How to get coverage in Newspapers

Getting coverage in Newspapers can seem really daunting. When I joined my present company, Applied Language, I had no experience of speaking to journalist or PR. Now we get lots of coverage in our local titles.

How did we do this?

It's pretty easy really but you'll need to do a bit of leg work. The fist thing to do is identify the journalists and get to know what they write about. Buy the papers and read the sections and articles which are based around where you want to be.

Once you know the journalists you need to speak to you'll need to get all information together.

Journalists are very busy and you need to sell your company or organisation. The best way to sell anything is to make it as easy as possible for your customers (reporters) to buy you. To do this you'll need to assemble a press pack. This is less daunting than it sounds, here's a quick check list:

• Brief history about your company/organisation
• Biographies of the most important staff
• Current Press Releases
• Any pictures you have

It's best to put all these on a CD and have hard copies, at least of the articles.

Once you have all this, the next step is to call the journalists and introduce yourself. Give them a brief over view of why you're interesting. Once you have their interest arrange to go and see them at a convenient place and time for them, remember make their job easy.

Once you've met and got your enthusiasm over you'll have an advantage over all the other people who will just email press releases with no prior connection. When yours turn up the journalist will recognise them and you're far more likely to feature in the paper.

The last rule is to be polite, never be too pushy but be persistent. And always remember to thank the journalist after the article has been printed.

Solve your customers problems, not tell them what you've been doing

I just received an email news letter, I'm sure you get load of these as well.

I had a quick scan down the copy as it's about a product I use a lot and I'm having issues with. So the timing of the email was great for me.

But once I started to read the copy I realised that the news letter wasn't written for me it was written for the MD of the company. The first 4 paragraphs told me about what the company had been doing.

To summarise the copy was all about "We".

We've been busy, we've done this, we've don that - you know the score.

I'm sure this company are really proud of what they've achieved and so they should be.

But in the end I selfish. I want to know what they can do for me? How can they solve my problems? Why should I spend my cash with them?

If they had started these paragraphs with You or Your, the readership and final actions, which is what counts, would be greatly improved.

The lesson? Always put the customer first, they don't care about you. They are selfish like you and me, give them what they want.

Buy before you Die

On Radio 5 Live this morning, they interviewed a guy who makes made to measure coffins. He'll make whatever you want, from an egg to an aeroplane.

This kind of thing only appeals to a small niche, which is great.

The thing I liked best was when the guy said;

"These are mainly for the 'Buy Before You Die' customer".

I don't know whether he did that on purpose but, he should definitely use it as a tag line. It'll offend loads of people I'm sure but his target market of people wanting designer coffins will love it.

Corporate Blogging - Yes or No? You tell me

Over on SEOMoz, there's an article on Corporate Blogging and whether it's a good idea or not.

I've been pushing for a corporate blog for ages. I've read all the blogs on the subject and the books. I know the value of doing it, but I'm still hanging on. There are lots of issues I need to settle first.

1. Who will blog?
   Most people in the business don't see the value of a company blog. They don't have that much interaction with websites and can't see the advantage. So getting buy in is an issue.
2. Who'll maintain and edit it?
   Our site currently gets nearly 100K unique visitors per day and we have a team working constantly on the site to keep it going. Can I justify the extra work involved?
3. What will be the ROI?
   This is the killer. How can I measure the Return on Investment?
4. How to keep the momentum going?
   Lots of people will be enthusiastic at the beginning, but how can I keep that up?

There are loads more questions than just these, but these are the main stumbling blocks. Overcome these and I'm off and running.

One more issue is the company is very busy anyway can we afford a distraction like this. Or on the other hand can we not afford to miss the opportunity!

I'd love to know if anyone else has had these dilemmas and how they've over come them, or even decided against a blog altogether.

Are all cutomers created the same?

I've just completed our marketing plan for 2007 and presented it to our sales team. These things are always a bit tricky, until you've finished you never really know how they'll go. This went OK, a few blank looks but most people got the idea and took it on board.

In simple terms I segmented the database of customers based on spend and frequency. Pretty basic stuff.

One question stuck out though.

"Shouldn't we treat all our customers the same, though?" one of the sales team asked.

She had a point of sorts.

Yes we should treat all our customers as friends and be as courteous and helpful as possible. After all without customers we have no business.

But, not all customers are created the same. Some are worth a lot to the company and some aren't. The value of our service varies wildly from orders of £6 right up to orders in the millions or pounds. This is great because we've worked out how to work in the long tail.

But to achieve this we've automated our services. If you have a small order then you can pay online, you still get the same professional delivering the service but we have less admin and we make a decent profit. The customers are happy because they got what the wanted and we're happy we supplied it at a decent profit.

Were some people get stuck, is that they have been brain washed about customer service, which is great, but they forget to put that into perspective. They are quite happy to spend an hour with a customer with a job for £40, and basically oversell the service.

How would you feel if every time you ordered a Big Mac the counter staff went into a depth about how they made the burger, the bun the sauce, what McDonald's over all strategy was on everything in the world? You'd just say, "give the burger!"

Not all customers are the same, sorry. Some are worth more, it's capitalism.

