Most informed agency leaders will agree that a big part of what our clients want, and are willing to pay us for, is our thinking. We bring years of experience, coupled with tactical knowledge and creativity to marketing challenges. So why is it that so many agencies are willing to give it away for free?

Over the past couple of months we have been told by more than one new business prospect that while they love our creative thinking and want our experience/approach, they are having a tough time making a decision because the other agency(ies) have given them a complete plan, and of course, we have not. What?! A complete plan? From the one hour conversation they (maybe) had when they were asked to pitch the business, they have enough insight into the company, its brand promise, its customers, competition, and goals to present a plan? Folks, I call BS.

Really experienced CMOs/Marketing Managers will know they are getting a cookie cutter approach, since it isn’t really possible for that kind of strategic development in the 7-10 days they gave as a deadline for an initial proposal. Unfortunately, there are lots of people making decisions about hiring an agency who know very little about marketing and even less about how agencies work.

I am tired of competing for business with agencies that don’t even respect their time or intellectual capital enough to get paid for it. People, you should get paid to write a strategic plan. I know times are hard, but if you set the expectation that you will just give away your thinking in order to get an ongoing retainer, you not only hurt your own revenue stream, you hurt the reputation of an entire industry.

In particular (since I’m on a roll now), we see this in social media pitches. Since most agencies have very little experience in social media planning or management, they have developed a cut-and-paste approach. Take one part Facebook, one part Twitter and insert client name in the blank. There is very little customized or original thinking happening. I believe we are going to start seeing the carcasses of that type of approach all over the business landscape.

It’s too bad too, because social media presents loads of opportunity for the PR industry. But only if we use our smarts and don’t treat it like another tactic to be added onto a long list of “to dos.”

Linkedin is a great website to find tailored job listings and potential employees, but the social network is often overlooked as a potential new business tool and a platform for personal branding. With more than 60 million users (80 percent of which have a college degree) Linkedin allows people to re-connect with past business connections in a professional setting. Even more importantly, Linkedin puts an emphasis on introducing you to people you need to know and gives you the place to have an expert voice in the industry in which you work.

In order to help you use Linkedin in this way, we’ve put together a list of some of our best practices for creating a Linkedin Profile:

• SEO Make yourself searchable. If your purpose for a Linkedin profile is to use it as a networking or new business tool, include key words that will enable people to find you.

• Link your blog to your Linkedin profile. Applications to link your blog posts to your profile such as the Wordpress app are great tools for this. Doing this will also help you get more views for your posts.

• Have a complete profile. Fill out all the areas- specialties, expertise, job role, education, etc. You will appear credible to people who don’t know you well if your profile is complete. Be sure to add a picture of yourself.

• Personalize the message in the invitation box when inviting someone to your network. This will show others you are personable and hopefully make them want to interact with you. Hopefully this will lead to a recommendation in the future.

• Use conversational tone: If acceptable by your industry, use conversational tone while maintaining a professional standard. Using a conversational tone makes you seem “real.” Uptight resume-speak makes you seem unapproachable.

• If you receive a recommendation, reciprocate. Recommending a connection may end up in a job lead or new business venture in the future and it’s likely you will receive more recommendations if you are willing to give them out.

• List your websites properly. When editing your profile, change the title of your website or blog to appear descriptively and searchable on the Internet. For example, change “my website” to “Bailey Gardiner-San Diego PR.” The second title is much more explanatory than the first.

• Include only relevant experience. Do you think your advertising colleague cares about your summer camp counselor job way back when? No.

• Customize your URL. This goes back to SEO. A customized URL makes your profile easily searchable and easy to remember if hearing it via word-of-mouth.

What else do you recommend? How do you use your Linkedin profile?

I just had the opportunity to do some travel in Italy, and although I was there primarily for the pasta and wine, I am still a marketer at heart – and that’s hard to shake off, even on vacation.  What struck me about Italy was the lack of advertising and branding messages everywhere – we are so used to being hit with them from all angles in the States. But I can’t tell you how many times we met some nice Italian local who said “I know a guy who know a guy, and he can get you…”

Clearly, word of mouth marketing – the original form of advertising – is alive and well.  Perhaps this kind of communication was born in Roman times, and has smartly persisted throughout the ages as Italy and the rest of the world have modernized.

Nowhere was I accosted by brand-mania.  Althought there were occasional ads in the areas where we traveled, there were no roadside billboards, no digital signs in the airports, no poster ads above the urinals.  Yet both locals and visitors were clearly conducting business, referring customers to various locations, and communicating the benefits of particular products and brands.  All by talking.  Animatedly.

One great example was presented in a restaurant along the coast, where the simplest way to advertise the daily specials were to just show us.  Luigi, the owner and proprietor of the restaurant, brought around a platter of fresh caught fish to each table.  He told us what kind each one was, how it would be prepared, what kind of wine would be best served alongside. Very effective.  And delicious, I might add.

In another town, shops marketed their handmade local specialties by putting a few in baskets outside on the street.  As we walked by, we saw something that interested us and the shopkeeper picked up on that interest, nicely told us about the products we were eyeballing, and we were drawn inside the store to buy.

