Does the company blog replace the press release?

Although company blogs have become a news channel in their own right, they are not a substitute for a press release.

Press releases are written for the press, providing the basic information about a company news announcement for journalists to develop into a story, written in a style that will be of interest to the readership of the publication. The reality is that few company pronouncements are actually that newsworthy to prompt a journalist, or in the case of many trade journals, the editor, to call up and get more information. Some editors in the industrial sector now seem to edit more than one title and the only other staffers are not journalists, but advertising salesmen selling traditional display and classified space, but also editorial space. Not all publications do this, the better quality titles keep editorial decisions away from advertising influence. What tends to happen is that the press release, if the word count is within the required range, may be re-titled, or edited for length, but otherwise published as received.

Before blogs came the news aggregator web sites that unlike the print based titles who published perhaps as little as 1 in 20 press releases received, published everything. Some industry specific news aggregators may take a swift editorial review to tidy up copy, but some others are happy to publish news just as it comes in. The news aggregating sites were of interest to companies on several counts. Not only was their investment in PR rewarded by publication rather than rejection into the editorial trash can, but the sites did well on search results and links helped company web site ranking and to attract visitors. In short they had SEO value. The company blog was the next step, with the PR content published there too. But all this may actually now be working against high rankings as this recent article explains, "Why your press releases are getting you penalised." As more and more company web sites have turned to standard  development packages and CMS -- the wide landscape rotating image set at the top being a common distinguishing feature - there is often a "news" module in the kit. This is more of a blog module than a press resource, which in turn raises the question of what resources is the press looking for?

Research conducted some 10 years or more ago indicated even then 90% of journalists researching a company turn first of all to the company web site to discover what the business says about itself.  A background document that explains the company's business, introduces the important company officers, gives financials, brief history and key performance data, helps set the scene and save journalists a lot of time. What else might they expect to find there? Well current press releases with downloadable and captioned high resolution images and contact details for the press officer or PR agency. Perhaps too, searchable news archives to quickly find reference to related stories that help build up the full picture and how about an image library with hi-res and web ready images. For the company press officer other features would be great, such as automatic creation of an html press release ready to email out, news feeds such as RSS and news tickers that can be put on the home page, or other web sites and linking to the full story. The Virtual News Office offers all these features as a service to busy marketing and PR  professionals - it does a lot more than a blog!

Has PR become an essential SEO tool?

As search engine algorithms are increasingly refined to weed out devious SEO tricks and focus on web site quality and relevance, so content becomes really important and this widens the scope and role of PR.

When we set up Virtual News Office over ten years ago we soon noticed that Google indexed our clients' stories and these showed up in searches in several ways. Although this wasn't an intended feature of the VNO, searches turned up not just for the client's name or brand, but the customer's name, the location and of course the generic product type. The VNO service was devised to allow marketing to regularly update news on their web site, rapidly - something their IT or web agency often struggled to achieve, or was expensive to do. The VNO service Technical Marketing Ltd offers is not just a means of publishing news online, but a searchable archive, a high resolution image resource for the press, an RSS news feed generator and a tool for delivering press releases.  Although CMS is now common on company web sites, actually updating a news module requires the discipline and time for someone in the marketing team to actually go and do. Because the news from the VNO is fed to an iFrame on the client's site there are relevant inbound links, something Google rates highly. But this system also allows us to feed news to other industry sites, news tickers or banner ads. We have found that our news server consistently ranks in the top 10 referring sites to client web sites.

An onsite news module merely supplies  page content, it neither generates in-bound links or provides editorial resource and may not be making best use of the content anyway. We reasoned way back during the development of the VNO that the news was what changed most often and required regular updates that most other pages didn't and was most effectively and efficiently managed by the PR agency. The only counter argument being that the company web site did not have the benefit of this content.  But this is easily overcome by examining news subjects and publication channels and re-purposing content that has a longer term value on the web site for search engine indexing. Important news should still go to the media and this requires to be written in a media friendly style and delivered typically by email. For customers and prospects the style can be different and the delivery channels include newsletters and social media.

