Persona

Posted at: 11:20 AM by Vivienne

I haven't come across many people who didn't say they want more publicity for their business. Interesting then is that so many businesses don't actually plan their PR campaign to get the results they truly want (and need).

Planning a good PR campaign means you or your company can ride on the publicity wave for a good amount of time. With the right planning, any concurrent communication, be it trade press releases, media support or online publishing can each considerably increase their value beyond what they deliver for you right now.

It's a tough game vying for an editors attention. Too much, too soon and your press activity will run out of steam. Too little and you'll go undetected. Finally, if your media activity is too irrelevant to the audience you'll be subject to the rubbish bin. In either case, quality and focus will keep the effort (and costs) down, whilst boosting exposure.

Get the most from opportunities in PR

Media strategies that are developed at Persona Creative are different to what you might be used to. We've had great feedback from our clients on our approach, which focuses on why they need increased levels of PR, how to get it within the constraints of their business (and budgets) and how it's going to be of use to their bottom line. And because we're looking at it from all 360 degrees of the marketing world, we make sure clients are getting the most from their digital, branding and media projects.

Most importantly though, when plans are made, we have the skills and resources to make it happen. Everything from media friendly copywriting (not marketing or advertising copy - that's different) to press photography.

Planning a campaign isn't a long or difficult process. In fact, a lot of what is needed is often circling around in your head already. So if you thinking about how to break new ground or haven't gotten around to thinking about PR yet - give us a call and we can have a chat.

Liked this article? Hated it? Got you thinking? Feel free to discuss it with us.

Next month: Media ownership

Labels: media

Posted at: 11:19 AM by Vivienne

Most of us have heard the phrase "people buy from people". When you're in front of that prospect or customer - nobody can sell your business better than you can. But what happens when you (or your colleagues) are not there for a face-to-face? You can't sell a million widgets just by networking and how much time have we all wasted talking up a prospect that results in nothing? Frustrating we know, so after spending some time in our think tank we've worked up a correlation between 'people-power' and 'customer not present'.

There are four points that makes "people buy from people" a solid statement:

1. Accountability
2. Trust
3. Recognition
4. Accessibility

By selling direct to buyers, we make ourselves personally accountable for any deal done. This in turn builds (or breaks) trust in the relationship, which is a factor we all pay close attention to in business. Over time, we build up recognition with our buyers and this makes it easy for them to get access to them. It works great until you have to do it over and over again for every prospective piece of business. For all it's power, it's one of the biggest bottlenecks in the sales cycle.

Brands fight your corner

Your brand is both a tool for your people advocates and a faceless tool that reinforces your proposition when the human element is removed.

Your brand says everything about your business when you are not around to either control or defend it. It rears its head in your web sites, emails, staff, offices, pr coverage, business values and visual identity. Smart businesses can leverage this 'outward pushing' voice to reinforce and support that magic that gives you the edge in person. It doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't have to cost a fortune, but planning your brand strategy in line with your business goals is crucial to sustained success in business.

We of course deal with brand management everyday; from conceptualising and creating them to developing equity and value in existing ones. After 10 years working with start-ups, SME's and multinationals we make ourselves Accountable for our advice, are Trustworthy in our experience and hope to gain Recognition with our clients over time by being Accessible to all of you.

Liked this article? Hated it? Got you thinking? Feel free to discuss it with us.

Next month: Ethical marketing is a big opportunity. Find our why and how you can use it.

Posted at: 11:07 AM by Hammad

You may have heard a few months ago that 70% of cabbies and hairdressers thought blogging was the same as dogging! Now whilst this got the guffaws of those who know otherwise - the reality is most of them probably don't need to know and the rest probably should do, because blogs and their associated techniques in web content are here to stay.

So, before we get into discussing the uses - let's just set the record straight:

• Blog: Short for web log, blogs are regularly updated online journals that reflect the authors personality, knowledge and opinions.
• RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a way of making web content available to subscribers through XML.
• Podcast: Similar to RSS, Podcasts are audio clips and that can be subscribed to by listeners. Typically used for opinion pieces and radio shows.
• Blogvertising: Using a blog as a place to market. Through placement of advertising or endorsement by the blog author.

