Entries from April 2006 ↓
April 26th, 2006 — Blogging, Business, Media Relations, Public Relations, Strategic Marketing, Utah Events, Utah Jobs, Utah Public Relations, Utah Public Relations Agency, Web 2.0
So, this is shameless promotion, but when SOAR Communications (a Politis Company) signs a three-year deal to do PR for Interbike, you have to write about it. (Politis is my employer).
Interbike is North America’s largest bicycle trade show and has more than 10,000 buyers that attend to make purchases on more than 1,000 different cyclying-related brands. They come from 60 countries, and that’s just the buyers. The show draws more than 20,000 people annually.
Google News - Interbike
Photo Credit: bikeride Photo used under Creative Commons.
UPDATE: We have now launched the Interbiketimes blog at interbiketimes.com
April 25th, 2006 — Business, Business Writing, Media Relations, Strategic Marketing, del.icio.us
Connect Magazine is holding one of its Business Ignitor events today in Salt Lake City. I highly recommend attending these.
Q&A with three of Utah’s top marketing and branding gurus:
Dave Newbold, President and Creative Director of Richter7
Ken Foster, Associate Professor of Marketing Communications, University of Utah
Hal Christensen, Founder, Christensen & Associates
Date:Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Time: 3:30 to 5 p.m.
Where:
The Depot (with food from The Butterfly)
400 W. South Temple
(Located in Gateway Shopping Center)
Salt Lake City, UT
Registration: $10
April 24th, 2006 — del.icio.us
April 24th, 2006 — Pondering, del.icio.us
If you have allergies, you may know what I’m talking about here. When it rains, they go away. My allergies are rampant right now, and if you look at this pollen chart, you will see the pollen counts for today.
Cedar is extremely high, and so is maple, and I just happen to have two large cedar trees and one large maple tree in my yard.
April 21st, 2006 — Business Writing, Media Relations, Media Training, Strategic Marketing
My Top 10 PR Tips:
Remember this as you read these PR tips: Journalists are employees of a business, and they want to deliver for their customers (readers, viewers or listeners) just like you want to deliver for your customers. Help them deliver, and they’ll deliver for you. Some of these seem like no brainers, but people make no-brainer mistakes daily. Here we go.
1- After hours contact - Every news release should include at least one after hours contact phone number.
2 - Contact info - Printed news releases should have contact info at the top of the first page.
3 - Wall Street likes predictability - Distribute releases at roughly the same time on certain days. (Did you know: You actually need to call the trading desk (Nasdaq, NYSE, etc…) 10 minutes before you release your news? They need to be prepared for announcements that could cause flucuations in trading).
4 - Datelines - Selected cities (like Salt Lake City, New York City, Hong Kong and San Francisco) stand alone in the dateline. You do not need to add the state. Email me at rpage@politis.com if you aren’t sure.
5 - Spell check - Proofread every document before releasing to the press. Microsoft word won’t catch “pubic relations” if it is supposed to be “public relations” beause pubic is spelled correctly.
6 - Titles - No matter how important your executive is, journalism style (AP style) says that titles are not capitalized when they follow the person’s name. If the title comes before the name, then it is capitalized.
NO: Jon Doe, Chief Executive Officer
YES: Jon Doe, chief executive officer or Chief Executive Officer Jon Doe
7 - Do not. Do Not! send email attachments to journalists or analyts unless they say it is okay. If you want to send them a press release, save it in text only format and paste it into the body of your email. Some can’t even get emails that have attachments. A text format news release is also better than sending a pdf because they can’t copy and paste from a pdf. And if you can, and I don’t know it. Great. Do they know that? Probably not.
8 - Are you on deadline? - When calling a journalist on the phone, the first thing you always ask is this: Are you on deadline? This does two things. First, it shows that you are sensitive to their time schedule, and second, it shows that you understand their business. Deliver for them, and they’ll deliver for you.
9 - Style - The ideal news release should be written such that it can be used “as is.” Here’s an example. Did they use our press release word for word? No, but it reads almost like it. They did use our client’s quote word for word. Why stick to journalism style? Because if you write how they write, your message is more likely to get published.
10 - Quotes - Give the journalist a quote they can actually use without giving you shameless promotion. If you want shameless promotion, go buy an ad.
NO: “Our Board of Directors was integral to this turnaround process, providing their views and counsel to produce a plan that we believe will allow Company A to attain stronger operating and financial performance, and ultimately, drive enhanced value for our shareholders,” commented Jon Doe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Company A.
Why? It obviously does BOD butt kissing and says nothing new. Shareholder value . . . blah, blah, blah.
YES: “We conducted a broad-based review of the entire Company B organization, including our real estate portfolio and business segment performance that was designed to help improve performance in our retail operations,” said Jane Doe, president and chief executive officer of company B.
Again, deliver for them, and they’ll deliver for you.
April 21st, 2006 — Strategic Marketing, del.icio.us
A few days ago I wrote about how I love to see how companies are marketing their names when I wrote about Coke Blak.
I thought I had seen it all until I was at lunch today with my friend Matt Hargreaves, who just got himself a new Ford Escape. I don’t know if you can see it in the picture, but the gas cap on his new car says “Ford Recommends BP” otherwise known as British Petroleum. Ford now has a petroleum company marketing itself on Ford gas caps. That’s one for the books. Why would Ford pick BP? Has anyone ever seen a BP station in Utah, let alone in the Western U.S.?
Ford said that this wasn’t supposed to happen until July 2006, but it’s here.
April 20th, 2006 — del.icio.us
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Is it just stupid to del.icio.us your own post? Just seeing what happens since my post to del.icio.us gets automatically posted to my blog.
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Gotta dig Steve Rubel - http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4698489
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Tagging my own del.icio.us? It’s an experiement.
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April 19th, 2006 — del.icio.us
