Lewis Talbert Austin, Texas Information

By Peter C LoCascio
Published by Lewis Talbert
For years, multi-city press tours have been a key component in the process of introducing new products to the trade media. The concept of delivering the news in person to editors has endured even though nearly all aspects of today’s travel logistics and expenses have continued to increase in both difficulty and complexity.

The standard practice of utilizing a traveling press tour has included scheduling meetings at an editor’s home office where a supplier’s key product development and marketing experts would conduct a formal new product pitch. The somewhat formal presentation would highlight, among other issues, a new product’s unique features, its exclusive benefits, ease of operation, competitive analysis, pricing and outstanding customer value. The goal of the effort was performed with the hope of obtaining positive editorial coverage during the critical new product introduction (NPI) phase of bringing a new product to market.

Other objectives of the one-on-one presentation were to hopefully acquire the editor’s favorable support and, in turn coverage, of his/her findings in a future new product article, application story, product round up or at least a favorable mention in a future issue of the selected magazine.

In addition, the product marketing and public relations teams would hope to get a sense of the editor’s opinion and disposition towards allowing them to prepare their own new product feature or customer application story for publication with minimum editing. Ideas and concepts for a magazine cover or web page featured artwork or photography might also be discussed and offered at no charge to the magazine during the press tour sessions.

Domestic multi-city press tour schedules often can be grueling, time consuming and expensive. Plus, it only takes one editor to cancel a meeting at the last moment to throw the entire effort into turmoil and possibly affect the entire effort. This is especially true in those cases where products are large, difficult to handle, especially when transportation and set-up is a major undertaking.

Additionally, planning, scheduling and conducting an international press tour to coincide with a world wide new product introduction is almost always more demanding and complex when one considers the issues of language, time zone changes, customs regulations, transportation logistics and overall coordination challenges.

There is little doubt that obtaining favorable press coverage when introducing a new product can be extremely beneficial to the overall success of a new product launch in the market place. However, there might be a better way to meet the press than hitting the road putting on dog and pony shows all over the country with participants feeling like members of a wandering minstrel show.

A Trade Show Press Suite Might Solve the Problem

According to Robert Galvin, President, Galvin & Associates, Public Relations, Portland, Oregon, “We have utilized the trade show press suite for many clients over the years and have found it to be much more effective, economical and successful than doing an on-the-road press tour.” Galvin continues, “The major reasons for the success of this kind of PR function is that most editors attending major trade shows have committed their limited time for show attendance and are there specifically to learn as much as possible about new products. By having editors individually meet key product developers and top management during a new product presentation within an exhibitor’s suite assures a better understanding of the product and consequently, better press coverage compared to just picking up a press kit in the press room,” Galvin adds.

If you decide to organize a press suite at your next most important trade show, here are a few things you’ll want to check into before setting this important public relations function in motion:

1. At least four months before your most important trade show, telephone or E-mail all those editors at various magazines that you suspect might be important to your new product introduction and inquire if they plan to attend the trade show.

2. Reserve a suite at a hotel as close to the convention center as possible where your press room will be located and send a personal invitation to each editor planning to attend the show.

3. Decorate and arrange your press suite to create an environment which presents your corporation, its products and people in the most professional manner possible.

4. Set-up personal meeting times using a simple day planner so each editor knows what time his/her appointment is and also offer transportation to and from the convention hall.

5. Arrange to have a receptionist in the suite to check meeting schedules, answer phone calls, coordinate company personnel and communicate with your transportation driver via a walkie talkie.

6. Rent a comfortable Mini-van complete with magnetic signs showing your corporate logo on the doors and provide the driver with a walkie talkie to effectively and quickly communicate with the suite to ensure accurate transportation coordination.

7. Have a company representative meet the visiting editors in the hotel lobby and escort him/her to the suite making the appropriate introductions.

8. Assemble new product press kits for distribution at the suite.

9. Prepare the new product presenter so he/she knows what to say and how positively react to an editor’s questions, comments and concerns.

10. Be prepared to demonstrate the product and show the editor how it works, what it does and what important advantages it offers customers.

11. Introduce the editor to key management at the suite in hopes of favorably supporting his/her desire to learn as much as possible about the company, its people, products, business and future plans.

12. One week prior to the trade show telephone, E-mail and/or send a note to all invited editors confirming their appointment time and day and provide each with the suite name and telephone number.

13. Offer a selection of non-alcoholic refreshments and an assortment of finger foods.

14. Coordinate transportation for editors with appointments from your exhibit on the trade show floor with your mini-van driver and establish appropriate convenient locations for pick up and return.

15. Have top management available and prepared in the suite to show support and open communications with editors for future contact regarding timely business and industry issues.

16. Ensure that the product people presenting the new products are well versed, brief with their remarks and very sensitive to simply answering presented questions.

