This is a guest post by Bonnie Harris, the founder of Wax Marketing, Inc. She has over 20 years experience promoting businesses and products of all kinds. Read her blog or follow her on Twitter for more ideas!

It’s easy to find articles and blog postings about the "new" PR—and how traditional media is dead. At the same time, everyone still wants a hit on the Today Show, even if it’s that dreadful fourth hour. National, traditional media reaches millions of potential customers at one time. Social media can reach that same number of customers over time, one at a time. The trick is not to throw away one medium in favor of another—the key is to find the right mix for your product or service that will serve up the highest number of targeted customer impressions consistently over time.

My greatest success comes when I find the right combination of messaging channels to achieve the greatest amount of promotion possible for my clients. Based on my experience across a pretty broad range of industries and products, the BEST results come from blending traditional media with social media and/or online PR. It’s not so easy to do! To give you a headstart, here’s my process for creating the right recipe for integrating your PR activities between traditional and newer media.

• Build a list of all the different places your customers get information. If your demographic is pretty small—maybe you’re targeting young men between the ages of 18 to 22—this is easy. But most of us want to reach a wider range of consumers—some may still read the print paper in their hometown, others might have sophisticated RSS feeds that bring their daily news to their Google homepage. Baby boomers are notoriously all over the board in terms of what they read. I recently did a pitch for a client that had print newspaper stories running at the same time as postings on their Facebook page. Note: if you don’t know where your customers get their information, stop. Go back and further define your target demographics so that you can figure it out.
• Take a look at the list and decide what’s realistic. For example, if you own a services firm, it might be really tough to get on television as they need really strong visuals. If you’re an author promoting your first novel, it might be nearly impossible to get a book review in the New York Times. Choose media that’s easier to get initially so your short-term results are good. But stay persistent and go for the big ones too because like winning the lottery, those national hits pay off in spades. One non-profit client of mine just taped a CNN national news package. Although the producers had never heard of them a year ago, consistent pitching plus keeping the producers apprised of their work via Twitter (love those @ replies!!) finally got us a huge hit.
• Make sure your list has a good mix of different types of media and includes both traditional and new. I would include at least one broadcast channel—public radio for example if you’re a non-profit, maybe commercial radio if you’ve got a great hook for your book. Don’t throw all your eggs in one basket—like social media—just because it’s the cheapest and you can do it at night after the kids go to bed. TV producers look online to find ideas for sources. Bloggers pick up story ideas from their local morning newscast. Different kinds of media feed each other The more you show up in multiple channels, the better your chances are for getting strong, possibly national, placements down the line.
• Figure out the story for each channel. If you’re going to do a strong online pitch, know what bloggers want and make your pitch short and snappy. If you want to go for broke and pitch national news, understand how to pitch that medium with a well defined segment outline. Each media requires a different approach—you can’t use the same press release for everything.
• Keep pitching your channels consistently and simultaneously. It will work in the long run, as long as you keep your eye on the prize and stay patient.

Dan Buettner’s first book, The Blue Zones, is an excellent example of this. Dan’s name was fairly known, but for other work involving his career as a world explorer. We were determined to find the right mix of traditional broadcast and online impressions to put the book on the New York Times bestseller list. Guess what—through national hits like Good Morning America, favorable reviews from top Amazon reviewers and sites like About.com, regional radio (Dan did over 100 interviews on commercial radio) and one very lucky AP story, the team led by the brilliant publicist Laura Reynolds, myself, Dan’s staff and National Geographic, did it. Not only for the hardback, but for the paperback also one year later.

We don’t all have the luxury of a major publisher’s promotional budget. But we can remember that by including ALL the potential media in our plan, the synergy between them can often make the difference between failure and success.

Tags: Marketing, New Media, New Rules, Public Relations

More and more, business owners are starting to understand that blogging has value for their businesses. But business blogs are still relatively new, and the vast majority of businesses don’t have one (here in New Mexico, a surprising number don’t even have old-style static websites). There is an impression among many that blogs are "just another fad," rather than the result of a fundamental shift in business/customer communication.

