By Leo Valiquette
Pondering the place of social media in the marketing and PR toolkit has been a familiar theme on this blog as the industry as a whole attempts to understand how best to approach and manage audience engagement with such a dynamic, informal and immediate variety of channels as those that fit under the general heading of Web 2.0. (Or maybe we’ve already moved on into Web 3.0. Who can keep track?)
Should you blog? Should you tweet? Should a company hang out its dirty laundry for all to see? To whom can companies turn for advice and how can they validate the credentials and experience of those who claim to be the gurus with the answers?
It’s a pickle, for certain, and one that will only weigh more and more on the minds of companies through 2009 as they struggle to build awareness of their brand and their value proposition as recessionary pressures nibble away at the bottom line.
I’ve come across an interesting array of perspectives and opinions on these matters over the past couple of days.
Beth Harte explores the question, Is social media the same as marketing? and reaffirms the most basic precept: Social media is best considered and approached as one part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. Her post also raises the quite valid concern about carpetbaggers who claim to be experts in the area.
Robert Geller writes about how pervasive social media tools such as Twitter have become, emphasizing his point with the example of how it is being used by the Israeli government as a communications tactic in its latest flare up with Hamas and the Palestinians.
But a social media tool’s popularity can pose problems, even security risks, for those who use it. As we have seen this week, Twitter’s success has attracted the attention of those with malicious intent. Terry Sweeney writes about how “the public nature of Twitter — like Facebook or web mail or P2P file-sharing sites — means it offers a rich petri dish for online mischief,” which has left the service scrambling to save face. And while this may not be sufficient reason to abandon the service, Terry suggests it warrants a hard look at what benefit can be derived from Twitter before jumping on board.
All that matters in the end is understanding your business, the audience you are trying to reach and using only those tools or tactics that make sense as an effective means to achieve your business development and customer service objectives. What’s hot is irrelevant.
By Leo Valiquette
Well here we are, heading into this brave new world of doom and gloom that is 2009. While countless others have expounded on the year that was and the year that will be with reviews, predictions and every top-10 list imaginable, I thought I would start the new year by repeating the most basic consideration that should guide our efforts for the next 12 months — content is king.
Mass layoffs in the media business across North America made headlines throughout 2008, from major television networks to the most weighty names in the daily newspaper business. I came across an interesting post over the holidays at the Fusion PR Forum which reflects on the apparent inability of big newspapers to understand they are in the information business, rather than the print business, and adapt accordingly.
Horizontal media outlets are going through the kind of pruning that over the past decade already hit many of the trade and industry titles that are typically the focus of our efforts here at inmedia. Resources are tight on all fronts, emphasizing the need to bring to the media compelling stories that clearly demonstrate why a particular company, and its product or service, merits coverage instead of any number of others.
“Why should I cover this?” asked one gruff journalist when I rang him up with my best pitch on behalf of a client before Christmas. A valid question to be sure and one for which I had a ready answer. But articulating the benefits of my client’s offering, its uniqueness in the market, only served to keep him on the phone. Securing a story opportunity depended on coming back with a strong reference customer willing and able to discuss the value and ROI of the client’s offering.
Before Christmas I executed a launch exercise for another client. In the process of speaking with what we had determined were the Tier One media targets for this new client, one theme quickly emerged, the value of being able to offer up reference customers to validate the technology and demonstrate uptake in the market. Most media outlets didn’t care to hear the company praise itself. They wanted the real-world perspective of customers that saw the value of opening up their wallets for the product.
Media want a good story, not a sales pitch better suited as advertising copy. Beyond being able to offer up references who can speak for your product or service, the principle also applies to how one deals with the media when they have agreed to an interview.
Eric Bergman of Bergman & Associates reinforced the point last week on Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog that reporters don’t want to be spoon fed key marketing messages that have been crafted ahead of time. They’re in the business of asking the questions that provide them and their readers with insight and understanding. Corporate messaging may serve one well in the context of a news release, but it hardly fosters a positive relationship with the media if it is regularly used to avoid direct answers to direct questions. Check out Eric’s example of the used-car salesman and you’ll get the point.
By Leo Valiquette
A trade show has “a carbon foot print that would leave David Suzuki twitching and reaching for his heart medication.”
That memorable line came Thursday afternoon from George McTaggart, VP of marketing at local cyber-security firm Third Brigade. He and Mark Emond, business unit executive, North American field marketing, at business intelligence software maker Cognos, now part of IBM, squared off at OCRI’s Zone5ive marketing event yesterday in a friendly tit-for-tat over the merits of using eight marketing activities and tools for lead generation.
At one point, Mark shot back at one of George’s tirades with the comment, “Pinocchio, your nose is touching the back wall.”
It’s safe to say this was the most entertaining OCRI event I have ever attended, and not only because moderator Kelly Kubrick, owner of Online Authority, also threatened to upstage the debaters with her own presentation skills. The content from all was crisp, informative and candid, regardless of whether one agreed with the viewpoint on offer.
