Now more than ever it is important to have happy customers. Happy customers usually remain customers and are often more likely to spread the word (and I mean the good stuff) about your business. A good way to use your happy customers to generate a bit of buzz about your business is to ask them for testimonials. Testimonials can be used in a variety of promotional ways and best of all, they don’t cost you anything. Ask 3-5 of your best customers for a short, one paragraph testimonial about your company, products/services and your customer service. Give them plenty of time, so they don’t feel rushed (but I’d set a clear deadline, or it might get pushed to the bottom of their to-do lists and never get done). Pick a variety of customers that you’ve helped with a variety of projects so that their is some variation to what they say.

Once you have a few (like I said 3-5) solid testimonials, start using them. (If your original requests come back without the greatest of testimonials, dig through your contacts and pull 3 more people and send requests to them. You definitiely want to have solid testimonials as you move forward.)

Use your testimonials with:

• company newsletters (electronic and paper): you can do a spotlight piece, like “Words from our Customers” and highlight them there. Or just do a basic: Here’s what our customers have to say. This is a great way to get positive words about your company in front of your whole mailing list.
• postcards / direct mail: this is helpful whether your list is a cold list (meaning you don’t already have an established relationship with the people you are mailing to) or if its your general mailing list & referral partners. It works particularly well with folks that don’t know you. You are not just saying you’re great – your customers are saying you’re great. It gives more credibility and kicks in some trust.
• brochures / flyers / marketing materials: don’t be shy about sharing! Use your testimonials on your marketing/promotion materials and let the word spread out. You can use 1/2 of them now, and when you update them later … the other one.
• company website: create a page or incorporate your testimonials into your existing pages. People, including potential customers, are turning to the web to find all about your company. Having kind words of promotion from others (as opposed to just yourself or employees) lends credibility and boosts your image.

Be creative and use what you’ve got to promote your business. Your customers won’t mind helping you out (you might want to offer to do the same for them in return). You get a valuable item to help promote your business. Go for it! Get those testimonials and improve your marketing efforts.

Like all good things in life, even this series must come to an end. The good news? Wacky Wednesday in the PR House will be coming at you with fresh topics next week (and every Wednesday after that). This week is a busy week and we are covering the last six elements of an effective PR plan. Strap on your boots and hang tight your PR plan is almost done!

• Strategies (one step at a time…): That’s right … wacky Wednesday always takes things one step at a time – that includes with our strategies. When devising your strategies, you want to get a general sense of how you are going to meet your goals. The key part of this is to be general. When you are done your strategies, you should be able to speak generally (it should be written down too!) about how you are going to meet your goals.
• Tactics (use only hefty-duty snow boots!): Back to Mt. Everest and we need only the highest quality, most hefty-duty snow boots we can find! I want the XYZ brand, with pink stripes. Size 9. Make sure it has long laces. I need just the right pair of boots if I’m going to climb Mt. Everest (see previous parts of the series, if the Mt. Everest game doesn’t sound familiar to you). In order to climb Mt. Everest, I need very specific snow boots, just like you need to have specific tactics to help ensure the success of your PR plan. When you are developing you tactics, it is imperative that you be specific. Your tactics are the things you will do to accomplish your goals. Make sure they make since … you don’t want tactics that are way out in left field, while your goals are hanging out in dug-out.
• Calendar (before 2015): Set a realistic time frame for yourself and your business to achieve the goals in your PR plan. They won’t happen overnight, but should take shape before we get to 2015!
• Budget (there is no price too low, or too high): This is when reality sets in – how much do you have to OR are willing to spend to achieve your goals? Be realistic.  Don’t put an enormous figure on paper to make it look good when you only have $500 to spend (you can do a lot with even small amounts of money).  Focus on what you can spend and then allocate it wisely.
• Evaluation (if we don’t make it to the top…can we take a trip to Mexico, instead?): Oh Mt. Everest – making it to the top might not be the best evaluation method. Your evaluation is all about how you determine if you have been successful. If you don’t have a way to evaluate and measure your success, you won’t know if your efforts have paid off. For example, remember before we talked about your goal being to increase your website traffic … your evaluation for success could be to break down what % of an increase you consider to be a success. Consider creating a scale:

• 5-10% increase in traffic = improvement
• 11-25% increase in traffic = somewhat successful
• 26-39% increase in traffic = marginally successful
• 40% = successful (this was your goal)
• 40+% = extremely successful

You want to be able to evaluate your campaign, so you can truly determine your success.

