Walt Boyes presents a totally revised and updated version of PR101, his very popular Marketing Communications Master Class.
This webinar is for both newbies to marketing communications (product managers, sales managers and engineers who have been "promoted" into marketing) and those who have been doing marcomm in the automation industry for a while.
This webinar is specific to the automation industry and discusses:
- Marketing "bang for the buck"
- Integrated marketing
- Public relations in the automation industry
- How to place a press release
- Product releases and news releases
- Relationship building with editors, influencers, and thought leaders
- Social Media: Inbound and outbound marketing -- a cascade control loop
- Metrics and measuring results
Walt has more than 25 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, and product development in the automation industry, including Executive Committee experience and board of directors service in both for-profit and not-for-profit companies.
Walt is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of CONTROL magazine, http://www.controlglobal.com. In addition, he is a principal in Spitzer and Boyes LLC,
http://www.spitzerandboyes.com, a technology consulting firm devoted to assisting companies to better market their products in manufacturing and automation. Walt also acts as a freelance acquisitions editor for Momentum Press, a division of iGroup, on Instrumentation and Automation texts. Walt has published professionally in the technology and science fiction fields, and is a member of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Feb 2013 Webinar: How to get the most from your research budget. Find out how to determine what you really need to know. Learn how to define your approach, assemble the best research team, and then interpret the data to help you refine your lead generation, branding, and product development programs.
WEBINAR - PR Measurement Pays: Connecting Media Coverage to Business ObjectivesAgility PR Solutions
Here are the slides from our webinar - PR Measurement Pays: Connecting Media Coverage to Business Objectives:
PR drives revenue. It impacts P&L. It has a direct effect on whether or not your organization reaches its goals.
Understanding how - and what's working (or isn't) - is critical.
The good news? It's easy.
In this 45-minute webinar, Measurement Queen Katie Paine is going to walk us through three examples of organizations - both for-profit and non-profit - that aligned their media metrics to their business objectives...and saw success because of it.
In this webinar we learnt how PR measurement has evolved, how to choose the right metrics, and how to finally and clearly prove that PR contributes to the bottom line.
John Simpson, Kalev Peekna, Cameron Friedlander and Corrie Maguire provide a digital deep dive, equal parts lecture and discussion, designed to help marketers accelerate their digital efforts at the Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference in Austin.
What does it mean to live in a digital-first world? How have leading organizations, such as Boston Consulting Group and Kimberly-Clark, managed to secure buy in for their digital efforts ... and how can law firms do the same? And, maybe most importantly, how do you continuously prove the value/return of a multi-channel approach?
Workshop facilitators John Simpson and Kalev Peekna of One North and Workshop leaders Cameron Friedlander of Kimberly-Clark and Corrie Maguire of the Boston Consulting Group, work to answer these questions and more. Mixing lecture, case studies, exercises and discussion, we explore how we as an industry must utilize digital.
Creative Traction Methodology - For Early Stage StartupsTommaso Di Bartolo
How to build a mindset that gets a new product traction? 99% of all startups are forced to give up because they lack traction. As founders are thrilled and captivated to build a product that could change the world - the majority downright neglects to put equal efforts towards how to differentiate in taking the product to market. The difference between those who make it to get traction and the rest lies in the innovator’s mindset.
Understanding the mobile user experience is vital for every marketer to maximize their campaign effectiveness. Most consumers now have constant connectivity –whether this is by smartphone, tablet or computer - they are ‘always on, always connected’.
- 52% of website visits are now made via a mobile device
- 1.75 billion people worldwide now own a smartphone, with 173 million users in the US
- Mobile accounted for 57.1% of all online Christmas shopping traffic and 34.8% of total Christmas Day online sales in the US in 2014
Feb 2013 Webinar: How to get the most from your research budget. Find out how to determine what you really need to know. Learn how to define your approach, assemble the best research team, and then interpret the data to help you refine your lead generation, branding, and product development programs.
WEBINAR - PR Measurement Pays: Connecting Media Coverage to Business ObjectivesAgility PR Solutions
Here are the slides from our webinar - PR Measurement Pays: Connecting Media Coverage to Business Objectives:
PR drives revenue. It impacts P&L. It has a direct effect on whether or not your organization reaches its goals.
Understanding how - and what's working (or isn't) - is critical.
The good news? It's easy.
In this 45-minute webinar, Measurement Queen Katie Paine is going to walk us through three examples of organizations - both for-profit and non-profit - that aligned their media metrics to their business objectives...and saw success because of it.
In this webinar we learnt how PR measurement has evolved, how to choose the right metrics, and how to finally and clearly prove that PR contributes to the bottom line.
John Simpson, Kalev Peekna, Cameron Friedlander and Corrie Maguire provide a digital deep dive, equal parts lecture and discussion, designed to help marketers accelerate their digital efforts at the Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference in Austin.
What does it mean to live in a digital-first world? How have leading organizations, such as Boston Consulting Group and Kimberly-Clark, managed to secure buy in for their digital efforts ... and how can law firms do the same? And, maybe most importantly, how do you continuously prove the value/return of a multi-channel approach?
Workshop facilitators John Simpson and Kalev Peekna of One North and Workshop leaders Cameron Friedlander of Kimberly-Clark and Corrie Maguire of the Boston Consulting Group, work to answer these questions and more. Mixing lecture, case studies, exercises and discussion, we explore how we as an industry must utilize digital.
Creative Traction Methodology - For Early Stage StartupsTommaso Di Bartolo
How to build a mindset that gets a new product traction? 99% of all startups are forced to give up because they lack traction. As founders are thrilled and captivated to build a product that could change the world - the majority downright neglects to put equal efforts towards how to differentiate in taking the product to market. The difference between those who make it to get traction and the rest lies in the innovator’s mindset.
Understanding the mobile user experience is vital for every marketer to maximize their campaign effectiveness. Most consumers now have constant connectivity –whether this is by smartphone, tablet or computer - they are ‘always on, always connected’.
- 52% of website visits are now made via a mobile device
- 1.75 billion people worldwide now own a smartphone, with 173 million users in the US
- Mobile accounted for 57.1% of all online Christmas shopping traffic and 34.8% of total Christmas Day online sales in the US in 2014
Some people say media relations is a lost art. Some people are right. In this 60-minute webinar, Katy Pollard — she of Listening Pig public relations — will remind us just how important our relationships with journalists are, and teach us how to recapture what so many of us seem to have lost.
The Future of Content Marketing: 10 Things to Consider Today
Over the last few months. Joe Pulizzi has been sharing exclusive insights in CMI’s weekly newsletter, The Content Marketing Revolution. These tips are things that struck him each week, but when we looked at them in total many had a theme: they help marketing leaders prepare for the future of content marketing. The ideas range from big to small and quick to implement and a bit longer-term, but all are things you should be thinking about today. For more exclusive insights from Joe, subscribe to The Content Marketing Revolution. What do you really need to know to prepare for the future of content marketing?
Our research found that most people define their ideal experience in terms of relevance — getting the information they need quickly and ensuring that they are remembered between and during engagements with a brand. Yet despite customer experience being a top priority for the C-suite, few organizations have a coherent strategy that aligns customer experience against business strategy and then across departments.
Our research found that the key is to use relationships as the foundation for a next-generation customer experience strategy, with touchpoints and journeys remaining practical necessities. The strategy must prioritize experiences that create relevance in the relationship that in the end drives business results. To develop the strategy itself, start by understanding the maturity of your experience strategy formulation and execution capabilities.
From there, the strategy process has four components:
• Understand the next generation customer on a continuous basis.
• Create a vision and guiding principles that connect experience to relationships.
• Prioritize experience initiatives for relevance.
• Align the organization for execution.
To download the full report at no cost, visit http://bit.ly/altimeter-exp-strategy
Social Media Changed Events Forever. Here is Proof!Julius Solaris
The book is out http//socialmediaforeventsebook.com - free to download.
This is a presentation from the upcoming book Social Media for Events. It presents the result of one of the most extensive research about the use of social media at events.
Welcome to the 12th Annual Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. What a year it has been.
This edition of our report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022. Throughout, you will see quotes from the many rich, qualitative responses we received to the question, “What did the pandemic change most about your organization’s content marketing strategy/approach?” In all, 75% of respondents took the time to answer this question and we are ever so grateful. What amazing insights it yielded!
The key theme that emerged was this: The pandemic awoke a sleeping giant – content marketing, that is. Without in-person events and face-to-face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power. More content marketers got a seat at the table and helped keep many businesses on their audiences’ radar. Some discovered new audiences altogether.
The research also confirmed what many of us already knew: Content marketers are some of the fiercest business pros around. In the most difficult of times, they get the job done – and many come through more creative and stronger than before.
Congratulations, content marketers, for a job well done in the most difficult of times. Our entire team salutes you!
REUPLOAD - Originally uploaded 27th February 2013, Slideshare wasn't previewing this because of some glitch, so I've re-uploaded. Hopefully this works.
I was recently asked to give a crash course in developing effective digital strategies. Because I have a contrary streak and think that digital isn't a separate entity, I presented what I think are the key principles in developing marketing strategies instead. It's an intro to strategy in a lot of ways, but hopefully it will be useful/interesting to a few people.
