The Web’s Too Big

It would seem that most UK PR agencies missed the Cluetrain.

According to a study of 100 major PR firms 79% have not yet developed online PR and social media services. And half of those that did get the clue are based in London, says the BigMouth Media report. 28% of the London based PR firms offer Internet PR services and 14% of them blog.

“If PR is to properly address the challenges and opportunities that new media offers, the industry must invest in relevant services and training at all levels. Those failing to do so run the long-term risk of losing out in the inevitable battle for the online communications market.” Adam Parker, Chief Executive of online news distribution company webitpr.

We’ve seen many “Ten ways to…” style articles out there.  However, this one on attracting people to your site provides 10 common sense tips for achieving exactly what it says on the tin.

Sometimes a simple list of reminders is the most useful resource of all.

When something like vertical search makes it into The Economist, you know that things are getting more serious.

This might be of particular interest to you Marketing types. You want a flashy website - one that looks nice for your potential clients, and now you’ve got one and it’s all lovely and sparkly and written in Flash.

Well, that’s your first problem.

Don’t write websites in Flash and expect them to rank well in search engines.

Search engines cannot read flash well enough to know what the structure and content of your website is, so unless you only want to rank well on Yahoo and have thousands of inbound links to your site, you’re not going to do very well. You might have noticed that recently bigger sites have been moving away from all flash sites. We’ve certainly noticed that a large proportion of PR sites have flash sites.

If you really must use flash, use it sparingly for panels on your website. Don’t use it for the whole site. Remember there’s a vast difference between content and style. Flash can give you style, but as far as the search engines are concerned it won’t give you content. Couldn’t care less if your site looks lovely.

One of the original benefits of search marketing was that it was offered more of a level playing field than the more ‘traditional’ marketing methods, in that it was possible for smaller PR agencies to readily afford to run a PPC campaigns on the likes of Google and Yahoo! alongside much larger rivals. For a while this presented an amazing opportunity to do some great, inexpensive marketing.

This situation no longer exists. Today, the cost of appearing across the main PPC search channels on an ongoing basis is just too expensive for most PR agencies to afford - it’s a bit like asking them to take out ads in glossy business mags or national newspapers. Yes, PPC services allow users to spend only the amount they can afford, but the marketing budgets of most small to medium PR agencies don’t stretch to £1,000+ per month. Spending £10 a day on a Google campaign will run out quickly and will not create a huge amount of visibility unless you are very targeted in your selection of search terms. Go for anything big and broad like ‘PR’ or ‘public relations’ and small budgets get burned.

That’s not to say it’s not a good idea - it’s brilliant to appear on the major SEs all the time as long as you have the budget available and are prepared to receive diverse interest from people with a whole range of motivations. But it’s important to go into a search marketing with your eyes open. Your spend is going to yield a certain amount of hits to your site, which will be a percentage of your total page impressions. Of this group, a smaller percentage will contact you.

Among these inquiries you will get the following:

- spam (all the usual nonsense, really)
- sales leads (some of which will be of interest to you, some of which won’t)
- requests for work from students
- requests for work from PR people
- suppliers who want to meet you (photographers, designers, web companies, etc)
- Other miscellaneous questions/offers/etc

In PR measurement terms, the ‘opportunity to see’ will always be distilled to a smaller number of very valuable sales leads that you would like to turn into clients. Maximising this element is where the effort needs to be placed. One of the big challenges is relevance. A UK search on Google for ‘PR agency’ returns ‘About 1,310,000 results’, plus all the sponsored links people as well. That’s from one search phrase, remember. There are several hundred PR related search phrases that get used with any kind of volume, so the total number is massive. Focus your efforts, especially when your marketing budget won’t allow you to do absolutely everything, and it could be the best marketing money you’ve ever spent.

Copyright, The Web’s Toob Big Ltd, 2007

Internal Communication is an often forgotten part of the wider discipline of Public Relations but one which should never be ignored. Employees of a company are always the first line ambassadors for their company. We know that in practice employees are not always complimentary about the company they work for - maybe this is a British trait - but it is one which effective internal communications can help influence and address.

Companies need to be committed to Internal Communications and senior management need to be fully behind programmes adopted by the company. In this day and age of email, and sitting face to face with computers, actually talking to people is often neglected.

The key to successful internal communications is activity which provides employees with regular updates on the company which are well communicated. Internal communications measures include regular company meetings and status updates, events, sporting and other activities to bring the company together.

A number of companies have banned email on Fridays as a way of encouraging employees to talk directly to one another. Company intranets are always a good vehicle for disseminating company information, messages and announcements. Inductions for new staff should always include the company’s key messages and brand values.

Companies that invest time and effort in effective internal communication strategies have high staff retention, better productivity and ultimately higher profits.

Copyright, The Web’s Too Big Ltd, 2007

Employers have a lot of choice when it comes to hiring graduates, but it’s not as difficult as you might think to stand out from the crowd when applying for a graduate role.

