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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
Offline marketing still has its place, although many agencies seem to forget its existence and focus almost entirely on the online space. Many companies also continue to keep separate teams for online and offline marketing, and this can lead to unco-ordinated marketing campaigns and strategies.
Understanding the value of offline marketing is essential and tying this tightly to an online campaign can lead to additional benefits in audience reach and participation, conversions, and effectiveness. For instance, it is an old marketing adage that a prospect will require up to seven exposures to marketing material to act on the message. So, blanket campaigns have always been popular to reach the prospective audience as many places as possible. However, in the offline world, this type of campaign was only available to the richest and largest companies who could splash out on TV ads, magazine advertorials, billboards, newspaper full page ads etc.
The arrival of the Internet levelled that playing field and many small businesses have realised the potential of online marketing. But often at the expense of any offline marketing. For those who are online, and even for many who do not use the Internet, well, we have all heard of Google, haven’t we? But, Google is still ramping up the amount it spends on offline advertising, year on year, focussing particularly on TV, but also advertising on other mediums too. For instance, in 2010 Google spent $56million compared to $213million last year. Of that, a remarkable $70m went on TV ads.
It is interesting to ponder why Google needs to do this. Not only is it about gathering in those people who do not encounter Google on the Net by targeting them ‘wherever they are’, but the range of products Google now has is so extensive that even the most devoted Google fan has a hard time keeping up. (Google Play has arrived in the black toolbar recently, but many of the Google innovations are “hidden” in Product Labs within the relevant app eg Gmail).
Google is not a master at offline advertising, and some campaigns have garnered flak before now, but Google (the King of online advertising) has had to learn in order to reach the widest possible audience, just as we all do. By understanding exactly who the audience are, the triggers for action (be that a sale, a discount coupon, a freephone number, or a competition), and where the audience hangs out, offline marketing can help as part of a co-ordinated campaign.
We have seen how print and TV advertising has taken a hit because of the variety of options available to advertise online, but it is not wise to cut back entirely on local and regional advertising, print ads, newspaper and magazine press releases, or even a few simple guerrilla tactics to attract attention to your business.
What offline advertising tactics do you still deploy and how do you combine them with your online strategies?
Tags: advertising, Google, media, newspapers, offline, Press Releases, print
Posted in Blog, Google
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Friday, March 2nd, 2012
There are far too many examples of brands and companies attempting to hide information from consumers and being caught out. The reality is that honesty in business, as in all other aspects of life, is essential. Especially in these days of the Internet where it is surprisingly easy for the diligent, upset or just plain determined punter to find out even the most well-hidden boardroom or corporate secret.
Some companies have adapted to the realisation that no longer can you rely on a carefully crafted press release to hype your new product launch or for an experienced crisis manager to respond to any situations which may arise. It has become necessary to take into account that out there, somewhere, may be a snippet of information which could inadvertently throw your notes to editors and hard won reputation into disarray and decline. Nowadays, you only need one person to discover a negative piece of information that proves you were being economical with the truth which goes viral, and this will cause the phone to ring off the hook, in a negative way, with journalists and customers demanding an explanation.
Open and transparent businesses who admit mistakes, seek to amend their ways, respond humbly and apologetically, and can be seen to be trying extremely hard to resolve issues that have garnered column inches (or the equivalent online) are treated more gently than those who are still sticking to PR 1.0 and who have not grasped that prosumers and citizen journalists are now capable of achieving in bringing a brand to its knees. Rightly or wrongly in some instances.
Whilst larger companies may require more hits to sink (a la battleships model), each hit will see a further decline in the fortunes of the company, in the reputation of the brand, and eventually in the continuing success of the company unless action is taken. The consumer battleships have just gained a new weapon in their armoury – brands, be warned.
In actuality, there are plenty of apps and services, review sites, fora, etc which all provide the consumer with an opportunity to fight back against the PR machine, but Open Label may well catch on for its absolute simplicity, and the fact it works with a globally established system – the barcode.
If you as a company have been taxed by government regulations about labelling products, or Advertising Standards Agency restrictions on what you can and cannot say within your creative, this could create yet further headaches. Unless you see this type of application coming and respond accordingly.
Open Label will allow anyone with a smartphone to scan a barcode and add a publicly available review of that product to anyone else who also scans the product. This type of application wrestles control away from the brand behind the product, in much the same way as the Internet has removed full control of marketing messages from the PR and marcomms teams.