First Impressions Email Marketing StudyTiffani Allen
You have only seven seconds to make a first impression. This is why we try to look our best when meeting someone new, or why brands create amazing customer experiences. So why should your email marketing program be treated any different?
The answer is, it shouldn’t.
Ciceron is a full service digital marketing agency. We specialize in digital strategy, including email marketing, social media, website design, and brand advocacy.
Over the last year, we’ve done several customer insights projects for clients using the 'Jobs To Be Done' framework. We’ve done this for companies in management consulting, consumer packaged goods, and apparel. Doing 60-minute interviews with one customer at a time and distilling that information has been some of the most interesting work I’ve done in my career. Here’s how we do it and why it’s worth doing.
So, You Want to be a Product Marketer? Here's How (ProductCamp Boston 2016)ProductCamp Boston
Product marketing is the process of promoting and selling a product to an audience. When compared to product management, product marketing deals with more outbound marketing or customer-facing tasks. If you are considering a career in product marketing, this session will give you a good idea of what you're getting yourself into and how you can be a success in your role.
About Carole Gunst and Rodan Zadeh
Carole Gunst is Marketing Director at Attunity, a data management software company. She is a Boston-based marketer who has handled product marketing for technology companies ranging in size from boot-strapped ventures to major corporations.
Rodan Zadeh is Strategy and Marketing Leader
Rand's slideshow presentation from the June 2013 internal Mozzer AllHands event, covering the mission, vision, values, and BHAG for Moz over the years ahead.
The Future of the Client Agency Relationship - A presentation by Hall and Par...The_IPA
in 2015, the IPA commissioned research on the future of how agencies work with their clients. The findings were presented at the IPA Commercial Conference. They discuss the development of a shared agenda to rebuild trust and explore concepts around communications and customer experience.
Learn step-by-step how you can dramatically increase your audience of subscribers, leads, customers and fans by adding a few simple (and free) types of marketing strategies to the mix.
Engage & Listen: Activating Your Brand Across Digital TouchpointsOne North
Collaborative. Responsive. Client-focused. Innovative. These are some of the most commonly used go-to-market messages for B2B organizations. Nearly identical value propositions like these create a dangerous "sea of sameness" for this industry.
As marketers, we must dig deeper. We need to find a point of view that is authentic to the character of our organization and unique to our competitive set and vertical. Without this, it's impossible to separate from the pack and present your clients and customers with a brand experience that is more than just your snappy color palette or slick logo.
John Simpson (CEO & Founder) and Ryan Schulz (Director, Brand) discuss how to differentiate your brand, avoid the sea of sameness and activate Brand across all of your digital touchpoints.
In house social media acceptance - how to foster a learning marketing departmentEmmanuel Vivier
Presentation by Emmanuel Vivier @ #M2C2011 Conference (http://www.marketing2conference.com) in Paris on the 28-29th of march 2011. A few advices for non social media marketing expert about why and how you can motivate your marketing team to keep learning about new trends....
Presented by Joel Don, Comm Strategies, at the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit
The marketing and public relations industry continues to focus on developing solutions to meet the challenge of delivering valid program measurement and proof of ROI. Prior to social media, professionals relied on totaling column inches, estimating media impressions, counting mentions, eyeballs and visits, and proffering the highly controversial (and mostly discounted) advertising equivalency values. These approaches will continue to wane with the ongoing disruption of traditional media channels. The new media revolution coupled with the rapid growth of social platforms, tools and services (many at little or no cost) have ushered a new set of metrics into the ROI equation.
The presentation will review current thinking on measurement, and examine options and challenges to delivering valid social media ROI. From a budget perspective, analytical tools that are low cost or free will be compared to full-blown paid services such as Radian6 and Sysomos. The objective of the presentation is to enable marketing and communications professionals to implement measurement systems or approaches that can help an organization better understand how social media tools and strategies deliver results to the business bottom line. Examples will be offered from well-document ROI cases from large, recognized brands. Perhaps more important, the presentation will cover how lesser known small and medium-sized businesses can scale social media ROI to justify the implementation of customer engagement and conversation strategies.
More info: http://marketingsalessummit.com/social-media-roi-piecing-together-the-measurement-conundrum/
Presented by Rick Reynolds of Ask Forensics at the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit.
Did you know that many of your multi-million dollar strategic accounts could be at risk without you even knowing it? Sales and account forensics investigations into $3 billion worth of client accounts reveal that 79% of the profiled strategic accounts exceeding $15 million are “at risk”. In most cases companies are unaware of this, and it can cost millions of dollars in lost accounts each year. It’s like an undetected disease with huge implications. Losing one account can seriously impact bottom line performance, but the good news is, moving the needle in the positive direction will generate significant revenue and profit.
When you cut through all of the clutter, it boils down to one thing—service quality. This is customers’ most critical need and, for the most part, companies are effectively providing service quality. The question that should worry executives is: If on the surface we are doing well, then why are so many accounts “at risk”?
This presentation will address the often undetected, not-so-obvious cracks in client relationships that put critical client accounts “at risk.”
More information: http://marketingsalessummit.com/how-to-fortify-and-grow-critical-accounts-2/
Some people say media relations is a lost art. Some people are right. In this 60-minute webinar, Katy Pollard — she of Listening Pig public relations — will remind us just how important our relationships with journalists are, and teach us how to recapture what so many of us seem to have lost.
The Future of Content Marketing: 10 Things to Consider Today
Over the last few months. Joe Pulizzi has been sharing exclusive insights in CMI’s weekly newsletter, The Content Marketing Revolution. These tips are things that struck him each week, but when we looked at them in total many had a theme: they help marketing leaders prepare for the future of content marketing. The ideas range from big to small and quick to implement and a bit longer-term, but all are things you should be thinking about today. For more exclusive insights from Joe, subscribe to The Content Marketing Revolution. What do you really need to know to prepare for the future of content marketing?
Our research found that most people define their ideal experience in terms of relevance — getting the information they need quickly and ensuring that they are remembered between and during engagements with a brand. Yet despite customer experience being a top priority for the C-suite, few organizations have a coherent strategy that aligns customer experience against business strategy and then across departments.
Our research found that the key is to use relationships as the foundation for a next-generation customer experience strategy, with touchpoints and journeys remaining practical necessities. The strategy must prioritize experiences that create relevance in the relationship that in the end drives business results. To develop the strategy itself, start by understanding the maturity of your experience strategy formulation and execution capabilities.
From there, the strategy process has four components:
• Understand the next generation customer on a continuous basis.
• Create a vision and guiding principles that connect experience to relationships.
• Prioritize experience initiatives for relevance.
• Align the organization for execution.
To download the full report at no cost, visit http://bit.ly/altimeter-exp-strategy
Social Media Changed Events Forever. Here is Proof!Julius Solaris
The book is out http//socialmediaforeventsebook.com - free to download.
This is a presentation from the upcoming book Social Media for Events. It presents the result of one of the most extensive research about the use of social media at events.
Welcome to the 12th Annual Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. What a year it has been.
This edition of our report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022. Throughout, you will see quotes from the many rich, qualitative responses we received to the question, “What did the pandemic change most about your organization’s content marketing strategy/approach?” In all, 75% of respondents took the time to answer this question and we are ever so grateful. What amazing insights it yielded!
The key theme that emerged was this: The pandemic awoke a sleeping giant – content marketing, that is. Without in-person events and face-to-face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power. More content marketers got a seat at the table and helped keep many businesses on their audiences’ radar. Some discovered new audiences altogether.
The research also confirmed what many of us already knew: Content marketers are some of the fiercest business pros around. In the most difficult of times, they get the job done – and many come through more creative and stronger than before.
Congratulations, content marketers, for a job well done in the most difficult of times. Our entire team salutes you!
REUPLOAD - Originally uploaded 27th February 2013, Slideshare wasn't previewing this because of some glitch, so I've re-uploaded. Hopefully this works.
I was recently asked to give a crash course in developing effective digital strategies. Because I have a contrary streak and think that digital isn't a separate entity, I presented what I think are the key principles in developing marketing strategies instead. It's an intro to strategy in a lot of ways, but hopefully it will be useful/interesting to a few people.
First Impressions Email Marketing StudyTiffani Allen
You have only seven seconds to make a first impression. This is why we try to look our best when meeting someone new, or why brands create amazing customer experiences. So why should your email marketing program be treated any different?
The answer is, it shouldn’t.
Ciceron is a full service digital marketing agency. We specialize in digital strategy, including email marketing, social media, website design, and brand advocacy.
Over the last year, we’ve done several customer insights projects for clients using the 'Jobs To Be Done' framework. We’ve done this for companies in management consulting, consumer packaged goods, and apparel. Doing 60-minute interviews with one customer at a time and distilling that information has been some of the most interesting work I’ve done in my career. Here’s how we do it and why it’s worth doing.
So, You Want to be a Product Marketer? Here's How (ProductCamp Boston 2016)ProductCamp Boston
Product marketing is the process of promoting and selling a product to an audience. When compared to product management, product marketing deals with more outbound marketing or customer-facing tasks. If you are considering a career in product marketing, this session will give you a good idea of what you're getting yourself into and how you can be a success in your role.
About Carole Gunst and Rodan Zadeh
Carole Gunst is Marketing Director at Attunity, a data management software company. She is a Boston-based marketer who has handled product marketing for technology companies ranging in size from boot-strapped ventures to major corporations.