Some news will be short term - an exhibition or event, financial results, staff changes etc. Other news may have longer term value such as new products, interesting customer applications or installations and these can be re-purposed as product support and testimonials to create quality, relevant web site content. News delivery can be used as appropriate such as Twitter or RSS for headline news and links to more extensive content on the web site, less formal communication on a blog and groups on LinkedIn.

The scope of this work seems to most naturally be within the remit of the PR agency, a role now expanded beyond the traditional press release, to include alternative publication and delivery platforms and now playing an important part in good search engine positioning.

Is the trade press losing its power?

Not so long ago, the trade press was the most important communication channel for industrial and technology b-2-b companies.

Getting news published in the trade press gave an impression of independent endorsement even though the piece originated from a PR agency or was even commissioned by the journal from an expert in a company. Yes - magazines actually paid good money for product managers like me to write an authoritative article. Today it is typically the manufacturer who pays for news inclusion in what are generally much slimmed down publications. The industrial sector has been in the vanguard of selling editorial as their display advertising sales have declined, pages per issue reduced and in several cases the number of issues per year reduced too as combined monthly versions become more common.

But news consumption is still popular. It has shifted to more immediate online media and new platforms where the company can now be a publisher. The better journals have recognised that monthly publications can offer a more reflective role with researched, balanced, in-depth articles rather than as a conduit for breaking news. Although most that include paid for news have slowly added an online dimension, they are no longer the only act in town. Many companies have themselves to embrace the new reality in their marketing budgets and PR is often viewed with at best curiosity and at worse suspicion and hostility.

The online value of news resides not just in the promotional value of the content itself, but in the links and positive impact on search engine rankings as it grows into a body of relevant information about your company. And it is not just text that gets indexed, pictures and video news are increasingly important. Add to this that news is not just viewed in the work place on a static PC, but increasingly on the move via smart phones and similar mobile devices. Marketing communications budgets now need to recognise the need to utilise a whole range of communication tools that should include a Virtual News Office, eNews (news by email), RSS, mobile and social media. This will also involve working closely with a suitable agency to build and operate news delivery systems and maintain a flow of quality content.

The company web site - is it time for an overhaul?

Today the web site is at the hub of marketing communications but is it being regularly reviewed and updated?

In previous blogs we talked about the inertia that keeps traditional display advertising and exhibitions as such high ticket budget items. But because there is no need to build a new web site each year there is a tendency to consider them a 'one off' investment and merely budget for maintenance. For many b-2-b companies the web site does not offer an e-commerce facility, but it is still the shop window for the business which can form a view amongst potential customers and specifiers as whether to step inside and ultimately buy. It is a two way interaction with prospects, providing both a conduit for enquiries and dispensing information, guidance and documentation

There are three important messages about its business a company web site can usefully communicate:-

1. Provide information that prospects need about products and services.
2. Provide endorsement and testimonials from customers who have bought and used the product and can offer useful experience and observation.
3. Provide expert views from respected opinion-formers - industry gurus, technology experts, editorial etc. - that endorse the products directly or indirectly.

One convenient way to provide new information, endorsement and expert opinion is through a well organised press relations programme. Adding a Virtual News Office provides the means to publish that news. This can be integrated with the company web site and not only provide great, relevant content, but also a resource for the media to access and search archives. The VNO system pioneered by Technical Marketing Ltd does all this and can automatically generate news feeds and press releases and integrate with social media.

So instead of leaving the web site to age and allocate a small budget for maintenance, budget to keep developing and publishing new content. And by trimming back the big display advertising and exhibition budgets it can be funded within existing resources.

What's that for then?

It is easy to forget the purpose of a product or system when people become focussed on a single issue that appears more compelling.

There are examples everywhere. Political groups formed for a single agenda item such as a ban on hunting, green issues, changing daylight hours, planning issues etc can focus all their attention on making a strong case for their political cause. They rarely succeed at an election because the electorate appreciates that there are not just two sides to an argument, but there are plenty of other matters that also demand attention and resource and the 'hot heads' are unlikely to possess the right skills to deliver a programme that a majority can endorse.

