Brand Central Station

Another in our series of Friday motivational posters …

If you think you can do better, go here or here and make one for yourself.  Then send it to us and if we post it, I’ll send you a Brand Central Station t-shirt.

If you’re like me, nearly every e-card you receive this year will either end up in your Spam folder or all of the images will be blocked by your email client (I use Outlook).  Instead of downloading images and dealing with the various “cyber-security” issues associated with these emails, I usually just note who sent the mail and then send it to the trash.

I have no idea how many clever Photoshop examples, flash games or silly photographs I’ve missed over the years.  But what’s more interesting is to think how many of these senders think they’ve made a positive impression on me when, in fact, they’ve made no impression at all.

This may be one of those times when going “old school” is the best rule. 

Alan Underkofler writes a blog dedicated to “following up” with customers, prospects and the other people who are important in your business life.  Throughout the month of December, he’s been trying to reinforce the importance of sending Holiday Cards to your contact base.  In fact, last week, Alan reminded us that it’s still not too late!

If you happen to be one of those thinking “it’s too late to send holiday cards at this point” or “does sending holiday cards really make a difference in my business?”, I would encourage you to consider recent research by Hallmark:  Hallmark found that businesses say they use greeting cards as a “kind of investment in their business…  They’re investing in customer relationship with the hopes that it will pay back”.  The company has conducted research that found at least half of customers who received holiday cards from businesses say they are more likely to continue doing business with that company versus another one. 

Alan recommends using an online service called SendOutCards which allows you to upload a contact list, select a card, type in a personal message and then have your cards in the mail the next day.

Times are tough.  We all know that.  And the employment news lately has been bad.  Nearly 600,000 people lost their jobs in November.  And unlike past job losses and economic downturns, the news is reported in real time by those employees directly impacted by the cuts.

Thanks to blogs, IM’s, discussion boards, social networking sites and micro-blogging tools like Twitter, employees are writing about their personal experiences – and the effect is rippling through organizations that have nothing to do with the layoffs.  Kami Huyse, writing in her Communications Overtones blog, provides seven suggestions to HR directors on how to approach announcing layoffs and handling the resulting need for discussion and empathy inside the organization:

The layoff (especially mass layoffs) will most likely be blogged, Twittered or otherwise related in a public forum

The company should consider putting out an official story about the layoffs and voicing genuine concern

The company will always be the bad guy, but this can be mitigated by doing the right thing

A personal touch is needed for these situations, forget mail, e-mail or SMS messages

Minimize faceless and policy-driven thinking

Remember that investors, future employees and your mother is watching how this is handled

Remaining employees will be demoralized by a brutal layoff – they could be next after all, plus they will have survivors guilt

HR staff and corporate managers shouldn’t fall into a trap of thinking they only have to worry about employees’ feelings when layoffs hit their operation.  The social aspect of online media today means that the losses and trauma experienced by employees at one company are now shared through their informal networks – networks that extend beyond the walls of the enterprise and can include friends, family members and colleagues at other businesses all over the world.

Job loss creates very real grief in both the person losing the job and that person’s friends and family.  According to this piece on job loss grief, written by Carolyn Wilkin at the University of Florida, there are steps to the process of dealing with job loss grief – and there are things people can do to help their friends through those steps.

Corporate owners and managers should be proactive though, recognizing the potential for lost productivity if they fail to recognize and deal with the side effects of the broader economic stresses on the economy.

Peter Shankman (in one of his more vulnerable moments ... and there aren't that many!)

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a relatively new editorial inquiry service developed and managed by the ever-ingenious Peter Shankman.  Peter (who started The Geek Factory and travel companion site Airtroductions – now TripLife.com) is a brilliant PR flack, social networker and modern-day, bon vivant of technology.

So, what’s the big deal about HARO?

There are a few services that help put journalists in need of knowledgable sources and information in touch with the experts and PR flacks who represent them.  Most of them come with some kinds of strings attached (usually in the form of subscription fees).  But HARO is different because it is free.  Shankman’s revenue comes from the ad sold at the head of each bulletin (issued three times a day).

The model seems to be working.  HARO now boasts a circulation of over 36,000.  Multiply that number by Peter’s stated ad rates (as per this article in AdWeek) and we’re talking a tidy sum … all of it earned. 

HARO’s system of circulating reporter inquiries to sources is quick and efficient and works because of a level of integrity enforced by Peter, himself.  When you receive HARO e-mails, you get the distinct impression that Peter’s watching what’s going on and who’s responding.  It’s an impression he reinforces with his own sense of urgency and candid honesty:

These requests only come from reporters directly to me. I never take queries from that other service, I never SPAM, and I’m not going to do anything with your email other than send you these reporter requests when they arrive in my in-box.

This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.

In the end, we could probably all stand to do this a bit more, huh?

