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Archives for 2009

Using Press Releases to Convey Ideas

Do you use press releases in your business? If you do, or if you ever have before, what feedback did you get from it? Were you receptive of the response or activity that you were hoping to see?

Many online businesses use press releases as a communications tool for their readers. They announce products, convey information, cover developing news stories and even give themselves a little public relations action. They are generally written in response to anything that is pertinent to the company, or, the topic will somehow link back to the company. If used properly, press releases can be a very powerful marketing and communications tool that can drive high traffic to the blog or site and create a buzz of valuable information. The whole idea of the press release is to highlight a specific focal point of information and convey it in a way to the readers that will leave them with a message and a particular thought pattern. In other words, the information provided in press releases have the propensity to make a company become a household name.

Which type of companies benefit from press releases? Is there a such thing as a “useless” press release? What’s the difference in an advertisement and a press release?

Companies that benefit greatly from press releases are those that have a constant flow and change of information. The company doesn’t have to be necessarily large one or a Fortune 500, but one that is progressive and fluid in their growth and development. What can make a press release sound stale or boring are those that repeat the same information in the same way. For instance, if within a five-year time span the Vice-President of Marketing is changing offices again and is on their third executive, the reader might not necessarily feel comfortable with that many personnel changes within a short period of time. Their uneasiness could translate to a drop in sales if they feel uncomfortable in spending. Any internal company issues don’t convey clearly to the public and it is a challenge to try to make it be so. To keep the press release from sounding like a report on Human Resources matters, highlight in the press release just why this third candidate is going to significantly impact the company’s marketing efforts. Focus on the executive’s proposed marketing ideas and changes that he will bring to the corporation. This takes the focus off of anything negative and still allows you to write a good, solid press release that is enjoyable to read.

Press releases are great to share, but then there are some that are pointless and really do not add any value. This is obvious when within the release there is nothing really significant that is reported, the information is not customised for the company, or, the information is readily available anywhere on the internet. In other words, what was the point of the release? You must give your readers something to “take away” from the press release to really feel that it has done something for the them. Don’t focus so much on issuing a press release simply for the sake of it, but ensure that you are engaging and enlightening the readers. They will remember and it and be back for more.

Advertising is not a press release and a press release is not advertising. Why not? Advertising is showcasing a product and enticing the audience to buy while press releases are sharing information. Sure, within a press release you can entice the audience to buy, but it is done so subtly that the reader doesn’t think he’s been “sold.” Carefully word press releases so that the reader feels in control and can decide what to do next. Don’t ask for a sale. Don’t provide overt links. Don’t use too much marketing jargon or hype that is reserved for sales pages. Maximize the use of the press release by capitalizing on the information that you are already sharing with the readers. Get your point across and let the audience absorb it all in.

In using press releases as a part of your company’s marketing efforts, the bottom line is to concentrate on the customer. Build into the ideas that your customers are seeking without being too extreme. Eventually, your traffic will begin to show what’s working and what is not working in your efforts to attract readers to your site. What press releases have you published that have been profitable for you? What would you change about the ones that you are currently publishing?

5 Ways to Position Your Brand as Eco-Friendly

eco-friendly-brand-mugBy positioning your brand as eco-friendly, you’re accomplishing two goals.  First, you’re getting on board with a popular trend, and second, you’re helping to save the planet.  That’s a good combination!  But what steps can a company take to position a brand as being green?  Take a look at the suggestions below to get started.  It’s easier than you might think to be able to tell consumers your brand is green.

1. Your Company has to be Green Internally First

The first step to repositioning your brand as eco-friendly is to make changes inside.  Your customers aren’t going to believe messages claiming your brand is green if your employees don’t even recycle.  Instead, make sure that your employees are with you in your efforts. 

  • Encourage recycling.
  • Use recycled products.
  • Encourage telecommuting.
  • Reduce travel by using more video conferencing and webinars.
  • Choose to work with suppliers, distributors, and business partners who are eco-friendly.
  • Initiate internal programs to encourage and reward eco-friendly living.
  • Appoint employee advocates to lead the effort.
  • Pursue ways to reduce electricity consumption in your office.
  • And so on. [Read more…] about 5 Ways to Position Your Brand as Eco-Friendly

Energizing the Employer Brand

QuikTripStop the presses! Readers are expressing their opinions on the Fortune list of ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ — and the range of comments is a reminder that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Though some folks express enthusiasm for their listed companies, others said something like ‘How could you put Company X on this list???’ (And often enough, different people are saying opposite things about the same company.) Another big response category is ‘What about my company?’ or the variant, ‘What about Famous Company X?’

Well, as promised, today’s episode will be notes from my tour of the Careers sites for companies from the list, focusing on ways to energize the employer brand. But the comment-fest at Fortune is irresistible reading—and offers some useful insights–so I’ll post a follow-up soon.

