Monthly Archives: September 2009

If you’re Niche, you’re Blessed

Posted on September 9, 2009 | Leave a comment

Was talking with a friend of mine who is a musician. He has a new CD coming out, and he’s looking to promote it. (I’ll let you know more when he’s ready to unveil.)

Lee Harvey Oswald Band

We discussed the various platforms open to him to promote his new stuff – iTunes, commercial beds, befriending DJs… and the more I thought about it, the more I thought how tough it is promoting a product in a glutted market.

It’s the same with any product where you’re trying to gain mass appeal. How do you be something for absolutely everyone? The answer: You don’t. You concentrate on the niche you’re in. The people interested in what you specialize in will be very interested in what makes you different. As long as your niche is large enough to sustain you, and you can keep that core audience happy, you win.

Think of all the bands trying to sell “music.” There are literally millions of bands out there trying to become famous on their own these days. Just go to MySpace and you’ll see what I mean: Uncounted profile pages with poor HTML and a media player that instantly blasts you with their latest “hit.” And these are just the yahoos. There are more with skilled marketing behind them, some even with label support… and of course none of this in any way reflects the music itself. My buddy’s stuff is actually very good, but he is competing in a field where everyone thinks their stuff is very good.

When there are that many people selling the same thing, with the only difference being aesthetic, how do you get people to hear you before they’ve decided to shut you out?

In my opinion, it’s by distinguishing what makes your music different. When you let people know from the get-go that you do “synthpop,” you’re going to turn away a lot of metal heads very quickly. Which made me think the metal guys have it really hard, because it’s hard to be the next Manowar when you’re surrounded by the other 600 Manowars too.

In short, if you’re part of the smaller crowd, you have an easier time getting to new customers. There’s a smaller pool, but because they’re not messaged to as often or as aggressively, they’re more open.

Think about if every magazine sold itself as just a “magazine.” Why not? There are millions of magazines sold every year, suggesting millions of people willing to buy them. So as long as they’re just buying magazines, why not write ad copy like:

“Buy Ladies Home Journal – It’s a Magazine!”
“If you’re looking for a magazine, Playboy certainly is one!”
“Check out this month’s High Times – it’s several articles, printed on paper, and bound with staples!”

This would be flat out stupid, because each magazine appeals to a specific audience. They aren’t trying to capitalize on the overall magazine-buying “market,” they’re appealing to those people interested in their specific content. Magazines, music, electronics, light bulbs – anything that’s marketed needs to know what their market segment needs. And I don’t know how likely anyone is to create a product that can appeal to every one. Claritas’ PRISM list has 67 different segments – if you know a way to appeal to each and everyone one, you’re  a better man than I, Gunga Din. (That, or you’re Coca-Cola.)

Trying to get the entire world to buy your product would be brilliant – but is it likely to happen? When you appeal to the lowest common denominator, don’t you also leave out all sorts of details about what makes you different and special?

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing

Press Release Death – Why they don’t work, and how they should

Posted on September 7, 2009 | 2 Comments

Press releases are designed to get the attention of journalists, and recently, bloggers and search engines. They are supposed to be a means to an end – getting someone to write about your company or product.

These days, press releases and optimization seems to have become their own end. Press releases no longer boil down a company’s event or product to its bare essentials so a journalist has something to write about. Instead they are written as the best-case scenario of what the resulting article would read like: Praise for the product, praise for the company, and an “onward, Christian soldier” quote from the owner or CEO of the business.

Using a press release in this way, as a naked promotional tool, doesn’t elicit anyone to write about the story. Having submitted these for clients in the past, I know what a rarified thing it is to get calls from journalists to follow up on these stories.

Of course, I have done these to help with search marketing, not PR. The focus of an SEO release is quite different. Rather than getting a story to be widely written about, the SEO release is simply a way to get the links in the story posted on as many websites as possible, quickly. This too is only moderately effective, since bloggers still won’t care to provide a forum for press release spam. The best hope is for a spam blog, which auto-posts anything with the right keywords in it, to pick it up. Of course, sites like that have little in the way of PageRank, or readers, and only exist to get web searchers to find them and hopefully click on one of the paid search ads they host.

So press releases are noise that no one hears. Journalists toss them out, bloggers ignore them, and readers don’t care.

Why is this? Often because press releases are a sure-fire way of defending one’s work. They can be shown to a manager with report on the release’s pick-ups and reads. Both of these stats will be much lower than they should be, but compared to the last five that were sent out they look like average stats. If you’ve only ever gotten 12 pick-ups for a press release, people reading your reports won’t have any frame of reference to tell if this is a good number or a bad one.

Social Media and Press Releases

Traditionally, press releases did not have this degree of fluff to them. They are supposed to be concise, have contact information, and give journalists and bloggers a head’s up. If they are interested in the story, they should then contact you for more details. Also, if you know a journalist interested in said story, you then call them up and let them know it is coming.

This is where social media becomes such a useful tool to public relations, as it lets you keep in constant contact with the journalists you can pitch stories to. If you make friends with these journalists, and chat or help them out on stories when it isn’t necessarily time to promote a client, you’re greasing the rails for the time when you really need them. Journalists are always looking for a story, but a friend helps a friend when they can.

