HubSpot says “You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing”
This is my kind of marketing…great lessons for the entre- or solopreneur…or for that matter all business!
When FREE Press Is Good.
In life and business you get what you pay for…generally. We spend more on the things that matter most…personally speaking homes, cars, vacations, clothing, education…and the list goes on. Of course what’s most important to one could mean nothing to the next person. And think about it, when you really wanted or “needed” something, didn’t you find a way to get that thing?
In public relations and marketing, especially, free doesn’t always work to the mompreneur or fitpreneur’s advantage. BUT we’ve all heard of free press and if you’ve done some research know that there are numerous sites out there touting how free press is more than attainable for your business. There are a ton of free press release distribution sites out there that promise you great exposure and that your press release will get picked up by numerous news sites and bloggers. But how do you know this is fact? Do those free press release submission providers effectively track your press release? Do they guide you in writing your press release so that it will target your niche or ideal customer?
Free press is good. No doubt; if obtained strategically and effectively. I’ve learned a great deal from Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart. She is a PR genius in my book and her website has a wealth of information for someone learning to do PR for their solo biz on the cheap. The tactics are right-on and it’s well worth your time to check it out.
Free press is also great, and often easy to achieve if you are targeting a local market. A fitpreneur offering new boot camp classes, or opening a new, innovative personal training studio would be well served submitting their press releases to their local media contacts and localized blog sites. A mompreneur offering professional organizing services to other moms with multiple children would also benefit from submitting press releases to local media contact. Our local and regional publications are, for the most part, still alive and well. And often they are looking for unique, interesting stories to fill their pages with.
Bottom line
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Free press is good, especially when targeting local and regional publications. Go out there and get your buzz!
Copyright 2009 Teresa H Berger, MBA | Innovate Services PR|Editorial.
You Get What You Pay For…Good PR Costs Money
Okay, so you are a mom with a fab new, innovative product you want to promote to moms like you, or a fitpreneur looking to boost buzz about your biz and promote that awesome new certification you recently obtained. But your budget is slim to
none…where do you go to get the buzz your hard work so deserves?
You could go to one of the free press release submission sites like those listed below which will potentially get you some interest, but it’s a crap shoot.
They are free, so of course, their services are limited and you won’t be able to easily track the success of your submissions. If you’re seriously strapped and cannot even invest a small amount of money in your PR campaign, then these will have to do. But in reality, you want your press release to get out to the right people the first time, right? You want it to reach your target market/ideal client...fast. If that is the case, then you’ll have to consider seriously investing some money and partnering with a professional who has expertise in this area, access to various media contacts and can customize a campaign for you. Or look into press release submission services that will allow you to submit a press release you’ve written on your own. But if you’ve never written a press release on your own, do you know what to include or exclude? Do you know how to craft buzz-worthy headlines and the meat of the release that will leave the reader wanting to know more?
Bottom line
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nothing is really, truly free; you have to spend money to make money; it’s cost-effective to reach your target market the first time rather than reaching out blindly and hoping you’ll hit them with your news.
Copyright 2009 Teresa H Berger, MBA | Innovate Services PR|Editorial.
What exactly does Innovate Services PR|Editorial do?
K.I.S.S. Tip – Seeing is Believing, Put Your Goals in Plain Sight for Success
Have you ever found yourself lost in a sea of “to‐dos;” lists of goals for the day, week, month or year; or just gotten burnt out looking at all you want or need to accomplish for the week? We all have. It’s our nature to have long “bucket lists” of things we need to accomplish before we turn in for the night or leave this world. Plus, as business owners, we’re not only managing our lists but those of our clients and team members, if we have a collaborative practice with subcontractors or employees.
- How do we keep what is most important to us in the forefront?
- How do we hone in on our innermost dreams and desires for this business we started 1, 5, 10 or 20 years ago?
- How do we break down our goals into achievable bite‐size pieces of the pie?
Seeing Is Believing
There are numerous ways to keep your goals in the forefront and top‐of‐mind. Many of us are visually driven. If we see something that identifies with our goal, we can potentially see it as more attainable. This is why it is important to keep clear pictures of the goals you have set for yourself this year: in your mind, on your computer, in your office on
paper, or on a big bulletin board. This visual representation does not have to be elaborate nor include your goals for 10 years from now. It’s probably best to keep it to 1, 2 or 3 years, then update as you go. When a goal is achieved, take a look at your visual representation and check that item off your list. Imagine how rewarding it will feel to know you
achieved that goal you set for yourself and see it marked on your visual representation.
Crystal Clear Focus
Who hasn’t heard the phrase, “Your life is what you make it”? And one of my all time favorite quotes is, “Decide who you are and who you want to be; then do everything in your power to be that.” That’s obviously easier said than done. But what we as professionals and business owners need to do is maintain the focus and keep our goals in the forefront. It’s so easy to lose track, take the wrong path or get convinced that what worked for someone else’s business will work for ours. That’s not the answer to achieving true success. Of course, if you find a method, product or practice that someone else implemented in their business and it is simplifying and streamlining yours, by all means don’t reinvent the wheel. Take baby steps to achieving each goal. Take your visual representations and break each one into 5, 7 or even 10 attainable baby steps, then schedule them on your calendar. Make appointments with yourself for each task.
