Truth be told, most stories simply aren’t interesting
enough to be considered for “exclusive”.

Remember, the first rule of PR is that you need
to put yourself in the shoes of the reporter or
editor.

Is your breaking story really interesting enough that
an editor would consider it for an exclusive?

Be honest here!

The job of any PR firm worth their salt is to help
come up with news stories that would indeed be
considered newsworthy.

But when a story does get exclusive coverage in
a major outlet, watch out! That grand slam could
lead to a whole lotta positive coverage.

In a recent example, Firecracker was able to land
one of our clients an exclusive story on Techcrunch.

The beauty of this is that, besides the high number
of readers that Techcrunch has, many other sites
also just pull stories off Techcrunch for their own use.

The end result was massive downloads for their new
iPhone app within the first week, wildly successful
beyond our initial plans.

So how can you too benefit from a potential exclusive?

Here are a few steps:

1. Make sure you indeed have something newsworthy.
As I said, just because you think it’s interesting
doesn’t mean the editor will.

2. Get familiar with the target outlets. Read the
stories to get a feel for their coverage area. Note
their tone of voice, how technical they are, etc.

3. Start building a media contact list. Find the writers
of stories that are related to your field. Also start
researching their contact info. Many news sites will
have them under About Us or Contact Us, often in
another sub-page called Editorial Contacts or
Masthead.

If they don’t and just have a generic email address
or form, it’s time to do some research.

Google their name + “email” and see what comes up.

Look for them on LinkedIn. If you don’t, upgrade
to the paid Premium account on LinkedIn. This
will enable you to send what’s called “InMail” to
people. You can then send them the pitch through
LinkedIn.

Or find out what their Twitter handle is, and directly
tweet them. Or try Facebook or Google +.

Essentially in this day and age it should be possible
to find a way to contact any journalist.

4. Sharpen your pitch. Your pitch will make or break
your chances. Pay particular attention to the subject
line which accounts for the vast majority of opens.

Try using their first name in the subject line like:

“Courtney, an exclusive story pitch on new social
media app”.

From there, make a comment about something
that you found in your research. It could be about
an article they wrote, or where they live, or their
background. It shows them you took the time to
research and you’re not just cutting and pasting a
generic email.

Tell them why this story would be of interest to
their readers. Why should they care?

Then Always Be Closing (ABC). Ask if they’d like
the story as an exclusive, and if so, to let you know
by so and so a date. Promise that you will not
release the story for two days after they run it.

This gives them the reassurance that they will
be putting something out that no one else will
have, a rarity in this day and age of saturated
media.

5. Work your way down. Start your pitch for
the exclusive story from the outlet you most
want coverage in.

From there, work your way down to the smaller
or less desired outlets.

Follow up a couple of times and give them a few
days each to respond.

6. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. This is
a good rule of thumb for PR in general. If you
break your promise to a journalist, kiss any
future story goodbye.

If you promise only they will get the story,
hold to your promise.

7. Ride the wave. Once the exclusive story
hits, and the promised time has elapsed, you
can ride that wave of coverage to get you
additional coverage.

In PR, press begets press. Other journalists
note what is being covered, and they won’t
want to be left out of a big story either. So
getting an exclusive should help you get more
coverage.

8. Promote it! Post it on your social media
accounts, post it to your News section of the
website, forward it to your sales team for use.

With just a little planning and work, you can
turn a story idea into a lot of press coverage
by mastering the art of the exclusive!

Product marketing is something that almost all
companies wish they had, but few do effectively.
Regardless if it’s a physical product, a software
product or even a service offering that is productized,
companies large and small need to put some thought
and structure to holistic product marketing.

Today we chat with Dean Ara, founder and principal of
Total Product Marketing:

Q: What is the role of Product Marketing in an
organization?

Product Marketing’s primary role in an organization
is to work with product management and development,
first making sure that your product is “market-ready”,
then delivering the product to your target customer base.

Q: What are some specific tasks in this area?

Product Marketing will prepare the launch plans,
create the appropriate messaging, positioning,
features/benefits and define your Unique Selling
Position (USP).

In addition, Product Marketing is your sales channel’s
best friend – they will train the sales channels,
create collateral, help define your content marketing
strategy, run webinars, beta programs, work with PR,
generate customer success stories, do competitive
analysis, win/loss analysis… and the list goes on.

Effectively, they will work with all of your departments
to ensure that the product is effectively introduced
into the market.

Q: How can Product Marketing help my organization?

