PR Ponderings

Hi, We’re Exhibiting at InfoSec this Month and Need Some PR…

Posted by admin on April 10, 2012   |   No Comments

Internet Retailing Online Editor, Chloe Rigby interviews Intershop's Matt Ball at Internet Retailing Expo 2012

I can always tell it’s early April. Those clever calendar things aside, I always receive at least one phone call that goes along the lines of “Hi, we’re going to be at InfoSec this month, and we need some PR.”

It’s worth mentioning at this point, that if a show like InfoSec is of significant importance to your company, you should have started planning the PR way more than three weeks ahead. Your PR team will need the lead time for preview deadlines, to brainstorm creative ideas and to plan resource; particularly if you want the activity to integrate with your lead generation and marketing activities.

Attending a show like InfoSec is a significant investment, and I can understand why it is important to exploit all of the obvious opportunities that come with ‘the package’.

For sure, this might include things like:

  • Tracking and pitching for inclusion in show previews and reviews
  • Creating press packs
  • Promoting the Company’s presence via social media
  • Show guide content
  • Online exhibitor information and listings.

However, the conversation can sometime go on to explain that the company has a senior executive flying into London from overseas that they need to ‘impress’. Or worse still that they need ‘set up some press and/or analyst briefings while we’re there’. At this point I will ask some pretty probing and direct questions about the caller’s expectations around outcomes, return on investment.

Fundamentally, what is it that you want to achieve in ‘PR’ or communications terms during a show like InfoSec?

  • Building relationships with key press or analyst contacts?
  • Press coverage?
  • To launch a product or service?
  • Announce a customer win or story?

All very valid. Although I would suggest that if it is any of the above, spending your precious PR budget on trying to secure press and/or analyst briefings at a big show like InfoSec, can sometimes fail to meet your expectations or deliver any tangible value. Our experience of InfoSec which is a particularly large show, is that press and analyst face time is hotly contested.

The Speed Date: PR Budget Well Spent?

One national journalist admitted to one of the team recently that at InfoSec last year, they did back-to-back briefings, and by the end of the day couldn’t remember the name of most of the companies he’d met. If one of the criteria for a successful PR programme is a sustained and positive relationship with key press contacts, I’m not sure that a trade show ‘speed date’ qualifies as PR time well spent. Not because one-to-ones or ‘buddy briefings’ shouldn’t happen, but because perhaps they shouldn’t happen under the spotlight and pressure of a big trade show.

This doesn’t mean that press and/or analysts briefings can’t be achieved, and neither does it mean that they can’t be successful under certain circumstances; indeed, Team Proud scored four briefings which resulted in two by-lined articles at Data Centre World last month.

My argument is, that if you’re going to spend time and money on PR, think carefully about your objectives before slipping into trade show press auto pilot. Be sure that the conditions are favourable. And, if they’re not, spend that time and effort doing something more fruitful.

Getting Creative: Positive Examples

Sometimes it’s just easiest to illustrate a point with real-world examples. So, here are some of our very own potentially useful examples of PR working appropriately at big trade shows and how it can get creative within the event support remit.

For one consumer tech client in the physical security space at Retail Business Technology Expo this year, we negotiated for free product to be used in the press office. We also created an offer for other exhibitors at the show to receive complimentary samples and sealed a deal with the organisers for this to be communicated to their database of contacts.

For an e-commerce client, we leveraged LinkedIn to encourage appointment setting before the Internet Retailing Expo and Twitter to drive attendees to the Company’s speaker slot. We also tweeted key insights and photos live from the show. It was  a very well attended session.

At World Travel Market, we created a short questionnaire for our application performance management (APM) client. The survey was used by stand managers to engage with show visitors and gleaned a sample size worthy of a post-show press release with the findings. It was a big hit with key vertical press.

And finally, at CeBIT this year, Intershop made its most significant product announcement in 10 years. This was news worthy enough for our PR partner in Germany to secure a place on the much coveted CeBIT highlight tour; a ticket to guaranteed coverage as it helps the press attendees cut through the PR ‘noise’ to the show’s biggest stories.