George and Mark each had 90 seconds to make the case for or against each of the eight tactics, with the audience voting on who emerged the winner. The eight were trade shows, white-paper syndication, direct marketing (by either e-mail or snail mail), webinars and seminars, search-engine marketing, a website, telemarketing and social media.
Both men argued their points well, labeling each of the eight as either “naughty” or “nice” in keeping with the spirit of the season. However, once the dust had settled, all had earned a “nice” endorsement from the audience, with the exception of white-paper syndication. “Who has time to read what too often comes across as a blatant sales pitch?” appeared to be the point that earned the one “naughty” nod from the audience.
In retrospect, however, the overwhelming “nice” result shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The tactics under scrutiny in this debate are only individual tools in a complete marketing toolbox. It’s a matter of choosing the right tool for the job, which begins with an understanding of what that job is. What works in one context may not work in another. It all depends on the company, its product, its market and how one particular marketing activity can reinforce or complement another. A social-media channel, for example, may be an excellent means of lead generation for a company targeting a specific age group or market vertical, and be a dismal failure for another.
What’s important is that the effort, in whatever form, is:
1. Current and relevant to an organization’s business-development objectives and has been identified, through market research, as an effective way to reach a desired category of customer.
2. Focused and targeted, again at a desired category of customer or specific market vertical.
3. Revisited, evaluated and revised. Which, of course, requires that some kind of metrics or analytics are in place from the get go to confirm whether the effort is generating the desired impacts and outcomes.
4. Expendable. If it’s not working, scrap it and try something else.
By Leo Valiquette
Seeing the forest for the trees
Francis is fond of describing our roles here at inmedia as “advocates in the court of public opinion.” That’s a much more appropriate and accurate label than “spin doctors.”
But the role of advocate is more than simply conveying our clients’ stories to the outlets that matter. We must also be willing to impress upon clients the agendas, or the simple realities, of the markets we are trying to reach on their behalf. What elements of their story must we have to effectively attract and retain the attention of the media we are targeting? What works? What doesn’t? How is the way the client wants to approach things more of a hindrance than a help to our efforts? To adequately serve our clients, we must deliver frank and honest counsel that sometimes includes feedback from the marketplace that may be painful to hear.
Over at the PR Conversations blog, Kristen E. Sukulac offers an interesting perspective on this by citing a classic exercise in inattentional blindness and change blindness.
PR helps raise venture capital
Bottom line here: good PR pays. Don’t take my word for it. This post at PR Squared may be a couple of weeks old, but the findings of the study it cites are timeless. A survey of 300 U.S. startups that received funding in the past three years found a clear correlation between employing a PR program and greater success in securing new financing.
Time well wasted?
And over at really practical marketing, Mark Nagurski gives a no nonsense primer and how to create, and derive value from, an effective online presence and the pitfalls that come of looking at it in terms of traditional advertising. In his view, less can be a whole lot more.
By Leo Valiquette
It’s that time again for PR practitioners everywhere. With the end of the year looming, attention turns to the next year and charting a fresh plan of attack to take our clients’ stories to the media outlets that matter.
With our emphasis here at inmedia mainly on the specific trade and industry media that move a particular client’s market and care about our client’s story, an easy starting point is the editorial calendar. This typically charts specific topics, trends and issues that a publication plans to cover throughout the coming year. Editors need content and this is a ready means to get a bearing on what they will be looking for and when.
More often than not, however, details are scarce and a followup with an editor is required to validate, or disqualify, the opportunity before we can even see if we can get the client’s foot in the newsroom door.
But while the edcal is a good starting point, it’s hardly exhaustive. For one client, my colleague Danny is engaged in active discussions with an editor about a Q&A-style article. However, in reviewing this particular publication’s edcal, I didn’t see one opportunity for the entire year that appeared to be a fit for the client.
The morale of the story? An edcal only paints part of the picture. It is a great starting point, but no substitute for real person-to-person communication with an editor or journalist.
And even the story painted by the edcal can deceiving. In a call with a client earlier this week, I presented what appeared to be the low-hanging fruit: edcal opportunities coming up in January for which the client appeared to be a perfect fit. Prior to this meeting, I had already pinged the editorial contacts of these publications about discussing their January issues in more detail. No sooner had I told the client about what appeared to be particularly well-suited opportunity that she thought was fantastic, a message popped into my inbox that began with, “Hmm… must be some sort of error.”
Turns out someone had made a mistake and the publication’s focus for January was, in fact, a completely unrelated topic unsuitable for the client.
Easy come, easy go.
And it’s a rare edcal that doesn’t carry the caveat in fine print, “Subject to change without notice.” Edcals are often driven by the advertising department. Sure, the editorial content may be at arm’s length and independent of the sales department’s agenda, but advertising revenue is what keeps the lights on and the paycheques rolling in. While the editorial department must come up with relevant content to fill the page, the advertising department must find advertisers who see the value of plugging their related products or services in amongst the news articles. One is needed to pay for the other.
It just goes to show that effective media relations is a process in a dynamic state of flux. To get the client’s story told requires active and ongoing engagement with the media, all 12 months of the year.
