Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Business Lessons from Emily Giffin

By Amanda Bala

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Emily Giffin, her novel and the movie based on it, Something Borrowed. I want to revisit Emily once again this week. When you look at what she has done to help the promotion of this movie, it is truly amazing. All business owners could take a lesson or two from her.

First of all, Emily is not above getting right into the trenches, so to speak, when it comes to promoting Something Borrowed. I am both a friend and fan of hers on Facebook and every day she is posting something about the movie. She keeps her fans up to date on the revenue the movie has brought in. She lets us know how much more it needs to make in order for the sequel, Something Blue to be made. She posts interviews with the cast and reviews from different sources. It keeps us invested in the movie and all the inside scoops are wonderful!

Another thing that Emily does well is to get us excited about the movie. Every weekend since it has been out, I see her post which theatre she will be seeing the movie at in Atlanta, her home town. She invites all her friends and fans to come out and join her if they are in the area. She also has fans send in pictures of themselves with their ticket stubs and posts them on her website. Additionally, she held a contest to see who had the most original picture and that lucky gal received a personal phone call from Colin Egglesfield (read the article from the winner here).

One of the most ingenious ideas she has come up with recently is that if a girl has a husband or boyfriend who will not take them to see Something Borrowed, they can email Emily herself via Facebook and she will call the significant other and convince them to take their wife/girlfriend! It is great to see her posts about her calling husbands and boyfriends to get them to take their girls! She even recently may have spurred one on to propose!

Emily obviously has a lot invested in Something Borrowed doing well. However, it is more than that. You can see that she truly loves her work and enjoys what she does. She is great to her fans and in return, they are extremely loyal to her. She is dedicated to making this movie and success does what it takes to make that happen. Business owners, look, listen and learn!

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Social Media Advertising: Is it For You?

By Amanda Bala

So, you may be thinking about purchasing advertising on a social media site. The three social media sites that are the most prevalent right now are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Each one has a very different advertising platform, so you must consider them separately before you decide where to put your advertising dollars.

Facebook is the social media king right now. They also have the most developed advertising platform currently available. Even the smallest businesses, working on a limited budget, can advertise on FB. At the present time, prices for clicks and impressions are still very low as far as online advertising goes. Using a wide variety of criteria, FB allows businesses to target their messages by utilizing users’ profile information. You can specify who and where you want your message be sent. FB also gives the “like” option for ads that help businesses grow their following and possibly their clients. However, FB is limited in its B2B advertising because it is of such a personal nature. It is more effective when used in a B2C capacity.

When people think social media, the second site that usually comes to mind is Twitter. However, Twitter has a very underdeveloped advertising platform for small businesses. At the present time, they only offer advertising to large companies and brands. These are in the form of “sponsored tweets” or “promoted trends”. Therefore, advertising on Twitter is not practical or even available for most small businesses.

The last social media site that you might consider is LinkedIn. This is the most highly effective advertising site for B2B industries. Due to the professional nature of LinkedIn, it actually promotes ads that are called “LinkedInAds”. It allows businesses to deliver their ads to people with certain qualifications or titles, thus making the cost of the advertising much more efficient. You can also look for relevant groups on LinkedIn that you may be able to target. There is also the fact that LinkedIn advertising is still reasonable in price and is gaining daily in popularity.

No matter where you choose to advertise, it is always important to do your homework before you invest your money. This is no different for social media sites. Find the one that best suits your business and run with it!

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Distributing Your Press Release: What You Need to Know

By Amanda Bala

In our first article, The Fine Art of Press Release Writing, we explored the proper way to write a press release. Now that you know how to write a press release, the next important step is to effectively distribute it. Where do you send it? Who do you send it to? And how do you send it?

Who to contact: In the good old days there were the big 3 of media: newspapers, television stations and radio stations. Nowadays the options seem endless. Although the big 3 are still whom you will most likely send your release to, don’t forget online sources such as blogs, online publications, and for events, online event calendars. As for the specific folks to send your release to… With print publications (newspapers, magazines) you will most likely want to reach the editor. For radio and television, you will send it to the assignment desk. It is also okay to contact reporters and producers directly.

How to present the press release: There are a couple of different ways to present a press release. You can email the press release directly to the media source. If you choose this option, be sure to have a very strong subject line. Your first goal is to get them to open the email, and without an enticing subject, it could go unopened. Next, be sure to use the proper formalities in your email, but get right to the point. The editors and reporters are not going to devote much time to reading the email and you want them to get to the main information of the press release itself. This being said, be sure to paste the actual press release in the body of the email. Do not send it as an attachment. You must make it as easy and as fast as possible for the media recipient to get to the story. They are very busy and don’t have time. By sending an attachment, it creates another step they need to go through to read it and that takes time.

The second way to present a press release is to call the media outlet directly. When doing this, be enthusiastic yet professional, and have a strong thought out pitch. A great way to start off is by asking for 30 seconds of their time to pitch them a great story. Give them the pertinent information quickly and make it interesting! Do not go into any mundane details. Again, they do not have the time for that.

Follow Up: One thing you need to understand about pitching press releases is that you might not receive a call or email back. This does not necessarily mean that your press release is not being published. Sometimes the editor, reporter, etc. simply does not have the time to contact you, but still plans on publishing your release. It is okay to follow up with one phone call or email. However, that is it. The last thing you want is to pester them will multiple phone calls or emails. This is a quick way to lose contacts and get yourself blacklisted for future press releases.

Now that you know how to write a press release and the proper way to distribute them, you are on your way. Take your time, have fun and get ready to get some free publicity!

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