Marketing & PR Checklist

May 21, 2013 Leave a comment

checklistDevelop a quality, attractive website and keep it updated.

Create a blog.

Approach other blogs that are in your field.

Use the various social media platforms.  Engage with your audience.

Start a Youtube channel.

Shoot short visually interesting videos to share on the various social media platforms.

Offer giveaways

Hold contests.

Launch a targeted media relations campaign.

Do some type of daily marketing outreach to create a buzz around your designs and your brand and encourage others to spread the word.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Define Your Message To Define Your Brand

November 27, 2012 Leave a comment

One of your biggest challenges can be to succinctly define your business, your message and your target market.  Although business owners and entrepreneurs know what they do, what service they offer or what product they sell, it’s a select few that can explain the central idea behind their business.  Keep in mind that what you do doesn’t necessarily define your business message.  A number of people can run similar businesses and each could define it differently.  Whether you run a spa, a law practice, a film company or a fashion line, when it comes to effectively branding and marketing your company, the message behind your business can be as important as the business itself. But defining your message and then successfully taking that message to the public, is generally not as simple as it sounds.  It can take time, brainstorming and soul searching to understand what your message is and learn how to effectively communicate it to the public.

Try this exercise; write a brief description of your business. Now, in a separate paragraph write a brief description defining your message.  Don’t get lost in the message part of the exercise.  Think of your message as a brief mission statement that helps define the reason or reasons behind your business.  What does your business offer?  What problems does it solve?  What does it bring to your customers or clients?  In this part of the exercise you don’t want to explain what your business is, but what it offers.   Now read both of your descriptions aloud.  Is there a true intrinsic connection between the two paragraphs you’ve written?  Do you see how your message can help build a bridge between your business and your target market, customers or audience?

Doing this brief exercise can help give you a clear vision of what it is you do, what you offer, and how to present it.  It can also help clarify your goals and what you want to accomplish.

The answers aren’t always obvious. It may take some time and some soul searching. But it’s important that your audience, clients, and target market realize that you are not just selling a product or a service, but that there is a message behind it.  You need to understand that part of your business before launching a media relations campaign or writing that first press release.  It is the message that will define your marketing and PR campaign.  It will be your message that drives clients, patients or customers to come to you instead of your competitor.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Black, Leyl Master. “4 Tools to Enhance Brand Engagement on Facebook.” Photo. Mashable. 10 May 2012. 26 Nov 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/05/10/facebook-marketing-tools/&gt;

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Using Your PR to Supercharge Your Marketing

August 1, 2012 Leave a comment

There are myriad ways your press and media can be utilized.  It’s an integral part of the process and one that I can’t emphasize enough.  This is an area where most people, including PR professionals, stumble.  Too many people look only for the immediate results that a magazine article, radio interview, or TV segment can bring.  In their simplistic equation, if a story brings in clients, sells products, or, at the very least brings in inquiries from prospective clients, it was a success.  If it did not, it was a failure.  Yet the truth is that a story, interview  or media placement that doesn’t bring in immediate response can in fact be  invaluable.  It’s only a failure when it’s not worked. There are countless ways in which you can effectively utilize your articles or TV segments.  This media can be like gold if utilized properly.  But this is where you really have to do both leg work and homework.  This is the one area where, even if you have hired a media relations firm, unless they understand this process of using your PR in your overall marketing program, you can be on your own.

Most firms will place you in the media and use your media appearances to interest other media outlets.  But, unless they’re truly savvy, don’t rely on a media relations firm to fully maximize the various ways that your media can help your business or career grow.  Many don’t see that as their job.  In many ways they’re right, their objective is to secure you media and to implement a successful campaign.  A knowledgeable PR professional will help you maximize your media, but often it’s your job to be inventive and creative and to effectively utilize your media in as many ways as possible.  How?  The following is a list of various ways to effectively utilize your media, study it, add to it, and come up with your own ideas.