One Size Does Not Fit All

As you can start to understand from the above, no two clients, no two objectives, products or challenges tend to be the same. And so, applying the same formulaic approach to PR/AR at your trade shows won’t always reap results you want.

And, whilst our event services aren’t free (sorry) our basic advice is. Feel free to give us a buzz on +44 (0)1276 679570 for some guidance and inspiration on where to get started. Or email me – natalie[at]proudpr.com.

Or if you have other experiences and questions, we’d love to hear from you.

 

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80% of Press Release Headlines Too Long for Google

Posted by admin on February 23, 2012   |   No Comments

Are you optimising your press release headlines? For the second straight year, our friends at Schwartz MSL Research Group have put together a study on the SEO of press release headlines using data from Business Wire releases. It has been previously noted that Google only displays roughly 65 characters in its search results and therefore releases with headlines 70 characters or under are best optimised for SEO.

This year’s study looked at the headlines of more than 16,000 Business Wire press releases from 2011. Of those, only 19.5% of all releases had headlines with 65 characters or fewer and just 23.7% were at 70 characters or fewer. This suggests that the great majority of press releases do not have headlines fully optimised for search.

The average headline length is 123 characters, which is the same as last year’s results. The study also looked at buzzword usage and completed a geographic headline face-off to determine which cities hosted the SEO-savviest press release headline writers. You can download the full report here.

This story was originally blogged by Amy Yen, Marketing Specialist, Business Wire Dallas
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SEO and PR – an Unrequited Love?

Posted by admin on January 20, 2012   |   No Comments

Posted by Natalie Sutton

We were on a ‘synch-up’ call with a client’s marketing agency the other day; we were keen to kick off social media integration to the PR programme and they are tasked with enhancing SEO on the client’s new web site.

At one point, one of the marketing agency consultants remarked that he’d never met PR people who knew so much about SEO. Now, while it’s always nice to receive a such a compliment..especially in front of a client…(!) it did leave me wondering if there really is a widespread lack of understanding of SEO by PRs, and vice versa.

Where are the boundaries? Perhaps it’s something along the lines of SEO aiming to ensure that the brand’s website ranks well in search engine results for relevant search terms.

PR on the other hand aims to ensure the brand has a positive reputation amongst its audiences.

The Blog Battle

Blogs are a potential area of conflict. A corporate blog provides an ideal opportunity to post lots of keyword-rich copy on the company website to attract the attention of search engines. PR on the other hand will want to use it to publish thought leadership pieces and news announcements.

I say the two objectives don’t have to be mutually exclusive. If the SEO team is willing to provide key phrase insights, PR can make subtle use of them.

Different copywriting styles

Content generation can be a battleground too. SEO practice is based around reach and volume whereas the PR content should be more focused on careful messaging and quality.

Take the press release for example. The first aim of a press release is to ensure the story gets picked up by as many journalists as possible; the release is designed to catch their attention. When the PR writes press releases, their first audience is the journalist… not the client and not the search engines (although there’s no reason why the latter shouldn’t be a secondary audience).

Get your SEO and PR people working in synch, the results can be wonderful; I’ve seen it happen.

In most organisations there’s no shortage of people with the right skills, so the barriers to achieving this are largely political. It’s really just a matter of getting them to work well together.

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Having your Team Cake and Eating it

Posted by admin on August 31, 2011   |   No Comments
Natalie Sutton

Qmatic's Michael Slevin (far left), Stuart Batt and Proud PR's Natalie Sutton are judged best cake by the Head Chef at Highgate House

You might be wondering why you’re looking at pictures of grown ups and rather unattractive confectionery on a PR blog? Let me explain. It was a team building exercise at a sales meeting for one of our newest clients, Qmatic. The ‘Team Cakes’ challenge involved expressing the Qmatic brand as a cake-based logo, which competing groups of three created… blindfolded.

It was not only an extremely entertaining way to knit together the wave of additional hires in Qmatic’s sales team with its PR and marketing teams, but had also been a genuinely productive and valuable day of brainstorming and planning.

It started us thinking about the sentiment of PR agencies working as an extension of the in-house marketing team. It’s certainly a platitude that both agency and client pay lip service to. But, is it always appropriate for clients to ‘open their kimono’ to external consultants and invest valuable time and budget in having their PR partner present at events and meetings? Against the backdrop of a fiercely competitive landscape or a stock market sensitive environment, is such openness and sharing just too risky? Or, does the value outweigh that risk?