Rodan Zadeh is Strategy and Marketing Leader
Rand's slideshow presentation from the June 2013 internal Mozzer AllHands event, covering the mission, vision, values, and BHAG for Moz over the years ahead.
The Future of the Client Agency Relationship - A presentation by Hall and Par...The_IPA
in 2015, the IPA commissioned research on the future of how agencies work with their clients. The findings were presented at the IPA Commercial Conference. They discuss the development of a shared agenda to rebuild trust and explore concepts around communications and customer experience.
Learn step-by-step how you can dramatically increase your audience of subscribers, leads, customers and fans by adding a few simple (and free) types of marketing strategies to the mix.
Engage & Listen: Activating Your Brand Across Digital TouchpointsOne North
Collaborative. Responsive. Client-focused. Innovative. These are some of the most commonly used go-to-market messages for B2B organizations. Nearly identical value propositions like these create a dangerous "sea of sameness" for this industry.
As marketers, we must dig deeper. We need to find a point of view that is authentic to the character of our organization and unique to our competitive set and vertical. Without this, it's impossible to separate from the pack and present your clients and customers with a brand experience that is more than just your snappy color palette or slick logo.
John Simpson (CEO & Founder) and Ryan Schulz (Director, Brand) discuss how to differentiate your brand, avoid the sea of sameness and activate Brand across all of your digital touchpoints.
In house social media acceptance - how to foster a learning marketing departmentEmmanuel Vivier
Presentation by Emmanuel Vivier @ #M2C2011 Conference (http://www.marketing2conference.com) in Paris on the 28-29th of march 2011. A few advices for non social media marketing expert about why and how you can motivate your marketing team to keep learning about new trends....
Presented by Joel Don, Comm Strategies, at the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit
The marketing and public relations industry continues to focus on developing solutions to meet the challenge of delivering valid program measurement and proof of ROI. Prior to social media, professionals relied on totaling column inches, estimating media impressions, counting mentions, eyeballs and visits, and proffering the highly controversial (and mostly discounted) advertising equivalency values. These approaches will continue to wane with the ongoing disruption of traditional media channels. The new media revolution coupled with the rapid growth of social platforms, tools and services (many at little or no cost) have ushered a new set of metrics into the ROI equation.
The presentation will review current thinking on measurement, and examine options and challenges to delivering valid social media ROI. From a budget perspective, analytical tools that are low cost or free will be compared to full-blown paid services such as Radian6 and Sysomos. The objective of the presentation is to enable marketing and communications professionals to implement measurement systems or approaches that can help an organization better understand how social media tools and strategies deliver results to the business bottom line. Examples will be offered from well-document ROI cases from large, recognized brands. Perhaps more important, the presentation will cover how lesser known small and medium-sized businesses can scale social media ROI to justify the implementation of customer engagement and conversation strategies.
More info: http://marketingsalessummit.com/social-media-roi-piecing-together-the-measurement-conundrum/
Presented by Rick Reynolds of Ask Forensics at the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit.
Did you know that many of your multi-million dollar strategic accounts could be at risk without you even knowing it? Sales and account forensics investigations into $3 billion worth of client accounts reveal that 79% of the profiled strategic accounts exceeding $15 million are “at risk”. In most cases companies are unaware of this, and it can cost millions of dollars in lost accounts each year. It’s like an undetected disease with huge implications. Losing one account can seriously impact bottom line performance, but the good news is, moving the needle in the positive direction will generate significant revenue and profit.
When you cut through all of the clutter, it boils down to one thing—service quality. This is customers’ most critical need and, for the most part, companies are effectively providing service quality. The question that should worry executives is: If on the surface we are doing well, then why are so many accounts “at risk”?
This presentation will address the often undetected, not-so-obvious cracks in client relationships that put critical client accounts “at risk.”
More information: http://marketingsalessummit.com/how-to-fortify-and-grow-critical-accounts-2/
From the 7th Annual ISA Marketing & Sales Summit. What's Hot in Search Marketing: 2012 Update by Shari Worthington, Telesian Technology. http://marketingsalessummit.com
Presented by Marcus Tennant and Kyoko Fukuda of Yokogawa at the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit.
Over the past 10 years there have been several tragic natural disasters that have occurred throughout the world. As the global economy becomes more connected through supply chains and information, what role does marketing have in helping customers and other stakeholders affected by the disaster? This presentation will discuss how Yokogawa responded to customers impacted by the Tohoku earthquake & tsunami. They will give examples of how marketing groups in companies like Home Depot and Wal-Mart take action before and after a disaster and suggest ways marketing, communication and even sales can help an organization respond to a crisis and help customers and employees.
More on this session: http://marketingsalessummit.com/global-marketing-session-at-the-summit/
Presented by Chris Smith, Invensys/Foxboro
This presentation provides an insight into the way in which we market long term hardware support products and include next generation features, retain last generation features and jettison outdated features to provide new offerings in the conservative systems infrastructure market. Common everyday examples are chosen to illustrate key points and ideas along with real-life timeframes and industry argument.
Presented by Brian Joosse, Symmetri Marketing
Customer research found that there was no clear centralized industry resource for engineers in the oil/gas and petrochemical industries for news and advice on industrial facilities and their electrical system requirements, or a forum for asking/answering questions and contributing expertise. Now, EGS Electrical Group is providing these resources through its Power Panel Community site.
PowerPanelCommunity.com is an online community for specifying engineers who design, build and maintain oil, gas, petrochemical and other industrial facilities that operate heavy equipment in adverse and hazardous locations. The site aggregates global news from trade sources and general media, provides insights from industry experts and guest writers in a blog that invites member commentary, and gives engineers a moderated discussion forum for asking questions and engaging in conversation.
In this presentation we will show how:
• Inspiration for the community was rooted in customer research
• Strategy was developed to generate real business value
• Negotiating Emerson corporate support was key to project approval
• Community launch was orchestrated to maximize internal product team support
• High value content is developed and deployed monthly
• Social Media channel management is key to broader community success
• How you can apply this approach across other industrial automation markets
Webinar May 2013: Did you know if a group manager takes action against your account in one LinkedIn group, you are now effectively blacklisted in ALL of your LinkedIn groups? LinkedIn may be one of the best known, yet least (effectively) used tools for developing careers and promoting brands in social networking spaces. Joel Don, ISA Social Media Community Manager shows you how to use LinkedIn as a tool for business and career networking, finding job opportunities, selling products, promoting brands and companies, and expanding your knowledge base.
Being first to market in the industrial automation space is no easy task, and involves creating new vocabulary, redefining technology territories and communicating technical messages in an easy to understand manner. Invensys faced this challenge head on In 2006 when they introduced InFusion ECS as the world’s first Enterprise Control System. InFusion ECS was part of a Blue Ocean marketing strategy by Invensys, which means to create new market space or a “blue ocean”, thereby making the competition irrelevant. Although the launch was successful, trying to create a new market space in an engineering-driven market presented some very interesting challenges. Among the greatest challenges included:
driving a business value proposition in an technology-focused segment – a shift from product features to business solutions
overcoming the devaluation of the technology itself as a commodity and demonstrating the huge potential value of automation/information technology overall to the business;
driving a human empowerment theme in a market where automation replaces human power;
driving a collaboration between accounting and engineering, two functions that do not see eye to eye
showing the value of instrument and control engineering to an audience that has diminished those skill sets to a thing of the past;
sales channel disconnects; and
market message targeting.
Dr. Martin will share the journey that Invensys took for the launch of InFusion ECS from a sales and marketing perspective. He will expose the challenges, barriers and pitfalls and Invensys’ ongoing diligence and their continued persistence to overcome them and to thrive in a difficult industrial automation marketplace.
Presented by Matt Leary, Solutions Insights
A recent study identified Solutions Marketers as the most important marketing position that B2B companies are looking to fill today. But how do we judge what the right skills and competencies will be for that role? In this session, Matt Leary from Solutions Insights will present the results of a recent study that has been conducted on both the knowledge and skills required to successfully develop and marketing complex services and solutions. Matt will talk about the most critical implication of the survey results for companies in the automation sector -- tomorrow's marketing leaders will look different, think different and use different tools and approaches. Based upon competency assessments of over a thousand marketers, effective marketing strategies will need to move away from being based upon traditional approaches like the "4 P's" technology innovation superiority to more customer-centric, collaborative and solutions-focused strategies. The session will include presentation of research, discussions of new models, practical examples and interactive exercises
By Shari L.S. Worthington, President, Telesian Technology
Did you know that duplicate web content will severely damage your search rankings? What about all that material your channel has copied onto their web site? Did you know that Google applies its optimization criteria to PPC’s? Are you generating anonymous clicks or actual leads?
Almost all businesses start searches for products and services online. The first stop is a known web site or a search engine. That means you must have a decent web site and you have to be visible in the search engines. You can’t play at it any more. But search marketing often feels like zookeeping. There are Panda and Penguin updates (and so many more that you haven’t heard about) on the search optimization side. On the PPC side, there are rabid increases in cost-per-clicks (CPC’s) for the best keywords. In this session, Shari Worthington provides an update on the latest tools and techniques for SEO and PPC success
What’s all the hype around big data? In a recent study, CapGemini reported that leveraging Big Data to solve business problems will deliver 41% improvement in overall business performance over the next three years. However, most companies are still struggling to figure out how to leverage this data.
