The next time you think about writing a press release, ask yourself- “Will anyone really care?” Chances are, besides your mom, the people in your company, and maybe your clients, no one will give a damn about the fact that you just signed a new client (unless it’s Google) or that you won an award for best decorated Christmas tree in your town of 5,000.
Am I saying that those things don’t matter and that you shouldn’t talk about them at all? No. They are very important parts of a comprehensive PR strategy, but they are not what a good release makes. You should talk about the “smaller victories”–on your blog, on your Facebook page, in an email newsletter.
A press release should really make a journalists job easy. They have to write A LOT and are always on deadline. Don’t swamp them with mundane information that they will not want to write about or incomplete information that makes them have to spend their precious time digging for more.
If you’re going to take the time to write a press release,
make sure it’s something more than you care about
if it seems that it might be too mundane, think about a different pitch
paint a picture and then sell your story
include factual information (and never, EVER lie)
include necessary links and information that the writer can quickly access to add under a tight deadline
be readily accessible to the journalist for any additional questions that may arise
Press people- what do you think? What makes a good press release? What really peeves you?
A series to get your creative juices flowing for your interior design firm’s blog. [Link to earlier posts: Introduction/first set, numbers 6-10, numbers 11-15, numbers 16-20, numbers 21-25, and numbers 26-30]
Promoting a post that you liked on another blog. If a fellow design blogger posts a great post on her blog, show her some love. You’ll get reciprocity and build goodwill.
Great finds from High Point or NeoCon. Talk about trends. Show your favorite pieces. Show what’s new.
Canopy beds. Talk about the history of the canopy bed and how it translates into today’s interior.
A dreamy canopy bed. Photo: Elle Decor
Green upholstery options. Vendors that are now offering green upholstery. What to consider and how to know if something is truly green.
Considering Living in Place when building your home. Design of passageways, thresholds, roughing in an elevator, and more.
Plus two extra for the end…
Historical uses of crown moldings.
Crown molding frames a pretty window seat. Photo: Traditional Home
Splurges + steals- mirrors, cocktail tables, beds, etc. This is your typical magazine article showing the Versace dress with its hefty price tag (that is absolutely to die for) and a BCBG dress that achieves the same “look” at a more affordable price.
We hope you enjoyed the series and found a few points of inspiration for your interior design firm’s blog. If you found any of these suggestions particularly helpful, or if you’ve created any innovative posts for your blog, please share your ideas with us! We’d love to see what you’ve come up with.
With all of the shiny new tools out there, many of our small business clients ask whether they still need use email marketing to reach their communities and audiences. A few months ago, I would have said “yes”, but not as emphatically as I say it now. A few months ago, I would have spouted off something about how your clients, influencers, and potential clients like to receive their information in different ways. Not everyone is going to be on Facebook, reading your blog, etc. but they might actually like to hear from you by email. I believe that this is still the case, however now we have some metrics to back it up.
Last week at the Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius conference in New York, Olivier Blanchard from The BrandBuilder not only gave an incredibly robust presentation on determining ROI from social media efforts but he also gave a REAL LIFE (these exist!) example of a small business who used different digital and print avenues to promote his business.
From Olivier’s presentation:
Example of spend justification — A retailer suspected his print advertising wasn’t helping. 90% of spend was on print, 10% was on email, blog, and in-store. We embedded unique promo codes in each channel. We did sales as tests. We didn’t need to measure all the time, just slivers of time. Of all promo codes, 4% of sales came from print, 69% came from email, 17% came from Facebook, and 10% came from web and blog.
In our own experience, we have also found that our clients have highest direct sales from email marketing compared to other platforms. One of the design firms that we work with in Montana held a large sale on all furnishings from one of its manufacturers. The firm printed and mailed postcards about the sale and….crickets. For the same sale, we developed an email marketing campaign as well. At least three large furnishing purchases were attributed directly to the buyers receiving the emails (side note: margins on furniture are large). Emails are sharable too. For your list of 500, you may reach 1,000 when people forward on something good to their friends. That’s much more difficult with a hard copy mailer.
By what I’ve written in this post, I would imagine that several of you are thinking- “Well then why do we waste our time with Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the other things that are about to make my brain explode? Why not just put all of our resources into email marketing if we want to make more money?” Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, vlogging, etc. are important for the new way that we, as consumers and as sellers interact; we expect that interaction and it’s an important fundamental piece of our new marketplace. On the digital marketing scale, email marketing is much less conversational. Conversations are important in building the bridges for future sales and future brand development. Don’t give up on the other platforms, but especially don’t think that email marketing is now obsolete. Just like each of the other tools, it has its place in your tool belt.
I can already hear the rumblings of controversy based purely on this title. Over the past few months, our social media division at Gibson Design Management and our subsidiary media company, OttoPilot Media, have been discussing objective ways to measure our social media efforts for our clients. This has included discussion of customized metrics for each of our clients based on business and marketing goals.
I’m going to say it, so argue away: having more people “like” your Facebook business page is better. This does not mean that you can just stop there. You still need engaging content and someone consistently monitoring and responding so that it is a conversational platform.