Work ON Your Biz
In our virtual industry, it’s so easy to get bogged down with client work, working IN our businesses rather than ON our businesses. We can easily lose sight of the initial goals we set out to accomplish when we started our businesses. And, over time, our goals and business models will change. We’ll have to update our goal lists whether they’re in our heads, on paper or in electronic form. We’ll have to reevaluate where we want our businesses to be in 3, 5 or 10 years. But that is what makes being a business owner and virtual professional so great. We have the power to set our own goals, to decide who we want to be and who we want to work with. The key is to remain true to ourselves and keep our professional and personal goals in plain sight and not let working IN the business overpower working ON the business.
Copyright 2009 Teresa H. Berger & Innovate Services.
K.I.S.S. Tip – Hire a Professional Virtual Assistant for Your PR Needs
Whether you’re looking for an extra set of eagle eyes for your next press release, or you find yourself staring at a blank screen pondering what the heck you’ve done recently that is newsworthy…there is always an option to get that buzz-worthy press release completed and in front of the right people.
Maybe you don’t want to do it yourself…no worries, you can find a professional Virtual Assistant firm backed by expertise in the public relations and editorial arenas that loves to write, edit and submit press releases. I’m one of those pro VA’s that thrives on helping clients get the buzz they so deserve for their products and services. And when I’m not writing, editing or submitting press releases and articles for my clients, I’m reading up on current public relations issues and tips for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and mompreneurs. One of the places I often turn to is The Publicity Hound. Joan Stewart has a wealth of information at the Publicity Hound site that is great for a first-time press releaser or a seasoned PR pro.
Here she shares why partnering with a professional PR VA may be your ticket to producing buzz for your product or service.
Public relations and publicity just got easier, thanks to the exploding virtual assistance industry.
That means virtual assistants–independent contractors who help clients with a wide variety of tasks virtually, sometimes from thousands of miles away–are adding publicity-related skills to their offerings.
Some virtual assistants are writing press releases, creating and distributing media kits, updating media contact lists, ordering reprints of newspaper and magazine articles, writing and submitting articles to online article directories, researching podcasts and blogs where the client can generate publicity, ghostwriting blogs for their clients, and finding ways to recycle the client’s publicity.
Publicity skills and so much more.
As if that isn’t enough, VAs who work for clients that write books are also looking for book reviewers. They fill orders and ship products, do keyword research and even remind clients when it’s time to send thank-you notes to the media.
If the client is a speaker, some VAs even help book speaking engagements, write press releases about the client’s upcoming gigs, and send invoices to meeting planners, complete with a breakdown of the client’s expenses.
In most cases, they do not and should not directly pitch ideas to the media on the clients’ behalf. As a former newspaper editor, I think that sends the message, “My client is too busy to talk to you, so he sent me instead, and he wants publicity.”
Some VAs have full access to their clients’ financial statements. They have their clients’ credit card numbers, and they even write checks and process payments through PayPal.
How to use a virtual assistant for public relations or publicity.
Hiring VAs to help with any aspect of public relations or publicity is a great solution for:
- People who can’t afford more expensive publicists or public relations agencies
- Publicists or public relations practitioners who want to outsource publicity and public relations tasks
- Companies and non-profits that have lean public relations staffs
- Business owners who want publicity but that don’t have time to do all the tedious grunt work a publicity campaign entails
- Businesses that have one virtual assistant but need a second one with a different skill set
- Authors that are ready to launch a book, or authors whose new books require them to attend to things such as book signings, media interviews and other special events
- Speakers who are on the road frequently and need a virtual assistant to manage the office as well as a publicity campaign
- Anyone who hates doing certain types of general chores like website maintenance, invoicing and database management, or publicity-related chores like obtaining reprint rights and updating bios
A variety of trade associations for virtual assistants makes finding a virtual assistant who can help with publicity much easier than it used to be.
Isn’t it time you hired a virtual assistant to help with your public relations tasks, and publicity?
(See “How to Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Publicity Campaign.”)
Monday Minute – K.I.S.S. PR Tip
Ever wonder how some entrepreneurs and mompreneurs seem to pop up everywhere online? It’s not by chance, that’s for sure. Those entrepreneurs and mompreneurs are either well organized and have a plan in place for all of their public relations activities or they have partnered up with a professional virtual assistant specialized in PR to help them get the buzz they dream of. A huge piece of that buzz-generating pie is being consistent and well organized.
Here’s your Monday Minute K.I.S.S. tip – if you’re going to do PR, do it consistently, simply, and develop an annual calendar (either in your contact management system or on good ol paper). Follow that PR calendar to a T.
Don’t know where to begin? Contact us for your K.I.S.S. PR needs.
Copyright Teresa H Berger & Innovate Services 2009. This Monday Minute is brought to you by Teresa H Berger, lead Visionary & PR Pro at Innovate Services. As a mompreneur, wife, business owner and partner to clients who need PR|Editorial rescue.
Friday K.I.S.S. Tip: How to Succeed at Content Marketing Even if Your Content Skills Suck
Turn on your TV at 6 pm. What do you get?