Press release companies are also offering their own solution for social media, namely releases with links, videos, pictures… things that catch the eye and make you feel like you’re doing something with this whole “social media thing,” when really you’re only adding creative elements that are currently en vogue. These types of releases are sold on their ability to “facilitate” conversations, which in fact rarely happens. The ability leave comments on a YouTube video does facilitate conversation – knowing people who are interested in what you are saying make them happen.

These kinds of releases are also usually several hundred dollars more than the standard release. This comes with no guarantee, of course, that there will be cross-talk from readers on the social media applications you list in it. It is a fire-and-forget tactic for social media, something that by definition requires your constant attention.

What you should you do instead

First, write a short release. Stick to the details. You want to give people enough of the story to whet their appetite, and get back in contact with you for the rest of the story. Don’t try to write the story for them – it just makes more work for them to cut out your spin and then write their own.

Second, if you have a lot of media you want to share, create a landing page or a microsite with the rest of your information. There you can easily provide your videos, forums, Twitter feed, etc. What’s more, you won’t have to pay extra for a social media optimized press release. This is also a far better option if you’re releasing for SEO attention, as you can optimize the page however you need to, and all of the linking will come into this page, and not the company you sent the release through.

Provide relevant information on your story – quotations, financial information and relevant stories, whether they are necessarily about you or not. Usually press releases contain only what the PR account executive wants the journalist to see. But a journalist doing their job is going to go out and research this information on their own anyway if they decide to cover your story. All you do is hamper their ability to do their job, which will not bode well with them.

Finally have a list of people you wish would write about your story in hand before you submit the release. Spend time reading the work of people who write about your industry, and leave comments on their blog, or DM them, or even call them up. Creating a network of writers to cover your story will help the odds of their actually doing it.

The easiest way to summarize this is to know why you’re submitting a press release: To get journalists to cover you, to get inbound links, to create relationships with existing or potential customers, or to be able to say you did “something” when there’s a need to promote. All but the last one are laudable goals, and each has its own strategy you’ll need to research before you begin.

The last one, though, just means you need to be fired and stop bothering the rest of us.

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Posted in Blogging, Interactive Marketing, Public Relations, Search, Social Media, Social Networking

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Clients and Agency Marketing

Posted on September 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

If you want your product to succeed, you can’t just hire an ad agency and forget about it. Your agency is good, but less so if they’re working for you instead of with you.

I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s book “Free Prize Inside” lately, and like all devotees of his anti interruption-based marketing philosophy, I’m loving it. What I’m interested in specifically is his thesis that everyone in the organization is (or should think of themselves as being) involved in product marketing.

With a majority of my experience coming from agency-level campaigns, I see Godin’s thesis from a different perspective. We were never part of the company, we were hired by the company. Not sharing any offices with them, we were almost always cut off from their product development. Usually, we were given a product to promote with a quick, “go make me money, kid.”

Other times, the client would be entirely available to us, taking an active role in the campaign. While we still weren’t involved in their product development, we could at least get the right information about what made their product stand out on its own, which we could then use as the message.

My point here is that if you are going to hire an agency to do your marketing, you still need to get involved in the campaign. This doesn’t mean calling every day to harangue the Account Executive about what’s being done right now, but to offer your own suggestions as to what makes your product work, and being open to their interpretations and analysis as well.

Hiring an advertising agency is not something you should do in order to get the sticky business of promotions out of your hair. Your entire company is involved in your marketing.

And when you hire an agency, they must become part of your company.

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing

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Brand Monitoring for Brand Champions

Posted on September 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

There’s a lot of talk about brand monitoring these days. While there doesn’t feel like a lot you can control when it comes to social media marketing, checking to see what people are saying about you is fairly easy to do and report on. It’s pretty easy to look for people talking smack about you, or spreading mis-informed opinions about what you do or who you are.

Tweet Up Nametag

But what about the people who like you? While I’m sure people keep a tally of who’s saying something nice about them, there’s rarely a plan for dealing with them. Perhaps because the concept of brand monitoring is born out of putting out fires. If someone says they like a company or product, there’s no fire to put out. Usually, “thanks for the comment!” is all kind words seem to merit.

This is a waste. People who take a moment to say something nice about your company could be made into full-time brand champions. With encouragement and appreciation, they could be the kinds of people you dream of having out there, ones who comment on other people’s blogs or tweet about how brilliant what you do is.

