A common misconception about Public Relations is that it is completely separate from marketing; that effective marketing can be done without PR.  That is not the case.  These two subjects (marketing and PR) are actually complementary to each other and they both ultimately have the same goal—a positive result from the public, whether it is in the acquisition of acquired admiration, trust or respect, or whether if it is in the form of product interest and purchase. Watch this short video:

Slick Salesman

As a consumer do you prefer to buy (purchase, acquire, invest, etc.) or to be sold? Most people prefer to make the self-determined decision to make a purchase and usually equate the concept of “being sold” to the category of being tricked, coerced, bamboozled or “forced to buy against their better judgment”.

As a salesperson, it is your job to inform, enlighten, guide and help the prospect to a make buying decision; if you fail to grasp that concept and mistakenly think that instead it is your job to “sell” (using trickery and guile), then your life as a salesperson will just be that much more stressful and difficult.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that they would rather buy something because they really want it as opposed to being “sold” something by some slick talking salesperson.

People, first and foremost, buy things because they think the product or service they acquire will satisfy a need or desire they have. They do not buy because they like you, or because you “built a relationship” with them—they buy because they believe what you are selling will help them in some way.

Some consumers sometimes mistakenly buy from disingenuous salespeople (conmen) who misrepresent what they are selling (lie) and tell prospects that their needs or desires will all be met; but these buyers will be dissatisfied with their purchase, and later rightfully accuse the salesperson of “selling them” and often force the salesperson to deal with the repercussions or consequences of such a transaction—which is not actually a sale at all, but fraud.

There are some sales philosophies that promote soft-selling with things like long-term relationship building and there are other sales philosophies that endorse crush-selling tactics such as pressuring consumers by being aggressive, hardnosed, and using confrontational means. Both strategies have varying degrees of success—but as the saying goes “if you throw enough stuff against a wall, some of it is bound to stick”.

Relationship Building—do you want the prospect to date you or buy from you?

The truth is that underlying every legitimate sale/purchase made with any tactic (soft sell, crush sell, etc.) is the undeniable fact that the client had a need or desire that he felt the service/product would satisfy.

It is not the “relationship” you build that gets the prospect to buy and it is not the slick sales tactic used that corners a prospect into giving up his credit card—it is the belief the prospect has that he will benefit from the purchase that makes him buy.

You should know that no one is going to buy from you merely because you have kept in touch with them for months “building a relationship”; you are not dating the prospect, you are trying to prove that you can resolve their problem (and either you can or you can’t).

The length of time a sale takes to develop and close is not bound by some arbitrary limit—it can be very quick or it can be slow (depending on your sales skills and the complexity of the problem/solution at hand).

Follow a sales process

A true sales professional uses an effective question-based discovery process to uncover a prospect’s actual needs and wants. Based on the answers he receives, a comprehensive presentation can be given that enlightens the prospect that the solution offered can fulfill his need/desire.

Only after the realization is achieved by the prospect that the proposed offering is the solution to his need/desire, can a salesperson begin to help the prospect get past his fears and apprehensions about making the buying decision—and that is essential, a salesperson needs to be able to help the prospect overcome his hesitation in a professional and caring manner.

In today’s world of selling you are the prospects’ guide to making the buying decision. When you have exercised a realistic qualification, a comprehensive sales interview and, an enlightening and engaging presentation, only then is closing a natural conclusion.

Jamie Sene

Search-Engine-Results

A common problem that impacts both businesses and individuals is negative Internet postings that come up on Google searches and other search engine results. Negative or false information about a person or business can cause untold trouble.

For a business, it can cause substantial revenue losses, upset existing customers and ruin a company’s reputation or credibility. For an individual, it can mean losing a job or not getting one, being humiliated and many other types of problems.

As more people (potential customers, future employers, competitors, media representatives, friends and family, and even your enemies) turn to Google for information about you or your business, Google has become more than just a search engine for data, it has evolved into a sort of out-of-control PR or reputation engine.

The situation is further compounded by “consumer protection” websites that make a living out of posting, sometimes truthful but often false, negative and anonymous comments they receive about a business without any verification about the veracity of the claims being made.