Back in 1991 Intel launched a global campaign directed not at a select band of engineers with the specification authority to embody Intel microprocessors into a new product development programme, but to end users of PCs. The 'Intel Inside' campaign addressed the general public that in the main had absolutely no idea what made an electronic product work, but could understand a simple concept of looking for a label that apparently benchmarked the product as good or bad. Although the marketing campaign was in partnership with OEM PC makers it was also reported that buyers of lighting controls were asking the same question - does it use an Intel 486 processor? This possibly unintentional spin off from the campaign would not immediately lead to lighting control manufacturers simply switching processors - too much R&D - but prompted a return to marketing the product explaining what it did. That is it controlled lighting, but crucially it did so when required, not after watching some little egg timer spin around for 30 seconds or so before enacting the control command as most PCs did at the time.

Recently we have experienced a new take on this theme driven by Search Engineering Optimisation specialists re-working web site content in pursuit of improved SEO. Again, clients have come to believe that SEO is the holy grail for web sites and seem to be blissfully prepared to trade functionality in furtherance of that goal. They have absolutely no comprehension of html code, java script or cascading style sheets but can grasp the concept of being number one in search results. That the proponents of SEO do not actually know the rules and algorithms used by Google, that they regularly change and it is a constant evolution is not questioned. The single issue brigade have struck suitable terror into their victims. We have to explain that one of our products - Virtual News Office - is actually a fully functional Press and PR system with all the functionality to not just post press releases on site, but deliver news, generate news feeds and provide press resources such as high resolution images, press packs and contact details. By focussing just on one aspect - how the press release is worded and put online - the SEO boys loose sight of the purpose of what it is there for in the first place and end up with a product that doesn't work. Even if this does propel the site high up in the search results why would visitors use the site if the information they went there for does not work or even exist?

Aggregating news

Not so long ago news was delivered only through a few specific channels and at defined intervals - now news is accessible 24 hours via many channels.

 Yet many b-2-b companies still approach the issue of news about their companies, if they produce any news at all, just as they have always done and without regard to the changed media landscape. Traditionally a press release has been sent to the editors of trade press journals with a view to providing some stand out content, maybe an eye catching image to help being selected for print.  More commonly in the industrial press the response is from the sales team who sell editorial space for a price.  To some extent this is vanity publicity that has become an extension of advertising because the managing director likes to read about his company in print.

Good value is to appear on an industry news web site that aggregates news from many companies. Because such sites focus on an industry sector they can rank quite high on search results for a generic product enquiry and the more stories you have about that type of product you have posted, the better chance your name will appear. Plus each story often has a useful link to your web site, a factor thought to be rated importantly by search engines. 

For most companies publicising their products and services, there is a finite and fiercely contested amount of  editorial space available in printed media. Rather than a stream of news a few knowledgeable articles strategically placed in the right publications can be a more effective goal in building credibility for the brand. But with most b-2-b publications being monthly, at most they are not a vehicle for current news and information. The Internet offers this immediacy and although as already noted industry portals and news aggregating sites have an important role to play, the real opportunity is now for the company to be the publisher itself and feed news not only to the print media and industry web sites, but direct to customers and prospects.

At the heart of this strategy is a Virtual News Office that not only allows news to be published on the company web site, but also provides tools for news distribution. The VNO generates a custom style press release that can be e-mailed to the media with links to high resolution images, contact and company background information for journalists. It also provides a searchable news archive that can be a useful resource for sales as well. Interested parties can subscribe through the VNO to receive e-News, RSS headline feeds, or link to social media such as a blog, Facebook or Twitter.

We spend 7 hours a day consuming media

Research announced today by regulator Ofcom suggests people in the UK spend seven hours a day watching TV, surfing the net and using mobile phones - often all at the same time!

The report on the BBC web site claims that for the average person this represents half their time awake during the course of a day. In fact the equivalent time is more like 9 hours than 7 thanks to multi-tasking - watching TV while texting and surfing online. Coincidentally we have just completed some market research where when asked  where they look to discover information about our client's category of products, respondents nominated the Internet first followed by recommendations by friends and colleagues. And increasingly this personal communication and recommendation is about media communication by text, voice and social media rather than over a pint down the pub.