Qmatic Sales Director, Steve Williams creams the competition with a little help from Proud PR's Danielle Cook

We asked a few clients, past and present and the summary answer was the latter. Here is some of their feedback: -

Motivation

Every good manager knows, that happy employees make much more creative, motivated and engaged workers. Whilst clients might reasonably expect their PR team to just get on to achieve the objectives they’ve been set, the opportunity to learn more about their clients, their products, services and employees etc., can add relish to their efforts, stimulate creativity and even encourage them go that extra mile.

This is important for organisations of all shapes and sizes, but can be particularly important for start-ups, innovators or companies undergoing a step-change in their evolutionary growth.

Agility

The more personal relationships a PR has within a client organisation and even within their clients’ customer portfolio, the more agile and responsive they can be within the PR programme. Whether its news jacking, feature and awards pitching or speaker opportunities, the closer a PR is to users and sources of information and insight, the better placed they are to serve the press, analyst and influencer community on their clients’ behalf.

Allowing a PR partner to invest the time to understand their clients’ organisational structure, get to know personalities and business styles, to ferret out pockets of expertise and go-to people for answers and how best to navigate it all, also helps to accelerate decision-making and avoid any faux pas’ related to internal politics and policy.

Depth and Insight

Of course, given enough time served with a client, most PRs can develop a level depth of understanding and market insight that can add a great deal of value to the day-to-day campaign. But, perhaps by engaging with their agency more, clients can also accelerate the time-to-value from their PR?

At the end of the day, relationships matter. Once they have found a good PR consultant that they can work with, it’s not at all unusual for sales, marketing and business development executives to form pretty strong relationships with them. There are many reasons for this, not least: -

  • That if their PR process isn’t broken, they don’t usually try to fix it
  • To mitigate their risk in hiring future PR and spending valuable marketing budget
  • To make them look good!
  • Because they genuinely like each other on a personal level
  • Or, perhaps because they PR account handlers have done an excellent job of proactively consolidating client relationships

There’s probably another important element though that’s highly relevant to this post. That sometimes, whether they realise it or not, some clients perceive great value in a cultural PR ‘fit’. I have known agencies get hired on this last quality alone. That’s not a criticism, far from it. It makes perfect sense for client organisations or all sizes.

What do you think about the client/agency PR relationship? I’d like to hear about your experiences, good and bad.

 

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The Retail Systems Awards 2011

Posted by admin on July 1, 2011   |   No Comments

Now into their sixth year, the Retail Systems Awards recognise excellence and innovation in the field of information technology within the retail sector. The awards present an opportunity for organisations to gain the prestige of public acknowledgement from the extensive exposure and publicity, which takes place before and after the awards ceremony.

Don’t miss your chance to prove to customers, competitors and the whole industry how great you are, enter today.

The winners of the 2011 Retail Systems Awards will be announced on Wednesday, 26 October 2011 at the Lancaster London Hotel.

The 2011 categories:

You can enter your organisation in as many categories as you wish.
To enter, click on your category of choice:

1. EPoS innovation of the year
2. Supply chain solution of the year
3. Best use of in-store marketing technology in retail
4. Best use of technology in the hospitality and leisure sector
5. Retail website of the year
6. IT project of the year
7. IT team of the year
8. Retail security initiative of the year
9. Back office solution of the year
10. Retailer of the year
11. European solution of the year
12. SME retailer of the year
13. Card and payments solution of the year
14. Multi-channel retailer of the year
15. Technology vendor of the year
16. Online technology vendor of the year
17. Mobile retailer of the year - NEW CATEGORY
18. Social networking initiative of the year - NEW CATEGORY
19. Outstanding individual
20. International retailer of the year - NEW CATEGORY

For further information, please visit: www.retail-systems.com/awards

 

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Content marketing: sometimes the obvious answer is the best

Posted by admin on June 22, 2011   |   No Comments

It’s an age old question for content marketers: what’s the recipe for ideal content that will be read, linked, tweeted and otherwise disseminated around the web?

