I think it’s ironic that the season premiere of Mad Men was titled, Public Relations.  For the first time in decades, companies are dealing with a struggling economy, forcing them to slash budgets and reduce their work force.  Gone are the days of unrealistic business plans receiving funding, unlimited marketing budgets and over the top events.  Everyone is operating leaner and making smarter, more pragmatic decisions.  Basically, the pressure to do more with less is at an all-time high.  And, as a result, the importance of public relations—the most grassroots effort a business can undertake—is once again dominating the conversation…and the airwaves! 

But, as Don Draper—the lead character and seasoned advertising exec.—learned, good PR is an art.  Don had the opportunity to turn a magazine interview into good publicity for his burgeoning agency and he blew it.  Fortunately, he got a second chance.  But in today’s competitive environment, second chances are harder to come by.  So how can you ensure that you don’t miss out?  

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Apps, SMS, and mobile e-newsletters are quite popular when marketing to consumers. As consumer marketers continue to invest heavily in apps, b2b marketers are taking advantage of the one powerful app that already comes pre-installed into every smart phone – the mobile web browser. Nielsen reported earlier this year that 64% of mobile subscribers have an Internet-enabled phone, and it’s likely that their daily routine includes accessing e-mail and browsing via the mobile web browser.

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As a veteran PR practitioner I’m always amazed when I see companies working so hard to communicate with their clients, prospects and the media, but ignoring their single most important audience – their employees. Employees are your company’s ambassadors. Mobilizing them with the right message unify your PR campaign and help to guarantee its success. Ignoring them could spell disaster.

Having worked in corporate communications with employee communications responsibilities for a big multinational conglomerate, I sincerely appreciated this employee memo from Woot.com CEO Matt Rutledge. Rutledge is communicating with his people about the company recently being acquired by Amazon.com.

While the memo is just flat out funny (Rutledge could have a career writing for “The Office” if he ever wanted to change jobs), the memo is great for several reasons.

1. He speaks in his own words. While not every CEO is a closet comedian, Rutledge obviously wrote this memo himself and I’m sure that his employees will take his message to heart for that very reason. He didn’t issue a PR release to his people; he just kept it real. That has impact.

2. He actually says something important. In between the jokes, there is real information for employees: “… we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot …”

3. He quashes rumors. Rumors usually start within companies, and they can be toxic to customer relationships. By giving his people real info (“… Snapster will continue as Woot.com CEO, just like before, and the rest of our staff’s not going anywhere either. Woot and all our various sites will continue to be an independently operated company …”) Rutledge has essentially shut down the rumor mill before it can get cranked up.

With good information in hand, he has ensured continued productivity and, as important, he has laid the foundation for solid external communication with clients and prospects.

Bravo Mr. Rutledge. And by the way, where can I get one of those vuvuzelas?

In tracking one of my client’s competitors I ran across a press release posted online at trade media outlet. The first sentence read:

“XYZ Company has launched a single-use bioprocessing filtration solution, which is designed to help speed up processes and reduce wastage.”

Wastage? Is that fancy waste? Because I can tell you that using a 25-cent word like wastage sure stinks like horse, um, waste. If the client put that word into the release, then the agency should have changed it, and if the agency put it in they should be ashamed of themselves. (And don’t get me started on the use of the word “solution.”)

Yes, I know that wastage is a real word. It’s in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. In fact, the writer could defend the word’s use in the sentence, but I’m willing to bet money that they were just trying to be fancy. But that doesn’t make the release good. In fact, it makes it bad because it hinders reader comprehension. Writing a release that’s easily understood by non-experts is particularly important when you’re writing on complicated topics like biotechnology. It’s one of those industries that filled with five-syllable words. Making those words understood often relies on the context around them, so it must be easily digestible.

Choose the shortest, most accurate word to do the job. Your release will read better and your reader won’t feel like their time has been wasted.