Join Radhika Subramanian, CEO, Emcien Corp. and Julie Fraser, Principal, IYNO Advisors, to discover how product and marketing managers can tap the power of pattern-based analytics to improve visibility across the product line based on customer buying patterns. The analysis of product data – along with sales, revenue and cost information – improves strategic decision-making because it reveals exactly which configurations customers are actually buying, highly popular feature combinations by segment, and then automatically optimizes the product mix to satisfy the demand most profitably.
Sales and marketing managers can discover how they can leverage these optimal configurations to boost sales, bundle and promote products and services as well as reduce lead times. Leveraging big data to sense and shape demand is already serving as a major competitive advantage for companies in manufacturing, telecommunications, retail and distribution. To see how it’s being deployed across departmental silos, Ms. Subramanian will share case studies from NCR and AGCO.
Presented by:
Doug Brock, Kendall Electric
What does the term Gemba have to do with marketing and sales?
Gemba in Lean Manufacturing terms means The Real Place. In Lean, you go to the Real Place to observe the Real Thing to get the Real Facts and Data. Improvements are discovered and problems are solved at the Gemba. The Gemba Walk is the tool frequently used to discover, deploy, and implement improvements. Managers walk through the Real Place working with front line supervisors and workers to gather information and to ensure improvement ideas are discovered and implemented.
The concept of Gemba and Gemba Walks can be a perfect tool for discovering, implementing, and deploying marketing and sales ideas and improvements. The Gemba Walk can fuel innovation and cycles of learning in marketing and sales processes. Just like in manufacturing, getting marketing and sales to work together in the Real Place to observe the Real Thing to get the Real Facts and Data can be a powerful way to drive results in your organization.
Business Development, Marketing and Sales managers will learn simple techniques based on Gemba concepts in this presentation. These techniques can substantially increase the success in any sales improvement effort or marketing project. Attendees will leave the presentation with ideas that will help coordinate and tie sales activities to marketing strategies.
Webinar March 2013: All too often industrial companies set product prices based on their incremental costs and wind up under-valuing their products. Jim Geisman of Software Pricing Partners shows how systematic pricing and packaging of software can increase revenue and profits.
Dick Morley and Bruce Bower will discuss the New Hampshire view of Marketing & Sales. Covered will be the philosophy, mathematics and sociology summary of this conference. We will, over desert, tell stories about black swans, group statistics, mountain tops and Lady Gaga.The summary will be about money, your comfort zone and top down thinking.
Coffee helps the medicine go down.
Dick will be also holding court for a Fireside Chat on Thursday evening in lieu of the scheduled Budweiser Tour. He will also be delivering the closing keynote on Friday afternoon.
Public Relations & Event Marketing Mission :
- Provide a personalized level of customer service unlike any other
- Drive awareness and sales of our clients products and/or service offerings
- Craft strategies that only use the services necessary for success
- Be innovative and nimble
www.eventistmarketing.com
We will share how to truly evaluate how well your company is marketing itself. When it comes down to actually evaluating PR initiatives, organizations aren't exactly sure. Marketing and PR is considered > intangible in terms of its ROI and associating an actual matrix to its value. Companies know that they need it but consider it a gray area when it comes to setting expectations for their in-house team as well as for their public relation agency, if they have one.
Here are just a few of the questions we will consider along with the importance of why we are considering them:
Is your company vision clearly mapped out for today and for future products and/or services as a context for all company communications?
Have you developed your company's key messages for each unique audience and defined competitive differentiators?
Are you utilizing a matrix to measure the overall success in communicating the company's key messages effectively?
Are you getting placements in at least 50% of relevant editorial opportunities? How do you know?
In producing third-party endorsements, customer testimonials, and success studies, how are you marketing them?
Are you actively seeking award opportunities? How many awards have you received so far this year?
Have you conducted a perception study to understand how your key constituents perceive your company?
We will provide a "How To" PR guide and explain the importance of measuring the results. PR performance measurement encompasses a measure of business value, of strategic alignment and of marketing efficiency. It can seem too abstract to fit easily into a concrete measurement like it does for sales but through our 10 plus years of PR experience, we definitely have seen the PR measurement matrix evolve. Our presentation will help organizations get a handle on setting PR expectations as well as how to successfully fulfill those expectations. We are excited to share with the group through our experience, industry research and customer stories on how organizations are able to evaluate what PR investments they should make along with how to measure their outcome and success.
Always wondered how to grow your Personal Brand? Follow these practical tips to get the brand called You out there, use social media, public speaking and the media to your advantage
Six steps to a successful social media strategy - 80x20 NetworkingXpand Marketing
At our latest 80/20 event marketing experts Fran Watson and Danni Johnson shared six steps to creating a successful social media strategy that'll help you achieve your business goals.
They talked about:
- The importance of understanding your social media goals.
- Identifying the right platforms for your audience.
- Reviewing and potentially refocusing any existing platforms.
- Planning content consistently - so you never run out of ideas.
- Social media tone of voice and how to use it to attract potential clients.
- Measuring the success of your efforts.
What is 80x20?
As a business owner or marketing manager, your time is precious, we get it. That’s why we’ve combined networking and learning, all in the same calendar slot.
Our 80x20 event is 40 minutes of networking, followed by a 20-minute learning session from one of our in-house marketing experts, followed by another 40 minutes of networking.
A total of 80 minutes of networking and 20 minutes of learning.
#socialmedia #digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing #socialmediastrategy
What's not changed, what has changed and what's new for your strategic planning
Personalities for your business
Say goodbye to B2B and B2C, say hello to P2P
Your website - your new reception
How to known as the expert for your target market
Your social media goals
Social media plan
Strategic marketing checklist - Don't miss a thing for your next planning day
Deluxe/Risdall Social Media Marketing Webinar PresentationDeluxe Corporation
You’ve heard the buzz about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & LinkedIn, now find out how to harness the power of social media for your own business!
• Why social media works for small businesses
• How to listen first before launching your campaign
• How to create a social media strategy that works
• What elements make up a successful campaign
Now’s the time to leverage social media to build better relationships with your customers and prospects, ultimately driving more sales for your business.
The Future of Marketing is Publishing - 8 Step Content StrategyJoe Pulizzi
Business decision-making has changed. People are relying on the internet, social media, their friends more than ever, and less on traditional marketing. This presentation goes through way, and how creating a content factory, and publishing, is necessary to position your brand as a trusted solutions provider. Also provides a quick analysis of Hubspot and how they compare to Omniture from a content marketing perspective.
Care about learning 'The Social Enterprise of 2014' You will find this deck presented by Bhupendra Khanal (CEO, Simplify360) during Digital Marketing Webinar for Digital Vidya. Interested in attending similar Webinar Live? Register Now at http://www.digitalvidya.com/webinars/
How Prepared Are We for Customer 2.0?
By Juliann Grant, Telesian Technology
Customer 2.0 is calling! We have become so enamored with and caught up in the technology of Web 2.0, our PDA's, gadgets, and widgets that keep us connected and alive 24 hours a day to those around the world, that we forget at the core of it all, it must still be all about the customer.
We must not only use the timeliness and power of social media to broadcast our message to customers, but we need to use it to listen in order to learn what our customers are saying to each other and about us. The web have given customers immediate and almost limitless access to information on companies, products, and people, and realize it or not, we may not even be in the conversation! This is truly moving the "traditional" marketing and sales function towards irrelevance. We must realize that Customer 2.0 is embracing the "buying cycle" on their terms and no longer needs to wait on the "sales cycle".
The typical buyer is savvy, knowledgeable, and smart. Customer 2.0 demands that their web experience be fun, interactive, and social. They value professionalism over glitz. They want substance, not flash. They look to their peers to see what they are buying and want to do the same because they trust their experience. They talk to each other and in real time. Your misstep today is not only tomorrow's news, it is today's news as well.
How do we do this in the Automation and Engineering industry? We’re going to find out through with survey to uncover how well we are engaging with Customer 2.0. Do we speak their language? Are we connecting with them on their terms?
In this presentation, we will show how social media and the power of the web can be used to embrace Customer 2.0 in a meaningful, beneficial dialog that will help drive sales. A combination of case studies, customer interviews, surveys, and real social media encounters will be used to illustrate the power of the "new media" in marketing to Customer 2.0.
Increasing our value to the Ipod generation
Rick A Dolezal, ABB
Plant Managers and key decision makers in our business going forward will be products of the Ipod generation. You may recall, other electronic music players started this craze. RIO had the best selling portable MP3 player a decade ago, but they have not had the success Apple has had with the Ipod. The Ipod succeeded because it was easy to use.
In the same way, our marketplace going forward is looking for ease of use and an ease of doing business. As we package our marketing message to our sales force, it must be quick to understand, show immediate benefits and communicate a sense of urgency. We'll show how you can set up a marketing plan and the sales message that results in sales in this evolving environment.
