Press Release

The Marketer’s Lost Touch

Garth Beyer

While studying up on some public relation strategies in regard to various businesses focused on beer I’ve found one consistent bit that leads me to believe there are still a lot of marketers with a lost touch, especially when it comes to press releases.

Erik sums up the typical press release well, “We have something new (usually beer) and we think what we have created is pretty cool. Would you like to share this news with your readers?”

I’ve seen emails, Twitter direct messages and FB posts with the a similar paraphrased marketing message.

For the marketers reading this who believe this kind of “outreach” works, you’ve lost your touch (or perhaps never had it to begin with).

The duty, privilege and opportunity of any marketer is to craft a unique message per person. Journalists, businesses and now even bloggers won’t give a damn about your press release unless you give them a reason to give a damn about you or you first somehow show by any means other than a press release that you care about them and understand what they cover.

Most press releases have an exceptional story to tell or have an update on a really exciting product, but unless you talk to people the way people talk to people, your story won’t get told. Good marketing is a conversation. Great marketing is turning strangers into friends.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Go Losing Your Touch Again

Oh, and this seems like a fair place to let you know I have a tumblr blog where I document bottled beers I’ve had. I rate them, describe the taste for you and share the memory of when I first tried the brew. Feel free to stop by.

 

Ad-Lib Press Release (Make an easy $25)

Garth Beyer

I went to the kick-off meeting for the Public Relations Student Society of America at UW-Madison today. The way they began was genius and I truly wish I could share that genius with you, but instead, I’m going to give you the opportunity to make some cash.

The meeting began with the president asking for words or phrases, such as an adjective, a holiday, a female celebrity, and so on. After we were all well curious what the point was, they put on the television screen an Ad-Lib Press Release using the words and phrases we provided.

(In case you were wondering, the press release ended up being about the Geek Squad releasing a new type of toilet paper for my birthday. ### Fingers crossed!)

I found a few mad-lib press releases that people have made, but I’m looking for something more unique.

This is where your talent comes in.

I will be taking submissions at thegarthbox@gmail.com until October 5th for ad-lib press releases. The person who sends in the best ad-lib press release will be credited and given $25! (Must have paypal account)

Runner-up will receive $5 and be the one that tests out the winning ad-lib which I will post.

Let’s see what you got! Feel free to ask any questions, there are purposely few rules to accommodate your creative abilities.

PR: Knowing Your Audience

PR: Knowing Your Audience

Garth Beyer

Many PR firms either get lucky or just get by when their strategy for knowing the audience is to judge and make assumptions.

According to a survey conducted by Jericho Communications, the typical American Fortune 1000 CEO is more likely to have watched The Simpsons than to have watched all three presidential debates.

Now, PR may be in control of social media, but PR still involves meeting the target audience, becoming one of them in the real world (not just online). You must know where they (your audience) goes, where they eat, what they read, watch and listen to. A great PR Specialist assimilates herself into the audience at the same time as keeping an eye out on social media trends before initiating a PR strategy.

Familiarizing yourself with the lifestyle of your target audience allows you to pitch stories directly to them, create the publications that they will read, and direct the appearance of your product so it faces them in an unobtrusive way. It does well to note that there still must be your own passion that is put into the publication. Since you are placing your pitch in between a stream of feed that the target audience is more familiar with than the last presidential debate, how passionately you present your pitch matters considerably.

Unable to create that publication? Send a press release to the newspapers, the magazines, radio stations or TV stations that you know your audience views. Does breaking news involve your product? Your topic? Get those press releases out. As you know, PR isn’t about putting your product or a story in front of everyone’s faces, over and over and over. That’s called advertising. PR is special, it’s separate from advertising although it uses it. It’s about strategizing the perfect moment to turn a presentation public.

Syncing your pitch to your audience is just as important as getting in sync with the perfect moment. What puts the “specialist” after PR is the ability to combine the two.

Assimilate, Syndicate, and Presentate

A PR’s Error Correction

A PR’s Error Correction

Garth Beyer

Everyone makes errors, no matter how much of a professional someone is. Even a vocation like Public Relations, where a Specialist is meant to review every action a thousand times over before execution.

Like most professionals, the errors are corrected with haste. However, the integrity of being a PR Specialist and making errors is that not only are you quick to implement a correction, but you correct it with all audiences.

If an error is made in a Press Release, you don’t craft a general apology and apply a correction. You contact the organization the Press Release was submitted for, you contact the editors, you contact your associates, you contact the publisher who the company is concorded with, you contact the Executive, and you contact every audience affiliated with the release.

A PR’s error correction is not only immediate and direct, but thorough as well.