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By Jerry Walker |
The
Right Message in the Right Place at the Right Time Will Open the Door
While there is no denying that well-known, national media outlets are critical for communicating a message and driving results, there's no reason to overlook the literally millions of other outlets that can be just as influential in achieving specific objectives.
Internet sites, weblogs (blogs) and newsletters are all increasingly important in targeting opinion leads and decision makers, according to Principor Communications, which has found peer-to-peer newsletters are especially useful in reaching those who recommend and choose technology products and services.
The Washington, D.C.-based firm said it recently began outreach to state technology education councils for Lightspeed Systems, a network security software company based in Bakersfield, Calif.
Principor targeted state markets where Lightspeed had recently entered or will soon enter to expand sales of its security software.
“We focus on a very specific market, K-12 education, and need to reach IT and school administrators with information about our software products,” said Merleen Johnson, Lightspeed’s Director of Marketing.
“We've worked with Principor to develop a very focused program to reach our relatively small universe of decision makers.”
She said articles in industry publications, newsletters and online outlets “give us the most bang for our PR buck.”
The PR firm chose to position Lightspeed’s President Rob McCarthy as an authority on computer security through a bylined article that recently appeared in the Organization for Educational Technology and Curriculum’s Winter 2005 newsletter, which can be accessed at www.oetc.org/protecting.html.
More than 10,000 IT administrators and other education technology decision makers in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming, and Montana got the newsletter.
Readers’ response to the three-page article led Washington’s state technology association to invite Lightspeed to demonstrate its software to district IT administrators – an ideal opportunity to directly reach potential users and buyers.
Reviews are effective
Product reviews are another cost-effective PR tactic used by Principor to drive sales and raise awareness in the marketplace.
For example, Principor recently contacted technology opinion makers about the illegal pirating of music and video.
As a result of the firm's outreach, Computerworld published an opinion piece on the pirating issue, using a Lightspeed customer as a case study in how IT managers can address it.
To date, the opinion piece has led to three dozen sales inquiries. Fifteen of 36 potential customers – or more than 40 percent of the leads generated by the article – have purchased Lightspeed’s software.
NL pumps pipeline biz
Aker Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm, has been publishing an online newsletter for the past three years for the oil pipeline industry.
Colburn Aker, who is Managing Partner of the firm, said the newsletter, is regularly opened by 30-40 percent of the opinion leaders on its database.
Knowing who the readers are and what articles interest them has helped the firm “create a publication they want.”
Here are some things the firm has learned about publishing e-newsletters:
| 1. |
Make content
interesting, objective and valuable. |
| 2. | Use
visuals and concise articles. Photos and graphics grab attention and captions communicate quickly. Articles of the 100-200 words are best for online reading. |
| 3. |
Establish a
pattern of contact. |
| 4. |
You're not a
spammer when your readers want it. |
| 5. |
Reporters are
the best NL writers. |
© 2005 Principor Communications