Ripoff Reports is a perfect example of such a website. It is a website that illustrates blatant irresponsibility and greed by hiding behind a flawed legal system that protects their right to post unsubstantiated allegations. These for-profit websites will post anything about a business as long as the author (often completely anonymous) says it’s true; they don’t verify anything or require proof and they’ll never remove a post once it’s up (at least none that I’ve ever seen or heard of).

I have one client that had a “potential customer” post negative and slanderous comments about their business. The comments were about one of the company’s employees; they were inflammatory, misleading and false. But the kicker was that this post was put up anonymously, and was not even made by a customer, but by a “potential customer” who said he had spoken with a representative. Without being able to identify who the author was, it was impossible to know if the complaint had any merit—it could have simply been a competitor trying to soil a company’s reputation.

Since it is nearly impossible to have such posts removed, the best way to counter negative search results is to have many more positive search results that push the bad ones down beyond page three or even further down the search results. If you can’t get rid of the bad, you just have to counter it with much more good.

In helping clients with their online reputation, I’m often asked how to push down negative search results that appear on page one of Google (or Yahoo) for a search for their name or company. The solution is to create lots good press, postings, articles, web pages and websites about you or your company.

Following are some simple recommendations that a business or individual can use for online content that can come up ahead of the negative search results you want to push off of page one:

1. Create a blog.
Blogs usually rank very well, and do not require as much attention or updating as one might think. But you should try to keep your blogs as relevant to you or your business as much as possible. WordPress.com and Blogger.com offer free blogs, many design templates to choose from as well as free hosting. Create a few posts; keep them targeted to your name. Use your name in the blog title, posts etc. Add links to relevant websites and you’re done.

2. Build a web site with your name.
Register your name or your company’s name and use it as your own branded domain name on a web site. Registering yourcompanyname.com or yourpersonalname.com (also get .net and .org extensions for a business) and adding a basic web site is a guaranteed way to get on the top ten Google listings for your name. Network Solutions offers an easy way to check domain names and buy them.

3. Create a social networking profile.
Facebook, Twitter and MySpace profiles will rank well for both individuals and businesses. When you sign-up, use your real name—using a nickname won’t help with your online reputation—and enable the option that lets you pick the URL of your profile: facebook.com/first-last-name or myspace.com/company-name works much better than myspace.com/mighty-thor29

4. Create a personal page on Google.
Build a free page with Google Sites It will definitely rank well and help in your quest for positive information about yourself or business.

5. Create a business profile.
Join LinkedIn.com to network with peers, business associates and business groups. You can talk about yourself, your business and link to your other online web content. This is also great to network for new jobs or new employees.

6. Build your online identity.
Naymz.com This networking platform allows you create a profile and then link out to all of your other profiles. Whereas LinkedIn leans more toward the networking-side, Naymz is more geared toward brand building.

7. Post photos.
Upload photos of you, your business logo, building, products, etc., to Flickr (from Yahoo) label them accordingly. Be sure to add comments to photos (using your name or company name). Also use your name or company name for your profile name.

If you do all of the above, it will certainly help drive down any negative posts about your business – and if you don’t have bad online PR it will create lots of good PR that you control. Good luck!

Jamie Sene

marketing

The three variables that most positively influence the success of every marketing attempt you make can be summed up in one line: The Right Message to The Right Target Market at The Right Time

It is extremely easy to miss on any one of these factors. For example, your target market may be women, but a product that is perfect for a 19 year old female may be utterly inappropriate for a 60 year old lady. Case in point, selling Daisy Duke shorts—you don’t see many 60 year old women in those (hopefully).

Secondly, you may have the right target market (audience), but your message could be off base. Using the Daisy Duke shorts as an example, you could have the perfect audience, e.g., single 18 to 25 year old females living in warmer climates with all the other demographics that match your target market. But if your message is about how durable these shorts are, and how they are flame retardant and how the denim they are made from comes from specially grown materials, you may not sell as many of these shorts as if you positioned the shorts with things that actually interest the desires of your audience. Namely, looking attractive while wearing them.

And lastly, there’s timing; selling Daisy Duke shorts in the dead of winter is an obvious miscalculation, especially if your product line includes winter apparel. There can be countless examples of mistiming and not all of them related to the seasons of the year. Fashion goes in and out vogue regularly, technology advances daily, commodities and stocks markets shift by the minute, etc. Carefully consider your timing before launching a new marketing campaign.

