Blogging & Managing Your Reputation

As a member of the Counselors Academy, we often get asked to comment on trends and issues impacting our industry. One of the most frequent questions we get is about blogging. Here are my two cents:

If you want to be perceived as an industry leader or a knowledge broker, then creating a blog is paramount to establishing your credibility. While blogs can be used to "sell," most blogs are meant to inform, educate and, most importantly, engage a key audience. While Web sites are static, blogs encourage dialogue and two-way communication that build a level of trust and appreciation for your branded product or service.

Monitor the news and blogs for articles that would be of interest to your audience. When writing about the news as a blogger, it is not just a matter of describing the news—though that is important. It is more imperative that you provide new, informative and entertaining analysis in order to sustain and grow your audience. That is why opinion and your personal perspective interlaced with your past experiences will help to add to your credibility and foster loyal readership.

Managing content is easy, but managing responses aren't in some cases. When you open up yourself to review and "community journalism," you may receive negative comments for all to see from an unhappy customer or a rival company posting under a fake name. The key to effective blogging is constant monitoring to respond quickly to inaccurate posts and questions from the public. Presenting the facts and how they relate to your brand position can turn a negative into a positive. Blogging is a two way street, so don't bury your head in the sand when negative posts occur. In doing so, it will only feed more negativity and create a mountain out of a mole hill.

Blogs help you maintain your focus. This may be difficult, depending on how your corporation structures it, but a blog also has the additional benefit of focusing your company on the needs and desires of your customer. You get to devote time to thinking about what your customers think about, what they want, what they're looking for. If your corporation has begun to lose its focus or even if it hasn't, a blog can help to remind you where you came from and how you got to where you are with your users.

Finally, blogging makes you human. Don't blog to keep up with the Jones' down the street. Blog because you feel blogging, and the input you receive, is right for your company. By putting a human aspect into the marketing process, you put a "face" behind the message instead of cold, faceless, unengaging brand. If you can pull off blogging, you add the human touch that will set you apart from your competition and all the other large corporations out there.

For more information, please visit www.carpenterpr.com.

Prepare For A Crisis. Yes, You Too!

So you run a great company. You pay attention to product quality, you value your employee’s safety and your insurance plans are paid and up to date. But are you really ready for a full-on crisis? If the news media, employees, vendors, customers and even government officials were camped outside your door, would you be prepared to communicate with them accurately, aptly and immediately?

Fact is, bad things can, and do, happen to good companies. Sudden management decisions involving lawsuits, takeover attempts, layoffs, strikes or regulatory constraints can rapidly capture the public’s eye. Or emergencies such as plant accidents, floods or the death of a senior manager can cause immediate alarm both inside and outside of a company. Even the most unsympathetic of audiences have come to understand that these types of unwanted events do occur.

What remains, however, is a hovering anticipation of how an effected company responds? Does it speak before all the facts are known? Does it allow rumors or innuendo to spread? Does its past public communications foster a climate of trust and respect or has its “closed door policy” created an air of questions and doubt?

Read more at: www.carpenterpr.com

Beware of Ad Equivalency

I was reading a case history the other day about a national media relations plan. The firm told what they did and timeframe in which they did so. Then it go to the results. Did sales increase? No. Did measureable awareness levels change? No. The only measureable they stated in this published article was... ad equivalency.

Say what? Ad equivalency is no a measure of public relations success than stating how many pencils were needed to write the overall campaign. While some firms state that it shows how much ad dollars were saved or how much ad value was created, at the end of the day, the PR result has to be outcome, not output.

If you want a measure to see if your PR campaign worked, check how more web traffic was generated, how many more phone calls occurred, how perceptions and awareness levels changed from one survey to another and how much product was moved off the shelf. And if you just want a simplistic measure, how many clips were generated.

But ad equivalency doesn't equate to value, volume, success or end benefit. It's just a number to show nothing else was really accomplished.

If any PR firm talks to you about how they measure ad equilvalency, RUN.

For more information on public relations, please visit www.carpenterpr.com.

Fact: PR More Cost Effective Than Mass Advertising

There is always talk about the cost of marketing a product in a down time... should we say it... recession.

Here is the stone cold truth: For the cost of three to four full page ads in a major daily newspaper, you can easily fund a national media relations campaign for one year.