The Ofcom report says, "Concurrently, the use of mobile data has exploded, increasing by 240% between 2007 and 2009. It suggested that, in part, much of this increase had been driven by one site - Facebook - which accounts for 45% of all mobile web use in the UK, followed by Google at 8%." 

It all raises interesting challenges for marketing in the b-2-b space. Because the web site is the first place to look, is it up to date? Does it for example have things like "Copyright 2008" and a story from last year billed as latest news? Does the company use social media at all? The report also highlights a growing trend for older people to sign up for Facebook, although I know companies who sneer at the idea. Above all does the web site have compelling content? Too few companies use news about their company, products, projects, successes etc. to add great new content that not only keeps the web site current and provides recommendations and third party endorsement, but also provides useful content for search engines to pick up.

The truth is that most large companies do all this, while many small to medium size companies can't be bothered or claim not to have the time. This is where a Virtual News Office centered strategy can give small businesses a platform to compete with the big boys of their industry by delivering fresh and compelling content, providing up to date news feeds, building highly rated in-bound links -  and the good news is it very affordable.

Are blogs changing PR?

An interview carried by iMedia Connection – ‘Steve Rubel on how blogs are changing the face of PR’- brings forward a debate of the technical possibilities versus their relevance to the target market and the interest, uptake and commitment of clients to participate. The figures seem compelling. According to emarketer "Once a haven for techies, there are now blogs for everything from celebrity gossip to political commentary to the most mundane personal minutiae. By 2012, more than 145 million people - or 67% of the US Internet population - will be reading blogs at least once per month." 

They reckon 12% of US internet users, some 25 million write blogs. Surprisingly more than 100 million internet users, more than 50% are also blog readers. Big numbers then. Consider now some unofficial statistics from our own research in PR activity in the UK industrial market. Whilst the most active portal web sites carry news free of charge and archive thousands of stories, a sampling revealed that the vast majority were generated by relatively few companies or their PR agencies. The larger group of companies submitted very few stories. Some just one token story before presumably losing interest or running out of news. 

Talking to other PR people confirmed that news output from their clients was hardly prolific. Most needed quite a good portfolio of clients to make their PR business work. In our experience many clients don’t even think they have any news and a key task of a PR professional is teasing out stories in the first place. Then few have any people in-house that can write anything about their business sufficient to interest and editor, let alone a reader. 

But blogs demand a far bigger commitment by company personnel as there is both an immediacy and inside knowledge that the traditional PR practitioners will find difficult to embrace. For example not just getting the story, but getting client approval introduces a delaying factor. The blog is more of a personal view and works against the secrecy culture many clients have. 

Only recently a PR professional was lamenting a decision by a client to stop all case studies and third party endorsement stories as they did not want their competitors to know. We all have clients like that – great stories are blocked because the credibility associated with their blue chip customer cannot be mentioned. So the challenge is getting not only the commitment to write a blog, even if ghost written by an agency but also the openness to actually reveal the sort of compelling inside news content people want to read.

Small businesses need marketing too

According to the Office of National Statistics there are 2.16 million businesses registered for VAT and PAYE in the UK. Of these just 0.4% employ more than 250 people, 98.1% employ less than 50 and 89% less than 10. Adding in those below the VAT threshold and one man businesses it is clear that in terms of numbers, most UK companies are very small businesses. Look at another statistic 17.4% are less than 2 years old and 32.6% under 4 years old. A large number of small businesses that could benefit from marketing in growing their business. You might expect that the demand for marketing services would be strong from the large group of small, new businesses but small new enterprises typically have little to invest in marketing.

The reality is that it is the established companies that recognise the value of marketing most and allow some budget for the purpose. Many of these are classified as SMEs and are cautious in adopting new ideas so put most of their marketing investment into traditional communications such as directories, trade magazines and literature. As a broad statement both small new businesses and established businesses are slow to fully leverage online marketing methods that are both affordable and effective. For the price of a couple of full page display advertisements in a trade journal, a company could have a Virtual News Office up and running. Add in a press release or two each month and you have an on-going campaign that publicises the business and thanks to in-bound links from the press release archive, improves search engine ranking too - all for a fraction of a print based display advertising campaign. The news stories can additionally be fed into social media campaigns too. If an affordable marketing campaign seems like a good investment, the get in touch with Technical Marketing who can help you achieve this.

