Introduction

The marketing and media landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, offering more opportunities and more challenges to advertisers. New technology such as interactive websites, blogs, podcasting, personalized URLs, and variable data printing (highly personalized direct mail) are reshaping the way we communicate with our target markets. But there’s still a place and a need for traditional media like newspaper, radio, and television.

The key is making them all work together in a coordinated, complementary, and cohesive way to effectively communicate a consistent message that supports your brand. That’s called integrated marketing communications.

Regardless of the media or tools we use to communicate with our customers, the basic principals of marketing communications still apply. Some of those include:

• know yourself (define your position and brand, know your strengths/weaknesses)
• know your market (your competition, potential for growth)
• know who you’re trying to reach (your target markets)
• know what you’re trying to accomplish (business/marketing/communication goals)
• reach out to your target markets where they live, work, and play (target your markets)
• engage them in a conversation so you can build relationships (be interactive)
• answer “What’s in it for me” by communicating from your customer’s perspective (give them benefits)
• use different ways to reach them at the same time (media and other tools)

We are all major consumers of marketing messages, so it’s familiar territory. But it’s a little more difficult when you’re on the other side of the fence, planning, creating, and executing marketing and advertising. So, I welcome your questions, comments, feedback, and opinions.

Discussion

Posted 04/11/2007 18:52:54 by Ken Pirok

How can I get some free or cheap advertising and PR? Is there a way to encourage the local paper to write about my business? Should I have a newsletter?

Posted 04/12/2007 18:44:22 by Travis

I read a book on press releases, but until today I wasn’t sure if a PDF would be appropriate for submissions, and I’m still unsure whether I need to use the proper notation when I go digital. Do you have a resource I could use for reference?

Posted 04/12/2007 22:33:33 by Katrina Olson (Host)

Thanks for the great questions. Here are some answers for you.

CHEAP ADVERTISING/PR
As to your first question about free or cheap advertising or PR, here are a few suggestions.

• news releases: Nearly every newspaper has a business announcements section for publishing new hires, employee certifications or completion of special training, awards and recognition, changes in location, etc.
• “expert articles”: Contact local business publications, clubs, and organizations to which you belong, or even the local newspaper about providing content in return for a byline. If they don’t have such a feature in their newsletter, suggest it and volunteer to write the first one.
• volunteer: Serve on a board, committee, or simply help out with a single event and encourage others in your company to do the same. Wear your company t-shirt or hat.
• community broadcast programming: Many TV and radio stations host community programs. These interview segments are usually tied to a specific, newsworthy event or program.
• cable TV announcements: Your community cable station may list announcements on their “rolling screen” for free if you’re a not-for-profit, or for a small charge for for-profits.
• seminars: Offer a free or low-cost seminar as a business development tool or offer your expertise to speak to clubs and organizations with members in your target market.
• networking: Attend business and community functions and mingle; have your business cards handy.
• direct mail: You don’t have to buy a list, get a bulk mail permit, and use a mailing house to do direct mail (although for mailings of over 1,000 I’d recommend it). You can build your own list, buy a chamber of commerce list, or use club/organization directories to get the word out. If you’re concerned about being able to follow up effectively, mail 50 or so per month. This also allows you to better manage costs.
• email/viral marketing: Ask your friends or clients to send a message about your business, service, or event to their friends
• bus signs: No, not those flashy exterior signs or painted buses, but flyers posted on the inside of the bus.
• posters/flyers: Local businesses, community centers, or libraries may permit you to post these for free. Again, these are more event-oriented.
• sidewalk chalk: If you’re marketing to college students, put it in chalk on the sidewalks. Students do it all the time for band appearances, club meetings, etc.
• banner trading: Do you have a website? Can you list companies or organizations who have compatible target markets with websites? Consider trading advertising banners with them.
• floats: Enter a float in your local July 4th, Christmas, or other parade. Entry fees are generally low and it can be a great team-building event for your employees and their families.
• sandwich boards & picketers: Hire some friends or college students to be seen in a high-visibility location with a brief message about your service or business.
• contests: Hold a “name the product” or other competition and invite the public to participate through the media, work through schools, or involve community organizations.
• sponsorships: Offer to sponsor an event and get the publicity associated with that event in return for providing your expertise.