 1. Media Begets Media

Use your TV and radio appearances and magazine and newspaper articles to interest other media.  Remember, media begets media.  Copy the article, video, or audio tape and send it out when the media requests further information on you.  Update your biography to include your most recent media appearances.  When writing or talking to the media, let them know about other segments or articles you have appeared in.

2. Display, Display- Utilize Online Marketing

Keep copies of articles displayed in your office or framed on your walls.  Don’t hide your media.  Also consider making copies of TV or radio interviews to show to your clients, customers or patients, as well as to your prospective clients and customers.  Display your press.  You will be perceived differently.  Showing your media also helps to stimulate word of mouth.  People love to tell their friends that they are seeing or working with a “celebrity.”

3. Use The Media In Your Marketing

Mention your media in your ads, flyers, newsletters, and brochures.  Review your articles and interviews, and look for any particularly impressive quotes about you or your business that you can highlight in your ads or marketing.

If you have a staff or employees, teach them to use the media you have been featured in their pitches or conversations to both clients, and prospective clients.  Teach your employees to utilize your media.  If they are talking to a prospective client, patient, or customer, it never hurts to have them mention that you, your product, or service were featured in a magazine or TV program.  Work with them; come up with ways to weave your media appearances into their conversations and discussions.

So there are several ways your media can help your marketing.  Have fun, be creative with it.  The more creative you are, the more successful you’ll be.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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How To Stand Out In a World of Dot.com Gerbils

April 16, 2012 Leave a comment

The internet has not only drastically changed industries, such as music, media and film, it has changed marketing forever.  Let me restate that, it is changing marketing on an ongoing basis.  How we send and receive information is in a constant state of flux.  There is no final destination; no point of arrival, there is only a constant ever evolving journey.   The not-so-long-ago lonesome trails of the net are now overly congested and traffic is bumper-to-bumper.

This is true not only of the number of web sites themselves but of the proliferation of web and dot-com advertisements. The amount has reached critical mass.  Not only has how we receive our information changing from PCs and Macs to pads and smart phones, but the amount of information that is flowing to us seems to be growing exponentionally.

The problem is the more information we receive, the less we actually register.  Every day we are bombarded with emails, pop ups, banners, etc.  It’s bad enough that we’re assaulted online; the offline world offers little escape.  From sponsorship of college football bowl games, to billboard ads, to stickers on produce, companies are trying any and every advertising and marketing avenue available to lure customers to their sites.

The sheer volume is so overwhelming that most of us are left with little more than a memory of countless dot-com companies that offer something – we’re just not sure what.  From traditional ads and commercials, to PR and media relations campaigns, to email marketing and social media campaigns, companies are trying any and everything to get your attention.

In real time the internet has shot from toddler to grown-up overnight, and the marketing strategies of even one or two years ago will no longer suffice.  So, where does that leave the entrepreneur who is looking to successfully market his or her online business?  Advertising, when done adeptly and consistently, is essential, but these days it can only take an internet company so far. To truly establish a company in the public eye, it’s imperative at some point for the message to take that defining, and validating leap from an ad that precedes the evening news to the story featured on the news.

Whether a company’s objective is to obtain more funding or attract more consumers to its site, there is nothing as validating and legitimizing as a well-placed print piece or TV segment.  The trouble is that not that many years ago, garnering Internet-oriented press was relatively easy.  Remember all of those articles and TV segments heralding the emergence of MySpace?   Stories about the launching of new IPOs, teen-aged wunderkinds who became overnight billionaires, and the very novelty of it all commanded reams of print as well as hours of TV and radio coverage. The wanna be Amazon.coms of the world were featured in every magazine and newspaper and on every TV and radio station.

