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Ask Mark Coker your PR questions
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Thanks for all the input... I know that took a lot of time and you made some great points. I`ve forwarded the comments to the wonderful lady who wrote it. Again, you`ve given me and so many others such valuable information!
I can`t thank you enough!
Marcy
What a GREAT thread!
I have a question for you. Do you have any hints for coming up with a strong ANGLE for the press release? I`ll give you my specific example. My partner and I created a company in 2002 to help people develop a clever elevator pitch that they can deliver in just 15 Seconds. We call the site 15SecondPitch.com.
We can think of quite a few angles that might be of interest to people.
1.) You can post your pitch and search for other people`s pitches on our site so it does have a great social networking component.
2.) We also created 15SecondPitch business cards that have your pitch and picture on them
3.) We have a free tool on our site called "The Pitch Wizard" which allows people to create their pitch easily by answering four simple questions
4.) This tool may be of interest to the VC community, PR community and entertainment community. VC`s get pitched all the time so it would be of benefit to them to educate the "pitchers" to give them the "15SecondPitch" and save everyone a lot of time. Same thing with the PR community. For entertainment, a good pitch is absolutely essential. If you don`t grab their attention in the first 15 seconds, you lose them for good.
5.) My ultimate goal would be for every person on the planet to feel good and empowered about what he/she does for a living. Having a great pitch, whether you are a janitor or a CEO, is a big part of feeling confident and proud about what you do and sharing that with the world.
One of my goals is to empower my clients to take their custom 15SecondPitch boldly into the corporate realm or entrepreneurial realm or Mompreneuer realm and be happy and successful. I`m not sure if that has any P.R. potential, but it`s that desire that keeps me going when things get tough. We also want the P.R. to support our revenue model which at the moment is focused on delivering training sessions to professional orgs, doing private one-on-one training and selling biz cards. In the future we will be selling online training.
Any thoughts and ideas would be most appreciated!
laura
Turns out we were thinking about doing one of the points you mention above, so your post is giving us additional validation that it is a good idea!! I`ll post the press release for all to see and comment on, when we get it done!!
I appreciate you taking the time to think about this and post here!
laura
Great information from both of you! At this point, there is only one key point I would add to Mark`s note. When developing any kind of press release, it`s important to remember one question in the back of your head - Why is the audience/reporter going to care about this? This will really help you narrow down story ideas and pitches so you can focus on the most important issues to promote.
Thanks!
Melanie
I hope it`s not too late to ask a question.
Our company is in development of a new LOB that we plan on launching in Jan. `07. When we started Home Pro SSG, Inc. (we are down the road from you Mark....Branham Lane in San Jose) everything was viral because of the B2B aspect. We are running with five clients and the phone is ringing. The question is the new LOB is a B2C service that is going to revolutionize the 100+billion dollar home improvement industry. We want to first dominate the Greater Bay Area market before we do a national roll out. We do not want to attract too much national attention for fear of competitors entering at an awkward moment for us. But we want to strategically condition the market for our entry. We don`t have PR counsel at this time because of the price but we don`t want to damage our rollout with missteps.
Any advice?
Hi Mark,
Congratulations on landing your first client!
I`ve been in business 13 years this October and now have about 8 employees, and I`ve experimented with nearly every method of new business generation. The number one generator of new business for my agency is current or past clients. We`ve got some clients (vps of marketing or CEOs) who`ve been working with us continually for 10 or more years - they take us to each new company they go to work for, because they know they can trust us to do a good job and give them great value for their PR expenditures. And they recommend us to their peers, so that their peers call us already prequalified and ready to hire us, rather than contacting us as one of 15 agencies in an RFP. So step one, with that first client you have, you need to satisfy them like there`s no tomorrow, because they`re the most important client you`ll ever have. You want them to find your firm so strategically important to the success of their business that they`d be foolish to ever stop working with you. You want them to recommend your firm to their friends. You want your client contacts there to hire you again when they move to their next company.
