NewsBusiness

With less than three weeks to go until Christmas, most businesses (unless you’re in retail) are in pre-holiday wind-down mode.

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Politicians will be taking some time off which means media outlets are going to be looking around for stories to fill empty space. Your story – which might not have made the cut the rest of the year – may well get a look in. Also bear in mind that there is a degree of reflection at this time of year that means that human interest stories and reviews of what has happened over the past year will be considered.

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So while everyone else is buying Christmas presents, writing cards and going to Christmas parties, it could be worth sitting down for an hour to see if you can put together a good story for the media over the break.

New Year’s Resolutions really sum it all up – many people and many businesses are planning to do something different or start afresh in the New Year.

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They are at their most open to doing things differently in 2009. Marketing and PR communications that go out in early January with this theme can often get very good response rates.

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But obviously you have to start planning these campaigns for January around now. If you haven’t done so already now is also a perfect time to put together a media/communications plan for 2009 based around marketing and promotions activities that you are planning for the year. Getting media coverage about your events and promotions and pre-selling these via email to your list should be kicking off in early January for best effect.

Many business owners have almost a knee jerk reaction that PR is all about getting into the local paper.

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There are many reasons why this isn’t necessarily the best approach. Firstly local papers are actually quite difficult to get coverage in. A local paper may run to 75 odd pages, but only around 15 of these are editorial pages – the rest are ads. And of the remaining 15 pages many are devoted to syndicated news – like the weather, stars, the car section etc.

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Local paper editors also have to make sure there is a local angle to a story – and just being a local business is not enough. And because so many businesses think that the local paper is the place to be, editors are inundated with media releases, many of which they pass straight on to their advertising people to get you to advertise instead!

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A better approach is to consider what your business specialises in, and find the appropriate media to target. Even if you only service the local area, a national, targeted approach may get better results.

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Let’s take an example of, say, a high end hi-fi supplier. Rather than focusing on local media, a piece in a national hi-fi magazine will be read by far more hi-fi enthusiasts, some of whom will certainly live locally. And a piece is much more likely to feature due to the specialisation of the publication.

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So next time you’re putting together a media release think carefully about who you send it to – and have realistic expectations of your local paper!

by business coach Sigrid de Kaste from The Unfair Advantage www.unfair.com.au

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The share market is falling!! The economy is grinding to a halt. How will we all be affected?

Is it the end of prosperity as we know it today? All business collapses, jobs are lost and we no longer have an income! Back to the depression days, standing in line for food, starvation, gloom & doom!

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Reminds me of the story about Chicken Little. She managed to convince everyone who crossed her path that the sky was falling. No one questioned her, they just panicked and followed. Is that what you are doing?

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You know, as humans we have a remarkable difference compared to animals, we can CHOOSE how we respond to any information or situation. No matter how pre-determined we are to think and do things a certain way by our genetics, childhood experiences or environmental factors, we can CHANGE and choose a different path at any stage in personal and business life.

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How does that affect you right now, in these economically uncertain times? Do a stocktake of your business practices. Marketing encompasses everything a business does. Product, Price, Promotion and Place is the Marketing Mix. Where have you performed well so far? Where not? Check every detail, plan and implement changes.

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What is it really that brings your customers to you? Don’t assume price or service. Assume nothing and ask. Ask your customers. The sure fire way to find out what you do well and what not is to ask your customers. Formulate a customer questionnaire, keeping in mind what it is you are trying to achieve.

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You’ve done that in the past? You got no real response? Keep in mind that we ALL are busy, every day of our lives. Businesses or customers, we have a million things to do. You have to make it real easy for your customers to respond.

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If you send a letter, follow up with a phone call. If you send an e-mail, follow up with a phone call. Ask every customer who comes into the business. EVERY one.

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Make your survey short and sweet, right to the point – that way you will get answers. For example

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“5 Questions answered and we’ll send you …………” an offer.

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Formulate an irresistible offer, something free, for the effort of answering your questions.

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Once you know what your customers want, you can change what you do to do more of what your customers want. Would you think that might lead to more business?

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Do not be a Chicken Little, choose to change because the times require it right now.

In all our conversations with business owners, whether they are current clients, or potential clients or neither, we are always talking about the benefits of being in constant communication with your ‘audience’.

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We use the term audience because it is not just current clients, it’s past clients, prospects, affiliates, as a matter of fact anyone that you have had a business relationship with in the past and who you think would appreciate being kept up-to-date with what you are doing and who might value your business advice (or may know someone who might). We also talk – of course – about the benefits of receiving regular positive coverage in the media – on and offline, and the benefits of having a website that is kept up-to-date with relevant and interesting material.

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But – and it is a big but – we haven’t really been doing it for ourselves – we’ve been too busy doing it for our clients!

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Well this month we are rectifying the situation. This is our first major email communication and it doubles up as a launch of our new blog, which we will be updating frequently with our comments and opinions in the world of PR and ‘news’ and the web. Blogging of course – as a Web 2.0 thing – is meant to be a two-way street – so we welcome your comments, which will appear on this blog as well. We’re always interested to know if you agree with us or if you don’t!

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The News Equals Business website has also undergone a slight revamp, with new sections on media coverage and further reading and an updated client listing. Appearing soon will be some testimonials from our clients and we’re hoping to add some video in the near future as well.

We are putting the final touches to our free report, called “Ditch Your Marketing… and do PR instead”.

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If you’d like to receive a copy, order it here and you’ll receive a PDF copy of it when we publish. The report will highlight how many businesses – particularly, but not exclusively, smaller businesses – are blissfully unaware of changes in the world of business in the past 5 years that have made many traditional marketing mechanisms much less efficient. At the same time a number of new mechanisms have become much more effective – and many of these can be categorised as ‘PR’ in one shape or form.

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The report will highlight tangible things that a business can do to take advantage of these new mechanisms – in most cases at no, or very little, cost. The only cost is time, and our opinion is that – if you can set aside at least four hours every month to dedicate to these things – you can vastly improve the marketing of your business, and so vastly improve your sales and bottom line.

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We’ll let you know when we publish the report, which should be later this month.

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In case you missed it, last month was Movember (the month before was ‘Ocsober’).

So this meant that, along with several thousand (perhaps million?) other men in Australia, I jumped on the bandwagon and grew a moustache. It was deeply unpopular at home – my wife hated it and said she thought another man was living in the house and my four year old son said I was ‘creepy’. None of this put me off and it stayed on until 1st December – the photo says it all.

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Seriously it was all in a good cause and there is still time to sponsor me at www.movember.com.au. My personal donation page is here – feel free to donate a small sum to the cause. Movember is in aid of men’s health charities dealing with prostate cancer, testicular cancer and male depression.