How to rank high using link bait

I use link bait on my site www.appliedlanguage.com it has loads of articles, map, fonts, free translation tools. Unfortunately I'm not using it as much as I could this this blog on link baiting will be my bible an should be yours too. There are no clever bit of code or complex algos to learn just common sense advice.

Wok This Way - Chinese Delight in Sheffield

Wouldn't you love your Chinese take-away to entertain you as well as feed you. Wok This Way in Walkley in Sheffield manages it at every point.

First the name, I defy you not to smile when you say it. It's the perfect name, it's probably not unique but I don't care.

The shop front has a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feel, you walk in and the place is empty other than the lady at the counter. You place your order and suddenly the two chefs appear. They fire up the Woks and flames and pots and ladles begin to fly. Again that smile creeps across your face.

Then it's all over, the foods freshly packaged and off you go. I'm sure they deliver too, but that way you miss the entertainment and the whole feel of it.

If you visit Sheffield, then you need to Wok This Way.

They just need a website. I'll add the phone number and address when I get home tonight.

Bad PowerPoint

I'm currently evangelising good PowerPoint at my company. We run by the Beyond Bullet Points and Presentation Zen rules of visualising points and telling a story rather than the standard Look and Read school.

If you are still part of the Look and Read school then you need to read this post but great post by Seth Godin on Bad PowerPoint.

Read, learn, ingest ...stop boring people to death!

The art of PR without PR

Chris Anderson as ever gives good blog, with deep and meaningful insight (I wish I could too)

This time on the long tail of PR.

If you haven't read "Long Tail" what have you been doing, buy it now and realise the way forward, yes it is that good!

Best Practices for Title Tags

SEOmoz Blog Best Practices for Title Tags

Over on SEOmoz, there's the best article I've seen in a while on whiting title tags.

As with most things you should write for the reader, not for yourself and definately not for a search engine. Writing for search engines make get you the visits you want, but they won't get you any quality.

As any direct marketer knows its converstion that counts.

Found a webmaster

Finally I found my webmaster. Krishan starts in February and I think I've got a good catch, he'll be maintaining the site and doing the SEO for it, luckily its in a good state so he can only improve it really.

I had real trouble finding a good candidate. After talking to a few people it seems I was a bit naive, everyone wants webmasters and SEO staff, but there aren't enough people. So I feel lucky that I found Krishan.

When I looked on Monster (UK) for SEO it gave no results which amazed me, clearly there's a skills gap or people don't know what to put in CV's.

Still if they can't optimise their CV's what hope have they with a website?

Job for a Web Master

Things are really busy and I'm looking to hire a full time Web Master at our head office in Huddersfield to work on http://www.appliedlanguage.com/.

The site is probably the busiest website for translation in the world and recently won a Webby Award. Here's the job description, if you're interested drop me an email.

Job Title – Web Master

Wage Band - £14K - £17K (depending on experience)

Office – Huddersfield

Essential requirements
Knowledge of ASP, PHP, (X)HTML and CSS.
Web Design and Graphics Skills
Knowledge of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Examples of previous websites worked on
Excellent English
Energetic and full of ideas

Desired
Knowledge of Content Management systems
Ability to write copy and articles
Marketing qualification

Experience
At least 2 years web design/development experience (not necessarily in business)

Leaving an impression and making a sale

Today I did the sales shopping. With two young children this isn't easy, after several hours and lots of shops it's even harder.

I needed some new jeans so we ended our day in Debenhams sale. I found a few bargains one was a great coat. It should have been £70, but was reduced to £32 and then reduced further to £25. It was a total bargain so I took it to the till.

The assistant scanned my label and £32 came up. I said that the label said that the coat was £25 so the assistant checked with the girl in charge. She said "That's been marked with a red pen, we only use Black, I can sell it at £32 but not at £25."

It was busy, and still a bargain at £32 so I bought it anyway.

Later my wife pointed out that she thought the assistant had inferred that we had tampered with the label, without saying as much.

I'm sure the manager didn't mean any harm, but that perception is there now.

I wonder why with a full shop the manager didn't just sell the coat at the price marked regardless. She would have had a very happy family of customers and not left a bad taste in our mouths.

She was busy, but for the sake of a few quid she could have had a raving fan not just a happy shopper.

Like a finger pointing to the moon

Finally found the clip of Finger pointing to the Moon, from Enter the Dragon. Priceless.

Bruce Lee Video Clip

This is the best adaptation of a Bruce Lee Clip I've ever seen. Plus it uses Star Wars effects.

This is 70's kid heaven!

Invest in copy

Seth Godin, points to one of the greatest sins in advertising.

• Just do pretty pictures

People forget the copy. On a bill board, pictures are king, the copy should be minimal (how much can you read at 40mph?)

On press ads and all other handheld print, not forgetting websites. Copy is king all the pretty pictures will get you is two more seconds attention. In that two seconds you need to grip the customer and get them to buy.

Only words can do that. Invest in them and they pay off 100 times.

BBC underestimate cost of translation

A recent report by the BBC into the cost of Translation by the UK Government estimated that they spend £100 Million per year.

The nation gasped, how could they spend all that. Well the nation don't know the half of it.

