Thursday, April 21, 2011

Spend More Time Planning

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I realize that planning can seem like a waste of time or an extra headache but it will save you a huge amount of time and wheel-spinning throughout your week.

I see a lot of people just go to work and get into the motion of work and handle actions as they come and attempt to just produce but there is very little forward motion related to this. What we are looking to attain here is precise, predictable forward motion that conquers goals.

So, here is what I want you to do - take time to plan your week. On Sunday, sit down and write or type out exactly what is needed to be done for the week in order to attain your goals. Make it clear, concise and actionable. If you're in sales, list every cycle you are working on and the actions needed to close each cycle this week. Be thoughtful about the physical steps that must be done to execute and attain each action. Print it out or write it down on a notepad - whatever works for you but have it all worked out.

Then, when Monday comes, you simply need to execute the plan. Stick to the plan. Push the plan through. Get it done. That's it. Don't try to just "be productive" with no game plan. Be thorough and make a defined plan and then do it. Simple. Try it out.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Friday, January 7, 2011

Why We Hate Butterflies

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Sounds like a funny title but the truth is, butterflies are a serious problem in the business world. Chasing them that is. In today's busy and sometimes chaotic world it's easy to get distracted and end up dreaming or chasing butterflies rather than staying the course and focusing on your goals, mission and the immediate tasks at hand. My advice, learn to hate butterflies as well. 

Focus on who you are, what you do, what the goal is and your next most immediate step toward it. Get focused in every aspect of your company from knowing what target audience or vertical market you want to go after, exactly what you sell and what your value proposition is making sure that you aren't trying to be all things to all people, getting your people focused on their mission and tasks to attain your focused goal and only promoting and selling to your focused market etc. 

There are zillions of things that can take you off course. Distractions. Butterflies. Get rid of them and learn to simplify your company to get focused and then get tunnel vision about that focus to work toward goal attainment. It may sound more "fun" or sexy to chase the constant new adventure or idea but it's wasted time and effort. They prevent you from true victory and goal attainment. 

 

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Focus

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The other day I was going through my Twitter feed and saw a tweet asking a question to Gurbaksh Chahal  (a very successful entrepreneur who sold his last company for $300MM and the one before it for $40MM) about whether he get's tempted to work on other ideas while he is working on a company. His response... "never. Focus is everything." 

To me one of the biggest elements of failure or simply lack of success lies in most people's lack of ability to stay focused. I'll admit, I love millions of ideas as well and have a tendency to daydream from time to time but being that I have owned four companies, I know the power of focused attention and the deadliness of distractions or dispersals. Focus is everything. 

 

If you know what your company stands for, sells and delivers and have clearly named out or defined your product or service and then defined your goal or vision the only next step for you to take is to do everything that is focused toward executing the goals to attain the vision. Do not get distracted and do not let any other "bright ideas" enter the equation. Focus your time, energy and effort on your goal. 

Click here to learn more.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Best Deal

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There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

Click here to continue reading.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Best Deal

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There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

Click here to read the rest.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Makings of a Group

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The ultimate pursuit in business. To attain a group. A true team. Loyal, focused and driven to attain the goals of the group. It's fantastically difficult to attain but virtually indestructible once created. 

Here are the makings of a group as I see it:

1) Everyone is focused on an agreed upon goal. In other words, there's a mountain and everyone see's it and is focused on climbing it without any deviation or distractions. The goal needs to be completely known throughout the group, intertwined into everyday actions, targets and programs. "What will we do today to take the mountain?" Get a goal, make it known and pursue it.

2) The group thinks in futures, meaning that everyone in the group is focused on their future within the group. Where will we be in 2 years, 5 years, 20 years..... This then breeds loyalty to the group and therefore strengthens the group as a whole. A great group is one that no one would ever want to leave. 

3) The group works as a unit, synchronizing every action and coordinating efforts. No individuals are in the group, only one unit that operates as a unit knowing and acting with every area, division and department fully reliant and responsible for each other. 

Click here to read more.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Aim Small - Miss Small

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There was a line in the movie "The Patriot" where the character Mel Gibson plays is about to ambush a group of British soldiers to save his son. He tells his other two son's to remember what he has taught them.... "aim small miss small"

The other day I was in a meeting with our production team and while we were discussing strategies to attain client reaches, that exact phrase came out of my mouth... "aim small miss small" which lead to this blog.

