic. If you want to have a lot of people particularly people who are likely to be interested in your products and services you need to make a concerted effort to reach out to them before the show.
There are a number of ways to do this. Some broadbased approaches include placing ads or inserts in industry journals advertising your participation on your website and industry discussion forums and more. You can target your best customers and the organizations you want to have as your best customers with direct mail email communications phone calls and in person reminders from your sales force.
3. Send Your Very Best People
Your booth staffers act as your organizations’ representatives. You want to send the very best people available: individuals who have great product knowledge strong sales skills the ability to think on their feet and can thrive in a highpressure highstress environment.
Focus on selecting staffers who are genuine and enthusiastic. An upbeat personality is definitely a plus shy introverted types may have superlative technical skills yet wilt when thrust into the tradeshow spotlight. If you’ve a really technical audience it’s fine to bring your best and brightest minds to be on call to answer questions but leave the meeting and greeting selling and schmoozing bit of the show to your sales professionals.
4. Think Through Show Specials
Too often show specials are last minute deals “Sign up now and we’ll give you 15 off.” That’s not the way to handle show specials.
For maximum appeal you want to craft a show special that is appealing to your customer base a real savings rather than a token percentage off easy to understand and only available for a limited time. If you do not create a sense of urgency with your offer your attendees have no real pressing need to convert into customers.
Additionally you should include information about your show specials in all of your preshow promotion. Every time an attendee or would be attendee is looking at this promotion they’re asking “What’s in it for me?” Including information about your show special can help answer that question.
5. Focus on Follow Up
The period immediately after the show has a tremendous impact on overall show ROI. Within two days of the show close you need to have thank you notes in the mail to everyone you saw at the show thanking them for stopping by.
Additionally this is the point to follow up with your hottest leads scheduling sales calls and moving the process forward. Nothing cools faster than tradeshow leads so it is imperative to strike while the iron is hot.
The remainder of your leads should be distributed to your sales staff so they can act on them. Remember introducing an element into accountability will help boost overall ROI requiring your sales force to document when and how they followed up will minimize the amount of ignored leads and missed opportunities.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Written by Susan A. FriedmannCSP The Tradeshow Coach Lake Placid NY internationally recognized expert working with companies to increase their profitability at tradeshows.
Author: “Riches in Niches: How to Make it BIG in a small Market” and “Meeting Event Planning for Dummies.”
Why MLM Is Broken And How The Web Provides The Fix
One of the biggest problems with the traditional multilevel marketing MLM business model today is generating enough qualified leads and quickly converting those leads into memberships.
As anyone in MLM knows prospecting is the most timeconsuming aspect of the business. First you build the list of friends relatives neighbors coworkers etc. basically everyone you know or used to know. You talk personally with each of these people about your business opportunity until they either join you or they tell you to go away. Most of them tell you to go away. You need to keep adding to this list as you meet new people in your daily travels. Most of those people also tell you to go away.
You can do some prospecting or selling to a group of people at once for example in a living room or conference room setting or in a seminarstyle presentation. This is another traditional selling method that can be somewhat effective provided you have enough qualified people you can gather together at one time. This method can be expensive depending on the location facilities needed etc. so the more people you have in the room the better your chances of profiting from this.
Most people end up buying leads from a lead service. These leads are expensive and almost always not qualified to the level they need to be. So you take your list of names and cold call everyone working first at qualifying them at some level then again trying to convince them to join you in your business opportunity. Most of these people dont want to talk to you nor do most of them even know why you are calling them.
But the biggest obstacle to success in an MLM business is the basic premise of selling people on your product your company and your compensation plan. There are hundreds of companies doing business in an MLM or network marketing type of model and many of them are selling the same basic things dietary supplements some new wonder juice fitness products personal services the list goes on. Every one of these companies has basically the same message:
- We have the best product in the industry.
- We have a product everybody needs.
- We are a solid stable company.
- We have the best compensation plan in the industry.
Boring. It is no wonder that 95 percent of MLM and network marketing business fail before they turn a profit.
There are three issues here:
- The Internet has rendered the traditional MLM business model ineffective for most people. You can reach people much faster and more effectively using the Internet than you can by talking with people individually or in small groups.
- The Internet has made lead generation almost a science if not an art form. Using the Internet you can very effectively target people who are looking for what you have and bring them to you. This means that rather than you trying to find people you can sell on bringing into your business people are contacting you asking how they can join you.
- Selling your product your company and your comp plan does not work. Nobody c ares that you have the best diet on the planet or that your legal service is the first and best anywhere. You are just one more MLM out there trying to shout the same message louder than everybody else.
To be successful in network marketing today you need to separate yourself from all the shouting and get above the noise. You need to stop selling product company and comp plan and sell yourself. You need to position yourself as a leader as a teacher as a successful entrepreneur as a person other people want to follow. People who join your MLM business do not join because of the product or the comp plan. They join YOU. They connect with you. They believe you. They trust you at some level. They feel that you can help them be successful. Maybe they just think you would be a cool person to hang out with. Whatever the reason it is YOU your associates are joining.
Success in sales is about building relationships. People buy from people and people follow people. But you need to let people know you are out there and where they can find you. You do that through a systematic approach to marketing. For example using Web 2.0 technology you can get your message out there for people to see hear and be inspired. Automated lead generation tools and an automated marketing system are the keys to successful marketing and rapidly building an MLM or network marketing business. The great thing about Web 2.0 is that it is basically free. You can use the web to do some serious marketing with little or no advertising budget.
There are also other marketing tools out there like Google AdWords and other payperclick PPC advertising services that are moderatetohigh cost but are extremely fast and effective when used correctly.
The website http://www.MLMBusinessLeadsEngine.com provides training in Web 2.0 technology and other methods that have been proven to energize a stagnant MLM or network marketing business. The training is extensive and absolutely free and is in the form of videos you can easily follow. They show the visitor stepbystep instructions on how take advantage of the many ways of successfully marketing yourself on the Internet.
About the writer: Brad Roseborough is a 25year veteran of the computer technology industry where he served in technical sales marketing and consulting. Brad is now a small business consultant and freelance writer based in Southern CA. He is the author and creator of several web properties designed to help people start and grow their MLM or network marketing businesses.