NEWS COVERAGE

Want to get newspapers to feature your business? The best way to get an editor’s attention is through a well-conceived, well-written press release.

Editors receive a myriad of news releases daily, which they must sort through to determine newsworthiness. Survey after survey shows that the main reasons news releases do not get published are because they are not deemed newsworthy or are sloppily written, not using the proper form or grammar.

To make the editor’s job less painful, and to give your material a better chance of getting noticed and published, here are some guidelines to follow when writing a news release.

1. Make sure your topic is news and not advertising. Ask yourself, “If I was part of the publication’s general readership, would I care about this? Would I find it interesting? Would it affect me in any way?” If the answer to any of these questions is no, maybe you should consider doing an ad instead. News releases must be newsworthy.

2. News releases must be timely. Use your judgment. It’s not news if it happened so far in the past that interest has waned.

3. Write a news release in newspaper story form, using the inverted pyramid style. The first one or two paragraphs should include the most important facts and should answer who, what, when, where, and why. From there, paragraphs are written in descending order of importance. Look at articles in the publication to which you’d like to submit your news release to get an idea of what style the editor looks for.

4. Proper format is essential. News releases should:

• be typed and double spaced on 8 1/2” x 11” paper
• contain the name, address, and phone number of a contact person in case the editor wants further information
• contain a release date
• be short and concise, no more than two pages long
• have slug lines, ”more” on the bottom of any page that is not the last, and -30- or -# # #- at the bottom of them last page
• contain no grammatical, spelling, or typing errors

These days many more press releases are being emailed. An emailed press release should include:

• a headline that includes the company name
• a dateline (Champaign, IL, April 13, 2007) (XYZ Company announced. . .)
• contact information including a name, phone number, and an email address
• you may include a logo, but if a media outlet “picks up” your press release, they will likely not use it
• you do not have to put the usually required

Finally, you should submit your press release as a Microsoft Word document, or in some other commonly used word processing program. However, Microsoft Word is considered the standard.

NEWSLETTER

Finally, should you have a newsletter? Newsletters are a lot of work, but can reap big dividends.

Newsletters are great tool for keeping in touch with your customers or potential customers, sharing information in a “soft sell” setting, and establishing your expertise as an individual or a company. But even in the most capable hands, it’s a daunting task that requires a consistent, dedicated effort by someone with the time and inclination to make it happen on a regular basis. If you’re willing to make the commitment, and you have enough information that‘s interesting and relevant to your readers, go for it!

That said, there are also services that ”sell” newsletters. You can customize them with your personal information, select your content, and choose a format. A friend of mine who is a financial consultant uses a service to send out a very nice, very informative e-newsletter; he gets a report detailing how many hits each article gets. He’s very happy with the service which is provided by Forefield, Inc. (www.forefield.com). They specialize in the financial industry, but you should be able to find providers for your industry as well.

Posted 04/15/2007 21:17:26 by Andrew Timms

A) Do you have suggestions on which questions I should be asking myself when I am in the process of identifying my target audience? B) Once I have described my target audience in detail to myself, what steps do you recommend I use to test and be sure my assumptions are correct? C) Identification of a target audience does not, for me at least, automatically tell me where to find them and how to reach them with my message. Please offer some tips on this step. D) Thank you for making your years of experience available in this forum.

Posted 04/17/2007 10:50:58 by Elizabeth

When I’m trying to develop a message or messages for a promotion or fundraising campaign, how can I find out which ones my audience will relate to most effectively?

Posted 04/19/2007 00:08:56 by Katrina Olson (Host)

QUESTION: Do you have suggestions on which questions I should be asking myself when I am in the process of identifying my target audience?

ANSWER: When defining your target market, assuming your referring to individuals and not companies, start with the basics:

• age range
• level of education
• gender
• interests, hobbies
• profession
• marital status
• income
• children/no children

Then, dig a little deeper. If you have existing customers, look for commonalities in attitude, behavior, or preferences. Do they demand a high level of service or are they more concerned about price? Do the visit similar restaurants or retail stores? What does this say about them? Are they nature-lovers? Or do they prefer to vacation in luxury resorts? Try to get inside their heads and find out what makes them tick.