Well, these days not only are consumers inundated with dot.com information, so is the media, and launching a successful media relations campaign is a bit tougher than it once was.  Still, when it comes to launching and implementing a successful marketing campaign for your online company a strategic mix of traditional PR and social media is your best bet.  As to the hows; I’ll be covering that in my follow up article.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

PETERD. “Fish.” Photo. SEOBOOK. 17 Oct 2011. 15 Apr 2012. <http://www.seobook.com/web-publishing-strategies-help-you-stand-out-competition&gt;

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Hospitals, PR & Media Training

March 3, 2012 Leave a comment

When it comes to deciding on what physician, medical center or hospital to choose, finding the right one can be a daunting task for most patients.  The same is true for deciding on what medical procedures and modalities to choose.  Most patients and laypeople find the majority of the health and medical information from the news.  Whether this is for the good or the bad, would be a whole different article, but this is how the information world works.  On the media’s side health and medical stories are a part of their bread and butter.  Just about every magazine, newspaper and TV news show covers medical stories.  The newest breakthroughs, treatments, studies are all featured in the news.

The marketing job of every hospital and medical center is to have its physicians, departments and stories featured in the media.  Being featured as a news story offers the credibility, validation and trust factor that only media relations can offer.  What hospitals have in their favor is the amount of different stories they can offer.  When working with a hospital we generally begin by deciding if there are particular departments, procedures or physicians that they initially want to focus on.  If so those become are starting points.

The luxury that a hospital has is the ability to switch from one story and specialty to the next.  For example, an initial public relations campaign can be launched to feature new procedures in cardiology; after a month or so the focus can then shift to oncology, next stories on internal medicine can be presented to the media.  Each department can be highlighted and each different approach offers the media new angles and media stories to cover.  In this way the media bulls-eye becomes much bigger and a hospital’s chances of landing coverage in radio, TV, or print are vastly improved.

If you are launching a PR campaign for your hospital, the one thing that you want to ensure is that once you land media coverage, whoever is going to be doing the interview is prepared.  There is nothing more depressing than not taking full advantage of a media story.  Remember, particularly when it comes to TV, producers are looking for a physician who can not only deliver information, but can also keep the viewers interested.  This does not mean that physicians need to be entertainers, but it does mean that they have to be fully versed in their topic, as well as conversational, upbeat and personable.  Nothing turns a producer (and the viewing audience) off more than a medical expert who stares at his or her feet and drones on about studies and statistics in a monotone voice.  That is a sure fire way to assure that the media won’t be calling you up for a follow up story.  That is why media training for hospitals and physicians is imperative.

A powerful media story can not only bring in new patients, and build the hospital’s brand and credibility in the marketplace; it can also bring in funding.   You want to present the hospital in the best possible light.  You owe it to the media and the public, but you also owe it to the physicians and the institution.  To do so you not only need an impactful message, but a prepared, articulate messenger.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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The (Remarkably Successful) Marketing of Doom and Gloom

February 28, 2012 Leave a comment

We are constantly fed heavy doses of doom, gloom and predictions of Armageddon.  It’s true that we have enormous issues and problems that we daily have to deal with on a personal, social and planetary level.  Wars, hunger, disease… I could come up with a pretty formidable list that would make the most optimistic among us cringe.  The media loves bad news because pain, horror, shock and drama sell.  As the old media adage goes: if it bleeds, it leads.

But does this perspective and outlook really define life as we know it.  Are we truly all going to hell in a hand basket with no upsides?

Let’s look a bit more deeply.  Since 1900, the life span has doubled.   Average per capita income worldwide has tripled. Technical developments in the field of medicine have offered new ways of viewing the body and its cells, greatly improving the ability to diagnosis.  Antibiotics were discovered; and new vaccines, drugs, and therapies developed.  Computerization of health and medical research has enhanced the study of disease and health hazards. New surgical techniques have been developed including transplants and keyhole surgery.

Programs of population-wide vaccinations resulted in the eradication of smallpox; elimination of polio in parts of the world and control of measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and other infectious diseases in the US and other parts of the world.

