The Latest

How Visuals Help You Achieve Greater Success With Your PR Efforts

eye-gb54d6f048_1920 June 19, 2022

It’s often said a picture is worth a thousand words.

It turns out that it may even be worth better results from your public relations initiatives.

A study by PR Newswire found that press releases with photos garnered nearly twice as many views as text alone.

Further:

Another fascinating finding here by Poynter – images can even help create trust in readers: “Headlines and comments, along with graphics and photos, are crucial. An older U.S. reader said the right photo was key to interest as well as credibility: ‘I am a visual person, and so if there’s imagery, that will catch my eye, and then I’ll read the headline. If there’s no imagery, I may just run right past it.’”

Visuals Can Be an Afterthought

Continue reading How Visuals Help You Achieve Greater Success With Your PR Efforts

PR Tips to Help You Land Media Coverage

Journalist_With_Pipe May 4, 2022

As anyone in PR can tell you, earning media coverage these days can be a challenge. With newsrooms shrinking and journalists being asked to do more, getting a pitch to stand out is TOUGH.

Each year, the folks at Muck Rack conduct a survey of journalists to ask about their preferences and how they find ideas and sources for stories. Let’s take a look at the most recent results, which were recently released.

Whether you’re doing your own PR or working with an in-house team, a consultant or an agency, these findings will help you understand how reporters work and what you can do to help increase the odds that your story or news is covered.

What Do Reporters Really Want? 

Here’s the Who, Where, When, What, Why and How to help you perfect your earned media outreach.

Continue reading PR Tips to Help You Land Media Coverage

6 Essential Points to Ponder As You Plan PR and Content Initiatives

melanie-deziel-fSWQPBxqClg-unsplash January 22, 2022

Making plans for marketing initiatives is always a work in progress. What should you focus on in the coming months?

Uncertainty ruled last year, but now, we have a better idea of how things may look as we continue to get our footing in this new environment created by the pandemic.

So, what trends should we be paying attention to as we work toward creating more compelling content and stories and getting the word out through public relations initiatives?

Consider These Six Points In Your PR and Content Planning

Continue reading 6 Essential Points to Ponder As You Plan PR and Content Initiatives

22 Marketing Experts Share Their Best Advice to Help You Plan for 2022

pablo - 2021-11-28T121153.741 November 28, 2021

2021 is almost history. As we make plans for the new year, what marketing advice for 2022 should we focus on?

The unpredictability of our world makes it a challenge when it comes to formulating a strategy to reach our target audiences. What factors are most vital to our success?

To help provide some guidance, I asked 22 influencers to share their thoughts on this question: What one piece of marketing advice would you offer to brands as we head into the new year?

Here’s what they had to say.

Marketing Advice for 2022

Continue reading 22 Marketing Experts Share Their Best Advice to Help You Plan for 2022

Are You REALLY Ready for a PR Push? 10 Questions to Ask Yourself First

markus-winkler-wpOa2i3MUrY-unsplash October 17, 2021

It’s a noisy environment out there. With EVERY brand competing for a customer’s attention, it isn’t easy to stand out.

Often I talk with prospective clients who think public relations will be the answer to all their visibility challenges. Alas, it’s not a magic potion.

A very important question to ask yourself is: Are you really ready for PR?

Of course, as a PR pro, I want your answer to be yes, because I believe so strongly in the value of public relations as part of a thought leadership effort and digital marketing program. But sometimes, you may think you’re ready….when, in fact, you may not be.

PR can help a company capture a prospective customer’s eye – and it’s more credible than ads. 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads. And digital PR is something every client is interested in.

As the PR market grows (10.2% growth was projected in 2021), it’s reasonable to expect that more companies than ever will consider embarking on a public relations program.

But – it does take some effort to get where you want to be.

10 Questions to Consider to Determine If You’re Ready for PR

Think you’re ready to try a PR push?

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re truly prepared to start a public relations effort: Continue reading Are You REALLY Ready for a PR Push? 10 Questions to Ask Yourself First

Journalists Sound Off on How PR Pros Can Improve Media Pitches

headway-5QgIuuBxKwM-unsplash August 29, 2021

While we hear PR pros talk about how often their pitches go ignored – we don’t always hear the other side.

Journalists have some REAL complaints about practices public relations practitioners engage in that make their jobs more difficult. Unfortunately, these missteps can also make it tougher for PR pros to develop the relationships they want – and need – to do a better job of landing earned media coverage on behalf of clients.

We know that securing stories is more difficult than ever (the struggle IS real), but sometimes, those who practice public relations can be their own worst enemies.

During a recent Twitter exchange with Ellen Chang, @EllenYChang, a journalist who writes for U.S. News and other national media outlets, I was surprised to learn of behaviors practiced by some PR practitioners that sabotage those relationships.

In the spirit of helping public relations pros improve their relationships with reporters – and in turn, their results for clients – here are some basic PR 101 tips for those who pitch stories, directly from Chang and a few others who offered tips.

Pitching Tips to Help Land Earned Media Coverage

Continue reading Journalists Sound Off on How PR Pros Can Improve Media Pitches

5 Marketing Lessons to Learn from Oatly’s Outside the Box Approach

diana-parkhouse-H8sqvuLE2CQ-unsplash July 3, 2021

Have you heard of Oatly?

I’ve been an admirer of the Swedish oat milk brand for a while now. No, I’m not a customer of theirs, but I appreciate how they do things differently.

Oatly has been both praised and criticized for its approach to advertising and marketing. It must be doing something right, with sales up 106% in 2020 – and it was named to the 2021 Time 100 Most Influential List. The company is now worth $12.5 billion after its initial public offering in May.

Even though Oatly is newer to American consumers, the company is nearly 30 years old (its founders invented oat milk in 1994). So when CEO Toni Petersson joined the company in 2014, he rebranded it and decided to market Oatly in the U.S. With the plant-based milk market growing here, it turned out to be a good bet.

Oatly is an example of how sometimes marching to the beat of your own drummer can set you apart – in a good way.

How Oatly Is Finding Success by Marching to the Beat of Its Own Drummer

Continue reading 5 Marketing Lessons to Learn from Oatly’s Outside the Box Approach

Is PR For Sale?

pablo - 2021-05-16T103047.292 May 16, 2021

There’s an unsettling trend in the PR industry that’s causing frustration for PR pros AND clients alike.

PR appears to be for sale.

Publications selling articles. Organizations hawking awards. Broadcast media peddling placements.

Public relations pros are shaking their heads. As if it weren’t already hard enough to explain what we do, now we have to explain that true earned media isn’t for sale.

True Earned Media Never Comes with a Guarantee

Continue reading Is PR For Sale?