BIO - Mr. Dolezal is the Director of Sales and Marketing for ABB’s Process Automation Business in the US. His role includes setting and managing sales results, developing the marketing strategy, coordinating market access, and implementing new marketing programs. With 28 years of industry experience, Rick’s background in process control and automation systems has involved product development, delivery, marketing and sales. Rick spent 17 years at Rockwell Automation before joining ABB in February of 2009. Rick graduated from the Ohio Institute of Technology in Columbus, Ohio with an electrical engineering degree.
Today’s search engines drive the vast majority of search efforts for automation products and services. A recent survey by Chemical Engineering showed that 94.9% of engineers find search engines very useful/useful. You know that means they’re starting their searches here. In this session, we will look inside several advanced search marketing topics, including the latest search engine optimization and pay per click tools, what’s new in Google Analytics, integrating search and social media, and the top mistakes and how to avoid them. The focus is on practical information that you can implement as soon as you get back to the office.
We have heard about “the global economy” and the impact on a global scale of decisions made centrally and “globalization” using global methods locally. Both of these terms use the word “global” in the sense of taking something from a central location or headquarters facility and rolling it out globally. But what about taking local best practices and leveraging them to customers and clients globally? In this workshop, we will look at how best practices can emerge locally but are often ignored in a global perspective due to their local origin. Many of these best practices are developed “below the radar” and work very well for a local market; however small changes or adaptations could make them of global significance. We will examine cases of local best practices and they were promoted to improve business performance globally. We will also look at things that can go wrong if this is not done correctly and finally, we will highlight ways that a company can discover and apply these practices.
Would you like to meet face-to-face with 100 of your best prospects for an hour? With Webinars you can efficiently have positive, in-depth, targeted interactions with hundreds of clients, from all over the world, without ever leaving your office.
This session focuses on the basics of webinars: Uncover the motivations for webinars. Learn how to choose topics, venues, format, structure, and content of your webinar. Learn when to charge for webinars and when to do them for free. Find out how to choose a host service. Discover how to market your webinars for maximum effect, and how to stretch the value of every webinar.
George Buckbee is V.P. of Marketing for ExperTune, and has personally hosted hundreds of webinars. Come to this session to learn how you can apply webinars to prospect for new sales, to establish better customer relationships, and to reach your sales and marketing goals.
Technical and engineering buyers live within vertical markets. The products and services are specialized as is the expertise used to specify, purchase and implement them. Effective marketing and sales methods will then focus on targeted narrowcasting methods with high information content. The industrial marketer will find the Web 2.0 model an excellent fit.
Successful outreach establishes the vendor’s expertise and credibility as a dependable resource for a successful project. Well developed topic specific content is critical to the task. The industrial marketer’s task is to identify the topics, produce the content and make it as visible and accessible as possible. The content should be presented at multiple events and in multiple formats that mutually reinforce each other. The goal is to use the Write Once, Publish Many principle to employ Web 2.0 to successfully reach Technical Customer 2.0.
A typical content creation sequence begins with developing technical conference or trade show platform presentations that can also be recorded as a screencast and then repurposed as articles, whitepapers, eBooks, etc. This video/audio/text content can then be published on the vendor’s site, trade press web sites, special interest blogs, and professional group sites.
Developing a webinar series is an effective next step. To be credible, the webinars should be more than product demos. The most effective approach is to choose a current industry topic that includes the industrial marketer’s product as part of the solution. This is a high value, low cost vehicle to establish credibility while getting quality attention and collecting qualified leads. The industrial marketer will do best to recruit speakers from professionals who are motivated by mutual benefit for presenting and establish a win- win partnership. Identifying motivation is critical. If it is not there, there will be poor cooperation and limited opportunity to develop useful alliances and gain leverage.
The cycle is repeated when this content is repurposed into videos, articles, white papers, etc. Social media provides the perfect tools for event promotion, content publication and distribution. Web 2.0 resources such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs, and YouTube are used in an integrated campaign. The industrial marketer uses analytics to monitor the results and works to improve the process with each cycle.
The underlying case study is of a yearlong promotional effort focused on explaining a major topic in food processing, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and ISO 22000 standards. The products being sold are process based analytics and quality information systems. Since these are part of the solution to successfully comply with GFSI, the webinar series positions the company and its offerings as solutions of choice. The company is positioned as a vendor who understands the larger issues and is a desirable project partner.
India Orthopedic Devices Market: Unlocking Growth Secrets, Trends and Develop...Kumar Satyam
According to TechSci Research report, “India Orthopedic Devices Market -Industry Size, Share, Trends, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2030”, the India Orthopedic Devices Market stood at USD 1,280.54 Million in 2024 and is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 7.84% in the forecast period, 2026-2030F. The India Orthopedic Devices Market is being driven by several factors. The most prominent ones include an increase in the elderly population, who are more prone to orthopedic conditions such as osteoporosis and arthritis. Moreover, the rise in sports injuries and road accidents are also contributing to the demand for orthopedic devices. Advances in technology and the introduction of innovative implants and prosthetics have further propelled the market growth. Additionally, government initiatives aimed at improving healthcare infrastructure and the increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases have led to an upward trend in orthopedic surgeries, thereby fueling the market demand for these devices.
RMD24 | Debunking the non-endemic revenue myth Marvin Vacquier Droop | First ...BBPMedia1
Marvin neemt je in deze presentatie mee in de voordelen van non-endemic advertising op retail media netwerken. Hij brengt ook de uitdagingen in beeld die de markt op dit moment heeft op het gebied van retail media voor niet-leveranciers.
Retail media wordt gezien als het nieuwe advertising-medium en ook mediabureaus richten massaal retail media-afdelingen op. Merken die niet in de betreffende winkel liggen staan ook nog niet in de rij om op de retail media netwerken te adverteren. Marvin belicht de uitdagingen die er zijn om echt aansluiting te vinden op die markt van non-endemic advertising.
Putting the SPARK into Virtual Training.pptxCynthia Clay
This 60-minute webinar, sponsored by Adobe, was delivered for the Training Mag Network. It explored the five elements of SPARK: Storytelling, Purpose, Action, Relationships, and Kudos. Knowing how to tell a well-structured story is key to building long-term memory. Stating a clear purpose that doesn't take away from the discovery learning process is critical. Ensuring that people move from theory to practical application is imperative. Creating strong social learning is the key to commitment and engagement. Validating and affirming participants' comments is the way to create a positive learning environment.
"𝑩𝑬𝑮𝑼𝑵 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯 𝑻𝑱 𝑰𝑺 𝑯𝑨𝑳𝑭 𝑫𝑶𝑵𝑬"
𝐓𝐉 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐬 (𝐓𝐉 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬) is a professional event agency that includes experts in the event-organizing market in Vietnam, Korea, and ASEAN countries. We provide unlimited types of events from Music concerts, Fan meetings, and Culture festivals to Corporate events, Internal company events, Golf tournaments, MICE events, and Exhibitions.
𝐓𝐉 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐬 provides unlimited package services including such as Event organizing, Event planning, Event production, Manpower, PR marketing, Design 2D/3D, VIP protocols, Interpreter agency, etc.
Sports events - Golf competitions/billiards competitions/company sports events: dynamic and challenging
⭐ 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬:
➢ 2024 BAEKHYUN [Lonsdaleite] IN HO CHI MINH
➢ SUPER JUNIOR-L.S.S. THE SHOW : Th3ee Guys in HO CHI MINH
➢FreenBecky 1st Fan Meeting in Vietnam
➢CHILDREN ART EXHIBITION 2024: BEYOND BARRIERS
➢ WOW K-Music Festival 2023
➢ Winner [CROSS] Tour in HCM
➢ Super Show 9 in HCM with Super Junior
➢ HCMC - Gyeongsangbuk-do Culture and Tourism Festival
➢ Korean Vietnam Partnership - Fair with LG
➢ Korean President visits Samsung Electronics R&D Center
➢ Vietnam Food Expo with Lotte Wellfood
"𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲, 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲. 𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬."
Discover the innovative and creative projects that highlight my journey throu...dylandmeas
Discover the innovative and creative projects that highlight my journey through Full Sail University. Below, you’ll find a collection of my work showcasing my skills and expertise in digital marketing, event planning, and media production.
Enterprise Excellence is Inclusive Excellence.pdfKaiNexus
Enterprise excellence and inclusive excellence are closely linked, and real-world challenges have shown that both are essential to the success of any organization. To achieve enterprise excellence, organizations must focus on improving their operations and processes while creating an inclusive environment that engages everyone. In this interactive session, the facilitator will highlight commonly established business practices and how they limit our ability to engage everyone every day. More importantly, though, participants will likely gain increased awareness of what we can do differently to maximize enterprise excellence through deliberate inclusion.
What is Enterprise Excellence?
Enterprise Excellence is a holistic approach that's aimed at achieving world-class performance across all aspects of the organization.
What might I learn?
A way to engage all in creating Inclusive Excellence. Lessons from the US military and their parallels to the story of Harry Potter. How belt systems and CI teams can destroy inclusive practices. How leadership language invites people to the party. There are three things leaders can do to engage everyone every day: maximizing psychological safety to create environments where folks learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo.
Who might benefit? Anyone and everyone leading folks from the shop floor to top floor.
Dr. William Harvey is a seasoned Operations Leader with extensive experience in chemical processing, manufacturing, and operations management. At Michelman, he currently oversees multiple sites, leading teams in strategic planning and coaching/practicing continuous improvement. William is set to start his eighth year of teaching at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches marketing, finance, and management. William holds various certifications in change management, quality, leadership, operational excellence, team building, and DiSC, among others.