We have an informal motto when it comes to online content: for something to be worth your time, it has to be either Useful or Amusing.

This theory earned itself some credit recently, when a press release we sent out saw a much better response than we’d anticipated.

Within the translation industry, there are two age old clichés: the first is the phrase ‘lost in translation’; and the second is ‘funny mistranslations’.

Language service providers have been compiling lists of amusing translation mistakes since the dawn of time (or at least the dawn of the translation industry), but it’s a theme worth returning to (especially since some organisations still refuse to learn the simple lesson that, when it comes business translation, you can’t beat a professional linguist).

So we compiled our ten favourite business translation blunders, from airlines gone unintentionally nudist to unfortunate beer slogans. Not exactly Useful, or even particularly timely, but it did tick the box of being Amusing – and the response was very interesting.

The story got picked up everywhere from The Independent to Smarta, Real Business, Business Zone, SME Web and Computer Weekly, to name a few.

It seems that, when it comes to catchy content, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Topics that might be considered ‘over-used’ within your particular sector can have real interest-value for the wider web, when presented in the right format (for instance, it’s well established that ‘top ten’ or ‘top five’ lists are among the most clickable content on the web).

The trick for anyone involved in content marketing is working out ways to get your content onto the really prominent, high value sites. First of all, you want your message to be viewed by the greatest number of people, and second of all, you want to get links from high quality websites.

The obvious way to get your message picked up by the media is to make sure that what you’re saying is genuinely useful, informative and news-worthy. Still, even if you have what you consider to be an earth-shattering message that everyone will want to hear, that doesn’t guarantee that journalists will agree with you.

And so, it seems, there is a second way, to perhaps take the route well-travelled and offer readers some light entertainment to brighten their day. After all, what could be better than connecting your brand in people’s brains with a wry smile?

In summary, the lesson we’ve taken home from this is (to plagiarise an old saying), if you don’t have anything ground-breaking to say, at least say something funny.

What content marketing campaigns have you found to be unexpectedly successful?

Original post by Christian Arno, econsultancy blog
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PRs Don’t Use Social Media Enough

Posted by admin on June 3, 2011   |   No Comments

Over three-quarters of journalists believe social media is an important tool for their work according to a survey published today.

Over 900 journalists took part in the survey (see survey results press release) conducted by DWPub in the last six days. Perhaps to some extent participation was galvanised by the on-going superinjuction story which illustrated not just the importance of social media for news dissemination but also how it operates under different conventions than the traditional press.

The survey also found that little more than one per cent of respondents claimed they were using social media less than they were 12 months ago, confirmation that journalists reject the notion that social media may be a fad.

Perceptions of how the public relations industry uses social media could only be interpreted as negative, with only 24% believing that PR professionals make enough use of social media.

The survey coincides with the launch of DWPub’s latest whitepaper which examines the impact of social media on the work of journalists. Written by Financial Times interactive producer Martin Stabe, the whitepaper is entitled How social media is changing the role of journalists.

In the whitepaper Martin covers in detail how journalism has adapted to social media as a tool for newsgathering, directing traffic to media sites and profile building for individual journalists. It gives considerable insight to PR professionals wishing to use social media as a way of communicating with journalists.

Article originally published on DWPubSporadic, 25 May 2011.

How to use Twitter for PR

Posted by admin on May 6, 2011   |   No Comments

Love it or loathe it, Twitter is now part of our working lives. But this doesn’t mean it has to be an obsession. Use it effectively, and it needn’t take up huge chunks of your time, and can be the source of valuable contacts and information. Just make sure that you dip into it rather waste hours on it, and that you follow relevant people. It usually makes sense to follow those that follow you, but there is no obligation if you don’t like the sound of their business, after all there are some strange ones out there! Here are 12 other top tips from experts to help Twitter work for you:

1. Keep your name simple: Think carefully about your Twitter identity and what it says about you, in the same way that you are careful about your email address. “Although Twitter does allow you to change your Twitter handle, the more people there are on there, the less options that you’ll have. Take variations on your name and set them aside so no one else can use them and add to the confusion.” Ged Carroll, director of digital strategy at Ruder Finn