 

News bearing web sites

Several years ago it became apparent to the team at Technical Marketing Ltd that much of the content for a company web site was pretty much static. The products, services and stuff about the company itself, didn't really change that much, or that often. What did change was news. 

News can be about company results, investments, acquisitions, appointments, contract wins and  projects.  Or new product announcements, exhibitions, events, market research findings and comment on industry issues. The problem we recognised is that the PR people who were schooled in copy deadlines, embargo dates and other timing issues didn't run the web site. The IT guys did web sites and often it was pretty low on their priority list as well. If they had to fix payroll software then it could be a couple of weeks before they got round to posting news items if they bothered at all. 

All that changed, for our clients at least, when we rolled out the Virtual News Office. With a VNO, stories could be published online as soon as they were ready to go. In fact every story can be published rather than end up in some editor's waste bin. Although our goal at the time was to provide a service that got company news accessible through the company web site we soon realised it was also getting indexed by search engines and because the news story actually resides on the VNO server it was creating relevant links to the company web site, in turn improving ranking of that site.

I have written before on the inevitable shift of emphasis from print to Internet as the place where news is published and consumed. The print business model based on advertising revenue and free distribution is under threat and many publications now charge for news publication and in doing so forfeit editorial control over the news pages. Not only does this degrade quality, but some magazines now resemble a notice-board patchwork of press releases. Whatever journals do they cannot match the immediacy of the Internet. However the sustainable business model for online aggregated news sites is taking time to emerge, as generally these sites offer free news and have no subscription revenue. Interestingly, in the industrial and engineering sectors, industry web sites that are mainly news oriented, or as someone called it today - 'news bearing' - are emerging as important resources for enquiries for engineers or architects. 

Because such industry sites contain so much relevant content about a product category an engineer searching for a component will most likely find the that site higher up the search results than any one manufacturer of that component. So what he reads initially is a press release that in turn provides links to the supplier. And online aggregated new sites are becoming more selective, only publishing interesting news and carefully monitoring how many hits each attracts. The most popular news suppliers find their news items featured and fed to Google News and other participating sites. So this trend once again emphasises the importance of news creation and news delivery and increasingly as a direct source of sales leads.   

Press release work for social media too

Although press releases lack the newness and novelty of social media what is basically an old idea actually works well in these new communication channels. In fact the news content is no longer just for the press as an intermediary but can be aimed straight at customers and prospects.

The old model of writing a press release and distributing to the traditional press list has changed only slightly in so far as the method of delivery is by e-mail rather than posting out printed releases and glossy photos. From this point on selection for publication remains within the decision of the editor. But the web enables press releases to be sent directly to anyone and also offers the opportunity for comment. 

The most established of new options is the blog. This can afford to be less formal than a press release allowing the news content to be addressed directly to the reader rather than aiming to grab the attention of an editor or journalist. 

RSS has also been around for a while and is really a neat solution that provides headlines and opening text of recent news items allowing readers to keep informed quickly and easily of news streams that interest them.

For those for whom even this is too much, then Twitter provides a useful medium to publish just headlines or short links to longer stories. And if followers like the story they can 're-tweet' to their followers.

Let's not ignore putting news on your own web site as well - a Virtual News Office provides a great solution and includes RSS as an option and eNews as an additional communication channel.

 

Not only does this multiple approach give readers plenty of options to choose from but it also leaves a trail of activity across the web that will assist with search engine ratings. To discover more about how these powerful web based strategies can help promote your business, contact Technical Marketing Ltd.

Press Releases are good for search

A recent article titled, How Press Releases can be great for search, provides important endorsement for the value of online press releases - not only for conveying their own intrinsic news message, but the benefit derived from driving web site traffic and search. The article draws on case studies that demonstrate increases in web site traffic following a news release. The point is made that journalists are actually searching the web for news and advise that " you're out there where the journalists are looking." Another important item of advice from the article is "to include your press releases on your own site". " Your site should have a section for press releases".

