Showing posts with label Public Relations. Show all posts

Friday, January 2, 2015

How to Get Your Story into Google News

Before we talk about how to get your business story into Google news, we ought to talk about why. It is obvious, of course, that you want your business story in the news.

But why Google news in particular?
Well, first, if your business has been attempting to increase its exposure in organic Google web search or even Google shopping, a few more simple steps can increase how much publicity you’ll receive, in an area where your competitors can’t easily follow you.

Since you’re already creating written articles, you might as well get more than one benefit from them. You can create once, and profit in several ways.

Google News is a reliable, repeatable source of visitors, and they will usually arrive faster, while you wait for things like Google organic search results to kick in.

Second, reading news is one of the leading reasons why people log on to the internet each day. 85% of Americans over the age of 18 use the web, according to Pew Internet Research. 78% of those web users have arrived here to read news.

We used to read the newspaper. Now we scan news websites, headlines we find on Twitter or Facebook, and subscribe via email to industry news.

Since the main reason the majority of people come online is to use search engines like Google, you may be tempted to simply target Google organic search and be done with it.

However, consider this: if you can find places to get more customer eyes on your message – usually much faster than your desired keyword ranking – wouldn’t the extra sales and leads be worth your while?

How Does Your Business Story End Up in Google News Results?
There are three great methods. The first method, is by having a press release accepted to one of the 50,000 publishers sharing the 6 billion monthly clicks which Google News reserves exclusively for them. (That doesn’t include additional organic search traffic.)

For a small fee, there are many press release distribution services that will do this for you, for anywhere from $25 to $200 each time. You can also often find smaller publications that accept free or low cost press releases.

If you wanted to do this every day, it could add up to quite a bit of money. However, this isn’t a bad technique to test the market and repeat, say, once a week.
There’s an easier, faster way.

My favorite way to get published in Google News is having my article accepted by a publication that is already in Google News. They are commonly referred to as Google News publishers.
You don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand the benefits of being published in a prominent publication with a byline that points back to your site, versus the amount of money you’d have to spend in advertising to get that same level of exposure.

It’s a little more difficult to get into Google News this way because you may need to be approved by an editorial staff in order to be published. Those publications may ask for exclusive first-time rights to your article or original content. If you’re not a writer, or aren’t employing someone full time to write original content, that can be a hurdle.

Acceptance is also not guaranteed. You can see this as a disadvantage, or embrace the fact that it will make it harder for competitors to mimic your marketing and steal your thunder.

You might be thinking “but who wants to read a story about my timeshare company or pet furniture manufacturer.”

And you’d be right – they don’t. It’s critical for this method for you to find out what the people you want to end up at your site want to read, and write for them in the area that is related to your product or service.

This can work for any industry – Google News publisher sites focus on everything from business travel to pet health. And if your niche is so small that you can’t quite nail it, there are many
publications that are publishing about your local area. To overcome this, you’d simply localize your story – remember, these articles can still come up in web or news searches with your keyword.
Failing that, there’s a third method.

It can take many tries and cost quite a bit of money. But there’s a third way into Google News that, if you succeed, can bring you benefits for years to come. Simply create a news site yourself, and get it accepted into Google News.

Brand journalism is a growing trend. Why not get ahead of the trend and become the media yourself?
If that doesn’t convince you, what about a share of the 6 billion+ clicks set aside for Google news publishers? Each site probably doesn’t get equal exposure. But the possibility of 40,000 to 120,000 extra visitors a month is reason enough to make the attempt if you meet all the other criteria.

The Google News publisher guidelines are strict and sites are often rejected, which makes this a plan for the long term. So run the numbers for your business and see if the return would be worth it.
In the meantime, attempt the other methods. They can help you get into Google’s news database, often quicker than you can get results from search engine optimization of your own site.

Even under the circumstances where the risk and expense may be a bit higher, so are the rewards and profit potential.

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Monday, October 6, 2014

How to Meet the Press: 10 Secrets to Savvy Media Relations

You may like dealing with reporters. You may hate dealing with reporters. But to successfully establish public awareness—and a positive public perception of you and/or your business—you need to know how to deal with the media.

