DIY PR by Penny Haywood Calder

• Being asked to be an ambassador is flattering to the most influential people in your field, which is rarely a bad thing.


• Having a good ambassador aligns your business with the best people.


• Ambassadors are eminently quotable and add kudos to your business


• An ambassador programme leverages word of mouth recommendations from people whose opinion is respected.


• Having ambassadors gets you closer to people who matter.


What's not to like about ambassadors?

If you have good contacts with prominent individuals associated with your field, could they become your ambassadors? Whether they are from business, industry, commerce, professional bodies, societies, associations or universities, local councils or governing bodies, potential ambassadors are people who are in a position to make influential recommendations. They might be customers, old colleagues, friends, fellow committee members in professional bodies or contacts from the past. Or a former mentor

Even if you can't immediately think of anyone, just remember that most people like helping others and hold the thought in the back of your mind that you are seeking an ambassador. Once you acknowledge that you are looking for one, a suitable person is much more likely to appear. That's because we tend to see what we are looking for.

Most successful people work hard, but also admit to being lucky. But you can give your luck a helping hand

If you visualise being successful and attracting a helpful ambassador, your subconscious doesn't know the difference between imagining and reality, so it will start drawing you towards things that help you achieve your goals. You won't find an ambassador just by imagining one, but visualising having an ambassador will make you feel more hopeful and energised and boost your chances of finding one.

Why not list finding ambassadors on your PR plan?

Ambassadors lend an air of credibility to your organisation. They are not colleagues or contacts on referral programmes, recommending you for some sort of reward or quid pro quo.

Referrals are more likely to be generated by equals. Ambassadors will actively promote your business because they believe in you and what you are trying to do. They like to see younger up and coming business people develop. And it's a two-way street. You will keep them fresh and up-to-date with new technology and the latest thinking in your sphere. And take them to interesting places to swap notes on the industry and your latest ideas.

I would also suggest that you periodically give your ambassador something that money can't buy easily.

Maybe you know a skilled artist whose style reflects your ambassador's own taste?

Or you have written a book you can dedicate to them?

Something special hand-crafted with their name that you have carefully judged is to their taste?

Or a bottle of their favourite and difficult to obtain single malt or wine?

Hard to obtain tickets to something they will love?

All of these things are worth more than a more expensive present and they force you to really pay attention to your ambassador's preferences: something that will make them feel special and appreciated.

Ambassadors may also be regarded by many as opinion formers and they may in fact be both. The difference is, opinion formers are useful, but are more remote than ambassadors. You may seek to influence opinion-formers, but it is unlikely that an opinion-former will actively promote your business in the way an ambassador does.

If they do make excellent comments about you or your business, your opinion-former has just re-classified him or herself as a potential ambassador.

The word-art for this post was created at www.wordle.net.

Labels: boosting your business, business promotion, DIY PR, marketing, PR sales and marketing synergy, sales, small businesses

Looking at some of the affiliate marketing schemes being pushed on Twitter or into your email inboxes, some sound quite convincing. Then you delve deeper.

The photo of the person on the Twitter account is clearly not the same person featured on the website or blog promo blurb. Either that, or they've aged 20 years and had a lot of really bad cosmetic surgery after making all that money!

Then there's the 'proof' of wealth. A badly scanned tax form with a company name not immediately obviously related to either the Tweeter or the person featured in the promo material. For all I know, it could be anyone's tax return or even a mock-up?

Then there is often a picture of a big house. Call me a cynic, but I think I could manage to take a picure of a very large house.

Plus all the other people who are sending messages that would appear to be pushing the same or a similar opportunity.

Often the pitch is a proven SEO or marketing system that runs on autopilot, so no experience is needed. At this point every fibre of my PR reputational management being is sounding a warning bell. Marketing without expertise? What sort of messages will be going out?

At some point the admittedly well-written text crunches some numbers. One I looked at suggested by reaching c2 million people, you could expect 400+ sales and take a slice of the action. And of course, the person offering you this wonderful opportunity to spam the other c1,999,550 people takes a small slice too. You run the risk of being blocked by the c1,999,550 people. OK, you can use a throw-away email address and set up a disposable Twitter account, but is that any way to run a business?

In the current economic climate, obviously quite a few people are going for it. If they are desperate, I wish them well. I hope they become rich and that these opportunities don't involve a scam.

But this numbers approach does highlight the marketing mindset taken to extremes. I think it illustrates why PR and marketing don't always see eye to eye. Marketing likes branding, and crunching the numbers and counting the sales. PR is about building influence, raising profile and safe-guarding business reputation, creating trust so that the marketing and sales efforts work well.

The truth is, sales, marketing and PR each bring a lot of advantages to the table, but by combining them you get a balanced approach and much greater long term business benefits. Not short term 'experts' with a little social media experience.

Would you rather be sending stuff to peopke who don't want it. Or walking into a pitch with well crafted marketing materials and a great company reputation backed by a clutch of on and offline cuttings from reputable sources? Plus some great metrics and feedback to inform your sales pitch? That's how PR, marketing and sales work together to build a long term business proposition that provide livlihoods for the many people who don't want to go it alone as freelancers or entrepreneurs, or spammers.

Labels: email, marketing, PR, PR sales and marketing synergy, Twitter

The PR, sales and marketing touches that nudge a prospective customer into making a buy decision go something like this, although at any stage, a particularly strong recommendation from a trusted person or a respected media source (on or offline) can accelerate the process dramatically. As can 'clicking' with someone who has already got a well-developed need for your product or services and has already done a fair amount of research.