As a friend of Peter’s for some time, I can tell you this IS quintessential Peter Shankman.  And because he is who he is – generous nearly to a fault and ingenious to the point of near exasperation, you don’t dare let him down by breaking the rules.

HARO is a must for publicists and marketing pros.  Check it out and sign up today!

Who says there’s no such thing as a “free lunch?”  Well, this might not be lunch, but it is an free product offer that is exclusive to readers of this blog.

For a limited time, we are allowed to set up PR firms, ad agencies, marketing consultancies and related enterprises with a free subscription to the Peer360 WebLetter(TM).  The WebLetter is a “best of breed” e-newsletter product that provides superior list management, metrics and content management features.  (Learn more about the Peer360 WebLetter.)

The “catch” to this offer:
Yes, of course there’s a “catch” to this offer.  The free WebLetter can only be used for self-promotion purposes.  In other words, you can use the WebLetter to create a promotional newsletter to send to clients and prospects – but if you want to create a newsletter for your clients, you’ll need to subscribe (at a discounted rate, of course). 

Feel free to e-mail: mbawden@brandcentralstation.com to receive a fact sheet on the offer and answers to your questions.

Here’s this Friday’s motivational poster …

If you think you can do better, go here or here and make one for yourself.  Then send it to us and if we post it, I’ll send you a Brand Central Station t-shirt.

BIGResearch just released the latest findings of their American Pulse(TM) survey and, no surprise, the economy has America’s pulse racing.

Key findings include:

• Nearly three out of five Americans say rising food and energy costs worry them the most.
• Close to sixty percent of those surveyed say they are having problems paying their bills.
• Almost 25% of those surveyed say their rent and mortgage payemnts are either late or in danger of falling behind.
• As a result of the financial stress, 71.3% say they have cut back on their spending and just over 40% are staying home for the holidays.

Not spreading the good cheer
While times are tough all over, more than two out of three Americans have no interest in seeing the government bail out the auto industry.  This reluctance extends to retired workers as well, with 58.5% of those surveyed saying “no” to bail out collars going to cover retiree health benefits.

You can learn morea bout what’s on America’s mind by reviewing the findings of the survey online.

When I started working in this crazy business we told clients that our advertising campaigns worked because they established “top of mind” awareness in the mind of the consumer.  And from that intellectual high ground, consumers could easily recall our brand’s name and would exhibit that most coveted of all consumer behaviors: provide a word-of-mouth referral to a friend or family member.

Flash forward twenty-some years and now word-of-mouth has become its own medium warranting its own marketing discipline (Buzz Marketing) and even its own trade association (the WOMMA).  The fundmental logic, explained to me over two decades ago, still applies:  “Get people to talk their friends and family about your brand because that personal endorsement means more than any ad.”

Okay, we’ll buy that. But haven’t you ever wondered why?

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With apologies to the Baha Men … a new viral video for JC Penney from Satchi & Satchi.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F2md4uGmMU]

Hilarious.

Note to self: 

     Things to get the wife for Christmas -

• Abdomisizer
• Dual Bag Vacuum Cleaner
• Extra Ram for her Computer
• New Bathing Suit for Hottie Mother-In-Law
• Mustache Waxer

Man, the Holidays are tough.

Online banner ads have been taking a beating.  Not just recently, but over the past few years.  Click-through rates on banner ads stink in the metrics-heavy world of online advertising.  The experts will tell you that search advertising is the place to be.

Then comes a new study, released on Friday afternoon, that draws a connection between click-through rates on paid and organic searches and the presence of display ads for those brands.  According to the study conducted by Specific Media, the results showed a 155% performance improvement by search ads when display ads promoting those brands were running.  The greatest impact on search was in travel and tourism, where exposure to display ads boosted click-throughs by nearly 300%.

Here’s a link to the story that ran on the BtoB Magazine website.

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This article by Jim Ylisela at Ragan.com caught my eye right before the weekend hit last week. The piece talks about the attributes that make for a good mentor, and Mr. Ylisela’s point is that the people who are good mentors aren’t always the ones who are best at what they do.

Over the weekend, this concept kept returning to me as I spent time with my kids and many of the volunteer groups I work with throughout the year.  I suspect, as does Mr. Ylisela, that there are a lot of good mentors out there who have never been given the opportunity or taken the chance to be the mentor they could be just because they don’t feel like they’re ready.

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We don’t often report hard news – but the news of the Tribune Company possibly filing for bankruptcy caught our eye this weekend.  Crain’s Chicago Business relayed a report from the Wall Street Journal – so the buzz machine is in full gear, that’s for sure.  You can read it here.

What impact will a bankruptcy filing have on the Chicago Tribune or LA Times?  It really depends on what kind of filing Zell & Company pursue.  But if anything, this tells us die-hard Cubs fans that Zell is really serious about selling the team and generating the kind of cash he needs to pay $1B in interest and an upcoming $512M debt payment this coming June.