Preparing for a Media Interview

At some point in your career the phone will ring or you will get an email from a reporter requesting an interview for an upcoming article. Don't panic! This is a wonderful opportunity for you and your company.  Just remember to gather some information and this should be a positive experience.

Be sure to ask some questions of your own first. Find out who the reporter is and the topic and objective of the article. This will help you determine if this is a good fit for you.

Next, find out the type of story. Is this a product piece, an industry wrap-up or trend article. Try to think about how you can add value.  Does your company have the best product in the market to showcase in this article? Be objective here and use this time to help promote it and show how it relates to the market and trends.

This can be accomplished by developing some message points. In order to successfully deliver your message in the interview you need to determine what the message is. Think about what your product brings to the market and what you want people to know or remember of it. Condense this into two or three concise one to two sentence statements. These are your message points.

During the interview, weave these message points into your interview answers. You can use a technique called bridging. This is where you answer the given question and segue into your message point. An example is "yes that is true, but you should know..." This will help you to take control of the interview and make it worthwhile for you and the reporter. Be sure to support your message points with an interesting story or fact and you will have a terrific interview experience.

Last but not least, find out when the interview will air or appear. You will want to watch or see a copy of the article.

Website Development is Not Just Another Pretty Site

During the website development process keep search engine ranking in mind. It is important to incorporate appropriate triggers on your site, i.e. calls to action, lead capturing tools, online forms, professionally written content and customer engagement features such as blogs and social media integration.

Be sure to establish social media goals and articulate how they will align with your overall brand, marketing and public relations goals. Will this include content development such as blog posts, case studies, white papers, webinars, etc.? You need to decide what will drive prospects to your sales funnel. If you choose to go this route you will need to pay attention to SEO keywords to improve your search engine rankings. Your website will be raising brand awareness to increase brand recognition and online influence. Thus creating loyal website visitors and boosting community awareness and engagement.

Lastly, creating metrics to measure the goals by tracking URL shares, clicks and conversions that move through the various social media sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube) to your website is very important. It will drive brand awareness and increase prospects.

So while you are developing your new website remember search engine ranking. It is vital to the success of your company and brand.

Case Studies - An Added Benefit to Marketing and Sales

Case studies are a wonderful way to help new clients and prospects see that you have worked on projects similar to their needs. It also demonstrates your knowledge of your client/prospect's business and establishes your reputation as a problem solver.

Case studies are made up of three parts:

1.  A situation or problem
2. Solution
3. Outcome and Results

They establish your reputation as a problem solver, are a powerful advertisement and are extremely cost-effective. Another added benefit is that it establishes your company as a thought-leader and can help increase your mailing list when shared through various social media outlets.

Here is a sample of a case study that I have done.

If you need help creating case studies for your business contact me today at mschemetow@gmail.com.

Press Releases Can Help Improve your Search Engine Ranking

A compelling, thought-provoking press release can do wonders for your search engine ranking. It will increase your positive online presence and highlight important news or special events surrounding your business.

Press releases can be distributed to thousands of news websites and reporters via a "news wire." My recommendation would be PRWeb. Your press release will be picked up by various news agencies which results in passive distribution.

It is important that your press release be news-worthy and interesting. Some examples would be a free educational webinar, attendance at an industry trade show, a new product launch or a staff member appointment or achievement. Another area to consider is community contribution and teaming up with a local or national non-profit.

When writing your press release be sure to write an attention-grabbing, accurate headline and include the most important details in the first paragraph. Reporters are over-worked and may only scan your release. Be sure to include numbers if applicable to support any claims and watch your spelling and grammar. Include a quote from a company executive or spokesperson to lend a human voice and remember to add contact information and a link to your website.

Press releases are an important element that should not be overlooked in search engine marketing.

Effective Email Marketing is Easy

Email is the distribution system of the Internet and it is easy and inexpensive to use.  Whether it is utilized to find new clients or communicate with your current clients; if done effectively it can help grow your bottom line. 

When creating an email keep in mind the importance of creating value for your reader. Steer clear of over-selling your services otherwise your email will be relegated to the spam file. Give your reader relevant information that strikes an emotional accord with them. Also make your headlines powerful to draw your potential reader into your email. Once again relevancy is important, as well as a headline that is news worthy and stokes the reader's curiosity. Remember to keep the headline short, personable and actionable.

Be sure to use a targeted list that is segmented. This way your relevant and engaging message will go to the people who want to read it. If not, you will have many people searching for the unsubscribe link.

One last item is frequency; once a month, once a week? It depends on your audience. You don't want to over send communication to your list because it can be construed as spam.

A third party supplier can help you with customizing an email that will get results. Just remember to target, segment and make it relevant. Happy emailing!

How to Measure Social Media Impact

You are posting on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter and pinning on Pinterest but how is this affecting your sales conversions? Let's take a look at how to measure social media impact.

Before you do anything else you need to establish social media goals. Determine how social media will align with your overall brand, marketing, public relations and sales goals. This will grow a positive online community and following that engages with your company/brand. It will provide an active flow of information between you and your customers and will increase the brand recognition in the online space. Objectives need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. Raising brand awareness to increase brand recognition and online influence, creating loyal website visitors and boosting community awareness and engagement are important. An example of this would be a need to drive website traffic to increase website conversions using engaging content.

Next you need to create metrics to measure the goals. You can track URL shares, clicks and conversions that move through the various social media sites listed on your website, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and You Tube using Google Analytics.  It will also be important to track what visitors do once they end up on the website. You need to measure what pages and products are viewed and whether a sales conversion takes place.  A suggested way to accomplish this is to apply specific coupon codes to each social media site. From there you can measure where the engagement is and how it is affecting sales.

Now you need to continually monitor  the metrics on a daily basis in order to see how the social media engagement is progressing.  Through daily reports you will be able to determine what is working and what isn’t.  You can use these reports to determine what needs to changed, adjusted or improved.

With careful planning, relevant content and constant monitoring social media can play an integral role in the sales effort.

Webinars: A Staple of Content Marketing

Webinars are a valuable piece in a content marketing strategy. Time-consuming; yes but the rewards can be amazing. Webinars with targeted, relevant content can generate qualified leads for your business development efforts and it can lead to other types of content like blog posts, white papers, etc.

The key to success is to create content that interests your target market. For example an e-commerce company would find a webinar on the best ways to target users in the customer lifecycle interesting and usable in their day-to-day operations; whereas other industries might not. This type of webinar could lead to blog posts on how email has gained a place in the modern digital and direct marketers' plans. It could also lead to a white paper on how the collection of new email addresses is vital to the growth of an email database. The opportunities are endless.

Topic is very important. If it doesn't interest your target marketing no one is going to waste time listening to it. Be sure to outline the deliverables and the value that will be obtained by attending. In the case of my customer lifecycle webinar example your deliverables could look something like this:

·         Discover how to send successful email campaigns by prioritizing quality not quantity when building your email list

·         Identify useful sources for capturing email addresses

·         Learn how to effectively encourage users to register for mailings

·         Understand how to collect the right data with the right permission

When promoting your webinar, steer clear of the sales pitch. This should be an educational approach that establishes your company as an industry leader. But it is a good idea to have your sales team on board. The webinars I have created were delivered by the sales staff with them engaging in conversations with participants during the Q & A portion.

In closing, webinars are an important part of a content marketing strategy. Remember to select a topic that resonates with your target market, make sure the content is valuable and steer away from the sales pitch. If you do all of this you will gain valuable qualified leads.