A potential customer stumbles across your website in an unrelated search (touch 1) and think 'that's interesting'. They may even save your URL in their favourites. Then forget all about it until a blog they're following recommends you (touch 2), but the phone rings and they get side-tracked.

Then they notice a piece about you in a trade or consumer publication (on or offline). Or on Face-book, Twitter etc (touch 3). Since this is the third time your name has come up, they start to remember you (the memory likes to work in groups of three, which is why triads are so popular and memorable in speeches and any writing).

So they note down the name and look up your website (touch 4).

If the page they land on takes them to something interesting (instead of a pretty picture or a wait for flash to download) that crucially also contains an easy call to action on the page, you may well accelerate them on to the next touch.

Activating the call to action does what it says on the tin. A call to action is an exhortation to take action accompanied by an easy way to initiate the next step in the sales dialogue: click on an email address for further info, or a Skype call button etc) (touch 5). If they respond to a call to action, they have seriously entered your sales pipeline and are now a qualified or 'hot' sales prospect and should be tagged as such in your database or CRM program (such as www.salesforce.com).

You respond to their enquiry with further marketing information (touch 6). Plus an invitation to another call to action (touch 7) - maybe a special offer, a white paper to download, a newsletter to subscribe to (collecting their info into a permission-based database if you didn't capture it at touch 6).

Now you have their permission (always with an easy unsubscribe route and backed by a good data privacy management system following good data protection practices - see http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk) you can embark on a relationship-building series of exchanges (touches 8 onwards).

Depending on the nature of your product or service and your communications strategy and company ethos, your company's marketing and sales materials will flow alongside these relationship building exchanges, via automated responses, information provision and further calls to action and website interactions. Larger sales and service contracts may have to be reeled in via a tendering system or individual sales exchanges on the telephone, presentations at meetings, or via mail or email.

Looking backwards through this process, are there any points where your PR, sales and marketing could be strengthened? Are there any points where the sales process ceases to flow? Points where you lose them?

Next time we'll look at a point where around a quarter of online sales can be lost.

Labels: boosting your business, business promotion, ecommerce., marketing, media relations, on and offline PR, online businesses, online marketing, PR sales and marketing, PR sales and marketing synergy

Chances are you have already made a fair investment of time and money in some aspect of the golden promotional trio: sales, marketing and PR. But you may be struggling to know what's effective?

The standard advice is to monitor what works, then do more of it! And of course there's a lot of truth in the saying: "you can't manage what you haven't measured". But it's easier said than done.

If you ask customers at the point of sale how they heard of you, most people will stop after one answer: probably the most recent thing that brought them to you. Now that is an important clue, but would they have bought if you hadn't come recommended (word of mouth, or in the media, or online)?

Would they have bought if your website was out-of date or the branding wasn't attractive and the brand values consistent?

In most cases the 'buy' decision is a complex balance between:

• Your profile and reputation (PR), plus
• A clear understanding and attraction to what you are selling (marketing and branding) plus
• A good sales process to ensure lots of referrals and to clinch the deal efficiently.

Plenty of people will offer clever tools to monitor what works for you, but you'll only really find out by talking to customers and getting their feedback on all aspects of your sales, marketing and PR.

Plus you'll pick up invaluable feedback and ideas for developing your products and services in response to demand and for new markets.

Labels: marketing, on and offline PR, PR, PR sales and marketing, PR sales and marketing synergy, sales

We work with businesses of all sizes. Over the last 22 years. I've noticed the main difference between the smaller and the larger business is that many small to medium businesses don't think they have a marketing budget, but they always turn out to have spent a fair amount: they just aren't tracking it effectively. Some will flatly deny having a sales or PR budget.

If you're one of them, try adding up all the money and the time you spent in the last 12 months on any of these, you have the makings of your time/money budget:

• the website,
• taking a 'special deal' in a directory or an advertising feature,
• your membership subs & meeting fees plus time for attending networking events, the online directory listings and forums, plus social networking sites,
• writing sales proposals,
• PowerPoint presentations,
• responding to sales enquiries
• encouraging referrals from customers or complementary businesses
• signage for a building and/or vehicle
• maybe some Pay Per Click experiments?
• or a promo item?
• marketing materials - folders, leaflets, brochures?
• a mailing list?
• email fliers
• a newsletter?
• a blog?
• photos,
• videos or pod casts
• local sponsorship in kind?
• stalls at trade fairs
• other sales, marketing, PR promotional activity?

Chances are you have already made a fair investment of time and money in some aspect of the golden promotional trio: sales, marketing and PR. Use that as the baseline, and think how you could improve that spend of time and money in the next financial year.

One of the most valuable things you can do to further your business is to think about how you can find out more about your customers and how they found you, so you can concentrate resources on the things that are proven to work. It's much better to record feedback rather than rely on memory because we often remember more about encounters with emotional content.

Years ago, local shopkeepers in my high street said they had mainly elderly customers and were worried about their reliance on a dying breed of customer. But when they were asked to tick age groups of customers and record comments, it turned out there were at least as many busy mums, who actually spent more, but they hadn't talked as much so they failed to make much impression and weren't remembered.

Labels: budgeting for PR, marketing, on and offline PR, PR, PR sales and marketing, PR sales and marketing synergy, sales