Many businesses miss one, two or all three of these factors, and end up with very ineffective marketing and advertising results. Now that you are aware of these elements, there’s no reason to violate these guidelines.

Marketing to Diverse Populations

Do you know how effective each of your individual marketing tactics are? Many small business owners market in a vacuum. They spend money on brochures, advertisements and web sites with no real way to tie specific results to specific endeavors.

If you are unable to associate leads and sales with the specific marketing efforts that generate them you have no way of knowing what is working as an effective marketing mechanism and what is not.

The money you invest in marketing your company is precious. In order for you to maximize your marketing dollars you need to know the results individual marketing efforts generate. When you know the results of your marketing tactics you can make intelligent decisions about how to better allocate your marketing budget.

For instance, if you concurrently run a direct mail campaign, a search engine advertising campaign and weekly ads in industry periodicals without some method to discern results you will not know which effort generates the lions share of any new business.

If you don’t know that your direct mail campaign yielded 90% of your revenue with a 2% response rate, you are powerless to make the wise decision to reinvest in the direct mail campaign and make changes to or drop entirely the other campaigns. What’s more, if you can figure out how to double the response rate of your mail campaign, you can nearly double the revenue your marketing campaign without spending money on search engine marketing and periodical advertisements.

Measuring your marketing results will help you save money by allowing you to eliminate unproductive marketing tactics and at the same time, will help you make more money by allowing you to reinvest in productive marketing tactics.

Do you have a method for measuring the effect of your marketing?

Here are four tips for gathering the information you need to make wise marketing investment decisions.

Use a Database
Start by designing a database to keep track of individual marketing efforts and the leads and sales they generate. Make sure you include fields to track the dates of your campaigns, campaign descriptions, the number of leads generated and sales made. Once you have a central storage location for this information you will be able to make queries to glean the information you need to make wise marketing decisions.

Ask Questions
When you or your staff speaks with a prospect on the phone make sure you ask how they heard of your business; was it a referral or an ad in the local newspaper? It’s such simple way to gather valuable information many small business owners overlook it.

Be sure to ask your prospects how they heard of your business.
Make It Easy for Your Prospect to Help You Make it easy for your prospects to properly identify the marketing piece to which they respond. If you have multiple phone lines into your office you can easily accomplish this by assigning a unique phone number to individual marketing efforts. This way, you or a staff member can ask what number your prospect dialed or, if you have the right phone system you can look at the phone to see which line the call is on.

Data Entry Should Be Easy Too
Once you or a staff member have garnered the information you seek from your prospect, make it as easy as possible to have this information to be entered into your database system. If you employ a staff, make certain everyone is up to speed on your latest systems. Training is a must.

Move Your Marketing Forward
The idea is to gather as much information as you can about which marketing mechanisms generate the best (and worst) response, who is responding and why they chose to respond.

copy writing

To begin with use clear, concise, well-written copy that highlights the key feature and benefit of your product or service. You only have a small space in which to communicate your ideas on a page that is usually loaded with your competitors. So, if you can come up with something that sets your product/service above the rest then use that—but the key is to get to the prospect by letting him know you have the solution to his need, thus use a key benefit to him.
Below are some specific tips to help you create compelling ad text.

• Use keywords in ad copy.
Take a performing keyword from your ad group and include it in your ad text, especially in the title. If a user happens to use that keyword in his search, the keyword phrase will appear in bold font within your ad on Google.

• Create easy to read ads that have impact.
Give the reader a reason to click your ad. Use something that is different than the competitors on that page.

• Include discounts, prices and promotions –if applicable.
Ads don’t sell but they do create interest. When you can run specials or discounts that set you apart from competitors use them.

• Powerful call-to-action.
Call-to-action phrases include: Buy, Purchase, Call today, Order, Browse, Sign up, and Get a quote. Create urgency in your call to action – command the reader to do something.

• Select the right landing page (destination URL).
If you haven’t created a unique landing page for your ad then use the specific page on your website that has the information or product described in your ad. If users do not see what is promoted in your ad when they click your ad, they are liable to leave your website quickly.

• Test multiple ads in each ad group.
Experiment with different offers and call-to-action phrases to see what’s most effective for your advertising goals. The Google system automatically rotates ads within an ad group and shows the better-performing ad more often.