The more you connect with reporters, the more valuable they’ll be. The key is to be prepared. These 10 rules will help you get started.

1. Don’t panic. Whenever a reporter contacts you—no matter what they’re contacting you about—view the inquiry as an opportunity—for you, for your business, for your profession.

2. Ask questions. Get the information you need to effectively present your messages. What does the reporter want? What’s the scope of his or her story? What outlet is the reporter writing for? What is his or her deadline?

3. Take a deep breath. If a reporter calls, take a deep breath—and promise the reporter you’ll call back at a particular time. We know from experience that one of the worst things you can do is talk to a reporter off the cuff. It’s a tough instinct to fight, because you will most likely be excited and flattered that the reporter wants to interview you. Unless, of course, controversy is brewing around an important topic, and you are in the hot seat. Either way, take your time. With ad-libbing comes peril, so take time to collect your thoughts.

4. Be prepared. Speaking of taking time to prep, here are some tips on what you should do to maximize your time in the spotlight.

If you’re unfamiliar with the reporter or the reporter’s news outlet, take a minute and check them out on the Internet so you know whom you’re dealing with.
Don’t just think about what the reporter wants to ask about—think about the audience the reporter’s story is likely to reach, then tailor your responses to that audience. For example, if you are a financial professional, you might get a call from someone writing a personal finance column for a women’s magazine on the value of annuities in retirement planning. Or you might get a call from a reporter at the Wall Street Journal writing about the need for regulatory reform to curb annuities sales abuses. Clearly, your messaging needs to be different in each case.
Decide on the two or three message points you want to make. Even if there are 10 points you can make, narrow them down to the most important two or three. Don’t leave it to the reporter to decide which of the many things you might say is most important. You decide which points are the important ones. Don’t overwhelm or confuse the reporter with anything else.
Don’t get so fixated on the reporter’s questions that you forget to make your points. Know what you want to say—and use whatever questions you’re asked to say it. You can shift the focus of the conversation to where you want it to be by using “the bridge”—a simple connecting phrase such as:
“Let me put that mater in a slightly different perspective …”
“Let’s consider the larger issue here …”
“That’s an interesting question, but it overlooks an important point …”

5. Keep your responses short and quotable. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there was strong media interest in life insurance—who should have it, how much should they have, what kind should they buy. An insurance agent will tell you that there’s a long list of factors to consider in making those decisions—and will be happy to enumerate them for you. But one of the chief spokesmen for that industry boiled all of those considerations down into one simple phrase that ended up being quoted by journalists all over the country: “How much life insurance you need depends on two things: who you love, and who you owe.”

6. Stay positive. If you’re asked about a problem, talk about the solution. If you’re asked about something negative that happened in the past, talk about the present and the future.

7. Get the facts right. If there are factual errors in your responses that the reporter discovers later—or worse, that the reporter’s audience discovers later—it shoots the credibility of everything you’ve said. They might think you’re a liar, or they might just think you’re stupid. Neither outcome is a winning proposition for you.

8. Tell the truth, even when it’s tough. Grossly exaggerating, lying, or deliberately misleading a reporter and, by extension, his or her audience will destroy your perceived integrity and tarnish everything you have ever said publicly or will ever say. That said, what does it mean to tell the truth in an unpleasant situation?

Think of the truth as the number 10. How do you explain the number 10? There are lots of ways to do that. The truth can be:
10 + 0
9 + 1
8 + 2
7 + 3
6 + 4
5 + 5
0 + 10
5 + 4 + 1
4 + 4 + 2
3 + 3 + 4
and on and on and on.
The point is that the truth is not a black-and-white thing. It’s not an absolute thing. It is subject to interpretation, analysis, and explanation—responsible interpretation, analysis, and explanation. It doesn’t mean parsing what the meaning of “is” is, as President Bill Clinton so infamously put it.
Reporters, consumers, investors, Congress, regulators, and your own family will expect that when you explain a situation, you will arrange the elements of that situation to put you or your business or your product in the best possible light. They will expect you to have a position, a perspective, a point of view. They will accept a responsible explanation. They won’t necessarily swallow it whole, but they will give it credence.