It depends, but making sure firstly, that the product
is “fit-to-market” is crucial. This means understanding
your market intimately, which means understanding all
the user types and the buyers and their personas. What
do they gain from using/purchasing your product? How
do you measure its impact?

Next is being able to stand out amongst your competition
and your substitutes with clear and concise messaging
and positioning is key. You may have the best product
in the world, but if it’s positioned and messaged
incorrectly or poorly your user will never have a
chance to enjoy what your product can do.

Q: Can smaller organizations with fewer resources
afford Product Marketing?

Absolutely. Like many other corporate functions,
out-sourcing Product Marketing services is clearly
now a viable alternative with many talented professionals
enjoying and preferring short term engagements with
product-centric organizations.

Q: Why are “on demand” Product Marketing services
increasing in popularity and usage?

First, on demand product marketing helps you maintain
cost-certainty and flexibility. A true “all-in” full
time employee (FTE)’s cost is not only their salary
but also all the other expenses such as benefits, 401k,
administrative, IT, training etc. This bumps up the
entire cost of a FTE by another 25% to 30%.

Secondly, your ability to purchase customized services
on an à la carte basis ensures you get what you need and
only that. Lastly, on-demand product marketing can
drive innovation. Having resources who have “been there,
done that” and who have the most current knowledge-base,
can give tech companies the just strategic advantage
necessary to reach new levels.

Q: What is a common mistake made by companies with
respect to Product Marketing’s role in an organization?

A common mistake made by many organizations of all sizes,
is not having a Product Marketing department. A recent
study by CBS Money Watch stated that the Product
Marketer/Manager was the fourth most valuable corporate
job in America.

What this means is that others in the organization end
up filling the void and the role of a “product marketer”,
i.e. development, sales, CEO, tech support, training, etc.,
many of whom are not trained in this role and not suited
to perform it given their other job responsibilities.
The result is that the product and the launch is a mish-mash
of inputs from a number of folks whose expertise is not
in product marketing and ultimately resulting in failure.

Q: What are common mistakes made by Product Marketing
professionals themselves?

There is a free report that you can download entitled
the “7 Big Mistakes Made by Product Marketing”.
You can download it at http://www.totalproductmarketing.com.

Free or paid? SEO add on? Are images free?

At Firecracker, we figured if we were having problems, imagine everyone else.

So here is a comparison of some of the more well-known wire service companies…

For those that aren’t familiar with the story, linebacker Manti
Te’o is an extremely popular linebacker for the Notre Dame
football team. Te’o finished second in votes for the Heisman
Trophy, and played in the BCS Championship game against
Alabama.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, victim of scam

Manti Te’o's fake girlfriend

It came out recently that the story about Te’o's girlfriend that
he met online who supposedly died was a complete fake.

Now the race is on in the press to find out more details in
this bizarre story. The part that has everyone wondering is if
Te’o is the victim or the hoaxer? The more we find out, the
stranger the entire thing seems.

Many people are incredulous that Te’o could have fallen in
love with someone online that he’s never seen or even
Skyped with.

But in today’s world, with so much being done online, it’s really
not as crazy as it sounds.

Firecracker PR started up in 2004, back when outsourcing to
virtual companies was still in its infancy. Even then, we had no
problems landing new clients who had never even seen me,
and signed contracts purely on the basis of our website and a
conversation on the phone with me.

Today, we have clients who have been with us for many years
and have never met us. I use contractors for eight years that I’ve
never seen and maybe only spoken to on the phone a couple
of times.

This means that the trust your business projects online is more
important than ever. It could literally mean the difference between
a big sale and a lost sale. This is especially important for companies
that aren’t selling a physical product in a retail environment.

Here are six practical steps for you to immediately increase
the trust factor of your business:

1. Create regular press releases and generate media coverage.
If a visitor goes to your website and sees a “Press & News” section
that has a press release every couple of months and some news stories
in the media, they will be significantly reassured that you are legit
and not likely to fold up shop.

Example of a press and news page

Similarly, if they Google your business name and see news stories
pop up about your company, that’s a huge benefit.

But imagine if you wanted to do business with a company and
suddenly have had no news or press releases in over a year. Does
that give you confidence? Or worse yet, there’s no news about
them at all, even though the company’s been around for 5 years.

2. Use testimonials. They work for everything from infomercials
on TV, to infomarketing in email, to selling enterprise software
or services on your website.

Example of customer testimonials

Testimonials are social proof that you can deliver what you promise.
They are extremely powerful. It’s as simple as just asking your
customers for permission to get testimonials. If they don’t have
time, ask if you can write something on their behalf and just have
them approve it. In my experience, almost no customers refuse.