While many businesses continue to miss opportunities, their competitors are jumping in one-by-one, as they come to understand some of the following reasons for launching a company blog.

1. Improve Search Engine Rankings – Whether or not they buy online, the majority of people now start with an online search for options and price ranges before shopping. That makes it important to have a website that can be found when customers are looking for information, even if you don’t sell online. Search engines LOVE sites that are continually updated with new content, which explains why blogs often are found at or near the top of organic (non-paid) search results. This reason alone justifies the time invested in a blog for many companies.
2. Get Feedback from Customers – Conversations are the basis for marketing, providing feedback and valuable information about what customers think and want. Such conversations are not always complimentary of your company or its products, but acknowledging and dealing with criticism openly can actually be good for your business. Old-school communications professionals have a hard time with this, because they’re used to putting out carefully crafted, business-formal messages, and they see blogs as just another outlet for press releases. But people don’t read those kinds of messages, nor are they moved by them to participate in a conversation.
3. Build Stronger Relationships with Customers – Blogging and responding to customer feedback is largely about building relationships. And relationships are what we tend to rely on when things get difficult. Like now, for instance.
4. Test Marketing Messages – Part of engaging in conversation is the opportunity to see how people react to your primary messages. If you hit a hot button, you’ll know quickly. If you are attempting to swim against the tide of customer needs or preferences, you’ll know that, too.
5. Establish Authority and Credibility – You can differentiate yourself from competitors by becoming a source of information and perspective. The longer you blog about developments in your industry, the more you will be perceived as someone who knows what you’re talking about. Of course, this assumes you provide some value in your posts and talk to customers as intelligent peers.
6. Build or Support a Community – This is a relatively new thought for many business owners. What does community-building have to do with selling goods or services? Many people see their purchases as a means of expressing their subscription to a particular school of thought or values. Want to show your concern for the environment? Buy a Prius. Want to show you support your local economy? Buy your vegetables at the farmers’ market. Figure out why people buy what you sell, and make your blog a place that supports those values.
7. Clarify Your Thoughts About Your Business – Nothing forces you to think about your business and consider alternatives like writing to and for your prospective customers. As you say what’s on your mind, you may surprise yourself with thoughts you hadn’t considered before, some of which may create new opportunities.

Tags: Blogging, Business, Marketing, New Rules

Times are tough, and they’ll get tougher, according to just about every expert opinion you can find. Optimistic experts say the recession will last through 2010; pessimists forecast hardship for the next decade. The wailing and gnashing of teeth among business owners and their employees (not to mention the experts) has reached almost biblical proportions. According to the common wisdom, if you’re not whining and shivering with fear, you look a little foolish, like you don’t know what’s up.

But what does whining, wailing, and teeth-gnashing accomplish that is helpful to your business? Anything? No, I thought not. Times are tough, and business owners need to accept that as what is (gosh, that sounds so…Zen). But tough times don’t render us powerless. Along with tough decisions about cutting back, there’s potential for finding new and better ways of doing things that create new opportunities.

As the downturn worsens (and all the experts say that it will), every business owner has to choose one of three options:

1. Fold up the tent and go home.
2. Hunker down and try to survive.
3. Recognize there is an opportunity in tough times to thrive, and decide that you have the courage and determination to take advantage of it.

Whichever choice you make, do it consciously, because it’s the unconscious choices that will do you in. If you choose "C," recognize that you will have to do things differently than in the past, that the changed economic landscape is no longer fertile ground for the "tried and true."

Choosing option C isn’t about "manifesting wealth" or "attracting good fortune." It’s about finding better ways to engage customers and working hard to gain their loyalty. It’s about having confidence in the value you have to offer. It’s about knowing that, whether the recession ends in 2010 or 2020, you’ll still be here, providing that value.

Tags: Business, Economy, Future, New Rules