Affordable Stationery Printing Services in Jaipur | Navpack n PrintNavpack & Print
Looking for professional printing services in Jaipur? Navpack n Print offers high-quality and affordable stationery printing for all your business needs. Stand out with custom stationery designs and fast turnaround times. Contact us today for a quote!
What are the main advantages of using HR recruiter services.pdfHumanResourceDimensi1
HR recruiter services offer top talents to companies according to their specific needs. They handle all recruitment tasks from job posting to onboarding and help companies concentrate on their business growth. With their expertise and years of experience, they streamline the hiring process and save time and resources for the company.
Accpac to QuickBooks Conversion Navigating the Transition with Online Account...PaulBryant58
This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to
effectively manage the convert Accpac to QuickBooks , with a particular focus on utilizing online accounting services to streamline the process.
Accpac to QuickBooks Conversion Navigating the Transition with Online Account...
PR 101 - Effective Marketing Communications for the Automation Industry
1. Walt Boyes
Editor in Chief
Public Relations Tactics forPublic Relations Tactics for
Automation CompaniesAutomation Companies
Tips and Strategies for Creating a Working PRTips and Strategies for Creating a Working PR
Program forProgram for YourYour CompanyCompany
PR101:PR101:
2. Introduction
We’re talking about Public Relations…something
many automation companies don’t do, or don’t
do well. Why not? What good is it? Isn’t PR
just for really big companies or politicians? I’m
a control system manufacturer. I sell to
engineers! I don’t need a “spin doctor!”
…And now there’s all this blogging and tweeting
and Facebooking and I don’t know what to do
with any of it! Social Media, phaugh!
Sadly, this may sound like YOU!
3. What is PR?
Public Relations is the art and practice of
communicating ideas.
4. The difference between PR
and advertising
Advertising is about products, services or brand image, PR is about
ideas… who you are and what you stand for.
5. PR’s place
in the marketing mix
PR is NOT a cheap replacement for display advertising!
But ...you already knew that, didn’t you?
6. The basics of PR:
1. Media communications
2. Product marketing
3. Tradeshow participation
4. Editorial coverage
5. Stakeholder communications
6. Crisis management
7. The basics of PR:
1. Media communications
It used to be that companies
decided what their customers
should know and tucked
everything else under the rug.
Fact is, marketing communicators
no longer own the message.
8. The basics of PR:
2. Product Marketing
While this is what most automation
companies ONLY do, it isn’t the
only thing they SHOULD do.
9. The basics of PR:
3. Tradeshow participation
Tradeshow participation is
problematic for smaller
companies and questionable for
larger ones…here are some
things you can do instead, or in
addition to attending trade
shows or (gulp!) exhibiting at
them.
10. The basics of PR:
4. Editorial coverage
This is the money play for
everybody…getting coverage
for the work you are doing gives
you a brand image and a
reputation that is worth quite a
bit.
11. The basics of PR:
5. Stakeholder communications
If you are larger than a four or five
person office, you need to figure
out how to keep everybody on
the same page. If you have
investors, or remote offices, this
is really important.
12. The basics of PR:
6. Crisis management
You may not think you need to
know how to handle a crisis, but
what do you do if a plant blows
up and everyone says it is your
control system that was at fault?
13. What Public Relations is
Public Relations is the practice of selecting the correct facts and
concepts about an enterprise and its actions and presenting
them in the most positive light…
14. What PR can
and cannot do
for your company
PR cannot make a “silk
purse” out of a “sow’s ear.”
You have to have something
legitimate to say, or nobody
will listen.
15. What PR can
and cannot do
for your company
Marketing communications
can no longer control the
message. The inmates are
running the asylum.
16. What is all this stuff about
Social Media anyway?
17. What is all this stuff about
Social Media anyway?
•What is “social media”?
•Who uses social media?
•Does social media work in business?
•Should YOU use social media?
•HOW should you use social media?
18. How to construct a PR
campaign
“A PR Strategy Is More Than Sending Out Press Releases” – Linda
VandeVrede
19. Writing a press release
It must be “news”
It must be noteworthy
It must be well written
It must be topical
It must be targeted
20. Relations with Technical
Editors
Maintain a database of editors in your trade area and
industry. Keep it updated.
Make sure you call or meet with each editor at least
once a year.
Keep editorial guidelines from all of your target
publications
Know what the editor’s preferred writing and image
styles are
Know how the editor prefers to be contacted
21. Getting editorial coverage
in trade magazines and
websites
Know the editorial calendar
Pick a topic that fits the calendar
Pitch it at least 4-6 months ahead
Make sure it is well written
Make sure you furnish good visuals
Get it in on time
22. PR and tradeshows
Get your best customers to the show
Schedule meetings with analysts and editors
Announce new products
Announce new strategic alliances
Announce new contracts or big projects
Get coverage in the “show daily”
Make contacts in the trade press
23. How to use PR to increase
interest in the enterprise
Communicating the company brand
Internal Communications
Communicating with shareholders
Communications with the media
24. What is branding?
Branding is the maintenance and furtherance of the company brand.
A brand is the cognitive “gestalt” made up of all of the knowledge,
emotions, thoughts and feelings about a company and its products by
employees, suppliers, customers, competitors, shareholders and the
media.
So why is branding important?
25. PR for branding the
industrial enterprise
PR communicates the brand values of the company
PR projects the image the company sees of itself
PR promotes the company, its values and its actions
PR acts as the primary channel for Social Media
interactions between the company and its customers.
26. Cognitive dissonance
and PR
Cognitive dissonance is produced
when a company acts in a way that is
contrary to its projected image and
brand.
Cognitive dissonance is a powerful
phenomenon that leads directly to lost
business.
Cognitive dissonance can be spread
quickly and widely by Social Media…
witness the Toyota fail and the BP
catastrophe.
27. Cognitive dissonance
and debasing your brand
When you do things just a little bit less
well, or less expensively, you produce
cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance always leads
directly to lost business, even if you
debase your brand just a little at a
time.
Cognitive dissonance from debasing
your brand can be spread quickly and
widely by Social Media…
28. PR for internal
communications and
Social Media
Communicate the company’s strategic goals
and objectives
Communicate the company vision
Communicate the company’s brand values
Communicate news
Manage morale
Provide a channel for stakeholder
communications
29. Communicating with
shareholders
PR is used to share company financial
news with shareholders
PR is used to share new programs,
options, and shareholder specific
information
PR is used to communicate with
analysts and Wall Street experts.
YOU may be called on to explain why your company’s results aren’t as
predicted. Do you know how?
30. Social Media Rules for
Communicating with
Employees, Customers and
the Public:
Honesty is the best policy
Open communications is
best
Clear and direct works
Waffling and ducking is
counterproductive
31. Crisis Management
Plan ahead for a crisis
Have a crisis management team
BE HONEST and OPEN
Take responsibility
Take corrective action swiftly
Provide information access
32. How to handle a crisis
Establish a crisis information
center
Establish a schedule of
updates and stick to the
schedule
Never waffle, never lie: be
forthright and honest
Make sure you are
communicating the truth as
best you know it.
Tell your story simply and help
the media and the authorities
get the story out
33. Walt Boyes
Editor in Chief
Putting It All Together– a detailedPutting It All Together– a detailed
approach to integratingapproach to integrating
marketing communicationsmarketing communications
PR101:PR101:
34. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
35. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
36. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
37. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
38. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
39. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
40. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
41. Outbound
1.Wikipedia Page(s)
1. For company
2. For product(s)
3. For principals and experts
4. For industry issues
2.Articles and Whitepapers
3.Campaign Whitepapers
4.Presentations
5.Webinars
6.YouTube
Inbound
1.Your own blog(s)
2.Twitter
3.LinkedIn
4.Facebook
5.“A List” at Control.com
6.Other Social Media
End Users and OEMs
Social Media and Outbound/Inbound Marketing
Are a Cascade Control Loop
Copyright 2012, 2013 Spitzer and Boyes LLC used by permission
42. Conclusion
You’ve now seen what PR, or
rather, integrated marketing
communications, can do for
any automation company. If
you’ve followed me so far, you
get a gold star…
Editor's Notes
My name is Walt Boyes. I am Editor in Chief of Control and ControlGlobal.com, and a principal of Spitzer and Boyes LLC. In both endeavors, I am continuously involved in the uses and misuses of public relations. I have been either doing public relations and marketing or having them done to me for nearly forty years now. I’ve seen many changes, but not so many as I have seen in just the last decade. We are going to wade through the landscape of communications and try to see what the current best practices are. Some of those have not changed in decades. Some are as new as your last Tweet.
Did you ever ask yourself why automation companies, integrators and manufacturers alike, don ’t do PR? Is the answer simply that the management staff doesn’t understand what it is, what it is for? Do you understand what Public Relations is? Do you understand what it is for? Public Relations, PR, is a fundamental part of any integrated marketing program…any integrated marketing communications program…any branding program. PR is about communication and communicating. We’ll talk about the ways PR is ESSENTIAL in the automation market.
