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Getting the media to pick up your company’s stories and press releases is vital to keeping your company in the forefront of consumers’ minds. It’s rare that a Reporter picks up your story without it being pitched to him first. So, it’s crucial to make the pitch relevant and personal to the Reporter’s beat. Here are four simple steps on how to pitch your story more successfully. 1. Story Eclipses Everything Everyone loves a good story—and Reporters are no exception! When pitching about your product or service, remember that it’s not about the product or services, it’s about people and lives. If you can bring in a human aspect, something that invokes emotion, Reporters will be more likely to pick up your story. Before you reach out to a Reporter, ask yourself, “what is the story and why will people care?” 2. Reporters are PRODUCERS Gone are the days where Reporters only write articles and nothing else. With the move to online and digital platforms, Reporters have to create content that appeals to all audiences. That means using pictures, videos, infographics, graphs, and much more to catch and hold readers’ attention, as well as concisely convey the message. If you [...]

The greatest challenge facing any new product is the FUD Factor—Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. This holds true whether you’re trying to influence Reporters, Editors, Prospects or Customers. Effective public relations not only eliminates FUD, it earns your product the dominant position in customer minds. In PR, like many areas of business, the 80-20 rule applies. In this case, 20% of the market influences the other 80% of the market. In his book titled “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” author Al Ries says, “The birth of a brand is achieved through public relations, not advertising.” When your product is first in its category, effective PR not only brands your product, it can make that entire product category synonymous with your product’s name. For example, if I say, “a candy with a hole in it,” it’s likely that the first thing that pops into mind is “Lifesaver.” Other recognizable examples are the first adhesive bandage, Band-Aid, the first cable news network, CNN, the first portable personal computer, Compaq, the first microprocessor, Intel, and the first cotton swab, Q-Tip. Effective PR informs, educates and influences Editors by providing them what they most want to provide their audience—what’s new, what’s first and what’s [...]

Workplace culture plays a significant role in company success. Read Forbes’ recommendations on how to strengthen company culture here.

Every business owner wants to save time and money. Read Inc's 6 tips here.

Once upon a time, an enterprising company hired a Marketing Firm to create a dynamic, multi-faceted campaign that included advertising, PR, and targeted email.  A few days after the campaign broke, the company received an envelope containing a check and a note saying, “I’ve been waiting forever for a product like this!  Send me 1,000 of them right away!” The CEO ran to the bank with that check immediately, ran back, and waited for the next day’s mail.  And the next, and the next and the next….and guess what happened?  Nothing!  That’s because the chances of receiving a large order without a nudge or phone call from your sales staff is roughly the same as receiving a bucket of magic beans.  Far better to follow standard protocol – once your marketing campaign breaks, have your sales people step in, follow up on the leads, and close the deals. “Sales and Marketing” are often lumped together as if they were one function, when in fact they are distinct, separate functions that need to work together. The role of marketing communications (MarCom) is to create your brand image, make your target audience aware of your brand or product through “Air Cover”, and [...]

Are you considering rebranding your business?  Business News Daily shares excellent information from 5 business owners Read the article "Rebrand Your Business Without Losing Your Audience" on Business Daily News HERE

Forbes shares interesting information on how "Now, more than ever, the lines between earned, paid and owned media are fading, as PR, advertising and content creation become inextricably linked." Read the Forbes article HERE

PR as Part of the Modern Marketing Mix What kind of honor is it to be recognized as "Small Business' Best-Kept Secret"? No matter how long you’ve been in business, customers are less likely to buy from you if they have never heard of your name or product. Name recognition and visibility are the keys to growing your business and Public Relations is one of the best ways to make your company more visible. Did you know Public Relations can even help your SEO/SEM results? We had one recent client who reached out for PR services because their SEO Firm recommended they hire a PR Firm for better “Domain Authority”. When high quality websites like Forbes point back to you through an article, this helps your website move up in perceived value by Google and Bing. A most common misconception about PR is that it’s just publicity. This is far from the truth. Publicity is merely getting the word out. PR is a multi-faceted approach to changing the way the public thinks about, feels about, and reacts to a certain company, person, service or product, by a third-party affirmation. This is also the reason why public relations is not advertising. Advertising is a controlled message [...]