It's a great concept and relates exactly to business and client growth. Focus your efforts. In other words, identify a segment you want to go after by profiling who you sell to now. Who buys from you? Then take aim at that small segment and go after them heavy. We are not aiming at the whole audience here, we are aiming at your audience. The people most likely to need, want and buy your products or services.

 

Click here to continue reading.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Being a Martinet About Neatness...

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I was reading an old book by David Ogilvy today and he makes a comment about how he used to work in a professional kitchen in France and the head chef, Mr. Pitard, was a martinet (one who enforces strict discipline) about being neat. He had the chef's clean the kitchen twice per day to ensure the quarters were spotless. David Ogilvy carried many of these lessons over to his agency which grew to be one the best and biggest of his time. 

David's comment for his agency was this, "Today I am a martinet in making my staff keep their offices ship-shape. A messy office creates an atmosphere of sloppiness, and leads to the disappearance of secret papers." 

I tend to agree fully. I am a bit of a neat freak myself and always keep my quarters in ship-shape. I also tend to get a lot more done than the average person, I think partly because I operate in a neat orderly fashion. It's worth taking a look at yourself. Do you keep your office immaculate? Is everything where it should be? If not, I'm willing to bet that you are loosing valuable time and opportunities. 

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Thursday, October 7, 2010

Sales, Selling Your People and Getting People to Sell

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What role does sales play in your company? Have you recognized the fact that every person and every opportunity is another angle to sell? Let me clarify. Sales is intertwined into every aspect of your company.

You need to sell your products and services to your target market. You then need to sell and keep selling your people on the company, the task at hand and on your new clients that were just closed which motivates them to get the job done and carry forward what was sold. You then need to get people in your company to sell to your clients, your prospective public and the employees to constantly carry your company forward.

While there are many posts/titles in any company, everyone has a role in selling. A smile to a new client walking through the door sells. A welcome email to a new client sells. A follow up call to a client sells. Everyone in the company plays a role in selling to either cultivate new business, cater to and maintain current clients to ensure they are happy and are constantly sold on your company or to keep the team focused and motivated. The executive team, managers and CEO alike all sell the people of the company on the goals, future, mission at hand and on their specific tasks to motivate people to get the job done.

 

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Blockbuster Vs. Redbox

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Approximately 5 years ago Blockbuster came up with a campaign to start sending clients late fees to collections. This lead me to start looking at their business model to see how powerful or infallible they really were. After looking at the company model and recent campaigns I realized that they were on their way out. This was in 2005.

Lately I have rented all of my movies from Redbox because it's fast, simple and inexpensive. It just makes a heck of a lot of sense. When comparing the two, Blockbuster had every opportunity in the world to evolve and scoop the market share early for this strategy that Redbox has executed but failed to do so.

I'm not sure if it was arrogance on the part of Blockbuster or lack of insight but they have clearly lost the battle already. I saw recent news that Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection and have noticed a few stores closing. Here is where I feel they failed:

1) Instead of focusing on making their process more customer centric focused, they alienated their customers by sending late fees to collections and ultimately ticking off a lot of people

2) They became too focused with trying to make the mail in rentals work in order to compete with Netflix and must of somehow completely missed the entire concept that Redbox executed.

 

Click here to read more.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Why I Would Pay for Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin

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I recently heard rumblings of news about Twitter potentially charging a fee. Some people have stated that if they did so, they would cancel the service. Silly.... in my opinion. Here's why:

Thus far, the public at large have exchanged (paid for) nothing from Twitter or most social media platforms yet are willing to pay monthly fees for silly expenses like TV to watch a constant inflow of advertisements that attempt to sell products which takes money from them. Twitter, is quite possibly one of the best promotional and sales vehicles that exists today. That statement may not be real for a lot of people but I assure you, it's correct. Let me qualify that statement further.