If you have knowledge, experience and opinion about your industry, it's worth having a blog of your own (if you don't already). What's really interesting about blogs is that they go back to the very root of what the web was supposed to be about - giving people freedom and opportunity to publish content quickly and easily and making it all link together to form a 'web' of information. With over 10,000 new blog sites created every day, it's not hard to see how it's become such a phenomenon.

How is this useful to your business?

For every business, there are clients and customers. And those same people are out there right now blogging and podcasting about their interests, opinions and recommendations.

The concept of blogvertising gives businesses the opportunity to gain potentially thousands of advocates for their proposition. Every day, referral deals, commission packages and inside information is being shared between bloggers and the commercial world to further increase the usefulness of the content they produce - the root aim of the web and ultimately blogs according to Tim Berners-Lee; the father of the internet.

Having a blog marketing strategy can significantly increase your brands exposure to your niche audience. You can also benefit from increased search engine performance, as their high frequency of updates gets them indexed regularly by Google, Overture and MSN. Finally, high reader numbers give blogs significance in the search rankings.

What are the downsides?

Be very careful. Blogs and syndicated content represent a huge opportunity for business and should not be ignored. However, the market conditions are changing all the time, so it's important to have a strong strategy and more importantly - an action plan on how to use it.

Working with respected bloggers with an interest in your products or services will only work if their opinions remain impartial. If they are pressured, they can turn against you and their posts could become a PR headache. It's also worth watching out for exploitation - as it's inevitable that some bloggers will start solely with the intention of generating money for themselves. But don't let this scare you off - every high reward marketing channel carries risks, but if you plan your approach well it can pay dividends.

What are we doing about it?

There are new ways of using blogs and content syndication for marketing emerging all the time and we're hot-to-trot on keeping updated with them.

Currently, we're working with clients on developing blog strategies and marketing campaigns through endorsement and search engine performance. We are also blog watching to pick up and analyse chatter about our clients brands; positive and negative.

Liked this article? Hated it? Got you thinking? Feel free to discuss it with us.

Next month: Mobile marketing is back and this time it's taking over.

Posted at: 3:15 PM by Hammad

UPDATE: The tree now has a name. Say hello to Sideshow Bob (click play to see why) After months of waiting, we've just had our first tropical tree delivered to the studio! We've all very excited with our new 'Cycas Rumphii' - sourced directly from it's native habitat in the Pacific Islands. The planter was commissioned by our studio director as a custom build to match the new flooring in the conference room and is made from aluminium. At 2m tall, everybody here is loving this baby! It's a great mood lifter and makes our homely studio even more of a nice place to spend the day :) Our floating tree will be up on the blog soon too - check back soon for details.

Labels: persona

Posted at: 2:51 PM by Hammad

We're working on a new portal project. In fact it's a really exciting project and we're hoping it's going to be a pretty big deal. The project team consists of an information architect, web editors, ad sales execs and designers - we're looking for two new contractors to join the team at our Nottingham studio. - Sharepoint Developer (Portal Server 2003 customisation and config) - Systems Administrator (Win2003 security / active directory , SQL Server, IIS, DNS and DMZ) If you have these skills (or know somebody who does), then get CVs over to careers@personacreative.com

Labels: persona

Posted at: 8:13 PM by Hammad

I've just been checking the response reports from a couple of January Email newsletter campaigns we delivered. Now it's not uncommon for click levels (and subsequent web traffic) to be boosted at the time of a campaign being sent and even for a few days after that. What is surprising though, is to find campaigns we delivered WEEKS ago, still generating responses from recipients. This is very encouraging. Not least because the content is clearly capturing the attention of subscribers, but also that the brand is lingering in the minds of the readers far beyond the date they receive communications. With general email levels being so high, having click responses weeks later is a very positive sign that email communications are a solid choice for long term loyalty.