Bear in mind that an agency can get hundreds of CVs from a single job advertisement, and even though some of these points may seem obvious, it’s amazing how many applicants don’t even do the basics right (in my experience, most of them get something wrong). Try these for size:

Tailor your communication. Never blanket email agencies, always compose your communication from scratch, The agency wants to see you’ve made the effort, so make specific reference to the job advert and research the agency in question. If you’re getting in touch on a speculative basis explain why you want to work for them. There’s usually more than enough information on agency websites to achieve this.

Be relevant. I’ve seen hundreds of cover letters/emails over the years that didn’t even mention PR, so put yourself in the position of the reader at the other end. Explain your interest/passion for the job and what is it about you specifically that they would be interested in. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there isn’t anything interesting to say – there always is.

Go for work experience. Even if it’s just a couple of weeks unpaid, that can be incredibly valuable and improve your CV ahead of one that just lists academic experience.

Make use of all the resources available to you. For example, a search for ‘jobs’ or ‘recruitment’ on The Web’s Too Big will give you details from lots of agencies who may be recruiting. Don’t be afraid to call PR agencies and ask for advice. Try recruitment companies as well. Don’t limit yourself to the big London agencies. It’s understandable why graduates may want to live and work in London and get a big agency name on their CV right away, but there’s more to the UK PR industry than London. There are good agencies all over the UK, and a smaller agency can often deliver more effective training.

Don’t give up. Sometimes it’s a question of being in the right place at the right time, and most agencies only recruit once or twice a year at most. And don’t forget that it’s usually only the larger agencies that have organised graduate intake schemes. So if, they ask you to keep in touch, make sure you do, but above all don’t give up if you have a few ‘thanks but no thanks’ letters – it might just be bad timing.

Copyright, The Web’s Too Big Ltd, 2007

By Berkeley PR

With companies spending on average ten per cent of their marketing budget on public relations, ensuring value for money and measuring return on investment is understandably at the top of the marketing manager’s agenda. But evaluating the success of a PR campaign should be a two-way street and not just the responsibility of your agency. Chris Hewitt, CEO at Berkeley PR, challenges companies to become more involved in achieving and measuring the success of PR.

The age old question

As PR professionals, it is inevitable that we will be asked to analyse how the coverage we generate has influenced buying behaviour. This is always a very difficult question to answer. There are numerous ways to measure the input and output achieved from a campaign but identifying the outcomes, i.e. if PR has influenced the buying decision, is a tougher nut to crack. If you want to prove the value of PR you, the client, have to be part of the solution.

Laying Down the Gauntlet
. Believe in it
If you don’t believe you can achieve any value from PR then why do it? A lack of understanding about how PR works and fits into the whole marketing mix will mean that you are less likely to put in the time required to achieve the best result. PR is a two-way street and in order to get the most out you need to spend some time putting something in.

. Be involded
Evaluating the success of a PR campaign is not the sole responsibility of your PR agency. One of the difficulties in assessing the impact of PR on sales is that it is virtually impossible to isolate its impact from other marketing efforts, such as advertising, direct mail, search engine marketing and point of sale offers. That is because it is rare for an individual or a business to make a purchase based on editorial coverage alone, whether it’s a bottle of shampoo, a digital camera or a software package. The trick is to make sure you are gathering information from your customers, your sales people and your web site so that you can combine that with the coverage evaluation to gain an overall picture of what is influencing people.

. Share your objectives
Keep your agency up to date with business changes and new strategies for the coming months so that they can put PR campaigns in place which will fit with your objectives. Don’t be afraid to seek advice from your agency on areas of focus or help with fine tuning objectives. If all marketing efforts are aligned, the combined output is more likely to result in a sale or call from a potential customer who has read an article by your company or received a flyer for a discount.

. Making a return on your investment
It is very rare that a sale can be directly attributed to media coverage alone (although it can often tip the balance in generating a valuable sales lead). Evaluating coverage (where it appeared, what it said, who might have read it) helps highlight the effectiveness of your PR and can be very sophisticated. But the answer to the question “Am I getting good value from my investment in PR?” can only truly be found when you put PR, and your working relationship with your PR agency, into the wider context of your marketing activity.

Copyright, The Web’s Too Big Ltd, 2007

Yesterday morning I noticed, during my daily check of our SERPs positions, that our Yahoo ranking had dropped right down. I got a bit worried about it until this morning when I found that it had gone back up and was even better than before.

If you get worried about rankings dropping out, it’s a good idea to check the Google and Yahoo blogs to see if they’ve changed anything, as I did and found this posted yesterday

http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000461.html

“We rolled out some changes to our index and ranking algorithm last night. So, as you know, throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages included in the index. This update should be complete very soon.”

Yahoo Search Blog
Google Blog
Matt Cutts Google Blog

Adam

I’m getting very close to not bothering to blog articles describing what vertical search is - there are already lots.

However, this one is worth a mention, as it comes at it from a slightly different angle, and takes a look at professional verticals, as well as the usual focus on consumer VSEs