We have been operating Virtual News Offices for clients for several years now and discovered the benefits of search early on for news content. Because the VNO is integrated with the client web site but hosted on our own news server, not only does this provide searchable content, but all important in-bound and highly relevant links to the client web site. News stories often provide useful search results for alternative terms. For example a press release about a company's role in a new project may be discovered by search on the project name. Say this is a prestigious new building that interests architects, then your company could well be identified as a potential supplier for work they are commissioned to do. Or if the press release is about an upcoming event, again your listing will be found when searching for details of that event. 

When it comes to content marketing, then news is an important tool that is a regular source of new content. To learn more about Virtual News Offices, you can download a PDF Guide.

Marketers as publishers

Content Marketing, the subject of the previous blog, discussed how the Internet had moved in favour of marketers to the detriment of media owners. During the current recession there have been many job losses in journalism and a trend towards journalists working on a freelance basis and delivering their work via a blog rather than submission to a sub editor. But the media still has an important role to play. Although a company can now publish anything it likes on line, there is still a need to apply some basic criteria to judge the value of the content. For example, is the story actually news, something that the target audience will find of interest? Matters the company may find all consuming might appear as irrelevant internal politics to readers. Is the story written in a style that is clear, consistent and authoritative? Is there a persistent theme through all stories that uniquely positions the company in its market sector? In short there is expertise required in dealing with these and other issues best dealt with by a PR specialist. So while actually writing the piece has its own challenges reaching the target audience is still an area where the traditional media has an advantage. It is far easier to pick up a magazine or visit a web site that covers the whole industry than visit various company web sites. There is also the question of independence and objectivity. Readers of trade publications are used to the benefits of news aggregation and will place more credibility on stories that appear in their pages than those in a company specific publication. It is better to use company published news to impart expertise that is not easily found elsewhere and establishes their credentials in a market. So although there are many tools available for the self publisher, to be successful they should be deployed as part of an integrated marketing strategy. This is where the experience of a marketing agency can be a good investment, to take an independent view, mix traditional and new media into a cohesive programme that delivers results at a number of levels. Technical Marketing Ltd has years of experience in developing and implementing integrated marketing communications plans that provide the right balance by selecting from the tools available and tailoring to each company's unique situation.

Content marketing

Many companies will have gone through several iterations of their web site over the years, but how many have really revisited the content? Too often it is the same material in a new wrapper. In the Internet era so much has changed, much of it in the favour of b-2-b companies  and away from traditional media owners. Company information pre-Internet took a number of well established routes to reach customers and prospects - advertising, press releases, exhibitions, mail shots and brochures - and still does. Pretty much all of this can now be done online, although arguably not the face-to-face experience of exhibitions in quite the same way. Companies used advertising in publications to reach their target audience by selecting magazines with the relevant readership profile because this was the only way. The magazines built the readership by providing fresh content each month through a mix of reporting, features and by editing press announcements. Generally both traditional media publishers and company marketing people have been slow to recognise that everyone can be a publisher now. Think about the most common question customers ask when you see them on an exhibition stand or when making a sales call - "tell me what is new."  Showing a new product or service is what salesmen use to get an appointment, it is a door opener. Now think about the company web site. Does this highlight what is new? Many do not. Just as customers are reluctant to see a salesmen without something new to say, so web sites need to be constantly evolving to retain the interest of returning visitors. You may not always have new products, but you can have something new to say about them and visitors need to know this once they reach your site. Little details such as displaying the current date rather than saying last updated 2007 are simple clues that the site is regularly maintained and the product information is likely to be up to date as well. That is why we advocate putting news right there on the entry page. Not only does it show there is content that they have not seen before and is worth looking at, but indicates the site is being kept current. You would not pick up a magazine you had read before would you? So marketing content is essential these days.  A simple answer is to add a Virtual News Office linked to your site with RSS feeds and teleprinter style headlines on the home page.