Starting off: I set a goal to visit the Careers sites for half the 100 companies. Didn’t make it! But I did get through quite a few, and have decided that 25 is the new 50. Based on the adventure so far, I have three overview observations:

  • Too much video is . . . too much. After the first dozen companies, I felt like I was channel-surfing instead of web-surfing. It takes the visitor time to view each video, and soon you’re feeling like a passive audience rather than an active applicant. So–now that website video is no longer novel–look for fresh, meaningful ways to use it, rather than just putting up obligatory testimonials. (Chesapeake Energy sets a good example.)
  • Location of access to the Careers page from the home page and menus is important. When you see a prominent link in the top or side navigation, the message is ‘jobs/employees are important to us.’ When you have to search out a tiny text link at the very bottom of the page, you get the opposite impression. (There can be challenges on this point for some companies. I’ll talk about integrating the Careers page with other site components in a future post.)
  • Message fragmentation is the problem I found most frequently in sites that don’t energize. If the visitor has to click on ten different links to see ten different kinds of information, the energy deflates rapidly. So if you need lots of pages, keep the core message focused, make the navigation very clear, and give visitors a logical path rather than just a pile of links. (QuikTrip and Arnold & Porter both do a good job on this, in different ways.)
Umpqua
Stew Leonard
Zappos

Wrapping up: Here is ‘Cynthia’s List of 5 Interesting Company Career Sites.’ Out of the sites I visited in this blitz, here are the ones I fell for. They are good examples, I think, of creating positive energy for the employer brand.

  • Umpqua Bank: Their whole site is so charming that I considered moving so I could bank with them. The Careers page highlights unusual perks, such as paid time for volunteer work.
  • Stew Leonard’s: The Careers page for this small grocery chain made me laugh and cry. (Really.) The use of snapshot-style photos to illustrate each of the ‘Ten Reasons”’ creates an emotional connection, making the company’s benefits seem personal rather than abstract.
  • Starbucks: Although I’m a major Starbucks enthusiast, I think their Careers site could be better. But the approach of creating a ‘Career Center’ works well from an energizing perspective. The site is visually active and information-rich, with a good brand fit.
  • Zappos.com: In a class by itself! This quirky site makes the list not just for the Core Values Frog (though that’s a hard one to top) but also for clever use of social media.
  • Alcon Laboratories: I was determined to find a big company with an energetic Careers site, and it wasn’t easy. But Alcon finally won me over with a bold, blog-style site that steps outside the typical corporate look without losing its dignity.

And FYI: If you’re wondering how I picked my visits—I went to every company with a Q in the name; three companies I really like; three I really don’t like; several I thought would be fun; and a random selection of law firms, construction companies, communication giants, etc.

Websites, Branding and Splash Pages

enter_site_buttonToday, I’d like to get your opinion on splash pages on websites.  Personally, I don’t like them.  While they certainly add value to pornographic websites or websites that advertise alcohol and there is a need to prequalify people before they enter the corresponding site, I can’t think of many other instances where I find them to be helpful. 

Frankly, I have very little time, and I’d imagine most consumers feel the same way.  I certainly don’t have time to watch a flash animated screen play a marketing message while I wait for the “Click Here to Enter” button to appear.  And I’m a marketer!  If I feel that way, what must non-marketer consumers think? [Read more…] about Websites, Branding and Splash Pages

Shaping the Employer Brand

Recap: Google has slipped from number one (two years running) to a mere number four on Fortune’s list of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For.’ Why? Partly because companies one through three have gotten ahead of them. But also (according to Fortune) because Google has eliminated some ‘frills’–most notably, afternoon tea and the annual all-expenses-paid ski trip.

Fortune

Since few companies on earth provide afternoon tea to supplement their all-day, all-free offerings of fabulous food—it may be hard to see why this change would be a blow to Google’s reputation. But as we know, perception trumps reality, and the important point is this: Once a company has become famous as an endless fountain of goodies, closing the spigot even a little can disrupt that image. (To see what actually got cut at Google, check out ‘Frugal Google.’)

The Fortune rankings are determined primarily by questionnaires sent to employees (sampling at least 400 per company), and there’s no detailed breakout of who-said-what about a particular company. So a bit of sleuthing was required to get a better picture of Google’s slight downhill slide. The big surprise (to me anyway): Although Google was number one on the overall list in 2007 and 2008, it didn’t even show up as one of the top companies on the ‘perks’ indexed in the Fortune rankings. The perks evaluated include basic benefits like health care, as well as extras such as child care, sabbaticals, telecommuting–and Google doesn’t rank high on any of them.