Just as you should have a plan for dealing with the negative comments, you should know how you’re going to deal with your potential new friends as well. Here is what you should try:

  1. When you find positive mentions of your brand, reply back as quickly as you can. Thank them for their praise, and be sure to comment directly on what they said. For instance, if someone writes, “Dionigi’s Pizzas are the best!” respond with, “Glad to hear it! What do you like on yours?”
  2. After that, if you can, try to send a direct message to the author, or an e-mail if it’s available to you. Send a private thanks, and ask them in further detail what they liked. If someone at a party said to you, “You’re with [your company]? I love you guys!” you wouldn’t be shy about asking why, would you?
  3. Maintain a list of these fans that you’ve been able to get in touch with directly. Obviously, if you try to write back to a Twitter user about why they liked your brand and they don’t respond, that’s a dead lead. Move on. But if you have a lengthy exchange with one, get their name and put it in the list as someone to contact later. Do this for bloggers, Tweets, Facebook friends, reviewers on Yelp, forums – if they have a name and you’ve been able to establish direct communication, log them and where you left things off.
  4. With that list of friends in hand, go back to them occasionally and offer them know of “inside” tips and specials. This is particularly effective if you’re responding to a blogger. Bloggers love inside scoops, something they can be the first to report. On occasion, when you do have something you’re going to announce or offer, let them know first. Give them a chance to be the hero and spread the word for you first. It builds incredible good will with them, and frankly they may have the juice to publicize your story better than your press release will.
  5. When your friends repeatedly don’t bite at your offers of specials, info, coupons, etc., take them off your list. They aren’t doing anything for you after all, and in all likelihood you’re just bugging them. You definitely don’t want to do that, lest they start posting about how much they used to love you, but now you’ve turned into a pain in the ass.
  6. If you’re a local business, have a party for your list of fans. Rent a room at a bar or restaurant and have them all over for food and drinks. Tweet-ups are great for this. (Stuart Foster has a great piece on how to organize Tweet-ups on Mashable.) Be sure they know it’s a show of your appreciation of them, and do NOT use it as a time to get them all “on board” with some new messaging you’re really hoping they’ll evangelize about. That is a turn-off. Remember, these people aren’t employees – they’re your customers, and they’re there because they took the time to tell others how great you are. This is simply something you should do to grease the rails with them.

Think of all of this as a volunteer affiliate program – you don’t have to pay these people to post about how great you are, but you do need to keep them happy. Some will be so into what you do that they’re happy to help. You may even want to hire some of these people eventually if they are effective marketers and bloggers who have, of their own volition, drank your Kool-Aid.

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Posted in Interactive Marketing, Public Relations, Social Networking

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The Intangibly Tangible Quality of Magazines

Posted on September 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

Businessweek.com is reporting today a number of magazines that did not meet their Rate Base for the first half of 2009. This is the number of issues a magazine says they will be able to sell, and is used to lure advertisers. If you buy a page of Playboy for your upcoming movie, for instance, they will guarantee you a minimum of, say, 50,000 issues sold. By extension, that should mean 50,000 eyes eventually seeing your ad.

Vogue Germany

It isn’t too surprising that magazines faltered in this economy. Given the death rattles everyone hears newspapers making you’d almost have to wonder why this hasn’t come up before. Maybe it’s just so obvious no one is talking about it. But the more I think about what magazines offer, I have to believe they stand a better chance of surviving both the economy and the Internet than newsprint. Here’s my thinking:

Newspapers take a major hit because of Google News or Yahoo! News – the immediate information people need is quickly available, any time they want it. While the information itself (the trusted kind, anyway,) usually comes from these print newspapers, people don’t need to pay for it. Why get a daily subscription to your local daily when everything you need is available on line? Nostalgia? Nostalgia won’t keep anyone’s business afloat. The core product of a newspaper is information – and they just can’t monopolize that like they once could.

Magazines, on the other hand, don’t offer immediacy – they offer something else. They have journalism, but they also offer stories, fashion, photography… things that, somehow, just work better on a printed page. I could call up the pictures in this month’s Vogue and see exactly what I would see in the print edition. There’s just something more pleasing about thumbing through the real thing than going to the site.

It’s an aesthetic difference that on line just cannot match. 10 years from now, the tactile sense of flipping through a magazine on your bed will still outstrip the technological utility of scanning through a magazine on a Kindle.

It’s the same thing as going to a football game instead of staying home and watching it on television. Why wouldn’t you want to stay at home? The snacks are cheaper, the seats are more comfortable, the bathroom is cleaner, the camera crew makes it possible for you to see things you could never see from the stands…

The answer is you go to the real game for the experience of it. Magazines similarly sell an experience, and flipping through pages offers you the chance to, in essence, “be there.” On line digital reproductions, no matter how well done, will always just be reproductions. No doubt, magazines will decline a great deal in popularity.

We aren’t likely to see the boom they had in the mid-nineties when any self-proclaimed publisher could throw together half of an idea, staple it together and start hawking for subscriptions. Music magazines are seeing this in a deadly way, as more and more of them go out of business. Once upon a time, they could simply writing about performers and new albums, and use it as fodder for articles and photo spreads. As music becomes more diverse, and bands do their own interaction with fans through social media, the reason for music rags disappears.

Magazines will surely need to change their strategy if they hope to survive. The basic concept of any successful product is that it gives customers something they need, or think they need, and can’t get elsewhere. The weak magazines won’t see this and will disappear, and the smart ones will evolve and make themselves indispensable again.

You don’t need to be Claire Booth Luce to see that.

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Posted in Advertising