With the availability of information about a company readily available on Facebook, LinkedIn, through its blog and by following its Twitter feed, the role of the corporate website is changing. Previously viewed as the one-stop-shop, websites now serve more as a structural base of the company’s brand communication.
However, that doesn’t mean the corporate website is a lesser communications medium than its emerging counterparts. On the contrary, as the number of platforms and channels continues to grow, and the content distributed on them reaches farther and wider (and with dizzying frequency) the website’s new role in the communications ecosystem is to provide the big-picture.
The website is either where a visitor starts, before authenticating information elsewhere, or conversely, where a visitor verifies information gathered through social media, discussions in face-to-face meetings and articles in relevant industry journals. Either way, it should provide an overarching view of who you are, the unique business value that you bring, and how you help customers.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your website paints the big picture of your company’s value:
Make sure your homepage content is short, and benefits oriented
Provide customer examples, to illustrate the value of your work
Include an RSS feed to your blog posts on the homepage, for quick access
Imbed YouTube videos that illustrate your product or service
Include your Twitter feed in the sidebar of your homepage, and subsequent pages
Alan Isacson is the Chief Executive Officer at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-4755 and aisacson@abipr.com.
Two more venerable B-to-B publications recently shuttered their doors, joining literally scores of other departed titles over the past 30 months. Add in consolidation and an increasingly fragmented media landscape and B-to-B communication professionals are facing an industry in flux.
Perhaps the writing was on the dead-tree page pre-Recession. As other B-to-B communicators can well attest, the news hole has been shrinking. As recently as five years ago the average feature article or case history length clocked in at 1200-1600 words. By today’s Tweet-driven standards, my first major written assignment, which ran with every comma intact, weighed in at an overweening 2450 words.
How best do we serve our clients in this uncertain environment? What can we extract from our PR arsenal to effectively communicate for them?
Publishers and editors inform us that they generate more web traffic – and longer visits – with the videos posted on their on-line portals. Their resultant desire for more well-produced, informative, and interesting video postings creates great opportunity for companies willing to invest and dedicate the time and resources to producing compelling content.
We’ve worked hand in hand with our clients the past 24 months to create myriad video content, scaling from single-camera “Just the facts, Ma’am” QAs up to highly produced, multi-cast, award-winning stories.
I’d like share with you some of our key findings:
It’s about Story
One could argue that the decline of traditional print communications hastens us back to the pre-literate era, only now electronically captured, in which important facts and histories are passed down through the oral tradition.
Brand messaging, unique value proposition, and key value points need to be digested and then, and only then, be presented in an engaging storyline – complete with drama, villains, plot points, humor, and the other classic elements of a good story. People don’t remember a brand message — they remember a compelling story.
Clients aren’t Actors
The rightful need for message control continues unabated regardless of format, particularly in a challenged economy. But we’ve learned that when clients, or their customers, are over-scripted and focused on memorizing their main points, the final result simply isn’t that good: stiff, robot-like, unconvincing.
To paraphrase the great George Burns, if you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made.
Prior to shooting we’ll have a full pre-interview with the participant, we’ll supply general questions and the direction of the inquiry, and then focus making them comfortable and relaxed during the taping. We stress that we’re merely having a conversation. As in real life, sometimes it rambles and digresses, sometimes they go slightly “off-message.” But it does not matter. It’s why we edit. We select the best bits, splice them together, and post the smooth and relaxed result.
Endless Possibilities
Furnishing online media with credible content is the focus of this discussion, but the productive end-uses for video are practically limitless. Outside of website and YouTube posting, our clients have utilized video as part of sales presentations, internal sales training, investor presentations, trade-show exhibits, and new-business pitches.
The investment can be substantial. It’s important up front to identify all of the potential homes for professionally produced and highly persuasive video content that can add significant value both within and outside the company.
Final Takeaway
Video is an important and growing communication tactic in today’s altered B-to-B media landscape. Properly planned, strategically implemented, and professionally produced video will net excellent placement opportunities in addition to multiple productive uses. The centrality of excellent storytelling will ensure that your message is remembered, repeated, and profitably deployed. Lights, camera, action!
Yulia Tribrat is an Account Executive at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +44 207-014-3524 and ytribrat@abipr.com.
As a frequent traveler, I’ve made a concerted effort recently to remain loyal to one airline and one hotel brand. I was pleasantly surprised to learn last month that my hotel status had gone up a rung – to the coveted Gold standard. The next time I checked in, I was thrilled to be offered complimentary internet, a free Wall Street Journal and concierge access. Many years ago, airlines and hotels learned that giving consumers that thrill through loyalty programs would keep them, well, loyal.
All of this gold, silver, platinum and elite talk made me wonder if a similar loyalty strategy could work for industrial business-to-business companies. Often, B2B organizations sell through a network of distributors, who also sell their competitors’ products. Implementing a loyalty program could ensure a stronger network. Rewards similar to those offered in other industries – like free trips, gadgets and even cash – will give distributors a thrill and encourage them to sell your products over the competition.