• Take Action (I’ll book the flights): Now that you have a solid plan in place and all of your elements are clearly laid out and defined, its time to take action!! (This is the fun part). You’ve done all the planning, now its time to get out there and implement your plan and the tactics to accomplish it. Good luck as you set sail on your journey!

That’s a wrap on this series of Wacky Wednesday in the PR house … stayed tuned for more!!

Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is a multi-part series that will be brought to you weekly (on Wednesday, of course). Over the past few weeks, we’ve developed your PR plan. Each week, Wacky Wednesdays will feature advice and knowledge on how to make your PR, marketing and advertising efforts better. Some of it will be parts of series, and others will be free-standing advice. You’ll just have to stay tuned and see what’s coming up next … there’s more to come! I promise… Until next time!

Wacky Wednesday is in full swing and ready to pick up right where we left off last week with the next three elements of your communication plan. Featured this week:

• Message (RESPECT…find out what it means to me)
• Goals (we aren’t climbing Mt. Everest, at least not yet.)
• Objectives (didn’t we already decide on Mt. Everest?)

Your message: Sounds easy enough, but you need to be clear (not every potential message is a good message). Your message is what you want people to know about you or your company — this is derived from your campaign. Think about what message you are trying to get out there. We will worry about how to accomplish that later. Aretha’s message is that of Respect, what’s yours?
Goals: Get your hiking/snow boots on, Mt. Everest here we come. Not! The goals you set don’t have to be the size of Mt. Everest. They need to be practical. Think about what you are hoping to accomplish, and go from there. Your goals should be measurable, but fairly general (we will get to the more specific stuff later). An example of a good goal would be to increase website traffic.

Objectives: We already decided not to climb Mt. Everest, but why do we need objectives? Aren’t they the same as goals? Not quite. Your objectives are the specific measurable items you want to accomplish. (Yes you will need to be specific on this part.)  Remember your goals were more general. Let’s take our previous example: your goal was to increase your website traffic; your corresponding objective would be to increase the number of visitors to my website by 35%.

Work on these kids, and know that the home stretch of this series of Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is almost over (bummer!). Next week we will we wrap up Creating an Effective PR Plan and move onto our next series… I can’t wait.

Until next time…

Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is a multi-part series that will be brought to you weekly (on Wednesday, of course). Over the next few weeks I will help you develop your PR plan. After that, Wacky Wednesdays will still be days for advice and knowledge on how to make your PR, marketing and advertising efforts better. Stay tuned… there’s more to come!

Happy Wednesday, folks! Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is back for Part 2 of our first series. In case you missed last week, this series is all about developing an effective PR Plan. For those students who missed class last week… check out what we talked about here.

Let’s pick up where we left off. Part 2 is all about the following elements of the PR plan:

• Target Audience (put the bullseye on their backs)
• SWOT Analysis (again, no one has called 911)

Target Audience: That’s right folks… line ‘em up and put the bullseye on their backs. I don’t mean to just aim for males or females, old or young. You have got to be specific. The more specific you are about the audience your PR plan is targeting, the more focused your message will be and the more successful it will be. Your target audience should be broken down into two specific categories:

• Demographics: Your demographics is beyond male and female. It is about some much more. Be age specific – this isn’t just old vs. young, it is a specific age group; for example: 18-25. Know their location & climate — these factors have an important effect on the audience you are reaching [keep in mind how different climates can be in varying locations – Alaska and California aren’t in the same realm). Other key demographic areas to look at: Race, Income, Education & Employment. The more specific you are in outlining your target audience, the easier it will be to cater your message around them.
  
• Psychographics: Psycho, who? The psycho side of your target audience is their social side. You will want to narrow in on the social class, lifestyle, behavior, opinions and values of your target audience. Explore what underlies your original assumptions about them and see why this specific characteristics exists in them as a target audience.
  

SWOT ANALYSIS – no one has called the emergency teams in… but we do need to get to the bottom of the whole SWOT idea. SWOT consists of 4 important elements of your PR plan that will definitely get you thinking about where you are, where your competitors are and what you can do to capitalize.