Public Relations is the art and practice of communication in a structured way. The purpose of public relations is to create the desired effect in the minds of the recipients. So what does this really mean? PR practitioners typically are attempting to present a concept, an idea, or a series of ideas, like the values a corporation represents…in a way that is structured to: Cause belief Stimulate action Add value
Display advertising is designed to cause an action: calling an 800-number, requesting information from a website, calling a salesperson. Public relations is a bit more general than that. Public relations is simply about creating positive “buzz” in a structured way, around an idea. In essence, a public relations campaign is aimed at all of the stakeholders of an enterprise, while advertising is aimed directly at customers. PR serves analysts, customers, shareholders, media, and all of the other entities with an interest in the enterprise as a whole.
There is a concept known as the “marketing mix.” It is all of the tools and strategies an enterprise uses to communicate its values, its products, its services to the public and to customers. The marketing mix includes display advertising, tradeshow participation, direct marketing, field sales, online marketing, and public relations. Public relations is an integral part of the marketing mix. In fact, it is the glue that holds the mix together. Most enterprises do public relations, they just do it unconsciously, and therefore they do it poorly. The topics we ’ll cover in this seminar are designed to show you how to do it well.
The six basic functions of PR in the industrial enterprise are talking to the media, product marketing issues like new product introductions and new product releases, participation in tradeshows, symposia and forums, gaining editorial coverage, communicating with all of the stakeholders of your company, and crisis management. There is a seventh function, sort of a metafunction, that is composed of all six, plus some extra…and that function is management and conservation of your brand.
Customer empowerment…employee empowerment…the Internet and the social media from email to Twitter have made it necessary for even integrators to know how to direct, not control, the message they want to present to the public, their customers, and their employees and suppliers. It matters what you say, and it matters what everyone else says. Just google www.insertnameofcompanysucks.com And you ’ll see what I mean.
You don ’t have products, do you? Of course you do, even if you are just an integrator and it is only a proprietary template or two. One of the products you have is the reputation of your work-products. Bet you don’t really see that as a product of itself. You can use the same skills PR brings to vendors and big customers to gain benefit for your products, your reputation, and your ability to attract and keep customers, regardless of how small a company you are.
Trade shows aren’t dead. They are undergoing a sea change. As the big old ones die, new trade shows are born, more targeted, more effective. But how you do at a trade show depends nearly entirely on you, not on the trade show management. At a trade show, you can kill several birds with the same stone. Your customers can attend, your suppliers and vendor partners will attend. Use a tradeshow, even when you aren ’t exhibiting. Schedule visits to your vendor partners. And above all, schedule visits with your customers. Invite them to the show. Make sure you have something to show them that’s interesting and new. This can be incredibly lucrative. You can get a customer to meet with you away from all office distractions. What ’ s that worth to you? Don ’t just go to a tradeshow and wander around aimlessly.
Editorial coverage, I can assure you, is wonderful– especially because it is cheap (but it is not free– you have to earn it) and it imparts the imprimatur of the editor on the coverage. Writing articles, getting your customers to byline articles, and producing white papers and tutorials is a very simple and relatively inexpensive way to build up your reputation and increase the number of customers you can touch. Building customer bases is entirely a numbers game. If they don ’t know who you are, you may not even get a chance to bid that project you’d like to do so much.
Lots of times we forget to sell to ourselves. That ’s bad. It makes for bad blood, sometimes even permanent fallings out, and if you don’t talk to your people, your investors, and the “inside folks” they become disaffected and leave.
You think you don ’t need crisis management? What happens if a project you did goes south? Suppose somebody starts saying vicious things to you on Twitter or Facebook? Do you have a Crisis Management Plan to go along with your Disaster Recovery Plan? If you do, great. Keep it up to date. If you don’t, well…oops. Just look at the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Think about it. Think about Stuxnet and Siemens’ PCS7. Stuff happens, and everybody who faces the media and the public needs to have a message and training on staying on message. AND here is where transparency and honesty make friends. Really.
Public relations is not sales. Public relations is not advertising. Public relations is that part of marketing that is the glue that holds an integrated marketing communications plan together. PR communicates the plan itself. It is important to see how this works. PR communicates any and all of the ideas, concepts and values of the enterprise to all of the stakeholders of the enterprise…and is designed to attain a stated result. Sometimes that result is more “buzz” about your capabilities. Sometimes that result is a higher stock price or just higher visibility in the market. Sometimes that result is crisis management.
One of the biggest fallacies people fall into when they think of PR is that they think a PR person can communicate anything they have to, true or not, and get coverage and belief. You have only to look to the realm of politics and consumer business to see that that is far from true. PR can communicate facts, and truth. Yes, the facts are selected to produce the correct desired response, but they have to be true, and they have to be mostly “the whole story” and they have to be interesting and worthy of being listened to. One of the most common mistakes people make is sending out the same tired new product releases several times a year. It just isn’t “news.”
You have to tell the truth, no matter how unpleasant. If you ’ve been good, you will have an interesting story to tell. If you’ve not, your stakeholders will have an interesting story to tell about you. It’s always easier to stay in front of the parade. Look at the mess Toyota got into a couple of years ago, not because they had problems, but because they lied about it, over and over. In the old days, you could tell people what to think because marketing owned all the information channels. With social media, this is very not true. There are so many ways to communicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a company now that you simply cannot cover them all. Because the customers control the means of messaging, it is important to be open, honest and forthright. Giving them more information is better than less.
Social media is not new. There are graffiti on the walls of Pompei…that is social media. What ’s different is that it is so easy to be heard everywhere, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Foursquare, and the host of others. The history of the Internet is the history of more and more access to media for the individual. You don’t have to mail a complaint to a vendor– just post to your favorite list. When Robert Crandall was chairman of American Airlines he commissioned a study that found that of every 10 people who had a bad experience, 3 would talk about it, but 7 would walk away and never come back. Now, I think, it is more likely that 7 or 8 will give you a serious parting shot on social media as they walk away. So not only do you lose customers you hear about why they are leaving– and so does everyone else.
The key to using social media is to use as many social media clients as you can, use them regularly and make sure you are honest, direct, and clear. You can use email, Twitter, a Facebook page and a Facebook Group, and the same things on LinkedIn to keep your name and brand in the public eye all the time. You have to do what Emerson has done. They are the best example of what you can do with social media. In fact, they have a corporate director of social media…that ’s all Jim Cahill’s job is…and it is working. Emerson is doing the one thing that counts more than anything in the world of social media…presence must be consistent. You can ’ t post or blog or tweet once in a while. You have to develop a presence that is consistent and interesting. This is hard work, but the rewards are amazing.
A campaign has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A campaign is like a story, and if you think about planning a PR campaign as if you were telling a story, it is not only a good analogy, it also works very well in practice. First, you have to decide what the purpose of the campaign is. What is the desired result? Do you want to drive customers, editors and analysts to your website? Do you want to announce a new product? A new service? Do you want to trumpet the news of a big order or a new contract, or a major strategic partnership or alliance?
A typical editor of a typical industrial trade journal or website gets between 1000 and 1500 press and product releases every month. If this doesn ’t give you pause, think about how long it takes to read each one…just to read them. Most editorial departments do triage. They sort them into two piles: frequent advertisers and not. They go through both piles. If in the first two seconds, something about the release jumps out at them, they save it. Otherwise, it gets “round filed.” In self defense, many years ago, I stopped looking at printed releases, and only consider email releases now. I can ’ t remember the last time somebody mailed me a release. This is good news and bad news. The good news is that I can handle them more easily. The bad news is that it is easier and cheaper to send them, so I get lots more of them. I get releases that are not even close to my editorial purview. I get political press releases, releases on self-help books, you name it, because it is really easy to spam editors. This doesn’t mean I read them.
Here is the real trick! The more you know the editors in your market, and the more they know you, the easier it is to get your well-written, topical, targeted press or product release run. It is not about “who you know” as much as it is about “do it right, and be known to them.” Editors can do many things for you. You can get interesting tidbits of competitive intelligence by trading information for information. You can get that much-sought-after commodity, free publicity. You can get article placements, if the editor knows you, and knows that you can deliver on time when you say you will. And if you know the editor, you will know what style of writing, and what style of image, are most likely to get you the press coverage you are looking for.
Once you have achieved a relationship of mutual respect and trust with the editorial staffs of your targeted publications, you can begin to pitch them articles for editorial space. These are priceless in the way they can affect the market for a product. One of the greatest sins in industrial PR is submitting a “puff piece” for editorial coverage when you’ve agreed to submit a 1500 word article. The editor has saved space for you, and now he has to find something else to fit in those four pages. He may never accept another article from you.
It is a fundamental axiom that if you are going to participate in a tradeshow, you must attend with a plan. Much of that plan is PR. If you are making a new product announcement, you need a PR plan. If you are making some strategic alliance announcements, you need a PR plan. If you are meeting with analysts and editors, you need a PR plan. If you want to get your most significant users to attend and visit your stand, you need a PR plan. A clear and S.M.A.R.T. PR plan for a tradeshow can make the difference between a lackluster and expensive experience and a vibrant and useful venture. That’s, for those of you who don’t know the acronym, a plan that is Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
PR is the vehicle of choice to communicate the company brand. Together with advertising, it is the way the company speaks to its customer base and its competitors and the media and analysts who moderate the marketspace the company lives in. The company brand must be communicated in a coherent and totally consistent way to the internal stakeholders, external stakeholders and stockholders of the company.