Posted 04/19/2007 00:11:50 by Katrina Olson (Host)

QUESTION: Once I have described my target audience in detail to myself, what steps do you recommend I use to test and be sure my assumptions are correct?

ANSWER: If you have existing customers, see if they fit the pattern. If you feel comfortable doing so, ask them questions. Send out an anonymous survey or create an online survey and email the link to your existing customers.

And while you’re at it, try to find out WHY they are your customers. What need of theirs are you meeting? What do they like best about your product, company, or service? Why did they choose you over the competition? What does it take to make them happy and are you doing it? Talk to them one on one or conduct a focus group. This will give you some valuable customer insights.

Posted 04/19/2007 00:13:37 by Katrina Olson (Host)

QUESTION: Identification of a target audience does not, for me at least, automatically tell me where to find them and how to reach them with my message. Please offer some tips on this step.

ANSWER: One of the first things you can do is ask your existing customers how they found out about you, especially if you want more of the same types of customers. But if you’re pursuing a new group of customers or you’ve introduced a new product or service that appeals to a different target market, you can buy media and programs that correspond with your demographic. And with more media choices than ever before, you can buy some highly targeted networks, stations, and programs. But media isn’t the only, or always the best answer. Especially if you don’t have a huge marketing budget.

Guerilla marketers search out their potential customers based on where they live, eat, work, and play. Go where they are. If they’re churchgoers, advertise in church programs. If they are commuters, use billboards in their neighborhood. If they attend the symphony, advertise in the symphony program. If they’re pet lovers, sponsor the Humane Society’s next fundraising event. Are they internet new hounds? Try to buy a regional banner on a news website or buy a banner on the local newspaper’s website. Are they HUGE Illini fans? Advertise in the sports programs. You get the picture.

Hope this answered your questions! Or at least got you thinking . . .

Posted 04/19/2007 00:16:17 by Katrina Olson (Host)

By the way, the Guerilla Marketing series by Jay Conrad Levinson is an excellent resource for small companies. And I believe the original Guerilla Marketing book is available online through the library at mymediamall.net. I think all you need is your library card number to log in. But you can call the library to find out for sure.

Posted 04/19/2007 00:39:59 by Katrina Olson (Host)

QUESTION: When I’m trying to develop a message or messages for a promotion or fundraising campaign, how can I find out which ones my audience will relate to most effectively?

ANSWER: Creative effective marketing messages starts with a thorough understanding of your audience; their needs, concerns, issues, motivations. Why do they give?

You may think it’s because they like animals, or they want to help women in transition, or they have a parent with cancer and that may be true. That may make them sympathetic to your cause, but what’s their deeper motivation for giving:

• Out of guilt
• To be liked
• To be appreciated
• To be right
• To feel important
• To feel needed
• Out of fear

Then write to and reinforce that motivation.

If you’re not sure, ask your current donors. They may not be able to identify these deeper motivations, but if you ask them to write a paragraph or participate in a focus group about why they give, you may be able to read between the lines.

When crafting your messages, especially if it’s a longer appeal, like a letter, there are a few specific issues you’ll need to address. For example:

• you need to illustrate the problem/need using support, statistics, or a by telling someones story
• you need to show how the problem can be solved or alleviated; offer hope
• you need to show, specifically, how your organization is helping solve the problem by talking about your past successes; prove what you’re doing is effective
• you need to overcome possible objections; eliminate their reasons/excuses for not giving
• you need to show that their money will be used wisely
• you need to be very specific about what you want them to do and give clear instructions for how to do it

Writing fundraising letters or any appeal asking for money is truly an art. I spend a week on fundraising in the Persuasive Writing class I teach at the U of I. The same principals I teach them about any persuasive writing apply:

*know your audience

*understand their motivations

*offer them benefits for doing what you’re asking them to do

*write in “you-view” (write from the reader’s perspective, not the “we/our” perspective

Hope this helps!

Posted 04/20/2007 23:37:57 by Katrina Olson (Host)

QUESTION: I read a book on press releases, but until today I wasn’t sure if a PDF would be appropriate for submissions, and I’m still unsure whether I need to use the proper notation when I go digital. Do you have a resource I could use for reference?