• Strengths: What does your company have going for it? What are you doing right? Be positive and make sure you highlight “the good stuff.” You want to list the items that are working in your favor and that are a strength for your business.
• Weaknesses: This is where you want to talk more negatively, but be constructive. What are the current weaknesses your business has; what is standing in your way that will stop you from being successful? You want to highlight all the hurdles that are standing in your way.
• Opportunities: This is where you highlight what opportunities lie ahead. Opportunities are just that … areas where you have the opportunity to capture an audience, grow your business, take hold of a niche market, gain market share, etc.
• Threats: These are the things standing in your way – this is what could keep you from being successful. This could be another company or campaign. It could be a reputation or a idea in society that could damage or hinder your plan. Explore deep on this one. You want to get to the bottom of what is threatening your success — otherwise, its kind of like you are walking blindly into the light!

Again, the information is flowing this week, and you’ve got a lot to digest.

Your homework for this week is to have your Target Audience and SWOT Analysis completed. We’re half way done the plan, so stay tuned for more.

Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is a multi-part series that will be brought to you weekly (on Wednesday, of course). Over the next few weeks I will help you develop your PR plan. After that, Wacky Wednesdays will still be days for advice and knowledge on how to make your PR, marketing and advertising efforts better. Stay tuned… there’s more to come!

We all need to have a plan. A plan to do the laundry. A plan to exercise. A plan keep in touch with friends. A plan for your PR campaign. We need plans. Some of them are more trivial that others – a plan for your PR is not one of them. In order to be effective with your PR (public relations, in case you didn’t know), you have to set the ground work and come up with a solid plan. Otherwise you will be spending time, and money, working towards goals you aren’t aware of and success you cannot measure.

I’m going to give you the basic elements you need in your PR plan and elaborate on them.

• Executive Summary (no, this isn’t for the President)
• Situation Analysis (does your cupcake have a cherry on top?)
• Problem/Opportunity (don’t worry the Cops aren’t coming…)
• Target Audience (put the bullseye on their backs)
• SWOT Analysis (again, no one has called 911)
• Message (RESPECT…find out what it means to me)
• Goals (we aren’t climbing Mt. Everest, at least not yet.)
• Objectives (didn’t we already decide on Mt. Everest?)
• Strategies (one step at a time…)
• Tactics (use only hefty-duty snow boots!)
• Calendar (before 2015)
• Budget (there is no price too low, or too high)
• Evaluation (if we don’t make it to the top…can we take a trip to Mexico, instead?)
• Take Action (I’ll book the flights)

You are probably saying to yourself … “what is this wacky lady talking about?” No need to worry, panic or go back to surfing the internet, it’s about to all make sense.

Let’s tackle the first 3 items every PR plan should have.

• Executive Summary (no this isn’t for the President): What do I mean this isn’t for the President? Clearly this isn’t for the man himself. The executive summary in your PR plan should be a brief overview of the whole plan. It should highlight the key points and summarize what is to come in the rest of the document.  This should be the first element of your PR plan because it gives an overview of what will be explained more specifically in the other elements. Even though this should be the first element, its not always the one you write first. Go ahead and write down some of your ideas, but know that you will be editing & revising this once your whole plan is complete. If you’ve got a busy day today, skip to the next two items and worry about this one later.
• Situation Analysis (does your cupcake have a cherry on top?) Not every cupcake has the cherry, but they all have icing. Your situation analysis is exactly what it sounds like – a analysis of your current situation. You need to describe in detail (please be specific) what is going on right now in your market, where is your company at, what is the climate in which your PR plan will take place, etc. Dig deep and really understand what is happening in your market and explore from there.
• Problem/Opportunity (don’t worry the Cops aren’t coming…). Trust me I haven’t called them about our problems because we still opportunities. In this part of your PR plan, you want to outline the problems you are facing and what opportunities lie ahead. Here’s an example: You have come out with a new line of jeans that are made for mature women. A problem might be that mature women don’t like to wear jeans. An opportunity for you is that you can show them how your jeans will make them want to wear jeans again because the fit and style of the jeans are made for their body types.
• Target Audience … gotcha! The bullseyes will not be placed until  next week.

Whew… that is a lot of detail for you to take in and process. Good news is… you’ve got time. Sit down, read (then re-read) and start to put your PR plan together. Your homework for this week is to start on your Executive Summary, write (in detail) your Situation Analysis and the Problems & Opportunities you are facing. I’ll be back next week with even more knowledge for you to digest. (Make sure you don’t eat a big lunch next week, so there is plenty of room!)

Wacky Wednesday in the PR House is a multi-part series that will be brought to you weekly (on Wednesday, of course). Over the next few weeks I will help you develop your PR plan. After that, Wacky Wednesdays will still be days for advise and knowledge on how to make your PR, marketing and advertising efforts better. Stay tuned… there’s more to come!