3. Don’t skimp on web design. Often your website is going to be
the only thing that a prospect will have to base their initial impression
on. And subconsciously, if your website is old, clunky and ugly, they
will assume (rightly or wrongly) the same about your company and
your products.

Conversely, a sharp, crisp, clean, modern website can project
an image that makes you larger than you actually are.

Great web design and project a professional image

A great website doesn’t have to break the bank at all these days.
Most new sites use WordPress templates that have been tweaked.
The total cost to redesign your site could be done for under $5,000.

Check out these following sites for some WordPress templates:

http://themetrade.com/

https://www.elegantthemes.com/

http://www.mojo-themes.com/categories/wordpress/

http://www.wordpressgraphics.com/

http://www.rockettheme.com/wordpress-themes

http://www.templatemonster.com/welcome/professional-wordpress-themes.php

4. Use awards, association affiliations and other indicators on your
website. These could include a Better Business Bureau seal (requires
a monthly subscription), an industry icon, a security (like Verisign)
icon, an American Business Awards logo (or any other award). Basically
these all signal to your prospect that you are not only legit, you
are exceptional.

Awards reassure prospects you are the top in your field

5. Get Google to like you. The trustworthiness of your website
isn’t just important to humans, they are one of the top key factors
to Google these days. In fact, for SEO purposes, having a trustworthy
website will go a long way towards helping you rank high for target
keywords over your competitors.

Read this awesome post by Brian Dean at Backlinko on this subject:
http://backlinko.com/google-trustrank

Backlinko article on trust and Google

6. Disseminate content. Imagine a prospect Googles your business
name and sees a video on Youtube, a Powerpoint on Slideshare,
a PDF report on some other site, articles you’ve written on various
websites and maybe even an infographic you created.

How much would that prove to the customer that you aren’t just
trustworthy, you are the leader in the industry?

Content marketing might seem like a drag, but just get started.
Do a little day by day.

Following these 6 steps will drastically increase the level of trust
your online presence generates!

———————————————————————————

Need some help with any of these steps? Contact Firecracker today
and let’s chat: http://www.firecrackerpr.com/about-us-contact-us/

Like our Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for the latest news
and tips to help your business:

http://facebook.com/firecrackerpr

http://twitter.com/firecrackerpr

What they may not be aware of is that a press release can kill two birds
with one stone. Done properly, you can use a press release to help build
natural links to your website that would help your ranking on Google.

In marketing-speak, this is called “link building for SEO”.

The term “link building” may stir up some negative images in your head.
But when you get down to it, link building is simply getting legitimate links
from other websites, to yours. That’s it.

And the more “relevant” links to your website, the more Google (and
other search engines) like it.

Here are how press releases are a great way to build links:

1. Press releases put out on a wire service are picked up by many, many
websites. Some of these sites are directly relevant to your industry and
subject matter. So again, relevance.

2. By their nature, press releases are written about particular topics. So the
words surrounding the links add context. Relevance again!

3. Some news sites will run your press release word for word. Others
will re-write them, edit them, shorten them. So they are creating different
variations of the content for the links on your behalf!

4. Google News links are always useful for SEO purposes. Think about it. Any
story on Google news must have been pre-vetted, so it instantly has trust in
the eyes of Google. Check out https://news.google.com/ if you don’t believe me.

Here’s how to include links in your next press release:

First, always include your company’s URL in the “boilerplate” of your
press release. The boilerplate is the “About Us” section near the bottom.
For instance, here is Firecracker’s boilerplate:

About Firecracker PR

Firecracker PR is an agency that offers public relations, search engine
marketing and social media services. Our “Ignites” strategy creates a
custom rotation of all three services for one low price. Clients benefit from
dealing with only one agency while benefiting from all three areas. Learn
more about us at http://www.firecrackerpr.com.

Second, try as much as possible to use “http://” for links. Without it,
many links won’t be clickable.

Third, you can turn any snippet of text into a clickable link. And this is
really key for link building purposes. Instead of saying “Go to
http://www.firecrackerpr.com to learn more about technology PR”,
you can say “Click here to learn more about technology PR” and make
either this entire sentence a link or just the phrase “technology PR” a
link. In SEO lingo, that is the anchor text of the link.

All you do is highlight the text you want to turn into a link, go to Insert,
then select Hyperlink. Enter the URL and voila, it’s a link! These
instructions are for Microsoft Word, so check with your own word
processing software for how to insert a hyperlink.