Jamie Sene
SmartMarketingGuys

Branding

Social networks reach an estimated 940 million people around the world, according to January 2010 research from InSites Consulting. Most are there for personal reasons, such as sending messages, looking at pictures, and posting and responding to status updates. But interactions involving information about products and services have proliferated as brands encourage online word-of-mouth.

Asked what source was most believable when it came to information found about brands on social networking sites, Internet users were most likely to favor their peers. But “the brand itself” came in a close second, far ahead of journalists, considered traditionally to be an objective source. Notably, users were much less trusting of marketers—a separate response from brands—and didn’t put much faith in a brand’s competitors either.

Opinions varied by geography, with respondents in Southern and Eastern Europe most trusting of consumer-based word-of-mouth and those in Asia and South America favoring the brand.

The research supports earlier data on trust in word-of-mouth from fellow consumers as well as the ability of brands to foster earned media through their own social network presences, which are also highly trusted.

InSites also found that, while brands were not the top presence that users became fans of, they made a respectable showing. Among those users that had become a fan of anything, 35% showed their support for brands.

Overall, 58% of respondents worldwide had become a fan of something, and 79% had become a member of social networking group.

Courtesy of The eMarkerter Daily

Search-Engine-Marketing

Generally speaking, what you write and who you target on your Google text ad is not only the first step in the process to capturing a lead or getting a sale, but perhaps the most important thing to get right in the process from click to customer.

Text ads need to be easy to read, have impact, and be compelling; those are basics elements of a text ad that words. But beyond that your ad should, ideally, jump out among the other ads on the same page that are competing with yours.

Sample Text Ad

Succeed with Marketing
Learn to Market like a Professional
Get Advice from Those Who Know!
www.smartmarketingguys.com

Components of a Text Ad:

• Headline: The first line of your ad acts as a link to your landing page (website page the text ad leads to). Headlines should be relevant to the keywords being searched; include one or more keywords in the headline.

• 2 lines of text: You have two lines to describe your product or service. These lines are limited as to the number of characters you can use. List product details or benefits prominently.

• Display URL: The last line (green) is for your website URL. This offers potential prospects a view of the website they will be visiting if they click on your ad.

• Landing Page (Destination URL: You should select a specific page (or create one) on your website that is designed to specifically promote the service or product your text ad refers to.

Press Release

The following are some basic marketing guidelines you should follow if you want your press releases to help your website organic rankings.

1. Relevant keywords in your press release are crucial. They need to be relevant to your website and should be words that have a good search volume. Use search terms (keywords and phrases) that your prospects and customers would use when searching for your services or products.

2. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to help you with keyword selection: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

3. Use Google’s Insight tool to give you an idea of search volume for your terms: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

4. Select two or three relevant terms and incorporate some of these keywords in your headline if possible. Keep the headline under 100 characters and put the more important keywords at the beginning of the headline.

5. A sub-headline is always a good idea to help elaborate on the headline—optimize with keywords also.

6. The first sentence of the first paragraph of the press release should clearly describe what is to follow in the rest of the release. Use keywords in the first sentence paragraph and throughout the release.

7. Search engines can identify some keywords being used too often throughout any Web page as Spam, e.g., “FREE”, “GUARANTEED”, “Act Now”, etc. A good guideline is not repeat keyword phrases more than 3 times for a release of about 250 words.

8. Search engines see approximately the first 300-500 words on a page. Ensure you include relevant key words within that scope.

9. You can check your press release for keyword density (the number of times a keyword or phrase appears in an article or press release or web page in relation to the total words in the document). Search engines use keyword density to determine the relevance a document. You can use this free tool to check your press release: http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/

Marketing is actually more essential today than it has ever been before, strictly because the market is bad. When you have a better market you will have more people reaching for your product or service. As the economy weakens, as the economy weakens, you will have less people fishing in that pool, so each person that you capture is much more important. It is harder to do and the way to do that is through marketing.

The most common mistake or the largest mistake that most companies will make during a downturn in the economy is that they cut back on their marketing, which is essentially the wrong thing to do. As the economy worsens, it is harder to get new clients, so what you need to do, is you actually need to market more and it is actually advantageous if you market more during a bad economy, because most people will back off which means your marketing becomes more effective. The clutters lessens, it is the time to pour coals on actually.