NewsBusiness

If you’re in business, you should have! But are you saying it, and are you being heard?

It never ceases to amaze me how many businesses have their websites set up to put news stories on them, but then either don’t put up any news at all, or the ‘news’ is over six months old – not really ‘news’ any more. And just putting up news stories on a corporate website is really not enough – news is meant to be spread, and email is the best way.

The main problem with putting a regular email update or newsletter together is actually setting the time aside to think about what to say and then to write the update itself. And of course it needs to be interesting and engaging and – subtly – include a sales message.

There are really two challenges – one, actually deciding what to write about and what exactly to write and two, mastering the technology of setting up the email and sending it.

At NewsBusiness we spend a lot of time talking to businesses about doing this, and we actually produce and send newsletters and updates via email for many of our clients as part of our PR marketing services. But we are so convinced that this strategy is vital to all businesses to drive business and sales, that we have just launched a new service which actually does all that needs to be done to produce and send this email.

Called ‘Something to Say?’, we help you to decide what topics to cover, we interview you to find out what news your business has, we write the articles, and once you have approved them, we load them up to your website and create and send an email to your database for you. If you don’t currently use an email marketing system, we can recommend a few (they are very reasonably priced), and if you don’t have a mechanism for loading news stories to your website, we can also recommend one. And unlike other copywriting services, we’ve made Something to Say a fixed price service.

For more about Something to Say? jump on this page on the main NewsBusiness website, or call us on 07 3103 5764.

PS We’ve written before about how to decide what to write and how to write here:

The Art of the Start* (or how to put pen to paper to write that newsletter!)

Sometimes you’re so focused on getting the media coverage, it’s hard to think beyond the actual coverage itself.

It’s tempting to think that getting coverage is the final objective, but you have to remember that most print media is thrown out that day – newspapers generally get binned fairly quickly and you’re lucky if a magazine hangs around longer than a few weeks.

Coverage on the radio and TV is even more ephemeral – one minute you’re there, next you’re gone!

What are the chances that your target market is reading that newspaper article, watching that TV report?

Many businesses assume that the feature itself will generate instant enquiries, but it often doesn’t happen that way.

What you need to do now is make the most of the coverage in your regular marketing. This means, as a minimum:

• next time you send out an email to your list of clients, prospects and email newsletter subscribers, make sure you point out where you have been covered and when
• if you can, get a copy of the article or clip of the TV/radio item and put it up on your website*
• put a small news item/image referring to the coverage on the home page of your website or at the very least put up something on the home page that says eg “As featured in…” and that shows logos of the news/media outlets where you have featured – this must be ‘above the fold‘

The thing to bear in mind is that your customers and prospects may not have seen your coverage, but the fact that you featured in the news or the media will (generally) enhance their perception of you. And may prompt them to become clients, or stay as clients, or recommend you to someone they know. This is why you have to tell them!

The other benefit of getting media coverage is that you are now more appealing to other media outlets, since you have proven experience. From this point on, when talking to other journalists you can drop in where you have been featured and reinforce your (new) status as an expert or industry commentator.

So many businesses see the first piece of good media coverage as the end result. In reality it should only be the beginning.

*this is why media monitoring is a good idea

photo caption: NewsBusiness client Alistair Hill of Bushfire Risk Reducers being interviewed for Channel 9 news by reporter Sarah Harris

It all used to be so simple. Newspapers, TV and the radio ran the news, and businesses used conventional advertising alongside editorial to generate business. Both editorial and advertising ‘worked’ and there was rarely any crossover between the two.

Now conventional media is threatened by the perceived free-for-all that the internet has delivered, the ‘citizen journalists’ rival the TV and the newspapers from their back bedrooms, and advertising seems to have lost its effectiveness as viewers, readers and listeners stop paying attention.

This is bad news if you are a conventional media outlet or a conventional business, but great news if you’re prepared to jump into the news business, at least in terms of spreading the news about your business!

If people are no longer responding as enthusiastically to sales messages, everyone continues to be interested in information – and more and more information – about ‘things’. The internet allows us to research products, services and companies ad nauseam before making a decision to buy. This means that potential customers are now much better ‘qualified’ when they (finally) contact you, since they have found out most of what they needed to know. And the businesses that win these customers are the ones that have the most information on the internet about what they do. This information – in the broadest sense of the word – is ‘news’.