I read this interesting bit in a publishing industry newsletter that I receive called Wooden Horse (you can follow them on Twitter www.twitter.com/WoodenHorsePub). There’s a new wine enthusiast magazine launching. FINE EXCLUSIVE is a new magazine about the world’s most up-to-date knowledge of the finest and rarest wines. But it’s not your usual, run-of-the-mill wine magazine:

It has a wine concierge service.
It cannot be bought or subscribed to anywhere; it is available by invitation only.
It features an optional personalized cover for each subscriber.
The mailing list is limited to 5,000.
A subscription is 500 euros (US$ 669.)
It is published in Finland.

It carries with it a great B2B branding lesson: Brand isn’t about being all things to all consumers; its about being the preferred choice among consumers that will generate revenue for your business.

Many B2B marketers complain that they can’t brand themselves or don’t need to brand themselves because they only serve a tiny niche. This is the best time to brand. This allows you to control the entire market segment and command a premium price for your product or service. From the example above, how many other magazines do you know are getting more than $650 per subscription?

Need another example? How about the mass-market beer brewers who created or acquired micro-brew brands? The big breweries already had mass brand recognition when the microbrew explosion happened in the 80s. Why bother with anything else? Because mass-marketed beer was small margin on large volume basis. Microbrews command a premium price per unit.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling IT services or aluminum extrusions, branding can help you improve your margins and dominate a market niche.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are moving picutures worth? Apparently about $22 million during 4Q 2009, for small businesses. A new study reported on MediaPost’s blog shows that small businesses are significantly increasing spends for online video.

“Video capability was the fastest-growing website feature for small business advertisers over the past year, with 19% of advertisers showing video on their websites in Q4 2009, versus just 5% in Q4 2008.”

While this is focused on advertisers using video, the point is that video is now affordable for everyone, and there’s no doubt that it’s an effective tool for public relations. Video is a highly valuable way to generate branded content that will help establish thought leadership and allow companies to connect with potential buyers.

Video is particularly effective for demonstrating “how-to” and process-oriented services. Complicated equipment is much easier explained with video. Perhaps most importantly, video allows companies to attach personality to products or services (that of the company’s experts), instead of simply offering another anonymous product. And with the cost of video dropping – and high-speed Internet connections available almost everywhere – video is a winning tool.

Once video content is created, it can be spread via social networks to all corners of your market. For a small price, video can help you make a big impact with your public relations campaign.

For years we’ve been watching our clients (B2B advertisers) shrink their advertising budgets in favor of non-interruption (or permission-based) marketing tactics. The thinking is that people don’t want to be sold products; they want partners who work with them to solve their business problems. In general, I agree with this thinking and encourage our clients to use marketing techniques that add value. But an experience this weekend made me reconsider – might there be times when buyers do want to be sold?

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You might be saying, “Hey Schubert…enough about the content already!” I hear you. We’ve been blogging about it quite often lately. But, that just means it’s something we believe in. And, according to the recent “2010 Content Marketing Spending” study, we aren’t alone.

B2B Magazine’s article states that 56% of surveyed marketers plan to increase their budgets this year. The percentage of total marketing budgets going to content increased also, up to 33% this year.

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If you’re working in marketing or any form of public relations, you have to be aware of the how social media is changing the face of the industry. Need real proof of just how all-pervasive social media have become? Check out this out.

That’s right, there is a social networking site for llamas and alpacas. Well, not actually for the woolly beasts (they find it tough to type with hooves), but people with an interest in these animals. “Lama Journal has been created so people who have an interest in alpacas and llamas, can come to one central location online and share information such as photos, videos, and much more…”

If there’s a social network for llama lovers, you can bet there’s one for your B2B target market. Now you need to get out there and start communicating with them.

Today’s Web 2.0 world and its social nature demand that companies continuously create and market content to draw users back to their Web sites. But that can be intimidating to many marketers.

“Where are we going to get content?” they moan.

The fact is that many companies are sitting on treasure troves of high-value content, but they just don’t know it. If you want to find out how you can use existing marketing materials to create content for your social media use, check out our free e-book.

Oh, and by the way, creating an e-book is just one way to repurpose existing materials into great content.