I work in translation and I recon that the cost is more like £500 Million! It's all hidden costs you see. Translation disappears into Marketing (yes me again), mysterious project costs and a million (500 to be exact) other things.

If only they bought it in a more sensible way and used Translation Memory and Telephone interpreting they'd save a huge amount.

As you'd expect, as Head of Marketing for Applied Language, I've done a bit of work on this already.

Here are the press releases for more information, oh yes and the podcast.

Google are human! At last I can call them!

After all this time, someone at Google has a phone number! At last there will be someone to speak to, even if it's only for Adwords it's a start.

I just got this email, you'll get one soon. But in case it gets lost in Spam here it is:


Hello,

Thank you for advertising with the Google AdWords program.

As part of our ongoing efforts to provide you with the best service possible, we are pleased to offer you the opportunity to contact our AdWords specialists by telephone. You can now call our dedicated local rate number.

If you are calling from the UK, please dial: 0845 358 0038, alternatively if you are calling from the Republic of Ireland, please dial: 1890 94 3980.

Then, for fastest service please follow the instructions below:

1. To expedite your call, press 2 to enter your Customer ID. This number is located at the top of every page in your AdWords account, next to your name and email address.

2. Press 3 if you do not have your Customer ID available and would like to be transferred to the next available AdWords Specialist.

You can reach our AdWords Specialists by phone Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, between the hours of 9a.m and 6p.m and on Tuesday and Friday from 9a.m to 5p.m.

As always, we are happy to assist you in any way possible.

Please also feel free to contact us via email at adwords-uk@google.com, and we will reply within one business day.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords UK and Ireland Team

How not to Translate or Interpret

In my line of work you hear a lot of stories about how companies have someone who speaks french, or they have a relative who can write Chinese.

So they use these people to translate or interpret and they end up with a terrible job. But there are a few reasons why they might continue to use these friends, for translation.

1. They don't have any understanding of the languages so have no way to check the quality
2. They are too embarrassed to tell their friend/colleague that they are doing a bad job
3. They are too blinded by the cost of a professional translation or interpretation to pay for a professional

All three are really bad reasons. Would you trust an accountant to fix your car?

Then why trust one to translate for you?

Here's a great clip from the Catherine Tate show in the UK. It Illustrates my point perfectly.

Reg Vardy the worst possible customer service Part 1

A few months ago I went to buy a new car with my wife. We wanted a Citroen Picasso, nice car, just right for the kids. We figured Reg Vardy in Sheffield would do us a good deal and give good service. We couldn't have been more wrong.

Here is a copy of the letter and email we sent to Reg Vardy and Citroen to complain. I'm still waiting too months after for a good answer.

I've removed actual names, Reg Vardy is the one who should be ashamed of hiring and training their staff. It's not the staff's fault that they are allowed to work in this manner. Here goes, enjoy. Let me know what you think.

Would you ever buy a car from these people?

I am writing to complain about the appalling service I received from your team at Reg Vardy Citroen, on Penistone Road, Sheffield. On 17th September 2006, my wife and I visited the dealership and spoke to XXXX XXXXX, one of your sales representatives and informed him that we were interested in test driving a Citroen Picasso. After a lot of deliberation he found us a Picasso in our price range on your system. We were told however that it was in Sunderland and would need to be brought to Sheffield for us to test drive it and this would be done within the next few days. We were asked to leave a deposit of £100 to secure the vehicle and told that if we were not happy with it after a test drive we could have the deposit back. We were not totally happy about leaving a deposit but did so any way as a show of faith in the company.

As the following week wore on, we received no phone calls from XXXX or Reg Vardy. On Friday 22nd of September we received a message on our answer machine at home from XXXX saying that he had trying to get hold of us all week to give us an update on where we were with the car. This was the first message we received. I called him back on Saturday 23rd September and was told that the car would be in early the next week. I then waited and heard nothing so I called the dealer on Thursday 28th September and spoke to a man called XXXXX who said he was the sales manager. He said that he would check on the progress of the car and call me back in five minutes. He actually called 2½ hours later, and said that the car should be ready to see at the weekend.

We then called on Friday 29th September 2006 and were told that the car was in and having its checks and would be available to test drive on Saturday. We agreed that we would test drive on Saturday 30th September 2006 at 2.00pm. We arranged a babysitter for our children and arrived at the showroom at about 1.50pm with my father-in-law who we brought along to help us assess the car.

When we arrived, XXXX looked for the car in the back lot and couldn’t find it. He said it had been there 40 minutes earlier (approx. 1.10pm), he then went back into the office and said that it was in the mechanic’s garage and he would take us in there to see it. He then took us into the garage to show us the car which was up on a ramp without its wheels and brakes. I assumed it was part way through its checks. At this point I said to XXXX that I was upset because we had been promised that we could test drive the car and arranged child care to fit this in. I then said that I wanted to cancel the deal and wanted my deposit returned. My father-in-law then mentioned a scratch he had seen on the passenger side of the car. XXXX then became quite aggressive and asked who my father-in-law was. He then said that he didn’t want to discuss the matter any more in the garage and wanted us to speak to the manager.