So if you’re currently in a position where there is not much ‘news’ out there about your business, how do you go about rectifying the situation?

• Start telling people your news

The easiiest way of doing this is with a regular (ie at least once a month) email newsletter or update. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, as long as it goes out regularly and is primarily informational, that is it’s not just a sales pitch. And if you put a signup box on your website with enough good reasons as to why anyone would want to receive your newsletter, you can grow your list.

• Start updating your website with this news

Search engines give preferential treatment to websites that a) have a lot of content on them and that b) are updated regularly. You can score on both counts by putting your newsletter articles up in full text on your website every time you send it.

• Start sending some of this news out to ‘the media’

Don’t expect great results from sending news releases out to your local paper or to a national TV station, unless you have worked out why either of these outlets would want to cover your story. Instead look at your story and work out which media outlets would really like it. The best places may be industry journals or specialist magazines or websites.

Any positive coverage online will not only drive people to your website, it will probably generate inbound links which will help your website’s search engine rankings.  Any positive coverage offline will also drive people to your website (whether or not the web address is mentioned) and will raise the profile of your business much more effectively than any advertising can.

Just read this post by “New Rules of Marketing & PR” author David Meerman Scott on the dangers of using stock photography on your website – everyone uses the same images. In the article he refers to the image of one particular person that crops up on a number of websites – and I’m sure you’ve noticed this too – we have! Why not use photos of people that actually work at your business? I’d be interested to hear any comments on this.

Here is David Meerman Scott’s article:

Who the hell are these people?

This quote, from chief Executive of WebDynamic Dominic Gamble, on the importance of getting people to your site over and above just building it.

Interestingly, none of the points in the article talk about what is said on a website – the words. Do web developers assume this is part of the brief – or do they assume the client will come up with the words?

Read the whole article on smartcompany – 10 things your web developer must have

Seth Godin, the marketing author and guru, recently posted an article on his blog, ‘Things to ask before you redo your website’. He thinks people are generally asking the wrong questions (or at least not the most important questions) when they are contemplating a website revamp. Perhaps the most important question he says is “what is the goal of the site” ie what exactly do you want the website to do?

Read his full post here:

Things to ask before you redo your website

Just reading an item from the smartcompany website by founder of RedBalloonDays, Naomi Simson, on why the ‘About Us’ page on a website is so important. Couldn’t have put it better myself:

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/get-out-of-my-way/20090327-old-lessons-for-the-new-world.html

Why it’s important to keep your website content fresh, relevant and up-to-date

Humans like their information to be fresh and up-to-date. If this wasn’t the case all TV stations, radio stations and newspapers would be out of business. There might be a couple of magazines left.
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Search engines like fresh information too and are biased towards those sites that update their content regularly. This is why search engines like blogs (see this post on blogs). And why an oft quoted motto on getting good search engine rankings is ‘content is king’.
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So if your business has a website that hasn’t been updated in a year or longer, not only is it unlikely to be ‘crawled’ (ie visited) that often by search engines, which will probably result in lower search engine rankings, but the humans that visit your site will probably notice too and won’t be very impressed. They might even wonder if you’re still in business.
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But if your site is obviously up-to-date and filled with information that your clients (or prospective clients) would find useful, not only will they appreciate that, but the chance of them returning soon will increase dramatically. And who knows, on their third or fourth visit (or seventh or eighth) they might buy something from you, or pick up the phone to enquire.
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But putting fresh, relevant content up on a website on a regular basis is hard. You need to have something new to say and you certainly need to set time aside to do it.
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At News Equals Business we’ve been on both sides of the table – working in-house with external web designers who were waiting for us to provide content for a new website, and on the other side waiting a long time for the client to put together the content for their website.
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An added complication when putting content together for a website is that it needs to satisfy two masters at the same time – the human visitors and the search engines. And on top of that it needs to give human visitors a reason to stick around for longer than 8 seconds before surfing off somewhere else.
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One of the areas we help our customers is in developing compelling copy that works for humans and search engines, and then helping them keep their websites fresh, up-to-date and relevant. We’re about to launch some web-based services in this area and we’ll let you know when we do.

