Thought Leadership Marketing: The Basics
A couple of years ago (early in 2010), research giant Gartner, Inc. published a report from Rolf Jester, one of the company’s vice president’s and distinguished analysts, that noted that thought leadership marketing (TLM) was a powerful tool for multi-channel marketing communications success. Jester said that while it was once the province solely of consulting firms and service businesses, where it typically accounted for as much as 20 percent of marketing expenditures, it was emerging as an important tool for other businesses, too. In just two years, what was once an emerging discipline has become a major part of nearly Read More
5 PR Pitch Mistakes to Avoid
Around Christmas time, I helped a friend who is a columnist for a well-known national magazine cull through a large volume of pitches he was getting from a request for information that he’d posted on HARO (Peter Shankman’s great Help a Reporter Out service that matches sources with writers looking for experts). It’s possible that the task of culling through HARO looking for media opportunities the week before Christmas fell to the most junior staffer in the shop. But don’t they teach the basics of PR pitching in college anymore? I work with an undergraduate marketing intern who knows better Read More
Harnessing the Power of Word-of-Mouse
We often promote this blog through press releases and advance copy sent to other bloggers and journalists. Last week, Forbes.com columnist David Coursey surprised us by a draft blog post that quoted him and submitting it to Forbes.com as a guest post. “I had planned to write something about the topic myself, and link back to your blog as the source for some of the information, but I couldn’t think of anything to write except what you’d already put together,” Coursey said. Before we knew it, our blog post was featured on the top “promo bar” on Forbes.com. And instead Read More
How Engaged Are Your Customers?
Jasmine is a mixed-breed dog adopted from the Las Vegas dog pound. She’s a great dog. That’s her in the photo — patiently enduring being posed with a catalog of high-end dog beds while wearing a pair of silly eye glasses. Most of the time, she did what she was asked, (which was to look directly at the camera) but every now and again she couldn’t resist looking over at her trainer to see if it was time to go home yet. Jasmine was giving her attention to the humans around her — but she wasn’t engaged with what was happening. She was Read More
Five Social Media Myths that Can Cripple Marketing
When it comes to social media, even the experts learn something new every day. Most CMO’s admit that developing the expertise they need to effectively use social media is a key priority. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths out there that can derail almost any social media marketing plan. Here are five that come up often in talks with corporate marketing. Make sure you don’t fall for any of them! Myth #1: Social Media is free. Robert Heinlein’s famous motto TANSTAFL applies here, as everywhere else in life. (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”) Yes, many of Read More
Employee Training: Step One in Preparing for a Social Media Crisis
A couple of weeks ago, lawyers from up and down the Atlantic coast of the U.S. gathered at the Marriott Marquis in New York’s Times Square for the 23rd Annual Corporate Counsel Conference. Like attorneys everywhere, the corporate lawyers gathered in New York were eager to learn more about how to handle what most believe is the inevitable day when they find themselves in the same position as McDonald’s, Delta, and Living Social – all caught up in PR crises that sped their way around the globe in only a few hours. Two of those three companies did nothing wrong. Read More