Such a program will also facilitate frequent communication, enabling your company to pass along marketing materials and new product information quickly. When joining the loyalty program, distributors should agree to be placed on a mailing list. From a reprint of a feature article about a new product to a customer testimonial, your network will be better equipped to communicate the value of products and services.
Take a page from the travel playbook, and realize that loyalty, in any industry, could be the key to taking sales up another rung.
Erica Helton is a Senior Account Manager at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-2632 and ehelton@abipr.com.
ABI Marketing Public Relations is proud to announce that it was named to B2B Magazine’s list of top agencies in 2011.
Inclusion on this list emphasizes ABI’s ongoing commitment to helping business-to-business companies increase market share through strategic marketing public relations. This focus has allowed the firm to help clients grow business worldwide.
A jaded former colleague Who Shall Not Be Named at a PR firm Which Shall Not Be Named once offered this witty riposte at the end of a particularly brutal conference call: “This job would be great if we could just get rid of the clients.”
Well, that guy was not long for that firm and with good reason. He didn’t want to conform (perhaps too strong a word) or alter his MO given who the clients were, what level of risk they were comfortable with, and how the effects of their idiosyncratic culture –in this case a non-profit led by an extremely strong-willed individual who really “got PR” (natch)– played itself out.
One of his primary takeaways is that hiring the right people to create the right kind of culture is extremely important. Well, OK, no surprises up that sleeve. But it begs the larger question for all of us in the customer-service/consulting arena: No matter how excellent your culture is, what if it doesn’t match up with that of a particular client? This goes beyond such nebulous issues of “chemistry” and “fit” but to the heart of how we work with clients.
It has probably puzzled PR practitioners since the days of Bernays, but I would offer three possible solutions when cultures clash:
Bring in your Empathizers – Those that can feel your pain and share your joy should be first in line to mitigate culture clash issues. They are more willing to see the purely human side of one-on-one interactions.
Bring in your Sociologists-in-Training -Empathy not enough? How about your in-house analyzers. Dissecting and figuring out how to work in a vastly different environment might actually be fun for this bunch, akin to analyzing alien cultures.
Bring in your Managers -i-dotters and t-crossers step right up. If the focus is on results and adhering to timetables then they may find culture-clash situations manageable.
It’s difficult enough for firms big and small to get their own cultures aligned. (Fave moment from the Times: interviewee admits to being comfortable with “some amount of chaos”).So, forget about getting the client’s culture to conform to your own. But trying your best to work with it is within your control.
In this human comedy we call life, it seems to me we should welcome and relish the challenge of meeting new kinds of people who work in ways we’re unaccustomed to. They just might have something to teach us if we’re open to.
Tim Colbert is a Director at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-4811 and tcolbert@abipr.com.
On September 29, 1982, Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Illinois died. The doctors speculated that the cause was a capsule of Extra Strength Tylenol. A family member grieved over Facebook.
Later that day, Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois, died in the hospital shortly thereafter, also seemingly caused by Extra Strength Tylenol. A nurse tweeted about the incident. It was retweeted by four people within the hour. Within 12 hours there were 2,000 tweets. Groups of concerned bloggers posted hundreds of notes warning their readers to throw out their Tylenol bottles. Thousands of nervous consumers tossed their Tylenol bottles.
By the next morning, the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Associated Press all had stories out about the scare. All this occurred within 24 hours and before Tylenol had a chance to react.
That worked almost 30 years ago, but Johnson & Johnson would have to navigate a much more difficult communications terrain today and have much less time to do so. A brand’s reputation can be destroyed before the story hits the mainstream media.
There are certainly many benefits for a brand to communicate with their online community, but the key to a successful online presence is to have a trusted brand ambassador who can reach out to this community in times of crisis. Should a crisis occur, brands need to have a trusted online community manager who regularly interacting with key online influencers.
A successful social communications campaign does not necessarily result in media placements or a successful marketing campaign. Although these are certainly potential benefits from a successful social media presence, the main goal is to establish a trusted voice in the forums where people are discussing their brands.
Elliot Schimel is a Senior Account Manager at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-2583 and eschimel@abipr.com.
Last week Barnes and Nobleannounced that they will be closing their location at Lincoln Center in New York City. It’s been one of my favorite places to write, cut class (when I was in high school) or peruse books while waiting for my movie to start at the Lowes (best theater in Manhattan). Mary Ellen Keating, a spokesperson for Barnes and Noble blamed the astronomical rent, but most blame the success of the e-reader which has caused in store book sales to plunge.
As many New Yorkers mourn the closing of their favorite Upper West Side bookstore, they forget the distress caused to them when they championed mom and pop bookstores that were put out of business due to the success of the mega-bookstore. Ironically, although they couldn’t withstand the megastore, mom and pop bookstores may be able to weather the e-reader storm. With less overhead and small personable staffs, these small stores could provide the personal, “in-store” experience that Barnes and Noble could never deliver to combat e-readers. Could the closing of the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble lead to the reopening of these bookshops?