Blogs (blog is short for ‘weblog’) have been around for a while, but recently they’ve gone mainstream and now all businesses are asking themselves ‘should we have a blog?’. If you’re unsure what they are, what they do, and what the possible commercial advantage of having one could be, read on.

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In basic terms a blog is simply a sort of diary published on the web for all to see. Many people use them just to keep friends and family up-to-date with what they’re doing.

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Blogs are worth considering from a business perspective if you want

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1)  an easy way to keep your website current
2) a way that people can interact easily with your business online
3) a communication channel with the world that is friendlier and more immediate than most corporate communications
4) your website to rank more highly in the search engines
5) more chance of the media running stories on your business (good stories we hope)

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Let’s have a look at these in turn:

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1) An easy way to keep your website current
Blogs are very straightforward to set up and once they are up and running adding an item or ‘blog entry’ is very easy indeed. You can then put a link from your main navigation bar on your website to your blog so people can see that you have one.

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2) A way people can interact easily with your business online
Blogs were developed to allow visitors or readers to post their own comments on them. As the blog owner you can ‘moderate’ these comments ie decide which ones go up and which ones don’t. The more people see other people are commenting the more likely they are to take part in the conversation and the more ‘engaged’ they will be with your business.

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3) A communication channel with the world that is friendlier and more immediate than most corporate communications
In a world of corporate speak and communications departments, the conversational style of a blog is often able to show a friendlier face. Some large corporations in the US experiencing customer service issues were able to resolve these quickly and regain their good reputations through frank and helpful discussions with disgruntled customers through  corporate blogs run by middle managers (see this Wired article on ‘Famous Frank’ at Comcast in the US who used another ‘Web2.0’ tool – Twitter – to do this).

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4) Your website to rank more highly in the search engines
Google loves blogs because it knows they are generally updated often and can be interesting and informative discussion forums. More good content means better search engine rankings.

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5) More chance of the media running stories on your business (good stories we hope)
This is an interesting one. Journalists interested in particular companies or particular industries will often seek out relevant blogs and follow them for story ideas. If you establish your credibility as an expert in a certain area in your blog, you may find journalists seeking you out for comment in your area of expertise. Subscribing to a blog is also a bit easier than subscribing to a newsletter – you don’t have to give anyone your email address or alert anyone to your interest in them!

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Before diving into blogging yourself, it’s a good idea to have a look at a couple of blogs in your field, perhaps even participate so you can get the hang of it. If you do decide to start a blog, make a commitment to add something new to it on a regular basis – aim for at least once a week. Each item doesn’t need to be a full report – treat it as a diary entry and then build this into your schedule. You can then promote your blog through all the usual channels – and through blog directories and blog services on the internet.

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How to let your computer read through your (e)mail so you don’t have to
An ‘RSS Reader’ (RSS stand for Really Simple Syndication) allows you to track a number of different blogs without having to visit them all – the Reader just compiles all the latest blog posts from all of the blogs you are following on one page. Google has one called Google Reader which you can sign up to quickly and easily for free (and there are a number of other ones out there too). If for example you follow say 20 email newsletters and they all have an ‘RSS feed’ (this means they have a blog) you can subscribe to those ‘feeds’ in your reader and you won’t have to check your email any more to get the latest stories from those newsletters.

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So why not sign up to Google Reader and subscribe to your first blog – why not the News Equals Business Blog!

Following on from today’s email tip, the same two second rule pretty much applies to websites and how people surf the web.

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So it is critical that when a visitor arrives at your website, you present them with all of the reasons why they should stay on your site, contact you or buy something from you, as soon as they arrive. In practice this means putting all of the important information ‘above the fold’ ie on that part of your website that appears on the computer screen without the visitor having to scroll down. Of course this depends on all sorts of things, like screen resolution, size of screen, browser type etc, so clearly the most important stuff needs to appear right at the top of the page.

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The sorts of things you might look at putting ‘above the fold’ could include: short description of your line of business, ‘credibility’ information such as high profile endorsements, media coverage and powerful testimonials, and any guarantees you offer. The precise mix will depend on what business you are in, but the ‘above the fold’ rule for the important information still applies to all websites.