First impressions count

When a new visitor reaches your web site what will be the first impressions they receive? There are just seconds to convince them that your web site is relevant to their search and that your company  could be a potential supplier, before they bounce out to review your competitors' sites. A professionally designed site is indicative of a professional company. Even the untrained eye can quickly distinguish between professional design and an amateur effort which subliminally conveys the impression that the company has cut corners and what does that say about your products? The other important  test is to convince the new site visitor that you can provide the product or service that he is looking for. Text that quickly gets to the point in describing your nature of business will be picked up by the search engine and will influence the decision to even go to your site at all. But having created a good first impression and established relevance and credibility, what will persuade your visitor to not only explore further, but to make an enquiry or place an order? 

We have identified five important areas of content:-

1. Explain clearly the products and services you offer and provide specifications and downloads where appropriate.
   
2. Provide reference to satisfied users through the use of third party endorsement and case studies that build confidence in your product.
   
3. Cite influencers - recognised opinion leaders in your field - who can provide expert testimony to your products and impart their credibility to your product.
4. Offer an 'impartial' guide to the market sector that establishes your expertise.
5. Provide calls to action that make it easy for visitors to contact you directly.

For many b-2-b companies products are not impulse purchases that are for immediate sale, but subject to specification processes, so it can be helpful to also provide information updates that both keep your prospects informed of new developments and keep your company name on their agenda for the time when they are ready to buy. News releases are a good way to do this and there are quite a number of options including eNews, RSS and blogs to name just three and at the heart of this strategy can be a Virtual News Office.

Marketing v technology

Recent years have given rise to the emergence of a plethora of experts associated with the Internet who promise an insight in mastery of the evolving online world. There are experts from search engine optimisation and usability testing to social networking - in fact practically every element in the development and enhancement of web sites has specialists. So much is written about all these specialisms that some companies are focussing on technical aspects of their web sites at the expense of developing content. It is not surprising there is some cynicism as an increasing share of marketing investment is spent in the online space. Some years ago Intel ran what for them was probably a very successful "Intel Inside' campaign raising the profile of their components but with the result that even in the b-2-b sector customers were making the inclusion of an Intel processor a vital specification issue while largely ignoring the actual functionality of the equipment. Likewise the fear of not having the company web site in the top two or three in a Google search has led to an obsession with the various black arts associated with little understood technical aspects of web sites.

On the other hand, the company web site is a useful marketing tool only because many customers and prospects currently find it convenient to use the Internet to discover information. In the b-2-b area professional buyers will often already have some knowledge of the main suppliers in their market thanks to other marketing activities and be seeking further detail and guidance. An integrated marketing communications programme will work to raise top of the mind awareness of the brand, prompting prospects to look for the web site which many will do by keying in brand and product category into a search engine. Not all searches start on the Internet - display advertising, editorials, mailings, exhibition presence will all have played a role in developing awareness and prompting an enquiry. But once the visitor arrives at the web site the expectation is to access the information needed quickly and easily. This is where content is important. not just product and service details but confidence building information establishing credentials, user experience and application guidance. News has a special role in presenting a current and human face to visitors which strongly enhances credibility by covering a diverse range of company information from new product announcements and contract success to staff appointments and financial results. News can be delivered and presented in an increasing variety of methods from an on site Virtual News Office to RSS, eNews and social networks and from headline news flashes to detailed articles. Further more news can be syndicated to other web sites - even delivered in print as a newsletter, still a popular and successful media.

Lead generation now top marketing goal

Publishing the results of market research is always good publicity and the latest survey from the engineering search engine, Globalspec is no exception. Two of the headline findings are that customer acquisition and lead generation have become the primary marketing goals and that 3 of the top marketing channels are now online channels. Those 3 incidentally were online directories/web sites, e-mail and search engine optimisation. Some 29% of businesses polled spend more than 50% of their marketing budget online and 48% advised they were intending to spend a bigger proportion of their marketing budget online. On the other hand only 11% cited brand awareness as their top marketing objective, down from 21% in 2008. Most concurred that they were seeking good quality sales leads.