17. Interview each editor before ending the sessions to determine if there are any additional topics needing to be discussed or information needing to be provided at a later date.

18. After the trade show contact each editor with a thank you note for their attendance and offer any additional support that might be needed in developing their post show or future stories.

19. Your Public Relations Manager should be your primary contact during all phases of staging a trade show press tour.

20. It should also be the responsibility of the Public Relations Manager to maintain timely contact with all visiting editors in an effort to build strong lasting relationships.

Conclusion

Making it easy and convenient for editors and product people to meet, discuss and experience new products is the first step in obtaining good media coverage. The trade show environment over the years has proven to be an excellent venue to introduce and highlight new products.

It only stands to reason that conducting a trade show press tour in a local hotel suite at a time and place where editors plan to be anyway would greatly improve the chances of obtaining excellent new product coverage, possible feature application stories or key product articles.

The trade show is the venue and your press suite is the vehicle that can deliver in three days what a press tour can’t in three months.

By CR Ransom

The economic downturn is having a dramatic impact on the economy and no one is left untouched. We are seeing small to big businesses closing their doors and calling it quits. Even celebrities and their luxury brands are affected.

Most businesses are wondering how to increase profit earnings when people are simply not spending. The solution to get people to spend money is to get people excited about a brand, product, or service. This involves putting together a PR campaign that offers consumers something of value.

How you communicate with your target audience will determine the success factors of your brand’s image. When consumers are strapped for cash perception of a brand plays a vital role when making selections or even recommendations. People will not make wasteful purchases and you have to give them a reason to spend their hard earned money.

Public relations are how you communicate with the public. A brand’s image is received by public opinion and concept. Using media outlets such as radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc helps to strengthen brand awareness. Using PR, also known as public relations can help to influence perception.

Here are some tips to help you get some free publicity by using PR, public relations practices to make your brand hot during slow economic times.

1. Press Release Promotions - Offer specials through press release announcements.

2. Word of Mouth Promotions - Give promotional bonuses for referrals.

3. Give-A-Way Promotions - Attract attention through free offerings.

4. Article Branding Promotions - Provide offerings through article promotions.

The key point to consider is that consumers are looking for a cost break when funds are limited. It will be very necessary to use media resources that are a direct fit with the target audience you would like to connect with. This will allow your brand awareness to increase and for you to receive free publicity for your promotions.

By John M Adams III

Whether you own a long-established business, one with a track record of growth and success, or you’re just starting your first venture, your reputation within the community you operate - whether it’s Main Street or in the e-commerce sphere - is a valuable asset. Building a reputation for quality takes time, but there’s lots you can do to hasten the process and ensure that your hard-earned reputation is kept tarnish-free.

Business Transparency People (especially customers) don’t like to be fooled. It makes them mad. And that means your reputation around town is going to suffer as clients or customers spread the bad word about your hidden fees or last-minute charge on the client’s invoice. Be transparent in all activities - fee structure, services provided, statement of work (SOW), delivery dates - everything. And if a problem or setback does occur, be transparent with your client, explain the problem and how you plan to fix it.

Corporate Citizenship Your business is part of a community - a real community or a virtual, on-line community. Your reputation is tied strongly to how good a corporate citizen you are in all commercial spheres. There are lots of ways to demonstrate your corporate citizenship:

* sponsor a sports team in your community;
* donate time and money to local charities;
* maintain your storefront or office - even if it isn’t your job!
* Contribute your thoughts and ideas. Write a column for the local newspaper on your area of expertise.
* Join the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau.

All of these show prospects that you’re a proud member of the local business community.

Warranties, Guarantees and Kept Promises Do you provide a guarantee for the services your company delivers? A guarantee of complete customer satisfaction? This one is a no brainer. Guarantees, warranties and such cost very little because few consumers ever take advantage of these promises.

One publisher in Colorado offered a 30-day, complete money-back guarantee. Each buyer could try a product before buying it - even if it was a book, a book that could be read in less than 30 days and returned for a full refund. This on-line business owner reports a less than 3% return rate and his guarantee keeps those orders coming in to more than offset that 3% rate.

Client Satisfaction After 40 years as an independent businessperson, I believe that client satisfaction is the number one key to business growth and long-term success - even if it costs you money.

If you’re a retailer (I am) you know that all client requests are…well, let’s say legitimate. I’ve had customers try to return items I don’t even sell! So, yes, there are times when you just have to live with a dissatisfied client - one who’s trying to rip you off.

However, these are the exceptions. Most customers don’t want to fuss and hassle to have a satisfying buying experience so if there’s a problem, in most cases it deserves to be fixed at your expense. Why?

Even if you lose a few dollars on the transaction, that happy customer will talk you up to neighbors and friends in the area, so maybe it cost you $40, but you better believe you’ll get more than that in good word of mouth (WOM) advertising - the best advertising there is.

