Dennis’ Desk

Ever see commercials on television and you remember the funny punch line or scenario, but not what the ad was for?

I was trying to remember who did the ads with the people who are in the act of doing something for which they aren’t qualified. You remember, they have people pretending to be doctors, or lawyers, or nuclear technician. Then they reveal they aren’t really that, but they “stayed at a ………”– the logic being that they got a great night’s sleep and are so sharp they can do anything. Do you remember where they stayed? If you don’t, then the ad wasn’t effective for you. I liked the ad concept and the execution, but in the end I didn’t remember who the company was.

Another example is the all-time number one in this category, the cat-herding ad. Do you remember watching the Super Bowl ads and laughing as the cowboys were riding across the plains herding cats? This was meant to convey that the company performed a service that was believed to be too difficult or unusual for most companies to handle on their own.  Do you have any idea who the ad was for? I had to look it up.

When you put together your messaging for your company, remember that the main goal is to have your potential customers remember who you are and to associate your brand with something positive.  Be direct.

Being creative is really fun. But if it doesn’t get the message across in a way that really sticks to you, then it was just expensive. The best way to really get value from an ad is to have a call to action. Then you know you got your money’s worth.

Thanks to John Nunes, Placemaking Group’s Business Development Manager, for this blog post. He’s a guy who has spent his career making sure that ads work! If you want the answers to the two questions, click on them and watch the commercials.

If you’re reading a book about online marketing, you have to read it the day it comes out. Because the longer you wait, the more out-of- date it is. Well, I’ve got a good one for all of you to read. And it is one of the most sensible online marketing books I’ve ever read. That means it will continue to have value long after many of the books coming out right now. David Meerman Scott wrote “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” in a manner that tells you about all the newest tools and practices.  But he keeps from going in the direction of “the Black Box.” That’s the expression that Rich Burns of the GNU Group uses to describe aspects of Online Marketing that seem to be kept a secret by the practitioners. You know, people who use terms like “conversion,” “CPC,” “CTR,”  “SERP,” and– my new favorite– a “bulk whois tool!”

What Scott does in his book is keep online communication strategy in the real world. It is understandable, and you can begin using it for real purposes within a few pages. He talks about blogs and keywords and podcasting. But he constantly asks you to understand first what you want to accomplish. Then he gives you clear ways of using these various tools. The other nice thing is that instead of telling you the one time one of these tools worked, he discusses a number of experiences, and, more importantly, he tells what is accomplished for your goals by using the tools.

An example is the press release. Almost everybody in communications is familiar with them. You’ve either had to write them (if you’re on the PR side) or help develop them (if you’re in the marketing side) or you’ve had them sent to you (if you are a journalist). For the past 100 years, press releases did one thing: they talked to the journalist, if the journalist felt like reading it. As Scott shows in this book, now a press release can talk directly to your customers. All you have to do is start by posting it to your own web site. If you want to take it up a notch, you can use one of the online PR distributors to get it out there. He even changes the name to “news release” to make sure we know it has a new use. And then–thanks to search engines–when people search for the keywords that most interest them, and if your news release talks about that subject, well then, your news release is sitting there ready to be read by your potential customers. It’s important to think in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to make sure the right keywords are in there. So now you are talking directly to the people that matter the most…the very people you are trying to influence.

Press Release: Sending out releases over the wire services and posting releases for the media help add links to your site because other sites pick them up. Additionally they provide content to keep your site fresh.

Q&A: Add a Frequently Asked Questions page, even if you don’t like them; Search engines do.

Ranking: Avoid linking from a site below yours. To check a page rank for a site on Google you can use a free online resource: http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php Sites which have high rankings include: Forbes.com 7 (out of a possible 10), Prnewswire.com 8/10, biz.yahoo.com 6/10 and CNBC.com 7/10.

Site map: This is an old technique but having a site map still helps search engines index your whole site.

I got a great question from John Moyer of the Chicago Rush Arena Football team. You can see him interviewed on YouTube. He asked his question through LinkedIn… “How to brand a person? What steps does a person take to create their presence?

My answer starts with the most important piece of the puzzle: what are your goals?

The first thing you have to know is why are you creating the brand? What do you have in mind? This is the same process whether you’re creating a brand for a business, a city or a person. And you have to remember—you aren’t really creating a brand, you’re uncovering it. It’s already there, you’re just polishing it a little. Read the rest of this entry »

I was asked recently what is the difference between Marketing Communications and Entertainment. Maybe they asked me that because I’ve lived in both worlds for quite awhile.

I’ll tell you, there are more similarities than differences. But you have to look at the best in both fields to see the similarities reveal themselves. At the core, Marketing Communications has to be strategic. There has to be a message that is delivered, even better if there is a call to action.

But at its best, Entertainment has to be as strategic, too. My favorite moment on the entertainment side is the day, back in the early 80’s, when Nikki Sixx walked into our offices at BAM Magazine in Hollywood. Read the rest of this entry »

The list of ABC’s of SEO continue! Now we’re talking about Keywords, Link Building, Media Rooms and Niche Markets. Read on!

Keywords are still important. How to decide what keywords to focus on? Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember the San Francisco concert promoter, Bill Graham? If you were anywhere near the Bay Area in the 60’s throughout 1991 you knew about Bill. Or if you were lucky like me, you knew Bill.

While I had seen him at plenty of rock music events in my teens and early twenties, I had the chance to interview Bill right after I started my music magazine, BAM. One of the questions I asked him was, “Why are you famous?” Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve gotten a number of people asking us at Placemaking Group about the ABC’s of SEO by our own Barbara Irias. So I decided to put some more up. You can get the whole list by clicking here.

EMAIL marketing: Send out a regular monthly email. Read the rest of this entry »

Here at Placemaking Group we realized a long time ago that all PR and Buzz leads to your website. When people hear about an interesting company, the first thing they do is find the website. So, with our clients, that is one of the most important things on our to-do list… Make sure you have an excellent website that tells your potential customers everything they need to know about you and your company. And, equally important, make sure they can find you when they search for you.

I’m not really sure what got into Barbara Irias, our resident web expert, but as she was compiling a list of important things to be aware of when planning SEO (Search Engine Optimization), she noticed they were coming out in alphabetical order. So here are the ABCs Read the rest of this entry »

Karin Høgh, a Danish journalist, podcasting consultant and instructor, is looking for a podcasting team to work with in the United States. Karin is the co-founder of PODHANDLE.com - a webbased publishing system for podcasting. She asked this question… Anybody knows of a private company using podcasting as a newsletter to partners and/or companies? About products, events, news about the company..?

My suggestion to her was to talk to Fred and Joanne Greene of Green Creative Services in San Rafael, CA. They are radio professionals (having worked with many of the top radio stations in the Bay Area) who have had a lot of success guiding people through the podcast world. Greene Creative Services provides full service media solutions - from script writing, consultation, podcast development, and remote recording to large-scale audio and video production and web-based communication. We’re working with them. So I can recommend them and their list of clients is way more impressive than little old Placemaking Group! Fred, BTW, has the highest rated golf podcast on iTunes.