Twitter gives people the ability to reach out to any target public audience to establish communication with them and develop relationships that can and do result in sales and revenue. By survey, the number one and two sources of new business for any company is word of mouth and referrals. This is precisely what Twitter facilitates. You may not be familiar with Twitter or how it could be the very best promotional and business development tool for your company to employ but nevertheless, there are ways to use it strictly for business development that produces new relationships and sales. Our agency uses it for this very purpose for ourselves and our clients. To us, Twitter is no different than a cell phone. It's a tool to be able to communicate with who we want, when we want so we can develop new business.

Would I be willing to pay for it? Yes! of course. $50 per month? Sure! It helps me produce new business which is a vital aspect to any company. I pay for my office phones, my staff mobile phones, internet connections etc so why wouldn't I pay for Twitter? I can't wrap my wits around why anyone wouldn't pay for it. It's a tiny price to pay for something that could help me produce thousands of dollars per year for our agency.

Now, I actually don't think Twitter will end up charging for their service but will rather take the advertisement supported model but regardless I support it and will absolutely pay for it if they charge a fee, it's worth it.

Consider the intrinsic benefits of these tools before making a rash decision like John Mayer to close his account on Twitter recently. He just locked out 3 million fans from being involved in the conversation. The value of staying in front of your audience is priceless. John made a silly move to close his account and if I was his agent I'd be having a fit right now. The fans are his customers and his obligation to keep happy. No fans means no money. No celebrity is above bottom line numbers being affected by silly moves like that.

If you're thinking Twitter is simply a site to say "your getting a coffee right now...." then let me clarify that you have completely missed the strategy and opportunity with it. It's more than discussing random thoughts and the people who only use it for those purposes think they get and really don't. It's blows the doors off of most promotional outreach strategies if used correctly and will continue to do so. If there was a monthly fee, it would be insignificant compared to the value of it.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group - Follow us @richter102media

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Speed

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Have you ever truly looked over the value of speed as it relates to your companies growth, strategies, sales, delivery and expansion? I personally rate this as one of the highest valued items in our agency and in any company.

Speed. How fast you can take an idea into execution to make that idea a reality. Speed is your friend and time is your enemy. Speed of delivery. How fast can you deliver your product or service with the highest level of quality. Speed of sales. How fast can you find your audience, prospect, sell and close them to create hoards of new business.

Speed is something you should measure, if you don't already. People talk frequently about competition, what the other companies are doing etc. If you master speed, the truth is, there isn't any real competition out there. Most companies are slow. Most people are slow. Competition is a highly overrated concept. Focus on speed and the "competition" becomes something that you view from a distance scratching your head wondering how and why they don't get it.

Even looking at today's economy, if people and companies operated faster, new companies started fasted, decisions were made faster, speed became a central and crucial element of the marketplace, we wouldn't have a problem. The economy would recover swiftly and new fresh funds would be produced and circulated quickly.

Sometimes simple answers are the hardest to figure out but are ultimately the best solution.

Make a point this week and next to execute tasks faster. Speed up your cycles. Look at how you can take the time out of the equation on situations and your production will increase. Look at all the applications of speed and figure out how to put them into action.

- Speed of sales
- Speed of promotional ideas to get them into action
- Speed of quality delivery
- Speed of internal communications
- Speed of external communications
- Speed of news to the market
- Speed of promotional updates or changes such as websites etc
- Speed of hiring, training and executing actions
- Speed of meetings and phone calls

While this may sound a little overboard - it's not, I assure you. There are slownesses all throughout your personal actions day to day as well as throughout your company and I promise, it's costing you the game. Take speed seriously. Get disciplined about it and your "competition" will become a silly concept. Companies are slow, people are slow ..... take advantage of it.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Red Bull Way

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When it comes to promo and getting the word out.... there is a standard and a bar which you can measure yourself by.... it's called Red Bull. Now there is a company that thinks BIG. They have plastered their brand, PR, Marketing and advertising absolutely everywhere.

I guarantee you that if it were not for their unbelievably HUGE promo efforts, the company would not be what they are today (which happens to be a billion dollar annual revenue producing machine) The drink is not exactly tasty. That factor has no role in their success though.

I admire this company for their sheer volume of promo and in their creative ways to get the word out.

