Unsolicited Marketing Advice

The Associated Press Stylebook (order online at http://www.apstylebook.com/) is the Bible for the journalist and public relations practitioner alike. Standardizing on AP style for your organization’s newsletters and other communication efforts is essential for a smooth running, professional PR department.

However, training staff to be proficient with AP style can be a bit more of a challenge. Not every staff member you hire comes with a J school background, and support staff may be more familiar with Gregg or other business styles. Assigning the Stylebook as required reading is a start, but can be as daunting as reading a dictionary. These online resources for practice and assessment may be able to help:

AP Style Quiz
Prepared by Joe Marren at Buffalo State, this interactive 15-question quiz tells you the correct answer before you move on to the next question.

Newsroom 101
A total of 65 interactive practices each consisting of 10 questions. Review practices are spaced throughout the lessons. You are given the correct answer and an explanation after making each multiple choice selection.

Test Yourself on AP Style
Developed by Journalism Professor Michael Sweeny at Utah State University, these 30 AP style questions appear on a single sheet for easy printing. Click to view the answer sheet. This quiz could be conveniently used as an assessment with job seekers.

Technorati Tags: Copy Writing

Labels: Copy Writing, Public Relations

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 7:30 PM | Permalink | |

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Laurie Brown addresses the basics of giving authoritative presentations that people pay attention to in her excellent article, “Are They Snoring in the Back Row?”

In addition to some age-old, but often overlooked advice such as, “distribute hand-outs after your presentation” and “rehearse,” she also suggests some radical new ideas – like “throw away your PowerPoint.”

Brown’s article is a good refresher on presentation basics that are often overlooked.

Technorati Tags: Presentations

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 7:00 AM | Permalink | |

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It’s easy to waste time clicking through folders on your computer, especially when you have lots of them. Here are a couple efficiency tips that may come in handy.

1) Put Your Most Frequently Used Folders on the Places Bar in Microsoft Office
If you find your self frequently navigating through folders and subfolders when opening or saving files in Microsoft Office applications, you can speed things up by putting common folders on the “Places Bar,” which runs down the left side of these dialog boxes. With your most common folder locations added to this bar, you can quickly jump to your most frequently used directories.

Earlier versions of Microsoft Office required a registry hack to accomplish this, but recent versions of Microsoft Office have made this fairly convenient:

• From within any Microsoft Office application, such as Word, invoke a dialog box. For example, select File/Open.
• In the Places Bar on the left side of the box, right click and select “Small Icons.” This will allow you to place up to 10 items on the Places Bar.
• Now, with the dialog box still open, manually navigate to a commonly used folder.
• Click the Tools button across the top of the dialog box and select “Add to “My Places.”
• You can arrange the newly placed item by right clicking on it and selecting “Move Up” or “Move Down.”

Microsoft Support page regarding modifying the Places Bar

Customize the Places Bar in earlier versions of Office through modifying the registry.

2. Change Default View of Windows Explorer to Show Details
It can be inconvenient to constantly be switching to “details view” in Windows Explorer (previously better named “File Manager”). The thumbnails or slideshow view is nice when viewing a folder of photos or graphic files, but in all other cases finding, sorting and selecting files is much easier by setting the View menu to the Details option. Personally, I have no use for the list, icon or tile views at all.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to set the Details View as your default. For Windows XP, follow these steps:

• Right click the Start button and select Explore.
• When Windows Explorer loads, select the View menu and then the Details View.
• Now select the Tools menu, and select Folder Options.
• On the View Tab, choose Apply to All Folders.
• You’re done.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a way to set open/save as dialog boxes to always default to the detail view, at least without running another software program in the background. Phil Jerns explains the technical details of why it isn’t possible to set a detail view default in dialog boxes, even with a registry change.

Technorati Tags: Productivity

Labels: Productivity

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 7:15 AM | Permalink | |

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It’s amazing how much energy is embodied in many non-carbonated beverage products. We’re not talking about Red Bull, or the caffeine and sugar combinations that give some products their kick, but rather the virtual energy created by the uniqueness of the contents and/or the excitement of their packaging. Some examples:

Arizona Black Tea with Ginseng and Honey – Cool name (remember how Henry John Deutschendorf changed his last name to Denver?) and a bottle with cool pictographs.
Fuze – Unique combinations of fruit flavors, vitamins and colorful packaging
SoBe Liz Blizz – A coconut-flavored drink in an unexpected color for a beverage other than milk.
Novus Tea – Traditional and exotic teas float freely in a large, prism-shaped bag, simulating a traditional tea ball.
POM – A unique fruit juice, Pomegranate, in a uniquely shaped bottle.

In contrast, so many products are boring. Maybe your product is boring.

These beverages clearly focus on unique ingredients and snazzy packaging. But whitewash alone is never enough to make any product successful. Instead, the key to beverage marketing is to understand is that the product being sold is not the liquid, nor the packaging, but rather the concept of excitement, the opportunity for health or the promise of coolness that the product entails.

Here is a point that you can apply to your situation: it’s not about your product – or even the features of your product -- it’s about the benefits that your product promises to bring to the user.

With these beverages, the user is purchasing one or more of these benefits:

• the promise of health benefits
• being fashionable or trendy among peers
• a tangible or intangible feeling of pleasure

To apply beverage marketing lessons to your product:

1. Understand your product’s benefits from the consumer standpoint
2. Repeat step #1 as needed until firmly understood
3. Creatively rethink your packaging and distribution to enhance the consumer’s experience
4. Mix in creativity that breaks through the clutter while reinforcing the true product benefits

Apply these lessons, and you may be able to move your product from the category of “boring” to a place where consumers consider its merits -- and hopefully embrace it as something that meets their needs.

Technorati Tags: Marketing

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 8:00 AM | Permalink | |

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For the purpose of tracking the results of your direct marketing efforts, there are at least three types of responses:

Active Responses are those where the individual sends in a business reply card, calls you on the phone, or otherwise takes an action recommended in your piece. Your call center or receptionist should be tracking these responses with appropriate software or log sheets.

Passive Responses are those that do not initiate a dialog with you, but still partake of the product or service you were promoting in your piece. You will need to measure sales activity and compare it to your mailing data to identify this response level, although a spike in sales can be a good indication of positive results.

Another type of response is the Alternate Buying Phenomenon. This is a well-document result of many direct marketing and advertising efforts. In this case, an individual is neither an active responder, nor do they quietly slip out to the store to buy your featured product. Instead, your piece generates interest and awareness and the individual ends up purchasing a different product or service (hopefully from your company!).

With the Alternate Buying Phenomenon, the effect of your mailing is enough to send the individual to the store or to your web site where they find something else that interests them – a wrench instead of your mailing about Spring fashions, for example. Or perhaps a blouse instead of a skirt. In another instance, the mailing may act as an inspiration to remember your brand and pursue a different service that your company offers. Either way (or perhaps through other mechanisms), the tide rises and your analysis will show additional measurable activity above the control group.

Technorati Tags: Direct Mail

Labels: Direct Mail

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 7:15 AM | Permalink | |

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