Conversely, if one of your customers or clients has a legitimate gripe that you opt to ignore, that one person becomes toxic, spreading bad reviews of your company’s service - and that’s the kind of reputation management you need to control.

The Business of Business Ethics If you run an ethical business, one that goes out of its way to provide services or goods to people at reasonable prices and on time, your reputation will grow both on Main Street and within the commercial realm of the web. News spreads fast today. How do you think Amazon.com keeps growing? Ethical, responsive customer service and complete transparency, down to offering lower-cost shipping options at Amazon’s recommendation! That’s business ethics.

Run your business honestly and fairly. Become a member of your town’s business and public community. Offer and honor your warranties and absolutely ensure client satisfaction.

The Small Business Administration reports that 50% of all new business launches fail within five years. The record is even worse on-line with only 6% of new site launches delivering success to the owner after 12 months. The odds are NOT stacked in your favor.

However, don’t let that stop you. If you run your business with client care and business reputation foremost in your daily activities, you can sure you’ll be one of the success stories.

By Carolyn Clayton

Successful online business is impossible without an effective marketing strategy. 85% of online shoppers are guided by the results of the search engines. So as search engines dominate the market of targeted traffic, it makes sense to ensure your business website is optimised for the search engines, otherwise it will not get found.

If you don’t want to give away your potential customers to your competitors you need to gain high search engine rankings for relevant keywords. So how do you rank your site high in the search engines?

There are two ways to get your site ranked high. Organic Search Engine Optimisation or Pay-Per-Click advertising.

Organic Search Engine Optimisation is the better option for long term search success. It is less expensive than the paid for advertising techniques and it brings out more sustainable results. It has been research that 80% of users click on the organic lists rather than the advertised paid links. The organic or natural lists are found under the sponsored ads in the search engines.

PPC or Pay Per Click Advertising is where you pay to have your website link in the “Sponsored link” or “Sponsored Ads” sections which appear above “natural” or “organic” results on the engine results pages (SERP’s), this is very expensive for the competitive phrases and you have to keep paying to keep your site up there.

The benefits of an SEO Campaign shouldn’t be underestimated. It does take time before the changes to take effect but SEO is still the best RIO than other methods. Online shoppers have more trust in the organic search results in comparison to the sponsored listings and will look through the first 2 or 3 pages. Ask yourself when you search for something how many times do you click the sponsored links? Plus once you site is optimised, it is optimized for life. You could spend a year optimizing your site and then stop your SEO campaign or at least half the amount of marketing. Depending on what your competitors are doing your site might still hover around the top pages for years to come. However search engines love websites that evolve and constantly get updated. A good plan would be to have a full blown SEO campaign for at least a year or two and spend as much as your marketing budget allows. Then if in a year or twos time you have streams of enquiries coming in and high listings in the search results you could drop your campaign cost in half. Obviously the more hours spent on SEO in the first few years the better. In the long term it will pay off and you will soon be reaping the benefits. If your business is serious about getting the benefits of traffic from search engines, you cannot do this with the help of an SEO Campaign.

By Markus Skupeika

Most of the people are unaware of the fact what does Search Engine Optimization means? Search Engine Optimization is not so popular like any other Computer software or hardware related subjects or services.

So what does search engine optimization or better know as SEO means?

SEO or search engine optimization is the technique by which it guides the development and redevelopment of a website. It also help you in getting large number of visitors by getting good search engine rank on the top search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN for targeted keywords or key phrases. More you improve search engine rank better is the chance of getting large number of visitors.

Basically Search Engine optimization is required for making people who are using internet aware of your website. In short you can say that search engine optimization shows the way for better exposure of your site in the internet. Naturally large number of visitors will visit your site and thus you can gain money from your site. In search engine point of view this visitors are known as traffics.

So we can say that every site needs optimization for better traffic.

After on page optimization the website take some time to get into top 10 in the search engine ranking by the targeted keywords through off page optimization. Time varies from 1 month to 6 months. It depend on how competitive the keyword is and how much effort you are putting on optimizing the site. Since Google is the most popular search engine so it takes more time to spider up the websites. However no SEO companies will guarantee you that your site will rank in Top 10 by such and such months. Because the ranking totally depends on the competitive keywords and also the algorithm of the search engines. This algorithm changes every now and then so naturally sometimes it takes time to get rank in different search engines.

Basically the ranking of the keyword for a site depends on the following factors:

1. Competitive keywords. If the keywords are competitive then it takes sometime to get good ranking in the search engines.

2. Quality of the content of the site and how tactfully the keywords are used in the content.

3. Website design should be as simple possible. It will help the search engine to crawl easily.

4. The presence if the site on the web.

5. Number of inbound links of the site.

6. Local Directory submission. This will help you to catch local visitors and will also make one type of advertisement.
Now many people ask whether local companies are good for SEO.