Fourth, make sure the wire service you use allows you to have these
clickable links in the text of your press release. Not all of them do,
certainly not the free ones. Our favorite is eReleases.com which is a
wholeseller of PR Newswire. For $299 you get distribution on PR
Newswire’s service that might cost almost $1,000. Other options include
PRWeb with different levels of service.

That’s pretty much it! Now you can get press coverage while
also helping out your SEO efforts at the same time.

If this sounds like too much work, give us a call. Our agency
specializes in helping companies with PR, SEM and social media.
Contact us at http://www.firecrackerpr.com/about-us-contact-us/.

As a partner in a public relations and marketing agency, I like to think that both can have a huge positive impact on the outcome of a business.

The truth of the matter is, sometimes the fundamentals of a business are in such poor shape, and the trajectory is going in such a terminal way that no amount of PR campaigns can halt the slide.

In this way, it’s critical to realize the role of PR and marketing. They help spread the word on what you’re really good at. But they can seldom staunch the decline of a company that is doomed to fail.

One of the most recent examples of this is RIM’s Blackberry. Once a legend of a device that was used by all power corporate players, then presidents, then consumers, today the Blackberry is in a very real danger of becoming just another obsolete artifact in the history of tech. Yet just five years ago, Blackberry was on top of the world with no threat in sight.

Actually, there was a threat in sight.

And therein lies the problem. Apple was hard at work on their iPhone that was set to revolutionize the mobile phone industry. And Google was preparing their Android phones to counter Apple.

What did RIM do? Initially they stuck their head in the sand and believed that their superior keyboard and loyal corporate users would never defect.

Let’s call that a slight underestimation to be kind.

In fact, the “cool” factor of an iPhone, combined with all sorts of new abilities to watch videos, listen to music, surf the web and play games pretty much trumped the better keyboard of the Blackberry.

And corporate users basically ignored IT departments and brought their own devices to use, to the point now where most companies have given up and implemented actual BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies.

Since RIM finally acknowledged the threat, they have muddled along with a Playbook tablet, then a promise to come out with a new operating system that would get them back in the game.

That was a couple years ago. Today, RIM’s market share is shrinking fast.

With such an onslaught, no amount of positive spin on the situation could help. In fact, the co-CEOs were ridiculed for being oblivious to the situation they were in, and being overly optimistic when the writing on the wall was clear to even the most casual observer.

This situation is by no means unique. In fact, technology has vastly accelerated the time to obsolescence for products and services. Once famous brand names like Compaq, MySpace, Blockbuster and Blackberry found out the hard way how disruptive technology could be.

The top book in this area is “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Christensen.

Its premise is that leaders in an industry are caught between a rock and a hard place. The very thing that brought them success is also the thing that prevents their ability to innovate.

Moral of the story? Take a hard, honest look at your business and the competitive horizon. If you aren’t willing or able to innovate, even in the face of clear competitive threats, no amount of public relations or marketing will save you.

————————————————————————————

Firecracker PR, through its “Ignites” model, provides PR, search engine marketing

and social media in one affordable package for the same price that other PR agencies

charge for PR alone. Visit us at http://www.firecrackerpr.com

In rolling out its now Cisco Cloud Connect service to all its Cisco and Linksys
wireless routers, one of the largest wireless networking company took an
extraordinary step that likely originated out of the products group which
resulted in massive backlash in both the media and online from furious users.

While Cloud Connect was meant to enable consumers to more easily connect
their multiple mobile devices to their WiFi networks, the way it was implemented
is a clear case study on how NOT to launch new services in this day and age.

The first big mistake they did was push it out without either a choice to revert
back to the old method (at least for awhile as users get used to the service) or
even without much due warning. Instead, users who were accustomed to signing
into their routers were greeted with a page forcing them to sign up for Cloud
Connect.

The second, and more serious, mistake was in burying information in their new
Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions that stated Cisco essentially could collect
a ton of new info on its users, such as Internet histories and the status of the
network.

The reaction was fast and negative. One user on the popular tech blog Slashdot
posted that they were “pretty sure that this wasn’t a case of mere stupidity, brought
on by poor, poor, management’s exposure to too many buzzwords. This is a
straightforward control grab, an overt attempt to turn a low-margin hardware sale
into an ongoing data harvesting and customer lock-in opportunity.”

I honestly believe senior management are surprised at the speed and depth of
the fury. They likely saw this as a new service that was in line with the broader move
to “the cloud”, and asked their legal team to draw up new terms in line with the
service.

Cisco has now had to spend a large amount of time defending itself and apologizing
during the past two weeks, something no company wants to do, least of all a top
consumer brand and one that is publicly traded.