Adapt or survive may be the key message here as this level of prosumer control over what is being said about your product will undoubtedly add a new level of headaches simply in monitoring what is being said and responding. However, from the consumer side, it is very much about taking advantage of technology to undo and see beyond the marketing hype which has been blighting the advertising and marketing industries for many years.
It is likely that this will go further. For instance, there is no reason for Google not to adopt something as simple as the barcode and add it to your search engine listings in much the same way as you can now show you location, enhanced site links, author rank etc. Whilst, as an advertiser, your ad revenue £££s are important to Google, so is maintaining an audience to whom Google et al can show your ads. After all, who wants every review, good or bad, shown against your search engine listing? But that happens already, so why not in Google Merchant listings in the SERPS, show the barcode with the most recent comments appended by consumers?
As a business selling products online, do developments such as this concern you? Is it ‘adapt or survive’ or just companies fight back against the growing groundswell of prosumers who may not grasp all the complexities and intricacies of your business decisions when writing a review? Is it down to businesses to be more open and transparent, or should businesses be permitted a degree of confidentiality about how the bottom line savings are made to keep them competitive? Will this level the playing field in some small way for those SMEs who do not barcode their products?
Let us know your thoughts. And if you get access to the private beta and have tried the product, please do share your opinion of it.
Tags: barcodes, consumers, Google, marcomms, open label, pr, Press Releases, prosumers, reviews
Posted in Blog, Online PR, Stats & Trends, Uncategorised
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Friday, June 19th, 2009
And you thought elevator pitches were hard!!
Journalists are increasingly looking to Twitter for stories and pitches, so your latest necessary skill and challenge is to put your press release or pitch into 140 characters.
Sending Word documents to journos is now a big #fail so start sharpening your haiku skills!
Tags: Journalist, news pitch, Online PR, Press Releases, twitter
Posted in Online PR, Social Media, Tips & Tricks
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Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
As Twitter and other social media tools are adopted en masse by those in the Web PR field, and keeping in touch with all that is happening with live PR campaigns becomes ever more important as the mainstream media begins to perish, MyPRGenie has launched a free white paper entitled PR 3.0: The new Public Relations Toolkit
This white paper covers the growing problems within mainstream media and how they will begin to affect those involved in traditional PR – adopt the web or die is a key message! It looks at PR 2.0 and the tools that have been used over the last 2-3 years to adapt to the ever-changing media world, as well as making some intelligent guesses at what will be required for both journalists and PR agencies in the months and years to come.
In order to survive the changes in the media world, many will need to completely change the way they work, accepting that those big breaks of front page and major news stories in the print press will become less frequent, and that the news consumer is now seeking their news fix online.
Keeping in contact with those who will break stories is going to become vital and phone calls and even e-mails are so last century. Maintaining a current database of contacts will mean understanding where to make real-time contact and monitoring what tools and applications – Twitter, facebook, etc – are the ones of choice for each of your contacts.
In order to be heard, PR agencies are going to need to be on top of all that is going on online, with stories reaching the widest number of eyeballs by ensuring that press releases and so on are distributed through the most effective mechanisms, and that will no longer be just your standard press releases distributors.
As a free white paper, this is worth a read to absorb some of what is written between the lines and the thoughts that will engender for your agency in future.
Tags: Journalist, pr, Press Releases, Public relations, twitter
Posted in Online PR, Social Media, Stats & Trends
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Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
Ah, now here is just the thing for self-publicists everywhere. (oh yes, and agencies looking to create a buzz in the press about their clients).
If you haven’t heard of HARO yet, you soon will, so check it out today.
For me, it started in a Linkedin Discussion about paid for press releases versus the leads which HARO generates. I had fallen over mention of HARO not that long ago on Facebook so it peeked my interest. After all, if there are more cost-effective ways of reaching the media for clients, why wouldn’t it?! And Peter Shankman is not an unknown either as his blog keeps cropping up as recommended reading in various circles.
To put it simply, HARO is an email list that allows journos looking for stories to find those with the buzz, the craik, the low down, the info. It is currently very US/North America-centric, but there is no reason why someone, somewhere won’t set up a HARO-UK, HARO-EU or HARO-IN very shortly. (Hint, hint!)
You can follow Peter Shankman on twitter @skydiver and keep up with discussions about HARO vs trad press release distribution mechanisms on the Innovative marketing LinkedIn group.
Tags: haro, helpareporter.com, Press Releases
Posted in Online PR, Small Business Resources, Social Media
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