So, what can we learn? Well, when looking at your promo efforts I would recommend that you address the volume and angles. In other words, what are you doing right now? How much promo, outflow, avenues are you using daily, weekly and monthly to make your companies products and/or services known. I tend to think that most companies grossly underestimate what they need to do. Companies get so focused on other things that are important but not nearly as important as driving in new business so heavily that your only major problem will be... how do you manage the inflow and deliver and service it?

Revenue should never be your concern. New clients should never be your concern. These things will come in floods if your promotion and sales efforts are actually sufficient and not sufficient per your normal standard.... I mean Red Bull type thinking.

Make a list and focus on how you can create a Red Bull size strategy to get the word out. Get absolutely crazy about promotion and driving in new business. Then focus on executing the strategy in an obsessive fashion to drive new customers/clients in the door. From there, you can then figure out how to deliver, how to service, quality etc but all of those items come after you have promoted, made your company known, gotten new sales, clients, customers etc. Your first priority should be on your front lines.... promotion!

When your scratching your head wondering why sales are down, why revenue is down etc. - look no further than your efforts to get the word out about your company to actively get in front of your audience and therefore cultivate new opportunities. That is the WHY.

So this week, think like Red Bull. They are a company that has gone completely berserk when it comes to promo.... and it's working like crazy. Make a list of new angles to drive in new business and execute, execute, execute....

- Robert Cornish
Richter10.2 Media Group
http://richter10point2.com

Thursday, December 3, 2009

It's Christmas Time..... Promote

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It’ that time of year again when companies frantically try to wrap up sales, collect income and push statistics for the year end bonuses, expenses and overall revenue numbers. Although it is such an improtant time of year, consistently I have found companies to become slow and lazy around this time. They seem to be hard to reach and have developed a bad case of procrastination…. The line “We will look into this after the new year…” seems to come up all too frequently…

Now is the time to promote! Get the word out and get in front of your target market fast! Saving all of your money and not spending money is not a strategy! Your focus should be on how to get in front of your target market audience to stay on their radar and close deals like crazy before the end of the year. Your company, your people and the entire economy is dependent upon large amounts of production, sales and revenue around this time of year so my strong recommendation is for you to promote. Promote your brand, promote your company, promote your products and services, promote in order to get new reaches, new sales and new revenue before the year is out.

If you have been operating in lazy mode or procrastination mode, my advice is to knock it off, pull up the socks and get into action now! While you wait for next year… there are thousands of companies and people making it happen now….this year!

Happy Holidays!

-Robert Cornish

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Let's Clarify the Goal....

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While there are many talented, smart and creative people and firms out there for PR, Advertising and Marketing I have found that many have deviated off course from what the job truly is, what the goals really are and what the clients really need.

Creative ideas and bright ideas are absolutely vital however, they must push forward the end goal – sales and revenue. In this day and age this is not a nice thing to have, it’s a must. That sounds like a simple thing to say and a common and basic knowledge but I see examples everyday that are clearly off-course and not forwarding client goals.

Here’s an example:

A Facebook widget or video game – look, I like to have fun as much as the next guy and I am guilty of downloading a game or two on my iPhone for sure but here’s the thing… what is the clear goal for the Facebook Game? How are you measuring it? Are you getting reach, interest, sales? There were many many many bright ideas during the 1995-97 period for dot com companies and ideas that sounded cool which distracted millions from the actual goals of what a company must do – which is produce sales of their product or service and generate revenue. It’s not a negotiable point.

The job of any PR agency, marketing firm or advertising agency is simple – create an idea, execute a strategy and communicate with the clients target public audience in order to make the client known to them, create interest and generate actual reach that can be used to assist the sales team and further the company growth and revenue. That’s it! If you have been sold on something other than this, well then they probably are creative geniuses but they are not serving your best interest.

Now is the time to get back to basics while the shift of traditional media continues to become less effective and new media is the vital way to communicate with the massive audiecne that is online using the interest that is now intertwined into every aspect of their lives from laptops to iphones. We must focus on people, relationships, what they need and want and how to communciate with them, service them better and build, cultivate and nurture those relationships in order to generate long term clients.

If you focus on the audience and the clear goals of your company to drive sales and revenue your PR, Marketing or Advetrising efforts will be dramatically improved. Don’t lose sight of the goal. Every tweet should have the goal in mind. Every facebook post should reflect the goal. Every blog article, press release, banner ad, video, photo gallery etc should have the goal clearly in mind and being systematically executed.