Cost effective. Impact. Credibility/endorsement builder. That's the power of public relations.

To learn more, visit www.carpenterpr.com

Need Customers... Target Intelligently

Markets are down. Sales in many sectors are declining. Consumer confidence is shaken and overwhelmed. Yet, marketing and sales professionals are tasked with producing more sales and delivering better ROI with limited resources. What is a marketer to do?

During speeches and presentations, I'm often asked that question.

For any marketing and sales executive, the simple answer lies in Intelligent Targeting.

The process delivers new customers to you. Not just any customers, but ones who are shopping now, shopping often, and spending more. How? By delivering the same level of direct marketing sophistication to small to mid-sized companies heretofore reserved for the corporate elite, intelligent targeting takes the guesswork out of your direct marketing process

In doing so, you can simplify the customer acquistion process, improve your ROI and generate sales. Need help?

Learn more at www.carpenterpr.com

Recession Blues? Use PR To Build Brand Success.

Experts are forecasting the U. S. economy is in for some hard times. Maybe we are. Maybe we’re not. What does seem likely is that “business as usual” is soon to undergo some severe challenges—challenges that are sure to include how best to market our respective products and services.

To be sure, the use of advertising, telemarketing and other “paid” media – all effective during a vibrant, healthy economy – has given ground of late. Why? Simply put, marketers are getting too little and spending too much. With forecasts such as they are, corporate executives are revisiting their 2008 marketing plan in search of better results. So what is the alternative during these economically challenged times? For many, the discipline of public relations has become a successful way to continue brand building.

What makes PR so special? It's all about the three Cs:

1. Significantly lower costs than advertising
2. The ability to fight through clutter
3. The enhanced credibility one receives when referenced by a third party

Read more about how PR can help with cost-effective programs at www.carpenterpr.com

Build Brand With 20/20 Vision.

What is a brand?

For consumers, it’s a perceived promise that a company has made to them.

For CEOs, it’s their company’s reputation. It’s also their company’s most valued asset. Fulfilling the consumer brand promise involves many facets. It’s the people that are hired and how they live the brand once on board. It’s the products and services that are created and how they’re marketed, sold, delivered, serviced and priced. It’s the relationships with vendors, distributors and the communities in which the company operates.

In the end, brands are something to be created—something to be produced consciously, purposefully, strategically. The stakes are high and the vision for a company’s future must be clear—20/20 clear.

Successful CEOs look at the big picture by viewing their brand’s current reputation while setting their sights for a dozen years from now. Check your vision with an objective reputational audit and establish a plan for achieving the desired brand by the year 2020.

Try beginning with a piece of paper, the belief that “What gets written gets done” and a long, realistic look at the past, present and future. Identify potential gaps between your core competencies and the opinions of others—or, in other words, seek to separate fact from fiction, strengths from weaknesses. People, product, pricing, partners. All influence and impact your reputation. Seek input from all sources that directly portray the brand and your reputation to key stakeholders.

Only after arming yourself with such knowledge can you begin the process of orchestrating all elements of your company toward a harmonious goal: creating a powerful and lasting brand.

Brands built around the cornerstone of a company’s reputation that deliver upon a consumer promise are not done so by gimmicky tag lines or fanciful paid media. Reputations are earned not granted. They’re shaped through reality not bestowed through awards. That said, they must be articulated. They absolutely require communications that are clear, consistent and ongoing to all stakeholders. Employees. Vendors. Investors. Customers.

One of the disciplines frequently tapped by CEOs to manage the branding process is that of public relations. Paul Holmes, editor of Reputation Management and Inside PR magazine says, “In this environment, public relations …is evolving from the publicity function that it has been at most organizations to a more sophisticated discipline that is responsible for managing an organization’s reputation, the sum of its relationships.” Not all public relations firms, however, are equipped for such a challenge.

Branding exercises and developing long-term strategies are no time for on-the-job training. Only those with first-hand experience performing audits, interpreting results and orchestrating strategic communications campaigns based on these results should be considered. The stakes are simply too high.

Brand clarity. Credible corporate reputation. Delivering on a customer promise.

Creating and managing your company’s biggest asset – your brand – can be successfully achieved as long as your vision is clear—20/20 clear.