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Tag: PR

  • It’s Not Too Late . . . Five Things You Can Do To Accelerate Your Holiday Promotions

    It’s Not Too Late . . . Five Things You Can Do To Accelerate Your Holiday Promotions

    As marketers, we’ve been trained to think ahead . . . way ahead. We’re used to thinking about New Year’s Eve marketing in June, Halloween promotions in March, Summer beach product releases in December, and so on. With retailers edging the calendar ever earlier for holiday promotions, the pressure is even stronger to start early and get those tinsel-oriented top lines working even earlier. If you haven’t planned your December holiday promotions by now, you’re so far behind the 8-ball, you may feel it’s impossible to recover. Here are five things you can do quickly enough to get you back in the game and make the holiday contribute to your Q4 results:

    1. Crash the boards and pull together a real zinger of a holiday offer for one product – something so outrageous, no one can believe it. Make sure it’s tied to another product or service that’s been a little lagging this year, and use the popular part as a loss leader to drive additional sales. “Get a FREE 10lb bag of coffee ($35 value) when you buy our new jet-powered coffee maker for just $19.95.” Or, flip it – “Get our new jet-powered coffee maker FREE when you buy 10 lbs of our signature coffee” – this last falls under the rubric, “Give Away the Razors and Sell The Blades”. Either way, craft an enticing full image e-mail and shoot it to all your top buyers, with a intro line that says something along the lines of “Your Invited To Receive the Next ‘It’ Gift . . .” to boost your open rate.
    2. Craft a full-page ad for the largest newspaper in each of your major markets, saying that in an effort to revive the non-commercial spirit of the holiday, you will not be running any ads during the holidays, and dare your competitors to do the same . . . with the right tone and imagery, this will be a winner this year in light of the Black Friday backlash we’re seeing among customers of major retailers and service providers.
    3. Craft a survey for your best customers with a participation incentive that’s irresistible – enter a drawing for a chance to win a new Corvette, or something on that order of magnitude that relates to the products or services you offer – or winner can use the chance to donate the equivalent value to the charity of the winner’s choice. Keep the survey relatively short but make the questions reveal those really crucial details about your customers that you need to move forward next year. Launch the survey on social media, and have your PR team pitch the story – leading with the charity angle – to all the major editors and bloggers in your sphere of influence. Not only will it get lots of attention, the charity angle will undoubtedly boost participation and you’ll get a full sample set of responses on a critical piece of data you need next year. Win for everyone.
    4. Donate a startlingly large number of your product or coupons for a free service you offer to our remaining troops still deployed in Afghanistan and surrounding countries who aren’t coming home for the holidays. 25,000 pairs of sneakers or $20 super strong waterproof phone covers sent to our troops with pics of them saying thanks for the holiday gift. Or if that’s not feasible, send a coupon for the product or service to their families here at home – they can use the support as well, and will appreciate the help.
    5. Hold a contest to see which philanthropist can give away the largest amount of your product or service in 30 days. Pick the largest corporation or foundation in each of your markets and challenge them to see who can buy and donate the largest cash value of your products or services in those in need in the next thirty days, with the deadline being Christmas eve. Big PR push on this one to get the word out in time, and social media can help this one a great deal – put together a short video daring the wealthy to help those around them using your products or services.

    These are all designed to move your product or service at a furious rate for a short period of time – they’re not necessarily designed to do that profitably, but most lead to additional sales of other items as a byproduct of the enhanced awareness of your brand, and that will likely keep you in the black in spite of the losing proposition of the initial marketing initiative. You’ve gotta spend to make, and these idea may spawn a few of your own that can be implemented quickly and effectively in your particular situation.

    Write me and let me know if any of these appeal to you and if they were effective for your company. I’d love to hear from you . . .

  • Research Is A Cost-Effective PR Tool

    Research Is A Cost-Effective PR Tool

    All of Granite Partners’ consulting engagements involves some sort of primary research, either as part of a SWOT analysis to assess market position, or customer interviews or surveys, or investigations into new applications for existing products. But there are other uses for empirical research – one of those is for PR media exposure.

    If your company does field research, product development, manufacturing or offers a service, you might be able to use your own internal corporate data, and publish your findings as they apply to the general public, and promote those findings to increase awareness of your company.

    Generally, for a business to receive media coverage, they need to craft and offer a story that is timely, urgent, relatable and relevant. Under the right circumstances, research findings can be all of that and more. If you’ve invented a new chemical formula for use in your products, there is likely extensive research on that new formula regarding it’s safety, it’s physical properties, it’s applications, it’s effects when reacting with other substances, and a host of other attributes. If you look at those results in a slightly different way, you might find that there is news in that innovation. If you were to find that the new formulation enhanced lubrication between plastic parts, for example, or had other solvent properties when used against marker or crayons, or some specific stain, that product could be marketed to a whole new audience. Your research might be promoted as something like “New Formula Removes Crayon Like Magic – new Kid-Safe Formula”.