Safer workplaces have resulted in a reduction of approximately 40% in the rate of fatal occupational injuries.  There are countless other statistics that could be added to the list of how things have improved in such areas as technology, transportation, communication, agriculture.  Whereas we have a long way to go in the area of human rights, we’ve made amazing strides in the areas of women’s rights, children’s rights and minority rights.

We actually have quite a bit to be thankful for.  The trouble is we get lost in our own personal struggles and when it comes to the big picture, most PR, media relations and marketing campaigns focus on what we lack and what’s wrong in our lives.  

A look at political campaigns gives us a great window into how things work.  The majority of the messages are negative, divisive.

The sad fact is that stories based on fear, want and lack not only up TV ratings and magazine readerships, they also get us to buy, so that’s where most marketing dollars go.   If that’s primarily what we pay attention to then that becomes our focus. The negative becomes the prism through which we see our lives.  So, our job should be to broaden our focus.  Yes, there certainly is more than enough doom and gloom out there and there is a heck of a lot of work to be done and obstacles to overcome, but that’s simply one aspect of life.  If you only put the negative into the equation, that’s all you’re going to end up with.

So, I won’t end there; according to a recent article, since the start of the twentieth century infant mortality has decreased 90%, and maternal mortality has decreased 99%, and poverty has declined more in the last 50 years than it did in the previous 500 years. That is pretty cool stuff.  

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Thomas Jr., Landon. “Trader head in hands.” Photo. The New York Times. 10 Aug. 2010. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/38635990/Armageddon_Sells_Permabears_Now_Becoming_Cool&gt;

SnoShuu. “Be Grateful.” Photo. New Hampshire News. 18 Nov. 2010. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://www.nhpr.org/post/socrates-exchange-what-gratitude&gt;

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Surviving (and thriving) In The Music Industry

February 22, 2012 Leave a comment

The music industry has made such a complete 180 in the past few years, that it’s enough to make you dizzy.  The days of A&R reps finding a new band, recording them and putting them through the star making machine is pretty much a thing of the past. The mid to late ‘80s was one of the heydays in the music industry.  From The Police and Motley Crue to the GoGo’s and the Chili Peppers (originally Tony Flow and the Majestic Masters of Mayhem) bands were signed and snatched up out of the local rock scenes.  Those were the days of powerful large labels and upstart independent labels.  Most bands sparked for a minute or two and faded away, some are still on top today.  But the difference is that back then there were labels that were willing to take a chance on an artist or a band, produce, market and distribute their product.  That was also the heyday of MTV.  A video in strong rotation could launch a band.  Touring was still important, but bands could do so more sparingly.  Radio and video exposure could help keep an act in the spotlight.  CDs were sold directly to the consumer.  Artists actually made money by selling their music.

Fast forward to 2012.  The world I just described is as anachronistic as that of the era of the horse and buggy.  Everything has changed.  It is now a true struggle to make money by selling music.  Touring and merchandising is a must.  The days of musicians and record labels spinning gold by selling music are over.  Not long ago there were bands who wouldn’t consider selling their music to an advertiser or TV show.  They could make their revenue off of an album and then CD sales.  With product placement now becoming the name of the game, recording artists are having to rethink their approach and their career paths.

The upside is that there is more of a level playing field.  More singers, bands and musicians now have an opportunity to get known and develop a career.  But, it has become more of a do-it-yourself world; musicians, who know how to work social media, blog, and launch traditional media campaigns, can still establish a presence, create a fan base and build a buzz.   There is still a way to launch a music career and make money while making music, but musicians now have to be savvy marketers.  They need to understand PR, media relations, publicity and the basics of marketing.  It’s a bit daunting, that goes without saying, but for those who learn the ropes, it also puts the power squarely in their hands.  It’s true that labels launch many a band, but there are also myriad stories of bands who were taken advantage of and ripped off.  Musicians now have to be more savvy about marketing and business, but they also command more control.  In the long run it could be a decent trade off.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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