So number-one Google wasn’t actually lavishing its employees with exceptional benefits. Nope. The benefits were certainly good enough, but the real perk was ambiance—an idyllic work environment that made employees feel special, valued, and carefully cared for. To get a full picture of this widely publicized mystique, check out the in-depth exploration Fortune provided when Google topped the list in 2007.

Google

Yet you won’t find a lot of hype over at the Google Careers site. Google did not (and doesn’t) depict its company as paradise, just as a really nice place to work. The ‘Top Ten Reasons to Work at Google‘ page stresses opportunities to create, participate, and achieve—and although it does mention free food, that’s number 10.

Which brings us to today’s first takeaways: (1) remember that the Careers site sets up expectations, but (2) don’t forget that visitors bring expectations with them. Most of last year’s 770,000 applicants for 350 jobs at Google (yes, really) probably came to the Careers site with a pre-formed opinion about what it would be like to work for the company. Do visitors to your site have a pre-formed opinion? If so, what is it?

And if visitors don’t have an idea already in mind, then the Careers site will create that all-important first impression …

Cisco

The final takeaway: perks provide a significant opportunity to shape the employer brand. They demonstrate the value placed on employees by the company—and that’s the message to keep in mind. So if you showcase benefits, present them as truly integral to the company culture, not just competitive lures or business obligations. For a very interesting example, take a look at how Cisco (number five on the Fortune list) weaves its employer brand into a far-reaching corporate vision.

Which Social Media Platform is Right For Your Business?

Is it Twitter? Facebook? What about MySpace or Plaxo? It’s hard to say that one, (if only one and if any ONE) is right to use for your business. Why? Because every business is different and every business owner is different. Deciding what works well with your business is relative, again, to the business.

Social media marketing is a hot topic these days for most all businesses. Showcasing your wares and services is pretty exciting on some sites, and if it is properly strategized, can go beyond what seems like “work” and can be a lot of fun. A lot of blogger journalists are finding that having a voice in the blog-o-sphere empowers them and can make an impact with readers.  Corporate businesses often hire bloggers to write in a marketing style voice that will attract readers to their site(s) by providing rich, relevant content.

Social sites help businesses and individuals get “discovered.” A lot of the conversations and groups that exist on these platforms are useless or in pursuit of spam action, however, quality leads are the goal of the serious user. Many of the platforms also have a somewhat detailed registration and maintenance landing page, often discouraging spammers from signing up. But, ignoring the spam clutter and useless requests, there are users and companies who take the sites very seriously and work hard to build solid networks.  

Twitter is by far one of my favorite networking sites and can be a powerful networking tool. It’s designed as a micro-blogging tool to give quick, dense updates on news and developments within your niche area, on anything. How can businesses benefit from the Twitter site? One idea is to post links to good, quality content on your site or other sites to share with your followers. If you provide good content and good links, half of your marketing job is done. Take great care to provide good links and good information since most of Twitter readers are limited on time (who isn’t?) and really don’t want to waste their time.

At one time, I really thought that Facebook was for social networking for friends and light acquaintances only. How wrong was I? Since I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve made some very good connections and am poised to present to a local business organization as a result of it. More than just “hi, how are you”, Facebook is a powerful platform for finding those that niche with you. In other words, you can network and build networks of people and companies who embrace the same things that you do, have the same business goals that you do and are in pursuit of the same types of business developments that you are.

LinkedIn is another professional platform tool that your business can use to really expand and make an impact in the online world. Connections are the term that LinkedIn uses to qualify their members, and members can request to be in a network or to request to have someone of interest join their network. LinkedIn has a process design that is quite sophisticated and removes most of the spam that can clog up a site. They require members to take the time to flesh out their profiles and to be a thorough as possible in order to make good connections. Herein is the key. Good connections are essential to the LinkedIn member’s success, and with careful implementation, can be quite profitable for the member.

So which platform is right for your business? How do you know if it’s right for your business? Mack Collier at SearchEngineGuide.com wrote this post about deciding just that. I didn’t really agree with everything that he had to say, but that is my point. Without the platforms to voice opinions and ideas, there would be many boring blog reads! However, knowing where and in which direction you’d like to take the media contacts is important in determining in which direction you will go.

The goal of any writer is to provide information to the reader. If you are an individual business owner or building a business, you would undoubtedly benefit from these three and from the numerous many more. If you are a corporate entity or manage one, again, they could all benefit you. There really is no magic or special formula when it comes to social media networking. It works when it worked right and it doesn’t work when it’s not worked right. Period. Use social media platforms in your business, no matter what the business is and what the platform is. A lot of people may not agree with me on this, but customers, readers, contributors or whatever they’re pegged do not classify themselves as one or the other. Treat them as buyers and act like they’re buyers. When you do this, you reap the rewards of having addressed buyers. Why should there be any less?

Which platform does your business use? Is one really better than the other or more effective than the other? What do you think?