Send your marketing person packing
Posted on June 23, 2008
Many small to medium size companies have a “marketing department.” Some mistakenly call their sales staff the marketing department. But that’s not it.
Dig a little deeper. Wind you way down a dark hall. If you find a hunched-back person, her face blanched with desperation and her eyes blood shot from too little sleep and too much coffee, you’ve found it; the Marketing Department.
You might call her a graphic designer or communications producer because she designs all your brochures, websites, videos, and any other tools your sales staff needs. But if she is coming up with ideas that help you reach your customers - that connect with their needs and wants - then she IS your marketing department.
So give her a break. Let her out of her cave for a while. Send her packing.
Send her on sales calls with your best salesperson. Have her meet your best clients. In other words, let her have a relationship with the people she builds all those tools for - your customers.
If she doesn’t come to understand your customers (and potential customers) then all she will be doing is designing, photographing, and writing for your sales staff.
Here’s the most important advise you can give her as she steps out of the cave, squinting at the mid-day sunlight (which she hasn’t seen for years). Tell her to look at your company from the customer’s point of view. Pretend she doesn’t work for you, but that you work for her as her vendor. What does the world look like through the customer’s eyes?
I promise you, she will come back from these trips with a head full of ideas. And those ideas, turned into the sales tools she produces, will make you money.
And when that happens, give the kid a raise . . . or at least a room with a window.
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Writing a successful news release
Posted on June 4, 2008
There are several methods of getting free publicity. One of the most common is the news release. The challenge is getting it printed. The publication decides if they are going to print your news release and so you must make it worth their time and cost.
Here are a few tips on how to make your news release more enticing to the editor.
Real News
The quickest way to the round file (trash bin) is to send a fluff piece about how great your company/product is. The article should be a legitimate news story - not an advertisement. This could be the hiring of a new employee, a company expansion that creates new jobs, awards or other recognition, charitable efforts by your company, community events you sponsor, etc. Remember, the primary word is NEWS release. Make it real. Make it relevant.
Timely
Make sure your news release is covering relatively current events. A new CEO who just came on board fulfills the publication’s need for current news. If the CEO joined your firm a year ago, it is too late for that angle. Find something about him/her that is relevant to today.
Write from a reporter’s viewpoint
The company owner and top executives should not write the news release. Instead, find an employee who doesn’t know everything about your business. Then have him do interviews and put together the release as if he were an outside reporter.
Four W’s and an H
Journalism 101 - get answers to these questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Do this and the news release will practically write itself.
Inverted pyramid
Due to space limitations, the editor may cut part of your story. Editors always cut from the bottom - so be sure your most important points are near the top of the article. In fact, your first paragraph should contain the main message you want to communicate, the second should fill in the details and the third should cover less critical background information. Think of this structure as an inverted pyramid where the most important information is on top and the least important is at the bottom.
Keep paragraphs small
Try to have no more than three or four sentences per paragraph. Most articles are printed in narrow columns. This is especially true with newspapers. Editors don’t like too many lines in a paragraph because it creates a large block of text, which often looses the reader.
Include a photo
This is the most important advise of all. Send a photo with the news release whenever possible. And better yet, have a person in the picture. Your chances of getting printed are multiplied when you include an interesting photo.
Advertise with the publication
Large news publications keep their editorial department separate from their advertising department for obvious reasons; they don’t want advertisers driving their news. Trade publications are less concerned about this. In either case, though, a regular advertiser pulls more weight when it comes to news releases.
Hire a professional writer/photographer
You knew this was coming right? Yes, it is self-promotion on my part. But there are advantages to going this route. First, keeping a regular flow of timely news releases is a time-consuming task taking your employee’s time away from productive work. A professional is good at maintaining a working relationship with the publication’s editorial staff. He also has a good feel for how often to send a release to a particular publication and more importantly, has a feel for their editorial style so the release will fit in well with other articles in the magazine or newspaper. Perhaps most important, if you hire a professional writer/photographer who has a background in journalism, your news release stands a much better chance of getting published.
Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a professional, properly produced news releases will help develop a positive image of your company to prospective clients and the community.
Filed Under Marketing Tips, Public Relations | Leave a Comment