    Taken further, if you are a service company, say a cleaning service, and you regularly poll or survey customers after they’ve received their service. Typically, there would be questions regarding the customer’s satisfaction with the job, what they liked and didn’t like, did the operators do a good job, did they arrive on time, etc. It would be very easy to add a couple of questions to that survey regarding the use of organic cleaning products, favorite fragrance used in the cleaning process, how the customer gauged the “level” of clean achieved, and others. In aggregate, that data could easily be used in an eye-catching headline “Only 35% of Consumers Prefer Organic Housecleaning Products – Majority Feel Organics Offer Reduced Effectiveness” and the subsequent release copy could go into detail about how customers don’t show a preference for organic cleaners citing that they don’t clean as well, based on your own company’s primary research. It’s not a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article, it’s not a scientifically-vetted study, but it’s honest, it has actual customer data included, and it shows a preference that might surprise readers – and what it really does is create a platform for you to gain some exposure for your company as a thought leader in the industry.

    We’ve found in our experience with clients that primary research always pays for itself in terms of marketing insight, and some data has revealed trends, shifts in perception, and new applications that have yielded millions in sales and new growth for the companies that initially commissioned the research. Forward-thinking companies usually understand the value of the data we uncover, and the most innovative among them use that data for multiple purposes, including those described above. When weighed against all the additional uses for the facts that the data reveals, research is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools you have in your toolbox. Take a few minutes one afternoon and review your internal corporate research data on your products or services or customer’s buying behavior, and see how many attention-grabbing headlines and stories you can wrench out of it – you might be surprised at the resources for media coverage you’ll find hidden there!

    If you liked this post and would like to learn more about this and similar topics, be sure and pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • Are You Prepared for a Communications Crisis?

    Are You Prepared for a Communications Crisis?

    In the general hierarchy of life’s priority, when you think of crisis, the marketing department is probably not the place to call. But if you’re a business that’s facing a natural disaster, a tampering case involving your products, an on-the-job accident or other damaging event, that call to the marketing department is one of the first and most important. But if they aren’t prepared to handle a communications crisis, it may not help.

    Is your company prepared for a scramble drill in communicating effectively to convey the proper information, using the right tone and messaging to quell customer fears, or creditor agitation or anxiety, and deal with intrusive media inquiries? If not, now might be a good time to craft a plan, get it reviewed and vetted by all other departments for accuracy and feasibility and get it put in place – before the crisis occurs.

    This plan should include the following:

    1) List of personnel involved: Who is the designated spokesman for your company, who comes next if that person is not available? Create the hierarchy so that the job tumbles downhill logically. The person needs to be credible, well-spoken, and to understand the goals and ideals of the company thoroughly so that any statement made to the local or national media is believable and makes sense.

    2) Who internally should be contacted: List of people will vary depending upon the nature of the crisis, but at bare minimum, the CEO, CFO, VP Operations, General Manager, VP Marketing, and in-house Counsel should be included on the list. Your plant security company should be informed immediately, and if the crisis involves injury or death of staff or contractors on the site, the local police department, local first responder services if needed, and local utilities that service the site, including Hazmat services if required.

    3) What is your position on the incident? Is it an accident, was it intentional sabotage, is your company responsible in any way, what is your plan going forward? From a public relations standpoint, clarity and direct honesty is always the best policy. The media is tremendously resourceful, and they will find out their version of the truth. Better to give them yours and it turns into a non-story, than to stonewall and let them start digging on their own.

    4) Provide only the facts you’re sure of. If you don’t know for certain, simply tell the media that you’re investigating and will keep them informed as things develop in that investigation. Make sure in-house counsel or your of-counsel attorney reviews any written statements for accuracy, or anything that legally obligate your company to do anything in future.

    5) Position Your Company As Compassionate, Caring, Concerned. No matter how simple or harmless the situation appears, in today’s environment anyone can potentially be construed as a victim of something. Make sure your company is seen as one that cares about all it’s employees and contractors, or an civilians who may have inadvertently been involved in the incident. Spread the net of concern wide, but make no direct promises, express your concern for the well-being of all, and stress that no matter the cause or level of responsibility your company ultimately takes in the final analysis, they will take great pains to assist and care for anyone affected by the incident.

    The real trick is to have a speedy, comprehensive and clear position, and to release it to the media as early as possible. If media representatives sense that you’re holding back or hiding something in any way, they will see it as their duty to get to “the truth” as they see it. Fast response heads this reaction off at the pass, returns control to your hands, and makes it appear that you know the drill and are being cooperative.

    Each crisis is different, and each calls for a custom-tailored response. But if you have a plan of action, centralized contact information, a chain of command and a prepared spokesman, you can contain most incidents and concentrate on damage control to preserve your company’s reputation and good name.

    If you found this valuable and would like to read more, subscribe to this blog and get weekly updates right in your mailbox, and be sure to pick up a copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” for your professional library –