ANSWER: To get a definitive answer to your question about the proper format and guidelines for electronic press releases, I contacted Business Wire, an international commercial news wire service that’s used by is hundreds of thousands of companies and organizations worldwide to disseminate electronic press releases. They run the press releases on their website, www.businesswire.comand press releases are sent to other media outlets as well. There are similar companies including Market Wire, PR Newswire, and PR Web that offer similar services, and each may have their own guidelines. But these are the basics:

Your press release should include.

• information for a contact person including name, phone number, and although she didn’t say it was necessary, an email address.
• a headline that includes the company name
• a dateline (Champaign, IL, April 13, 2007) (XYZ Company announced today that . . .)
• you may include a logo, and they will use it on their site; however, if a media outlet “picks up” your press release, they may or may not choose to use it
• you do not have to put the usually required

Finally, you should submit your press release as a Microsoft Word document, or in some other commonly used word processing program. However, Microsoft Word is considered the standard. I recommend typing everything “flush left” as formatting often doesn’t “translate” well, even if you’re using Word (due to different fonts, tabs, etc.)

• You can attach a photo or other image as a .jpg file and you can even attach ”movie” files such as mpegs. They may or may not be used, but it doesn’t hurt to send them.
• You can still send press releases as PDFs using the standard format taught in most journalism or PR classes; but sending a Word file saves them the time and trouble of retyping it.

Of course, your press release should answer the 5 Ws in the first paragraph (who, what, when, why, where) followed by a more detailed explanation of the event, product, service or activity you’re writing about. The last paragraph should be a background statement about your company, product, or service. All copy should be written in third person.

For more information about writing press releases, see these links:

www.massmediadistribution.com/thingstoavoid.htm
www.massmediadistribution.com/essentialtips.htm
Good luck!

Posted 04/24/2007 16:10:59 by Melissa Records

Here at the library we regularly get patrons who are looking for market statistics specific to Champaign or Champaign County or East Central Illinois. Generally, people need these statistics because they are either planning a business or looking to expand their business. Can you recommend some good free and/or fee-based resources to find market data on a local level. We do have some resources here at the library, but I am interested in any recommendations that you may have. Thanks.

Posted 04/25/2007 16:09:07 by Ann

I have a business where I practice counseling, bodywork and vestibular balance coordination (brain) exercises. I combine the brain exercises and bodywork (massage) as one area, and brain exercises and psychotherapy as another area. I have advertised the two services separately, I do not see clients for all three services. But I do all and in the same office space. I wonder if I should do a brochure describing all the three services. You talked about developing a message and philosophically the modalities are consistent.

Posted 04/26/2007 10:58:23 by Katrina Olson (Host)

Ann,

You might consider developing a brochure that describes each of your services, but under an umbrella theme that incorporates the idea of “healing body and mind” and the importance of a holistic approach.

The other option would be to develop individual pieces, each describing a specific service. The brochures should be similar in look, feel, design, and format — what we call a series or “family” of brochure. Then, you can ”cross market” to your existing clients, giving them brochures for the services they aren’t currently using.

The important thing is to think about your target markets and if they want or need to know about all the services. If you have very different target markets for each service, you should definitely develop separate pieces. If you’re not sure, perhaps you should do both

Finally, think about how you‘re going to use the pieces, as handouts, at fairs and festivals, mailing, and that should guide your decision as well.

Posted 04/26/2007 11:27:58 by Katrina Olson (Host)

Melissa,

Excellent question about where to find market statistics specific to Champaign or Champaign County or East Central Illinois.

It’s also a pretty broad question. As an “information specialist”, you know there are many sources, but it depends on what type of information you‘re looking for, the industry your working in, what demographics you’re interested in, and the geographic area.

It just so happens that there was a women who attended my ”Business Know-How” marketing seminar at the library last week who operates an information research company called Precision Research Link. I’m sure she wouldn‘t mind if I shared her website address which is www.prl-online.com.

Also, patrons can contact Ken Piork of the Pirok Financial Group via his website, www.kenpirok.com. Not only is one of his areas of expertise helping start-ups, he has research resources listed on his website. Ken was also one of the presenters for the library‘s “Business Know-How” seminar series.

Basically, if a patron can’t find what they’re looking for at the library, or by searching online, they would probably benefit by working with a consultant who specializes in ”information searching”.

I hope this answers your question.