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Give great writing its due

• Posted by Leo Valiquette
• September 29, 2009
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By Leo Valiquette

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I did not have time to make it shorter.”

Whether this quote is more appropriately attributed to Mark Twain or Blaise Pascal is beside the point. What matters is that it aptly sums up the delightful, frustrating and fulfilling struggle that is the art of writing.

Whether you are an amateur writer of fiction intent on improving your craft, or a communications professional subject to the scrutiny and criticism of those who may fail to appreciate your clever turns of phrase, one observation of Twain’s still holds true: “A man cannot be comfortable with his own approval.”

As a communications professional accustomed to my approval of what I produce being secondary to that of the client, I often hear comments like, “This is what we want to say, but we’ll leave it to you to polish it up and make it sound good,” or, “I don’t know how we can get all that across in (blank) number of words.”

My job is to create an effective piece of writing intended to serve a specific purpose and achieve a desired result for people who lack the time, or the skill, to do it for themselves. They recognize the value I bring to the table, while at the same time, I appreciate that what I am doing has a direct impact on their image and brand. It is a collaborative effort that must balance creative freedom with the dollars-and-cents demands of lead generation and business development.

But at the heart of this process, regardless of how many other people are involved and providing their input, there remains the individual writer toiling in solitude to string words together in a manner that will engage the reader, convey critical information and spur them to action in as concise a manner as possible. Mastery of this skill requires a natural talent that must be honed through a process of lifelong learning, constant practice and a humble appreciation for the work of a good editor.

Being able to write effectively, on demand, to further someone else’s agenda, is a talent years in the making. It is a professional service that should be given its due and recognized for the value it provides. It should not be regarded as a commodified service. Writers are a dime a dozen, but great writers are in another class entirely. There is a profound difference between derivative cut-and-paste recycling of content and distilling a mass of information from numerous sources into a cohesive and concise form that furthers understanding.

So next time you find yourself in need of a good writer to support your marketing and public relations objectives, remember that you are looking for a partner who will bring unique strengths to the table and work with you to achieve a successful execution. And most importantly, great writers are worth the money, but not everyone who charges a premium rate is a great writer.

Leo Valiquette

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

The secret to PR success, exposed!

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• September 28, 2009
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By Linda Forrest

I sent out a news release last week for NetCentric Technologies, an Ottawa company launching a new product, their PDF Accessibility Wizard, an MS Office add-in that makes documents accessible to people with disabilities.

I spent spent considerable time developing the right media list, one that contained many niche and specialty publications, so I knew the targets I’d be going after were appropriate and likely to be interested in this new product. Now, NetCentric’s PAW is not page one news and certainly will not be covered by the mainstream media. However, it offers real value, especially to the government technology crowd who are mandated by law to make their documents accessible, and a product brief or technology spotlight, customer case study or product review in a specialty pub catering to this audience would serve the company very well.

Launch day rolled around, the release was sent out, and I began to follow up with the highest value of the media targets to whom we sent the release. Phone calls, emails, Tweets, whatever channel our targets were using, I attempted to make contact. As sometimes happens, it was really (and I mean REALLY) difficult to make contact. For whatever reason, it was really challenging to get hold of people. In a moment of despair, I jokingly Tweeted that perhaps people don’t answer their phones anymore…!

It was time to pull out the big guns. If I was going to get some worthwhile traction for my client, I was going to have to resort to the time-honored, secret weapon that we PR consultants absolutely know will result in coverage.

Much like magicians who condemn one of their own for revealing trade secrets, I’m sure my colleagues in the PR business are going to be terribly chagrined if I expose the secret to success in PR. It’s something we’ve held dear for all of our years in the business, the surefire way to get a response from media targets.

Are you ready? Here goes…

It’s persistence. Tenacity. KEEPING AT IT.

I know, it’s not terribly exciting, but that’s the secret to success. Hard work. Though as my favourite teacher always used to say, “work smart, not hard.” So, rather, it’s smart work … with a little elbow grease thrown in.

There is no magic bullet in PR, it’s just a lot of work, putting the right resources in front of the right targets, in whatever format makes the most sense. Where the worst of our industry all too often falls down is where the rubber hits the road. The release is sent, if it doesn’t click immediately, that’s the end of it. “We sent it out, the rest is up to the media.” Wrong.

If it didn’t click immediately, why not? Perhaps, as in this case, the publications being targeting are part-time propositions, or the person who typically writes about such things is on holiday, or is focused on a deadline, or myriad other good reasons. Use common sense, obviously; don’t fill the inboxes of editors and reporters with umpteen emails and voicemails from you. Rather, be persistent without being annoying.

I’ve had some really high-value conversations in the last eight hours, ones that not only secured my client coverage that will no doubt move their market, but also that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t kept at it. Because of the research we do at the outset of a campaign, I knew that I had the right information for the right targets; it was just a matter of time before it all came together.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

Show me the money

• Posted by Tim Redpath
• September 25, 2009
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By Tim Redpath

(Tim Redpath heads up Train of Thoughts, working with clients on strategic marketing, campaigns and communications as well as trying to measure value from marketing budgets. He is an occasional lecturer at the Sprott School of Business and is vice chair of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce.)

Eighty-four percent of business professionals using social media don’t bother to measure its ROI, according to eMarketer. Almost half said they did not even know whether the social media tools they were using had ROI measurement capabilities.

To me, this is a sad indictment of marketing professionals like me. We have jumped in to play with some shiny new toys but are not taking the time to invest in proving their worth.

