Tuesday
Aug142007
Marketing 101
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 11:18AM
A couple of interesting things crossed my desk so far this week. One was an editorial in a magazine in the automation area wherein the editorial director railed against PR people sending press releases looking for free publicity. In the other, I saw a blog where the marketing person was bragging about placing an article written by the company in another prominent trade magazine in our market.
In the first instance, I can only say, "Duh." The job of the PR people is to get as much publicity as possible for the client. If it doesn't fit the readership and market area of the magazine, editors just delete. There is a concept that is quite old (I heard about it over 20 years ago when I was marketing a company with no marketing budget) called guerrilla marketing. The idea is that you don't have to spend big bucks on advertising if you know how to get tons of free publicity through editors. Of course, if everyone did that, then there wouldn't be any place for PR people to place the information because there would be no magazines.
Further, if you're a top manager of a small company with no budget for marketing, then you're marketing on hope. I've seen those people. They think that the technology is so great that one mention by me will put them on the map and they'll become millionaires or better. Sorry. I wish I were that powerful (not), but no one in our industry is. Maybe Robert Scoble can cause tens of thousands of people to start "Twittering" or join Facebook, but I'm not going to cause 10,000 people to buy a particular PAC. I may get people to look at something, but in this market a sale is much harder than getting someone to sign up on a Web site. In our market, if an owner hopes one mention in each of the trade magazines in the sector will suffice for a marketing program, then that owner is going to always be the owner of a small company. Better get enough capital to do the job right.
One current trend in PR is to place articles bylined by marketing people (or pseudo marketing people) in reputable magazines. Reference that blog posting I saw. I guess the agency gets paid more for that, but that's somewhat clueless marketing. People will download whitepapers and the like knowing ahead of time it will be a sales pitch disguised with some technical talk. (I've done a lot of that.) People do not like hidden marketing trying to pass itself off as objective journalism. If a magazine gets a reputation for just shilling for advertisers, then the credibility goes down the drain. With reduced credibility goes reduced carryover good feelings for those that do advertise and otherwise get publicity. Better be careful what you wish for.
So, remember that marketing communications is a multi-pronged discipline--advertising, PR, white papers, blogs, Web. But two keys are consistency and repetitiveness. The message should be consistent over time and media. And if you're not getting something out every month, then people will forget about you.
And, you can send the press releases to me. We have limited space and can't print everything, but I surely want to find the new companies with a bright idea that just may have an impact on the market someday. I know how to filter hype.
In the first instance, I can only say, "Duh." The job of the PR people is to get as much publicity as possible for the client. If it doesn't fit the readership and market area of the magazine, editors just delete. There is a concept that is quite old (I heard about it over 20 years ago when I was marketing a company with no marketing budget) called guerrilla marketing. The idea is that you don't have to spend big bucks on advertising if you know how to get tons of free publicity through editors. Of course, if everyone did that, then there wouldn't be any place for PR people to place the information because there would be no magazines.
Further, if you're a top manager of a small company with no budget for marketing, then you're marketing on hope. I've seen those people. They think that the technology is so great that one mention by me will put them on the map and they'll become millionaires or better. Sorry. I wish I were that powerful (not), but no one in our industry is. Maybe Robert Scoble can cause tens of thousands of people to start "Twittering" or join Facebook, but I'm not going to cause 10,000 people to buy a particular PAC. I may get people to look at something, but in this market a sale is much harder than getting someone to sign up on a Web site. In our market, if an owner hopes one mention in each of the trade magazines in the sector will suffice for a marketing program, then that owner is going to always be the owner of a small company. Better get enough capital to do the job right.
One current trend in PR is to place articles bylined by marketing people (or pseudo marketing people) in reputable magazines. Reference that blog posting I saw. I guess the agency gets paid more for that, but that's somewhat clueless marketing. People will download whitepapers and the like knowing ahead of time it will be a sales pitch disguised with some technical talk. (I've done a lot of that.) People do not like hidden marketing trying to pass itself off as objective journalism. If a magazine gets a reputation for just shilling for advertisers, then the credibility goes down the drain. With reduced credibility goes reduced carryover good feelings for those that do advertise and otherwise get publicity. Better be careful what you wish for.
So, remember that marketing communications is a multi-pronged discipline--advertising, PR, white papers, blogs, Web. But two keys are consistency and repetitiveness. The message should be consistent over time and media. And if you're not getting something out every month, then people will forget about you.
And, you can send the press releases to me. We have limited space and can't print everything, but I surely want to find the new companies with a bright idea that just may have an impact on the market someday. I know how to filter hype.
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