There are a number of benefits that online marketing brings, in particular greater immediacy and measureability - plus customers are online. It again questions the future of the hard-to-measure display advertising business model in trade publications, which are often more about branding these days than lead generation. Typically published monthly, trade press display advertising is a slower response medium and requires expensive surveys to fully evaluate and measure. By contrast last week we put together an e-mail campaign designed to prompt sales of remaindered product which actually accounted for 25% of all traffic to the client web site that week and resulted in closure on sales that otherwise would have been stock write offs. In fact many traditional marketing channels should be revisited including trade shows and brochures, but all with a note of caution because a mix of marketing methods will still be more effective than over working a single channel. Too many e-mails and customers and prospects switch off. Better to make judicious use of multiple channels many of which can be online. Keep the web site current and here news is a great way to both achieve this and to keep customers interested and informed in a less pressured way. If you do not already have an online news service such as Virtual News Office then this could be a good way of channeling some of the online marketing investment.

Making PR work for your business

Many clients do not get PR. They neither understand how it operates or what it can do for their business. The ignorance even extends to some marketing people. One company chairman seeking savings told me that he would cut PR for 3 months and not expect to notice any difference. On the other hand the same people will merrily buy advertising space and exhibit at trade shows with little thought or concern about their investment.

Successful PR demands a continuous partnership between client and agency. The client's primary role is to identify possible news stories. PR agencies are not investigative reporters, they rely on clients identifying stories in the first place and to provide contact details for follow up and approval. New or improved products, important contract wins, staff appointments, financial results, special events, new technologies or processes ... there is a considerable list, but not all, in fact not many, will be newsworthy. This is where the PR agency side of the partnership identifies a 'hook' on which to build an interesting story, one that an editor will pick up. Often a good picture or a striking image will help promote an otherwise ordinary story and gain attention. Good PR is about managing the reputation of the business in good times and bad. There should be clear strategic objectives and a consistent message or theme should run through all communications. It takes time to set up the smooth running of news to the media and switching it off and on will be noticed. Of course there is much more to PR, this blog has merely touched on the client relationship. But a word on media. For most small to medium size businesses it will be the trade press and industry web sites rather than television and radio in the main. One final word and that is not to forget news on the company web site both as a publishing opportunity, client and prospect information and a resource to journalists. It is the company web site where most research starts, so current news and background information can prove of great value. This is where a Virtual News Office can prove of immense value.

On a final note, the partnership between client and agency is vital to a successful PR programme. It also demands a reasonable degree of openess, how often do clients refuse to publish important stories for fear of alerting a competitor - they probably bid on the job unsuccessfully anyway.

Publishing trends - a move online

If the spate of articles about new or newish marketing tools such as social networking sites is to be believed then the traditional world of print could be in terminal decline. It is a topic discussed in earlier blogs. A recent research report from isubscribe.co.uk again highlighted declining advertising revenues for magazine publishers, but then we are in the depths of a major recession so it is not that surprising. Talking to publishers in the industrial magazine market the advertising sales people required no persuasion to hold the same space prices as for several years past - big discounts on rate cards - so may be they would have settled for even less. Another interesting indicator is the start of charging for press releases published on web sites, perhaps a recognition that readers are migrating from the printed to online page. At one time, many years ago now press releases were selected by the editor, suitably edited and printed as news. Indeed, at an even earlier time articles were commissioned and paid for - a useful source of bonus income for a young product manager in the early 70s. Then came the era of so called colour separation charges a fee allegedly based on the extra cost involved in producing colour filmwork. This charge was sold as a "colour separation fee" long after the publishing technology had moved on, remaining in the space sales vocabulary, its origins long forgotten and often unknown by the young sellers. More recently the rationale for a fee has been justified on the grounds that far more press releases are received than can be published.  Somewhere along the line the division between editorial integrity publishing genuine news and selling the space disappeared and in many trade magazines the difference between display advertising and editorial content no longer exists. Of course if as they say too much news is received then more pages could  be printed, but the advertising revenue does not support that.  The following is directly quoted (including spelling) from a publisher in response to receipt of a press release and the publisher's eagerness to print the news if only we pay. "This (the charge) is because we receive many more press releases than we can possibly afford to publish and this option allows us to inlcude material from those that want the guarantee of publication." It continues to list charges per word, for publishing photos and an annual fee to place news on the web site. Perhaps little wonder then that smart marketers are busy exploiting free channels and moving into blogs, Facebook and Twitter while they remain both popular and free.