Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I had lunch yesterday with a friend in the PR business. She’s run a very successful practice for many years. She’s the quintessential PR pro - the type who can call an editor at the New York Times with an “idea for a story” and get a favorable response.

I’ve spent some time over the past couple of years helping her negotiate the world of blogs and online industry influencers. Yesterday I shared excitement about the results of the SEMPR efforts I’ve had for clients, working with my SEM partners at Anvil Media.

I’ve blogged about SEMPR before, but today wanted to blog about it again, because every PR pro in the world should be moving in that direction:

An SEMPR Primer

Search Engine Marketing and Public Relations are logically linked by technology and human behavior, yet few companies are combining their knowledge of each to generate big results in today’s rapidly evolving communications landscape.

The People Effect

New media influencers are proliferating online – there are expert bloggers in every niche market and Technorati (a leading blog search engine) tracks more then 107.2 million blogs today. That’s up from 78 million in April of 2007.

In addition to sharing stories and opinions, people are sharing all sorts of media - known as user generated content (UGC) - in social networks like Facebook and LinkedIN; and in content portals like Flickr (photo sharing) YouTube (video sharing) and iTunes (audio sharing).

And every single piece of media that is uploaded online is categorized, or “tagged” by the author. Technorati currently tracks more than 250 million tags (September, 2007). There’s even a tag sharing site called del.icio.us.

Steven Johnson, author of Emergence, envisioned the results of this phenomenon in 2002:

“Emergence is what happens when the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts…And yet somehow out of all this interaction some higher-level structure or intelligence appears, usually without any master planner calling the shots. These kinds of systems tend to evolve from the ground up.”

The Technology Effect

Enabling this huge public publishing push is cheap, easy to use publishing technology. Blog software is free and extremely easy to use. Computers have built-in video cameras, and phones have built-in cameras and video. Anyone can be an online, multimedia publisher today.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) [define in plain English] is the ultimate consumption technology. RSS allows publishers to feed their content simply and easily from their web sites to their readers. When readers subscribe to their RSS feeds, they’re automatically delivered to email inboxes, to phones and PDAs - anytime information is updated. Information comes to you as it happens…

Or you can set up persistent searches for categories (tags or phrases) you’re interested in, and anytime someone tags their content with your search phrase, you’ll have it delivered right to you immediately.

RSS is built into blog software, to social networking applications and into web sites. All you have to do is turn it on, and you’ll notice RSS icons are cropping up everywhere online.

Take the first step toward SEMPR success: Download a free RSS reader, and download a free (for 1-5 users) RSS server platform from Attensa.

With your RSS platform and readers, you’ll be automatically set to dazzle your clients with immediate response to news and information - in the traditional media, the blogosphere and social media context - without having to spend a ton of energy to do so.

I’d love to chat about this more with anyone who has questions - my friend CJ and are are set for getting her up to speed on SEMPR and the power of a great RSS platform October 9…

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You’ve got a great story to tell to your investors/readers/constituents; and you’ve tried it out on your neighbors, friends and relatives successfully - they ‘get it.’

Now do everyone a favor and illustrate your story for better impact.

One of my clients, Attensa, is in the enterprise RSS business. They sell to CXOs and IT professionals - both of whom speak different languages.

There’s no better bridge to help across language barriers than a picture.

It so happens that pretty much anyone loves word pictures (tell me a story)… But if you’re selling to engineers or IT folks, nothing says loving like a beautiful schematic. We love schematics!

Consider the following schematic, lifted right out of Attensa’s Feed Server brochure:

It’s truly a thing of beauty for anyone who’s trying to figure out how this new enterprise RSS platform would fit into their existing ecosystem; plus it showcases all types of RSS readers (and devices) it serves.

Now, it takes vision and a lot of hard work to come up with such an elegant picture. But I guarantee that the illustration above has:

Saved time - entire discussions have likely been resolved using this illustration - possibly without involving anyone from Attensa at all - because it shows so much capability visually.

Moved the sales process along - per my point above, I have seen (over and over again) the power of a “picture/pass-along” to keep things moving in a sales cycle.

Again, as you’re marketing your products, consider giving your prospects tools they can share with others who may (literally or figuratively) speak and understand information differently than you do.

And remember that illustrations tell compelling stories in themselves.

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Lee Aase, a friend and blogger in MN, calls social media ignorance among PR professionals “bordering on malpractice” in an entertaining and educational post called: 12-Step Social Media Program for PR Pros.

Lee’s always busy on the speaker tours (which is where I met him), as he’s done a ton with social media and blogging for the Mayo Clinic.

I am always interested in seeing healthcare institutions and practitioners embrace new communication tools, and Lee has been carrying a torchlight and providing useful tips that I hope others will follow.

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My second favorite quote from the Marc Benioff interview in Forbes is this:

“What is the most common marketing mistake you see entrepreneurs making?”

“Getting out there too soon. Before you start talking to the media, get ahold of your metaphor. This isn’t a sound bite. It is a metaphor that is easy to understand.

Salesforce.com’s AppExchange is the eBay of enterprise software; AppStore is the iTunes. Early on, Salesforce.com was Amazon.com meets Siebel Systems.

You have to be able to relate your product to something familiar.”

And he’s right. A common metaphor is the only way you’re going to make people understand what you’re developing. Even the smartest investors, journalists, potential employees and family members need help describing your vision.

Only when they can describe it are you ready to go out to make your vision a reality through fundraising, press, marketing and sales. Otherwise, you’re wasting precious time and resources.

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My friend Scott over at Attensa sent over an interview with SalesForce.com’s Marc Benioff he found on Forbes magazine that’s so full of juicy tidbits for anyone who thinks they ‘get’ marketing, I believe I want to make a series of posts about it.

Here’s quote 1:

“Most entrepreneurs aren’t flexible enough. You’ve got to try as many things as possible until you get to what works. How Salesforce.com does PR is changing, because PR itself has changed. Eight year ago, when we launched, there were no blogs.

You can’t hold onto any idea for too long.”

At Attensa, Scott realized PR was changing when:

In 2007!

Scott realized they were missing opportunities to engage in conversations around the globe about enterprise RSS. So he did a very smart thing:

He linked his Search Engine Marketing with his PR efforts.

Today, Scott has:

And the extra beauty of it all? We are immediately notified (using Attensa’s Enterprise 2.0 RSS platform) when conversations are sparked.

How’s your PR agency doing these days?

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