When I first graduated from college and worked in sales and marketing for NVR, we were taught that a large part of sales is a numbers game. If you don’t speak to anyone, and you don’t set any appointments, and then you don’t write any contracts, you’re not going to make any sales. However, the (qualified) leads that you generated and the more appointments that you had meant that statistically you would be more likely to achieve your sales goals.
Don’t get me wrong- it did matter that these leads were qualified and that I was good at my job. I wasn’t sitting down with 15 year olds who wanted to buy an $800,000 home. However, these interactions were one-on-one. It does not cost you any extra money on Facebook to reach 100 or 1,000 additional people via your page.
With Facebook, every time that you post, the number of people that post reaches is purely the number of people who “like” your page. If that number is larger, you have a greater reach and reach is an important metric. If your objective is brand awareness, having more people know about and like your brand is important. If your objective is more sales, you are more likely to sell something with a greater audience.
I’ve been an interior designer for over 20 years, so I’ve had plenty of time to make these mistakes. Here’s a startling statistic (and I’ll bet it is higher during this recession) – 62.8% of all new businesses fail within 6 years according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 96% fail within 10 years. That means you’re lucky to be one of 4 out of 100 to make it past 10 years…or is it luck?
What if you could avoid the mistakes that these business owners made?
I’d like to see you avoid them, and if you’ve already done a few of them, now you can learn what not to do so you don’t waste your valuable time and money:
Not having a written “ideal client” profile – If you don’t know who your ideal client is, how can you tell other people who they can refer to you? If you’ve ever had the client from &%$&, (or more than once) the key is to know what you don’t want in a client as much as what you do want.
Not knowing the lifetime value of your client – If you’ve been in the business even a few years, you can add up your billings and divide by the number of clients to get your current lifetime value. You should also look at how long they stay as a client. These two metrics are critical in your business planning and if you have this data as part of your Business Dashboard, it will help you grow your business. (more…)
The to-do list can be a daunting document. For every one item you check off, you probably add two. For many of us, it is far longer than the number of hours that we each have in our days. The question then is: “how can we set up a strategy to prioritize the to-do list so that you are best utilizing your time”? Think about ROI (return on investment) as your ROT (return on time).
Too Familiar?
Here is a new system that we created within our company. I suggest that everyone have the same 3 categories across the team, but that the prioritization is role-specific.
Determine your 3 categories that all of your actions fall under (or should fall under). In our company, I determined the following as our 3 categories:
Revenue producing: an item on the to-do list that will bring money into the company
Service-related: an item on the to-do list that will make our members or clients lives and businesses better
Brand awareness and networking: actions that will help build our brand throughout the industry and beyond
Based on your list, prioritize your categories. My particular role in our company is bringing in new business and also long-term strategy. If my role was to service our clients and members more directly, I would prioritize the categories differently. Therefore, my category prioritization is as follows:
Revenue production
Brand awareness, strategy, and networking
Service
Determine some examples of what each category would entail. For example, I would use the following examples for our company:
Revenue production: sales calls, creating letters of agreement, invoicing, etc. For your firm, this might also be billable hours or creating proposals.
Brand awareness, strategy, and networking: arranging presentations at design centers, writing blog posts, staying connected with my professional network, etc.
Service: adding functionality to the website that would improve the client experience, monthly member calls, etc.
A few more ideas:
Establish a “D” category. There will naturally be things that fall into the “Other” category. We call those category “D” items. These will still need to get done but in the prioritization exercise, they will be the items that are least important to your business.
Every time you add something to your to-do list, make sure that you put a letter next to it or color code it. This will show you where you need to be prioritizing and what items can be downgraded.
For more great techniques to work smarter, I suggest Gina Trapani’s columns at FastCompany.com. What systems do you use to prioritize your laundry list of to-dos?
We will be working with Ondine on spreading her great design and personality even further through the beauties of social media and online PR.
As part of the 20 Young Designers feature from Traditional Home, the magazine is holding a Reader’s Choice contest. Please support Ondine and support us by voting for her!
Note: Make sure that you click on the “Vote!” button and not just the “Like” button to vote!
Also, by voting you are automatically entered to win a complete room design and $5,000 in fabric to outfit the room so there’s some extra incentive…besides your undying love for us.
For those of you who think that you just need to have a Facebook page, tweet, and do some blogging, think again. You actually need to use them as tools to get results. Ramon DeLeon, owner of 7 Domino’s Pizzas, is the king of monitoring what people are saying about his brand. He doesn’t just listen though, he answers and he makes things right if they’re not already, often in very memorable ways.
Like an amorous high schooler (but less creepy), I occasionally run across companies that I develop a severe business crush on.
My latest company crush is on a Greenville, South Carolina identity and branding company called Brains on Fire. I am obsessed with the culture that they’ve created and enamored with the fact that their website shows that culture and personality. [I especially like their Tequila Shots book which explains the 12 company beliefs; imagine a mission statement minus the boring undertones].
I know that I have this business crush when I think