9. Set the ground rules. Always assume that anything and everything you say will be reported and attributed specifically to you unless you have set other ground rules. Never speak to a reporter you don’t know, or don’t trust, off the record.

If you want to go on background to discuss a delicate issue, or to give a reporter information you want him or her to have but that you don’t want attributed to you, tell the reporter you want to go on background and ask the reporter to agree to that. Specify how the information or observation may be attributed before you start to talk—“persons familiar with the matter” or “industry observers” or “an insider at the XYZ Corp.” are examples.

Never put sensitive information into an email unless you want the contents of that email to be distributed publicly, with no context or explanation.

10. Befriend reporters. The long-term value of befriending reporters cannot be overstated. Don’t leave good media relations until a crisis or a scandal forces the issue. Cultivate and befriend reporters when there is no crisis. When they are seeking information about a topic you have expertise in, share it with them—if only to educate them about the subject matter. They will appreciate it—and remember it. If they have questions you can’t help them with, refer them to someone who can. They will appreciate it—and remember it. They will come to view you as a credible, reliable source. Then, when there’s a crisis or a hot news story, the reporters you’ve befriended will be more receptive to your point of view.

Remember, reporters are not the enemy. The are trying to do their jobs well and are determined to get to the heart of a story. They need people like you to inform them about an industry they are writing about—its trends, challenges, and innovations. Your job is to give them insights, perspective, and help them get the information right. To the extent that you can help a reporter do his or her job better, you’ll have an ally in the media when you most need one.

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Thursday, March 27, 2014

How To Use Public Relations Strategies To Gain Patients For Your Medical Practice

You Can’t Spell Practice Without “PR”: 3 Public Relations Tactics That Gain Patients

When people think about public relations, they get an image of big-time entities paying big-time money to fix their image problems, like, say, the IRS recently offering $15 million for some public relations help. And while that image isn’t entirely wrong, it isn’t what PR has to be.

According to the Public Relations Society of America, PR is simply “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Nowhere in that definition is spending tons of money mentioned.

Now there are some healthcare public relations firms out there that will establish these “mutually beneficial relationships” with your public (current and potential clients), but the truth is, there are plenty of PR tactics your practice can independently implement for little to no cost.
Here are three easy in-house healthcare PR tactics you can start using now.

Get Social
Using social media for business purposes isn’t innovative anymore – it is now a standard. It doesn’t mean your practice should be on every social network that’s out there – it’d be too time consuming – but at the very least create a Facebook presence.

Considering that as of May, there were about 149 million Facebook users in the U.S., it’s likely that many of your patients are part of the Facebook community, making it a natural fit for your practice.
Your practice’s Facebook page should serve as a resource for patients, which will get them beyond just “Liking” and actually interacting on the page, key for engaging your current patients.

Also, whenever a patient interacts with your practice’s page, it shows up on their Facebook Timeline for all of their Facebook friends to see, placing your practice in front of an entirely new set of eyeballs, which could lead to new patients.

Obviously, patients can’t interact on a page if they are never on it. So, it’s important to cultivate an environment that is inviting and useful for patients, providing things like health tips, flu-shot reminders and answers to commonly asked questions.

It shouldn’t take too much prodding to get patients on your page, as a recent survey by the National Research Corporation showed 94 percent of people use Facebook as a source of health care information.

If you still don’t think your medical practice can gain followers on Facebook, check out seemingly obscure companies like one that sells paint that turns surfaces into dry erase boards that have over 17,000 fans.

Get Out of the Office
This one is simple, get out of the office and make your practice known throughout your community using community outreach efforts. After all, these are all your potential patients.

Having your practice take part in the local cancer walk, setting up a table at the carnival or partnering with a local nonprofit at its next event are all low cost ways of getting your practice out there in front of people in the community, particularly those who didn’t know your practice even existed.