My agency started with one client (Storage Dimensions) 13 years ago, and relationships from that one client account for, directly or indirectly, 40% of our business today. Relationshps from my second client (McAfee), account for 30-40%. So bottom line, make that first client your world and the world will beat a path to your door. Give them great value always, be honest with them 100% of the time, and your ticket is written.
Other marketing ideas... Definitely use Google adwords or Yahoo`s Overture for pay-per-click advertising. Considering how little it costs and the results you`ll get, you`d be nuts not to advertise your business there.
You didn`t mention how you structure client relationships, but this is one other secret I`d propose... Try to structure your relationships as ongoing relationships with monthly budget targets tied to actual activities and hours spent, as opposed to projects. That way, you can develop long term relationships with your clients, provide them continuous valuable services, and know that you`ve got reliable cash flow coming in each month. If you`re just trying to survive project to project, it`s a tough life.
Beyond that, watch your pennies. The fastest way to go out of business is to bring in less than you`re spending. Although it may sound trite, I`m sure seasoned entrepreneurs on this forum would agree. Here`s a personal example... when I started my agency, I signed a month to month office agreement, as opposed to a long term lease, and I rented all my furniture. Why? Because I wanted to limit my expenditures and limit my liabilities. As my business grew and became established and successful, I bought my furniture and locked in longer term leases.
Good luck with your business! Feel free to post additional questions.
Best wishes,
Mark
I haven`t seen a mention of PR Web in this thread. PR Web is a great tool for getting your press releases distributed at a very low cost. You can post your releases for free or you can pay as little as $80 for additional distribution.
I recommend paying for their $80 or $120 package. You`ll get incredibly deep distribution all across the web and with all the main search engines. It`s a great way to get links back to your web site and increase your overall web presence.
They`ve got a press release template you can reference if you`re not sure how to format your release. And you get reports showing the number of times your release was read, picked up and printed.
A press release I posted on PR Web for $100 got my business covered in the print edition of Entrepreneur Magazine. So it`s not just online PR. And, you can`t beat that for cost-effective marketing!
Check it out at http://www.prweb.com</A>
Great to see you providing some key PR insights. Here`s my situation. I (and two co-authors) have our first book coming out in July and it is being published by Penguin. They believe the book will be a huge seller in the biz category and we are entertaining the possibility of signing on with a PR Agency focused on business books. My question to you is all about the questions...what type of questions would you ask a few PR agencies in order to assess if they are a good fit? I`ve got a pretty good understanding of PR but have not hired a PR agency in the past.
Congrats on the book deal with Penguin.
Questions:
1. Ask for references of past clients, and speak with those clients. Do they feel the PR agency made a big difference for them? Who at the PR agency worked on their project? Did they get good value? How did they measure the value? What were the results? Would they hire them again?
2. Ask the agency how they do their fees. What can you expect for a given budget?
3. Ask the agency for a couple references from book reviewers. Ask the book reviewers why they enjoy working with the PR agency or the PR person. You want to hear that they view the PR person as a trusted resource, that the PR person understands their needs and doesn`t waste their time with inappropriate pitches. If this is the answer you receive, you know that you`ve found a good PR partner.
4. Ask the PR agencies for a proposal for your book project. What process will they follow to pitch your book to reviewers.
5. How does the agency deal with bloggers? Can they point to recent sucesses where they integrated bloggers into a book PR campaign?
6. What is their track record with radio tours, press tours and blog tours?
Good luck!
Mark
I second a Congrats on your book deal! Mark has some great points. One other thing to keep in mind is that no matter who you hire to help you with PR, you will still need to be involved with your publicity efforts.
By working as a team with your publicist, you`ll be able to provide him/her with your own newsworthy story angles, event ideas, partnership possibilities, and more to help increase sales and awareness. You are the person with the most passion about your products and services, and it`s important to be able to share this passion with media members directly or via your publicist.
All the best!
Melanie
Thanks much for the congrats and the great advice. I feel better prepared to begin our research.
Have a great week.
Regards,
Russ