As the media landscape continues to evolve and death of print media is widely speculated, it is important to monitor and understand the evolution of media. Today, news publications have found that giving away their content free online has been detrimental to their business.
In January 2011, the New York Times plans to create a “paywall” (aka paid subscription service) for access to its web site. This decision was made amid news of their faltering circulation and website being flooded for free content…seems logical.
But if I have to pay to read the New York Times, I think I would prefer to get it in print.
Elliot Schimel is a Senior Account Manager at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-2583 and eschimel@abipr.com.
ABI has launched a new service that lets BtoB companies promote their sustainable practices. The services will help companies both identify green initiatives as well as develop strategies to promote them through the supply chain.
Tim Colbert, a director at ABI, talks about the programs benefits and ABI’s experience working with BtoB green initiatives.
Listen to a previous interview with Elisabeth King on BtoB green initiatives here: Link
From the press release:
ABI, the leader in business-to-business marketing public relations, announces Sustainability Driver™, a new program that helps BtoB companies effectively communicate sustainable initiatives and realize positive business results from green practices. For more information, BtoB visit www.sustainabilitydriver.com.
Sustainability Driver™ consists of a strategic four-stage discovery and communication process: 1) Assessment Workshop, 2) Competitive Landscape Overview, 3) Analysis and Results Presentation, and 4) Integrated Sustainability Driver Communication Plan.
Sustainability Driver™ will enable BtoB companies to effectively communicate benefits such as lean manufacturing and operations, sustainable materials, reduced shipping costs, and improved energy savings to high-level decision makers.
Sustainability Driver™ will help identify and position sustainability benefits and create strategic messaging to help business fuel relationships with key customers and prospects. ABI will also develop a focused Sustainability Driver™ communication program to discover opportunities and drive sales.
For its nearly 30 years of exclusive focus on BtoB, ABI has developed tactics and strategies to help manufacturers overcome commodification, communicate benefits over features, and reach key specifiers. ABI has used this unique experience to create Sustainability Driver™ especially for BtoB companies.
“In BtoB we have always focused on business benefits and sustainability is no different,” says Isacson. “Right now we are working with companies to identify what is unique about their sustainable practices and how to most effectively communicate the business value so they can discover opportunities and grow market share.”
The signs have been there for years. We’ve all heard the anecdotal evidence, heard about the “younger generation” getting all of their news from the Web. And now, as ad dollars decline and circulations dip to new lows, it’s clear that newspapers have little choice in embracing the brave new world of the World Wide Web. It’s not a matter of choice… it’s a matter of survival.
This article from PR week focuses on the challenges of a mid-sized market newspapers. The article points out that this is an entirely different animal.
“In the smaller markets, I don’t know about [newspapers cutting print editions], because it’s a different animal. People still have articles clipped out and sent to their aunt, or cut out and put up on the refrigerator.”
This argument, although for different reasons, hold for BtoB. Print is still important in BtoB communication because of the way it’s still used: people read publications on factory floors, waiting room lobbies, and there is still significant executive downtime on airplanes.
On the other hand, online resources have their place as well in local news as well as in BtoB. The bottom line is that, while there are more and more outlets for information, there is still only 24 hours in a day. In BtoB or BtoC we have to reconcile that our audiences only have so many hours to devote to communication whether it’s print or online.
When the Superior Daily Telegram told its readers July 10 that it will refocus its resources toward publishing primarily on the Web, it joined The Capital Times of Madison, WI as the second in-state newspaper to go to a twice-weekly printing schedule this year.
The trend is not the result of any Wisconsin-specific element. It is more indicative of the challenges faced by media organizations in mid-sized markets, which do not have the flexibility of large-market publications or the loyal readership of small-town titles, says Brian L. Steffens, executive director of the National Newspaper Association.
High-circulation newspapers in large markets, which publish weekend magazines and devote considerable resources to the Web, are unlikely to cut back their print frequency. In the future, they will consider their print edition – at one time the main focus of their businesses – another part of a larger portfolio of products, Steffens says. Meanwhile, small-market dailies, which will maintain Web sites, will likely be reluctant to cut back the frequency of editions because less-populated communities are more reliant on newspaper print editions, he adds.
“What I see happening is that [in large markets], the newspaper will be a smaller part of their product portfolio – and this may be years down the road, but it will no longer be the dominant medium,” he says. “In the smaller markets, I don’t know about [newspapers cutting print editions], because it’s a different animal. People still have articles clipped out and sent to their aunt, or cut out and put up on the refrigerator.”
Email newsletters appear to be the next logical evolution of the paper newsletter…and many companies have employed them. However, the technology behind them is already taking the next step. Using blog technology and RSS feeds, people can receive small bites of information that can be more effective in communicating with customers, prospects or even employees. (more…)