Remember, there’s a good reason that small companies like the local pet store to large companies like McDonalds take the time to perform community outreach. It’s a relatively low cost, efficient strategy to increase the awareness of any business.

Let it be known
While not everything your practice does will be newsworthy, taking the proper angle on certain topics can garner attention for your practice. For example, switching your practice over from paper records to EHRs may sound mundane, but if you angle it as a move that will help you better serve patients and thus the community, it will be more relevant for the local paper.

Just take a look at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital, which received coverage in a local newspaper for beginning to take reservations for its emergency room.

Send out a quick press release or place a call to the local editor about something that might be story-worthy. If you don’t have the time, designate someone in the office to take some time doing this when needed, or hire a college intern.

Of course, not every story idea will be picked up, but the potential to gain mass exposure for your practice at a minimal cost is very much a possibility.

Remember, public relations tactics aren’t only to be used by large corporations. Whether you have a small, solo office or have practices all over the state, you can serve as your own healthcare public relations firm to cultivate fruitful relationships with current and potential patients.

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Monday, March 3, 2014

How to Create a Public Relations Plan

A strong public relations plan includes hosting customer events.

Compelling public relations plans can go a long way toward helping a business spread its message, reach more customers, and generate more sales. Successful plans go much further than merely garnering media coverage. In fact, public relations campaigns are usually much more far-reaching and complex. They require strategic planning, creative thinking, smart budgeting and the ability to navigate unforeseen circumstances. Public relations is a field with a reputation for fun and excitement. But it also requires discipline and a can-do spirit to succeed.

Step 1: Define the goals and objectives of your public relations plan. Too often, business owners say their goal is to “raise awareness” when they really want to achieve much more. As a business owner, you want to do more than merely raise awareness of your business. Your main objective is to increase sales and profits. That objective should be a main focus of your PR plan.

Step 2: Pinpoint your target audience, or your "publics." This includes not only the media, which can help you spread the world about your business; it also includes stakeholders, existing customers, potential customers, suppliers and other vendors, community members, civic leaders and employees. Transfer these people into a database that includes their full contact information. You might need to reach out to your publics several times throughout your campaign -- for the original invitation, reminders and thank yous -- not to mention for future outreach efforts.

Step 3: Develop the strategies and tactics of the public relations plan, understanding that the two are very different. For example, your strategy might be to promote the grand opening of a new building addition to your company. The tactics you might employ could include staging a ribbon-cutting ceremony and inviting local media and government officials, hosting an open house for current customers, sponsoring a barbecue for prospective customers and nearby business tenants, and launching a community email campaign.

Step 4: Draft the key messages of your public relations plan. Make sure they are consistent but not necessarily identical among your various publics. For example, you might tell prospective customers that your new building addition will let you serve more customers, and for longer hours. You can send this message to the community at large as well, telling them that you will be able to hire more employees, which will improve the local economy.

Step 5: Draft a budget for your public relations plan. Be realistic and set aside some money for unforeseen occurrences. For example, you might schedule a community barbecue to last for four hours and purchase food, drinks and desserts accordingly. But if more people arrive at the four-hour mark, you might decide to extend the event – in the spirit of goodwill -- for another two hours. For this reason, you should factor in a 10 percent cushion to your public relations budget.

Step 6: Develop a detailed task list and timetable so you can implement your public relations tactics with maximum efficiency. The success of your public relations plan will largely depend on your ability to make deadlines stick.

Step 7: Engage in crisis planning. For example, think about a contingency plan if a thunderstorm washes out your outdoor barbecue and forces attendees indoors.

Step 8: Review your task list and timetable repeatedly throughout the campaign, making adjustments as necessary. Public relations is fluid. You must be willing to modify your plan as conditions warrant. For example, your local U.S. Congressman might get wind of your grand opening and see it as a good opportunity for a crossover public relations effort. A mutually beneficial outcome – he basks in your success. while you bask in his public stature -- is often worth the time and effort it takes to make revisions to your plan.

Step 9: Choreograph your events for future marketing efforts. Take pictures or shoot video of events, as these images could be used on your website and in future advertising materials.

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