The news, right?
Then turn it on tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the week after.
You can turn in on at any day and guess what?
The news is still on at 6 pm.
Now imagine if you tuned in on a Monday, and they had a sitcom. What if you tuned in on Tuesday and oops, it’s an adult movie with clothes flying all over the place. And then maybe on Wednesday it’s the news again.
Would you continue to watch that channel for news? Or would you simply go to a channel that was more reliable?
Many people don’t understand that the most important thing in content marketing is reliability. I don’t care if you put out ten or twenty or seventy-three pieces of content a month.
I just want to see it same bat-time, same bat-channel. So be reliable.
If you’re going to write an email newsletter, the first thing you need to know is that it needs to be published on a pre-fixed schedule from now until the year 2025. If you’re going to post videos on YouTube, plan for 2025 too.
It doesn’t matter if email newsletters or YouTube will change or even continue to exist in the years to come. What’s important is that you’ve created a channel, and you’re the content producer. And you jolly well better show up, or I’m leaving you for a more reliable channel.
- It’s not just your credibility that takes a beating; it’s also your sales.
- And not just your sales, but also your pipeline of new customers.
- And not just your pipeline of new customers, but also return customers.
Your whole darned business really depends on your reliability of communication. Why? I’ll tell you why!
It’s because if you don’t show up, the customer’s memory of you gets increasingly blurry. And that’s only one part of the problem. The other part is that if you don’t show up, and the customer wants to buy your product or service, they’ll buy the product or service anyway… from someone else.
- Remember the time you bought an iTunes album, just because you got the newsletter?
- Remember the time you bought something online just because you saw a video?
- Remember the time Oprah recommended a book, and you traipsed off to buy that very book?
Of course this brings us to a very important juncture: The problem with perfection.
What if you don’t really like the quality of your current content? I have news for you. You’re never going to be completely satisfied—ever!
But you’ll look back at your work six months from now, and the work you’re doing then will be much better, even though you still think it’s not good enough. You’ll look back at today’s work two years from now, and you’ll wonder how you ever got anyone to pay attention at all.
If you really want to get better, you won’t get better wondering about it. You’ll get better only by producing content consistently. You have to put out newsletter after newsletter, video after video, to get better.
Put out what you have today. It doesn’t matter how crappy it looks to your eyes… just put it out. And then improve as you go.
People will put up with less than polished prose, or less than professional video or audio, but they won’t put up with fruity frequency. They’ll simply change the channel and go elsewhere.
If you don’t want customers and prospects to leave, you need to have a plan.
So here’s your plan:
- Get started today by putting a schedule in place.
- Promise this schedule to your audience (even if you have a list of three people).
- Get your content out on the day/days you promised.
- Don’t forget that reliability is everything, because quality comes from consistently doing.
Posted with permission from Sean D’Souza offers a free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter. Check out his blog, too.
Monday Minute – 3 Reasons to Infuse Fitness Into Your Life for Business
We all know being healthy & active prolongs our life, reduces stress, and helps strengthen our immune system. But what can adding fitness & healthy practices to our lives do for your business? Here are 3 key tips that will make you want to infuse fitness into your business:
- Exercise breeds focus. I don’t know about you, but when I exercise, especially if I’m doing yoga or exercising in front of a window with a great view, I feel like I’m taking the time to clear my head of clutter, think about what is most important and focus on what truly matters. And 99.9% of the time, when you finish your exercise you’ll live with a clear, focused more strong mind…you’ll be ready to conquer the day or finish the day with focus.
- Positive attitudes come from self-care. When you exercise, don’t you feel like you’re doing something positive for yourself (and for your family) because you’re caring for the ONE body you have? As business owners we must maintain positive attitudes toward our business and our clients. When we care for ourselves, our bodies we have a greater chance of maintaining a more even-keeled positive attitude toward things. Events and problems seem to be more manageable when you’re feeling healthy and strong.
- Healthy self-esteem makes you a magnet for success. Okay, so we don’t want to exercise solely to feel better about ourselves and shout to the world how great we think we look since we’ve been exercising. No one likes anyone that has an unhealthy ego. But what is good about infusing a consistent fitness practice into your life is that it will definitely trickle over into your business practices. You’ll notice, as others will, that you have more energy to take on tasks. You’ll have a feel-good sense that can make it easier to attract people your way. Think about it, don’t you often feel drawn to people who smile a lot, people who seem to take good care of themselves, people who seem positive and upbeat about life? We all want to know what their secret is…and my guess is often times it’s that they’ve infused fitness into their lives.
Copyright Teresa H Berger & Innovate Services 2009. This Monday Minute is brought to you by Teresa H Berger, lead Visionary & PR Pro at Innovate Services. As a mompreneur, wife, certified group fitness instructor, business owner and partner to clients who need PR|Editorial rescue, she knows the importance of having a positive outlook on life and business. And she works hard to maintain that through stress-relieving and mind-clearing exercise.
Innovate Services & Client Media Mentions…
http://www.business-opportunities.biz http://blog.cristinafavreau.com http://www.ivaa.org/pdfs/latestcast.pdf http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog
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