For all the millions that Cisco spends on public relations and marketing in cultivating
an image in the minds of its customers and prospects, one careless product launch
undid all those efforts. Trust can be regained in the marketplace, but it takes time
and resources.

To avoid pulling a “Cisco”, here are a few helpful tips:

1. Have your PR and communications team integrated with product development
and launches. Ask them to look for potential fallout or negative pushback before
launches.

2. Any major changes regarding user privacy needs to be made carefully and with
full disclosure. The more time the better.

3. Make sure to offer users the option of using the old method, at least for a short
period of time.

4. Also make sure to offer a way for users to opt out of anything related to data
gathering.

5. Test the new product or new terms of use with a small focus group to try and flag
any potential issues before it hits the market.

Above all, use common sense. Your company succeeds only when customers decide
your products and services are better than the competition’s. Don’t give them any
additional reasons why they should switch.

Most businesses attend annual tradeshows in their industry. These can be smaller regional shows or large blockbuster extravaganzas like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The benefits of being live at an important show are obvious, but in order to really maximize your substantial investment of a tradeshow, a lot of thought and effort needs to be put into media relations at the event.

Many important press personnel or bloggers will attend tradeshows. Your goal is to meet with as many of them as possible. Here are some tips on how to make that happen:

1. Queue up important product launch or announcement press releases for distribution when the show starts. It’s not a coincidence that major news breaks at big tradeshows. This is done to coincide with a time and place where the press, analysts, influencers, buyers and consumers will all congregate. If you’re an exhibitor, sometimes the show organizer will have special wire distribution rates through PR Newswire or Business Wire.

2. Ask the show organizer for attending media contact list. Almost every tradeshow will have a spreadsheet with contact information of the attending media. If you’re a paid exhibitor, you have the right to access that list for show purposes. Make sure to ask your point of contact for that list and get it as soon as it’s available. Some shows send it out automatically to exhibitors. Others you have to ask. Be on the safe side and ask anyway.

3. Brainstorm strategy on how to entice the media with an invitation. Press people are busy. The greatest sin is wasting their time. Huddle with your internal marketing team and PR agency to think about the goals of a meeting and what the most attractive way to entice a reporter to come by would be. Perhaps it’s a sneak peek at a new product release? Or a demo of a new web or mobile app? Maybe your company has issued a new whitepaper on an important topic? If you are new to the industry, even an invitation to meet and present an overview of your company is fine. Just remember, don’t waste their time. Have a clear goal and think of a way to make it time well spent for the press.

4. Create a press kit. Press kits can be as simple as a Word document with the following information:
-Headquarters location
-Number of offices worldwide (if applicable)
-Number of employees
-Year founded
-Revenue (optional)
-Company overview
-Product overview
-Current markets served
-Media contact
-Competitive differentiators
-Website URL
-Key executive bios

A great way to make an impression is to burn the press kit document on a small USB drive and give that to the reporter. They’ll appreciate one less piece of paper. You can also load the most recent press releases, company logo and high/low res photos on the USB drive as well. Bulk USB drives can be bought on eBay.

5. Begin media outreach. Craft a polite and to-the-point email inviting the press to come by the booth. Tell them why it’s worth their time. Offer a “hook” if possible (see Point 3 above again for ideas). If they don’t reply, send a follow up email a couple days later. Another relatively non-intrusive way to reach them if email fails is via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

6. Be prepared for the meetings. Make sure your team is clear on who will be speaking with the press. As a general rule of thumb, it shouldn’t be just anyone. For smaller companies it will be the owner, President or any other trusted employee. Larger enterprises might have important VPs or Directors of relevant departments. Write down the two or three major takeaways you want the press to leave with. Remember to be attentive to signs from the reporter that they are bored and adjust accordingly. Have datapoints and statistics ready at hand.

7. Follow up. The press will understandably be swamped from all the activities of the show. Remember to politely follow up with them a few days after the conclusion of the event. Thank them for their time. Do a one sentence recap of what you had talked about with them to jog their memory. Send them what you promised to send them (product samples, etc.). Ask what the next steps are if they are interested in writing a story.

Follow these simple tips and you can drastically increase your chances that every year’s tradeshow will be one to remember!

Besides the dedicated expertise and experience that Firecracker brings, did you know that hiring an employee has many other hidden costs besides just salary?

Here is a simple example:

As you can see, the actual hiring costs can be 56% higher than the visible annual salary!

Don’t stress. Go with Firecracker for your marketing needs.