-Robert Cornish

Richter10.2 Media Group

http://www.richter10point2.com

The Fundamental Change

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Currently the marketing, PR and advertising world is experiencing one of the most dramatic evolutions over the past 100 – 200 years in what traditionally were “tried and true” methods.

I am not sure too many people and professionals fully understand this. I deal with many companies, CEO’s and CMO’s on a daily basis and across the board there seems to be some level of awkwardness and discomfort with the rapid changes.

Over the past 100 to 200 years there have been very workable and fundamental ideas related to how marketing, PR and advertising basically worked and reached a specific audience. There were specific rules and methods to execute strategies that had workable formulas such as positioning, how to write ad copy, how to grab attention via posters, billboards and TV commercials etc. Basic marketing fundamentals like what the typical percent of response will be from a marketing campaign via direct mail, etc.

While all these methodologies worked extremely well all the way up to close to now, unbelievably…. they no longer do. These methods and ideas have run their course and have essentially gone through the stages of infancy from the beginning idea to maturity to dated and now obsolete. It’s incredible to even think about and seasoned professionals clearly seem uncomfortable about it. Speaking to an experienced CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who wants to still work off of, and hang on to, these old ideas can be rather frustrating as they try to apply something that is obsolete to a new way of thinking.

So what is relevant?

With New Media (social media, etc.) the way to communicate and engage an audience is different. It’s a conversation. It’s on-going and most of how the audience wants to be reached or is receptive to is being decided by the audience – not the marketing, advertising or PR firm. This is a very authentic and transparent approach. We aren’t trying to “spin” a story, we aren’t trying to scream a message and button at the audience to get a response and we aren’t trying to have the audience see a message 7-9 times so they will “act” So what are we trying to do?

We are focused on using new media tools (social media) as a platform to communicate with a specific target audience geared toward your company and use PR to build relations (relationships) with that target audience in order to spark conversations, increase word of mouth, generate buzz and result in interest and reach for the companies’ products or services via acceptance from that target audience.

We are authentically reaching out to get involved with the audience and make a company known to them to build awareness, brand loyalty and stay on the target audiences radar to in turn increase the sales and revenue.

I am sure you would agree that people are more inclined to do business with companies they:

Know
Like
Feel Comfortable With
Trust
Have a Relationship
Think this through for a second; think of a company you do business with or a person you do business with and then think about why? I am betting it’s because you know them or have a relationship with them or you personally like them or trust them. These ideas are the very essence of why new media (social media) is so powerful. It aligns with the basic way people buy and how sales typically occur.

Now I am not at all talking about spamming people on social media sites or being the “salesperson” that annoys everyone on Facebook! The idea here is to make it natural and in a PR way encompasses engagement, conversations, building new connections, making yourself known and ultimately building real relationships from a given target audience that is desirable to your company that will result in interest in reach for the company and therefore sales and revenue.

It’s not easy. It takes time and knowhow, but, when done correctly, it’s the most effective strategy you, or your company, could possibly apply in today’s market – just ask the audience!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Fundamental Change

0 comments
Currently the marketing, PR and advertising world is experiencing one of the most dramatic evolutions over the past 100 - 200 years in what traditionally were “tried and true” methods.

I am not sure too many people and professionals fully understand this. I deal with many companies, CEO’s and CMO’s on a daily basis and across the board there seems to be some level of awkwardness and discomfort with the rapid changes.

Over the past 100 to 200 years there have been very workable and fundamental ideas related to how marketing, PR and advertising basically worked and reached a specific audience. There were specific rules and methods to execute strategies that had workable formulas such as positioning, how to write ad copy, how to grab attention via posters, billboards and TV commercials etc. Basic marketing fundamentals like what the typical percent of response will be from a marketing campaign via direct mail, etc.

While all these methodologies worked extremely well all the way up to close to now, unbelievably.... they no longer do. These methods and ideas have run their course and have essentially gone through the stages of infancy from the beginning idea to maturity to dated and now obsolete. It’s incredible to even think about and seasoned professionals clearly seem uncomfortable about it. Speaking to an experienced CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who wants to still work off of, and hang on to, these old ideas can be rather frustrating as they try to apply something that is obsolete to a new way of thinking.