The whole point of marketing is to effect change – change in buying behaviour, change in knowledge, change in attitude. But if we can’t measure these changes, how can we know what has worked?

I am as guilty as the next marketing professional. I have architected many marketing programs over the years and been consumed with marketing, promotional and communication tools. Measurement has been based on criteria as varied as number of customers engaged, number of mail outs, column inches of media coverage and a general warm feeling. Barely a chart or a metric to be found.

Marketing’s budget gets hit hard in a downturn when it can’t prove that it adds value. Bluff and bluster buys you only so much time; eventually, in the words of Jerry Maguire’s client, you have to “Show me the money.”

Google AdWords has gifted marketing a remarkable measurement tool. If you can’t determine value from your Google spend, then you need to find another day job. Other tools, like some social media elements, are trickier. Sometimes you can fold them in to a broader measure of, say, aided-unaided brand awareness; sometimes it’s just plain tough. But it behoves us, as marketing professionals, to try and justify our budget.

Just because programs are hard to measure does not necessarily mean that we should not do them. White papers are great thought-leadership tools but not always easy to measure in terms of value. You can track the number of downloads off a web page, number given out at a trade show or number of mentions in media. None of these is perfect but they give a peripheral sense of value. For the cost of producing a white paper, they should be a no-brainer for most high-tech companies.

With that in mind I have a matrix that compares the cost of a program with how easy it is to measure value. National print ads with an easy call to action are an example of something you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on and easily drive a measure of value. Conversely, you can drop hundreds of thousands on a sponsorship program and be left judging long-term value on gut feel and experience.

Direct mail is always a favourite in the easy-to-do-and-easy-to prove-value quadrant, while brochures are hard to measure but not that expensive.

As marketing professionals, we have to justify ourselves and our budgets, all the time. Don’t worry about the brochures, pick the big ticket-big impact items first and work your way down the list. We have no excuse for not trying.

Tim Redpath

Posted in:

• Marketing strategy
• Social media

Marketing in a downturn: how the best do it

• Posted by Danny Sullivan
• September 23, 2009
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By Danny Sullivan

We’ve written on marketing in a downturn a few times over the past couple of years – unfortunately, it’s a topic that is close to everyone right now. But I had to come back to the subject again after reading an excellent and insightful article by Beth Comstock, CMO of GE in BusinessWeek.

It’s very refreshing to hear such a frank discussion about how one of the world’s biggest companies is ramping up its marketing spend to capture more market share and position itself for the inevitable recovery. At inmedia, we have long advocated using the downturn as a time to increase the marketing volume rather than cut back, but all too often our words have fallen on deaf ears.

It’s understandable that companies look at marketing as something that can easily be cut back on when times are tough, but such a reaction fails to take into account the immediate opportunity that exists to gain a marketing foothold over other cost-cutting competitors, and does not look beyond the downturn to the time when they will need to be well-positioned to take advantage of the recovery.

Comstock’s example of Priceline outspending the competition to post an 82% increase in profits and improved market share should be enough to convince anyone that there is value to be gained from marketing in a downturn.

Some might say it’s easier for the biggest companies to remain bold during a downturn, but what about those whose revenues are a fraction of GE’s? I believe that the principle remains the same – going silent can only cause one to lose business and market share. The truth is that plenty of business remains to be won in a downturn, and canny marketing investment can help capture that business, while simultaneously ensuring a company’s readiness for the recovery.

Danny Sullivan

Posted in:

• Marketing strategy

The news industry’s PR problem, and why it shouldn’t be bailed out

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• September 22, 2009
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By Linda Forrest

I read a controversial piece yesterday on Mediabistro. Apparently, President Obama has been quoted as saying that he’s open to looking at bailing out the newspaper industry. My personal opinion is that a bailout isn’t what the newspaper industry needs, for reasons I’ll get into shortly. But first, I’d like to talk about the news industry’s PR problem.

A direct quote from the president said the following, “I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding.”

What this says to me is that the news industry has a PR problem, is poorly understood by even the highest office in the land (one whose media-savvy campaign largely propelled him into the Oval Office) and is struggling to find its identity as news formats shift from dead trees to zeros and ones.

There is a common misconception that online news is strictly commentary, often characterized by the opinion-based content to which President Obama refers. Reliable and intelligent news is well researched, fact checked and placed in context, regardless of whether it’s online or off. Until this fundamental understanding is well communicated and well understood, and until the industry adheres to its own best practices, the news business will remain the subject of much consternation.

As to why I don’t believe the news industry should get a bailout? I had a ringside seat for the spectacular downfall of the music industry. Having studied the music industry at two post-secondary institutions (yes, Virginia, there really is rock and roll school), I learned about its outmoded revenue model and watched as the record labels clamored to find alternative revenue streams. In short, the industry failed to adapt to the consumer’s wants and needs and so those consumers simply circumvented the record companies.

In much the same way, consumers of news no longer want or expect to wait until tomorrow to see the news in print; rather, they want the news when they want it. The journalistic integrity of marquee outlets remains strong, whether people are consuming their news in print or online. Some of our clients’ most important media targets are strictly online; this does not diminish their impact nor their influence on the purchasing decisions of those holding the purse strings.

Rather than bail out an industry so that it can maintain an antiquated way of doing things, let these outlets find new and current methods for getting their product out to the consumer. Let’s hope the news industry learns something from the shoddy example set by the music industry that clearly missed the boat.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations
• Social media