2. Don‘t say anything compromising: “Remember that your Twitter feed may come up top of a Google search, and could be the first thing new clients see of you. Offhand comments about your ‘disastrous day’ won’t fill anyone with confidence in your skills …” Beth Murray, account director, at PR firm Lansons Communications

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice: “You can put a plea out for views and opinions on the more emotive issues to get a feeling of what people think and also to get an explanation for a phenomena that you are not familiar with or simply get suggestions for a venue or a contact.” Rob Davies, consulting director at communications consultancy oneonone

4. It is more important to listen than to speak: “It is totally acceptable to be an inactive Tweeter, but it is essential to be following. To watch and learn from other brands – seeing what the latest digital campaigns are and keeping an eye on how global (and competitor) brands are interacting with their community.” Nik Thakkar, senior digital publicity manager at PR agency Exposure

5. Subscribe to journalist Twitter feeds: “Twitter is far more effective for me when I subscribe to journalists’ Twitter feeds. Often there will be a Twitter feed saying, ’I am looking for a quote on X or I am writing an article on Y can you help?’” Jeremy Walters, independent PR consultant

6. Chat with journalists, don’t overwhelm them: “Twitter is all about building relationships, and can be really useful for connecting with journalists. If you just use it as an avenue to bombard journalists with pitches, you’ll irritate people and quickly damage those relationships.” Beth Murray, account director, Lansons Communications

7. Be recognisable: “No one will follow an egg! Make sure you include a suitable picture and also your biog is completed – this is vital if you are at a conference/networking event and have been inspired by a Tweet and you want to find that person in the room.” Lara Leventhal, managing director, at PR agency Onlinefire

8. Manners matter: “Thank the RTs and acknowledge the DMs. Be generous with credit and stingy with spite.” David Gallagher chairman of Ketchum Pleon London and president, Ketchum Pleon Europe

9. Use TwitPic: “Once we’ve distributed a press release, we use TwitPic to provide images to accompany it. This means we don’t get on the wrong side of the media by emailing out an attachment and those that want to run the story can choose from a selection of images.” Alastair Turner, managing director of agency Aspectus PR

10. Take part in “Follow Fridays”: “Follow Fridays are one of the best ways of recommending people on Twitter as these tend to be trusted and taken on board. As such, make sure you look at who your followers are telling you to follow and make sure you are doing it too. Giving journalists a spotlight every Friday is also a nice way of strengthening relationships.” Aaron Huckett, digital manager at PR agency Publicasity

11. Use Twitter to meet people face to face: “Look out for opportunities that you can get involved in such as networking meets and greets.” Pamela Lyddon, founder of digital agency Bright Star Digital

12, Keep it in perspective: “Remember it’s just one of many channels that can build your own or your business’s reputation and profile, don’t ignore the real world.” Richard Watts, social media specialist at PR agency Brazil

Originally published by PRMoment.com

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Crisis? Consider Google Adwords

Posted by admin on October 3, 2010   |   No Comments

A story from econsultancy.com exposing the detailed expenditure on Google AdWords by the world’s biggest brands intrigued me recently.

Natalie Sutton

With brands such as AT&T Mobile spending a suggested $8.08m on AdWords in June and the University of Phoenix-operator Apollo Group ($6.67m), Expedia ($5.85m) Amazon ($5.85m) and eBay ($4.25m) investing large sums of money, it’s fascinating to see just how much money is spent, why and to what effect. Contemplating AdWords, it’s easy to see why people consider it as the first port of call for direct sales and lead generation; however this is not necessarily always the case. Perhaps it has value as a PR tool?

This summer BP certainly highlighted the PR value of AdWords. The Company certainly fought a sizeable PR battle to say the least, and to date, BP was one of the leading spenders during the month of June. It went from spending a five-figure sum per a year to $3.5m in June alone, all in aid of substantially increasing their positive public image.

Basically, BP created an AdWords campaign to counteract the negative publicity it was getting following the Atlantic oil spill. The AdWords allowed the Company to position itself in the top rankings on page one of the appropriate Google searches with paid for, positive links.

So, we can consider Google AdWords a seriously impressive tool in the crisis management toolkit I guess.

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