So what is relevant?

With New Media (social media, etc.) the way to communicate and engage an audience is different. It’s a conversation. It’s on-going and most of how the audience wants to be reached or is receptive to is being decided by the audience - not the marketing, advertising or PR firm. This is a very authentic and transparent approach. We aren’t trying to “spin” a story, we aren’t trying to scream a message and button at the audience to get a response and we aren’t trying to have the audience see a message 7-9 times so they will “act” So what are we trying to do?

We are focused on using new media tools (social media) as a platform to communicate with a specific target audience geared toward your company and use PR to build relations (relationships) with that target audience in order to spark conversations, increase word of mouth, generate buzz and result in interest and reach for the companies’ products or services via acceptance from that target audience.

We are authentically reaching out to get involved with the audience and make a company known to them to build awareness, brand loyalty and stay on the target audiences radar to in turn increase the sales and revenue.

I am sure you would agree that people are more inclined to do business with companies they:

  1. Know
  2. Like
  3. Feel Comfortable With
  4. Trust
  5. Have a Relationship



Think this through for a second; think of a company you do business with or a person you do business with and then think about why? I am betting it’s because you know them or have a relationship with them or you personally like them or trust them. These ideas are the very essence of why new media (social media) is so powerful. It aligns with the basic way people buy and how sales typically occur.

Now I am not at all talking about spamming people on social media sites or being the “salesperson” that annoys everyone on Facebook! The idea here is to make it natural and in a PR way encompasses engagement, conversations, building new connections, making yourself known and ultimately building real relationships from a given target audience that is desirable to your company that will result in interest in reach for the company and therefore sales and revenue.

It’s not easy. It takes time and knowhow, but, when done correctly, it’s the most effective strategy you, or your company, could possibly apply in today’s market - just ask the audience!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Which Social Media Sites Should I be On?

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This is absolutely a personal decision and will vary depending on who you are and who you are trying to reach. For instance, a band and a stock broker could equally benefit from Social Media, but would use different sites and methods to do so.

The first key point in choosing which sites to use is deciding exactly what you want to share and who you want to share it with.

Next, you should think with comprehensive profiles and the four main types of content you will be sharing: video, photo, status messages and blog posts. Ideally, you would incorporate each of these regularly into your Social Media presence and plan to have a presence on at least one site that specializes in each. Following this, a simple yet extremely effective strategy would be to have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter account, as well as a blog, in your Social Media Campaign.

Lastly, you have to know how much time you can allot to your Social Media efforts.

It is vital to plan the size of your Social Media presence according to what you can comfortably maintain. It is exponentially better to have some key sites always up-to-date than many that are outdated.

Although it is the case that sometimes updating your network can fall to the bottom of the to-do list, in order to be successful at all, you have to keep your profiles up-to-date. Therefore, it is a great idea to make Social Media part of your daily routine, just like checking your emails. If you can only allot 15 minutes each day, realize that 40 different profiles to update is not for you.

So, with a little research and following the three simple points above, you can choose the correct sites that will give you the greatest chance of success.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

A Simple Guide to Using Social Media in Business

0 comments
As you may have already figured out, I am a strong believer of social media in business. I use Twitter and Facebook and blogs every day in my job, and you can too. Here are a few tips and tools to getting yourself started in the social media world.

Social Media for Business Resources

http://courtspencer.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/twitter-is-time-well-spent-not-money-well-spent/ <-- Twitter is time well spent, not money.

http://enovapr2.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/its-the-law-2-0/<--Web 2 .0, social media guide.

http://blog.neoco.com/2009/07/22/a-z-of-social-media-this-is-actually-pretty-good/ <-- the A-Z of Social Media

http://jeffbullas.com/2009/07/22/5-steps-to-optimize-your-email-for-social-media/ <-- 5 steps to Optimize your email with Social Media

http://www.richter10point2.com/buildyourown <-- Build your own WebPR campaign!

http://www.whywebpr.com/alimagnano <-- My Social Media Press Kit

Ali Magnano
Director of PR
Richter10.2 Media Group
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