That ’s a big fancy definition. Basically, your brand is everything you stand for. It is the image you have created, and that you live up to every day in the marketplace. Anything you do to reinforce the positives in your brand image can only help, but anything you do that contributes a negative to your brand image hurts. And by the “law of 10,000 Attaboys” a negative contribution to brand hurts more than a positive contribution to brand image helps .
While marketing is designed to promote the company ’s products and services, and advertising is designed to generate sales, PR is designed to communicate the values on which the company stands. These values are what stand behind the company’s brand. These values are the company bedrock. As long as the company acts in congruence with these values, PR can further the image of the company, and thus the company brand. When the company acts incongruously, PR can ameliorate the damage, but cannot entirely reduce it.
United Airlines has stopped using the tagline, “The friendly skies.” Why? Simply put, United has a reputation for bad service, surly employees, and general unfriendliness. Their tagline was causing cognitive dissonance and was clearly losing them more friends than gaining them. Southwest Airlines is a no-frills airline. They promise cheap fares, and nothing else. And for over 25 years, Southwest has been the most successful airline. Why? Because everything they do is congruent with their message. And they do it with verve and élan. They are entirely “on brand.” There is no cognitive dissonance with Southwest. You get what you expect, and more. While with United and most of the other airlines, you expect some service, some amenities, some civility, and what you get is a lousy airline. Too many automation companies act the same way. Even the best PR practitioner cannot ameliorate a strong cognitive dissonance.
There is a current trend toward debasing strong brands. Even Southwest has fallen prey to this to some extent. The idea is that you can abuse “just a little bit” your customers, without hurting the brand unduly. This supposed brand elasticity is supposed to allow you to extract more value from the customer without giving them more value…or giving them less value. As Jon Stewart said about the proposed makeover of the “Brave” heroine Merida by Disney: They think they can get away with this because they think we are stupid! Your customers are not stupid, and they have highly tuned super heterodyne BS detectors. They may let you get away with debasing your brand for a while, but they’ll soon be looking around for another vendor with the values they originally saw in you and your products and services.
Just as PR is a channel for external communications, so it can be for internal communications. It is every bit as important for employees, suppliers and other internal stakeholders to be informed on the company ’s goals, objectives, and values as it is for analysts and editors in the media, and for stockholders to be informed. Communicating the company’s brand values and vision internally and continually reinforces them in the minds of employees and reduces the potential for cognitive dissonance when a customer runs across a problem employee. BP fell afoul of this in the Deepwater Horizon mess. BP had, in the five years between the Texas City disaster and Deepwater Horizon, spent over $2 billion (with a B) on training designed to create a new safety culture in the company. Unfortunately, even though the effort had support from the highest levels in the company, it ran afoul of employees who felt it was better to continue maximizing bonuses, etc. by not improving safety– and the result is that BP has now spent many more billions trying to fix the problems they caused. If all those employees had been truly on board with the safety culture that Tony Hawood, Deb Grube and Ed Sieg were trying to create in BP, it is arguable that the Deepwater Horizon accident might not have happened.
Typically, the only way PR is knowingly used in most automation companies is for shareholder communications. Shareholders need the same communications that the internal stakeholders do, and companies who are forthright and forthcoming with their stockholders and stakeholders do better at maintaining their stock prices even in the wake of unfavorable news than companies who ignore their stockholders except for the annual report, and ignore their stakeholders entirely.
The lessons learned from the downsizings of the 1980 ’s are clear. If you want a workforce that is on-board with the goals and objectives, vision and brand of the company, you have to be completely honest and open with them, especially about bad news. Hiding the fact that layoffs are coming produces good old cognitive dissonance, which leads immediately to a loss of trust in management. Employees (just like your customers) have extremely well-tuned super heterodyne bullshit detectors (remember I said this before), and it is stupid to even try to fool them, or to think that they don’t know what is going on, just because you haven’t announced it yet.
Every industrial enterprise dreads the crisis. The call comes in the middle of the night. Your tanker is aground. Your mine has collapsed. Somebody ’s plant has exploded, and your product was at fault. There is a leak into the groundwater. Whatever it is, you need to have planned for how to handle a crisis, have a team in place to manage it, take responsibility and corrective action swiftly, and provide easy access to information as honestly and openly as possible.
These rules are deceptively simple, yet companies fail the crisis test every day. Maybe it is just too simple. The secret to crisis management is to be open, honest, and work hard to solve the problem. If it is your fault, accept responsibility early in the crisis, and start corrective action immediately. Take your lumps. The corrective action you say you will take must be clear, quick, meaningful and actually correct the problem– and make the situation whole again. Stonewalling in a crisis will get you what Nixon got. If it is not your fault, communicate that at every opportunity, while emphasizing that you are there, shirtsleeves rolled up, working to solve the problem anyway. Remember that you are telling a story, as it is happening. You are a reporter for your company ’s side of the story. Keep it to Who, What, When, Where, How and Why as much as you can. The simpler the story you tell, the more likely it will not be changed much by the media as they report it.
Okay, everything I’ve told you is true. But it begs the question. The real issue is how do you actually put together an integrated marketing communications plan that works. For the next few minutes, we are going to look at a new way of seeing the problem.
I find it useful to look at the things you need to do as part of a cascade control loop– appropriate for automation industry marketing, no? Look at the tasks as OUTBOUND communications, first. All of these things allow your customers to find you, touch you, on their terms. Note that all of them are designed to make you “authoritative” in the Google sense. The more authoritative you appear to Google, the higher you will appear in the organic search rankings– and the majority, maybe even the vast majority of customers find you on Google now. Note that all of this is content. It is high value content. You can’t post much self-serving bullshit on Wikipedia. People stop reading white papers if they are thinly disguised brochureware.
Ever since the studies showed that (except for political hot button issues) Wikipedia is as authoritative as any other reference work, people have been looking up automation related topics there. One of the most significant things you can do is to make sure that you have good Wikipedia pages for the company, for its products, and that your principals and experts have biographical essays, CVs and bibliographies on Wikipedia. It is also worth many bonus points to contribute to pages on industry issues. Wikipedia can then become the core of your campaign to make your brand “authoritative.”
Highly technical marketing has always had a spot for articles and whitepapers. The problem is that while everyone knows that you should write them, everyone also has the opinion that if an employee has the time to write them, he or she isn’t doing their real job, or is underemployed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, customers want NONCOMMERCIAL sources of information. Your company has some of the best experts on how to apply the products you make anywhere. It is really important to consistently create good, high quality, non-commercial whitepapers and application and case study articles. Again, like social media, it is important to do this consistently, so that customers and potential customers can expect to see new material on a regular schedule. There are also numerous ways to campaign those white papers and articles, too, and the sales leads you get are generally either A or B level leads.
Presentations, short courses, and webinars are another way to attract an audience to share your expertise. Once again, these cannot be sales pitches. Webinars used to be prohibitively expensive to do, but with tools like GoToWebinar (which happens to be the webinar engine we are using today), anyone can produce, present and record a webinar. Recorded webinars are tremendous sources of more data for Wikipedia.
Once you have your recorded presentation, and your webinar, post them on YouTube. There are thousands of automation related audio and video tracks on YouTube. You can stream them to your website, you can campaign them, you can send people to them in many different ways using social media. How much viewership can something like flow measurement, for example, get? Well, the video of me talking about “Back To Basics: DP Flow Measurement” has had over 55 thousand views in four years .
Just like Wikipedia is the anchor of your Outbound communication loop, your own blogs are the linchpin of the inbound communication loop. Yes, blogging is an outbound activity, but the reason you are doing it is to increase the creation of a community around your company and your products. But you can’t just blog. You have to push the stuff you are blogging (as well as all the stuff you are producing as outbound content) to your customers, and people who might become your customers. Blogging must be consistent. You can have one blog, or multiple blogs. Each blog should have its own “voice” that people come to recognize .
Here is where social media are critical. This is how you interact with your customers and stakeholders– how you disseminate the knowledge you have amassed, and the content you have created. Here is where people comment on what you say, and expect you to listen to them. This is the feedback portion of the cascade control loop.
This entire system, this entire integrated marketing communications program, depends on content, and lots of it. The good news is that there are content creators available who are capable of producing as much content as you want or need, without breaking your bank. Look for people with industry and application specific knowledge already. You should not have to spend hours or days teaching the content provider your business. There are several good content providers I recommend to people when they ask. You do have to spend the money, though. You can’t just say you are going to do all these things. You have to have the content written or produced, and you have to have schedules for producing and publishing it. Otherwise, you are just mouthing motherhood statements. And then you’ll have the opinion that all this newfangled interactive marketing communications stuff doesn’t work. It does, YOU don’t.
So that ’s PR for Automation Professionals. I hope you have a better understanding of PR’s place in the marketing mix, and how important proper use of public relations can be to the strength of your company and your brand. In a minute we’ll open the discussion up to questions, but I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I’ve enjoyed it and I hope you have too. We will be posting the recording of this webinar, but if you want a PDF copy of the slides and speakers notes, send me your contact information at [email_address] and I’ll see that you get one. If after the webinar, you have questions on a specific issue, feel free to contact me either at Control or at Spitzer and Boyes LLC. And now, on to questions!