The concierge at our hotels became preeminently important people.  They deftly directed us to fabulous restaurants, wine and cheese shops where we could find the best of Tuscany, and where to get the best deal on gasoline.  Their word became fact for us, and we followed every recommendation.  No tourist magazines, no bus side ads, no peel downs or page take overs. Just one-on-one recommendations.

And when in doubt, we just asked someone along the way.

There’s something to learn here about the simplicity of direct communication. Maybe those Ancient Romans weren’t famous only for their aqueducts and gladiators…. perhaps they are also the original social networkers.

With BlogHer ’10 Conference starting this week, the women of the Internet, especially the “mommy bloggers”, are getting excited for the big trip to New York City, and you can bet that companies around the globe are getting excited over having all these influential women in one spot at one time.  But even if you are not planning on attending the Internet’s largest MNO (Moms Night Out), you can still effectively market to this ever-growing group.

Think of it this way: Moms are known for giving advice.  From baby-rearing to cooking dinner, your Mama definitely has an opinion that she will give regardless of if you asked for it or not.  According to Technorati, 70% of bloggers organically talk about brands on their blogs. From restaurants to dishwashing detergent, 46% regularly post about brands they love or hate, while 38% of them do proper, brand-pitched product reviews.  That’s a lot of advice-giving going on. Being a mom, and a blogger, I’ve come up with the top three things a brand can do to effectively market to this outspoken group.

Give them something to talk about
While many Moms online may not be “expert critics”, keep in mind neither are many of the people reading most critic’s articles. Can you tell when your local restaurant adds a pinch too much cumin to your entree? Probably not, but you can sure tell when your waiter is rude or your food is cold.  And the tale of both stories may get that restaurant equal amounts of attention.

Mommy bloggers want a good story, they want an experience, they want a picture to post that makes others out there think “Oh, how cool is that?! I want to do that too!” Brands obviously want to be mentioned with a good story– but remember that stories and experiences that are not good also get a lot of attention. A great example of that is last year’s Dooce vs. Maytag conflict. An outspoken woman with a huge national following gets a lemon of a washing machine that keeps breaking while she’s trying to wash clothes for her newborn daughter – great story for Heather Armstrong, but disaster in the making for Maytag.

While that is definitely the extreme case scenario, it’s a good thing to keep in mind. When going after a mom blogger, try and give them something positive to talk about, something to brag about or something that they can’t wait to tell their readers about.

Respect them as you would other audiences
Like Maytag has now learned, never underestimate the power of a blogger you are reaching out to. If you think a blogger has only a local, niche release, think again. With the majority of bloggers on Facebook and Twitter, you can never be sure which particular post will get picked up on Digg, re-posted and re-tweeted. Treat every blogger as you would treat CBS Nightly News, with respect and professionalism.  With that also comes doing your homework. Just because someone is a self-described “mommy blogger” doesn’t mean she is still your target audience; a mom who writes about her teen sons is probably not the best person to pitch for the latest trend in disposable diapers. Read past posts, and get to know the blogs and the writers that you are pitching.  When you do pitch, point out past posts in your outreach or why you think this particular story or product will be interesting for them. Keep in mind the wrath of an overtired, cloth-diapering Mama on a rant can generate a lot of negative attention.

The Truth About Gifts
Where your research will also be important is seeing who takes but maybe not gives…or perhaps who gives too much. While the new FTC guidelines impose rules on disclosure of gifts, it can’t make a blogger tell the truth about a product, nor does the FTC require a blogger to write about products that they receive.  Putting it in basic terms, everyone likes to receive things for free – and some will talk each gift up for days just to continue to get free things. While it’s not a bad thing, it’s something that a brand should monitor. You want someone to genuinely be excited about your product – not just excited to get something.  When researching the blogger, note the previous reviews and make a careful decision before handing out your goods. Also, make sure that you check to see if that blogger has a disclosure and review policy posted on their site.

While seemingly simple, many brands seem to forget these basics when going after parent bloggers. When in doubt, just remember to be professional, respectful and polite – just like your mother raised you to be.

In the past, we’ve given quite a few tutorials on how to best utilize Facebook or what to measure when reporting on Twitter, but we haven’t really broke down our recommendation for how to go about creating a fully-integrated, well-researched social media campaign.

While it may seem we’re going to back to basics, this list of to-dos can also be applied when you feel that your current social media strategy is getting stale.  I also believe that it should be integrated into your social media plan to reevaluate every six months to ensure that you’re best utilizing your social media budget.

1)  Right off the bat, when beginning a new campaign or revamping, you’re going to want to spend some time listening – where are people talking about your brand?  What platforms are they using?  What types of feedback are you getting – good or bad?  What confuses people and where can you implement customer service to streamline the process?

There are numerous tools to use to measure and evaluate your brand mentions.  Social Mention, Google Buzz and Vocus have all incorporated a tool where you can either log in or have an email sent listing all the platforms that are mentioning your brand (by keyword).  You may find right off the bat that the all-encompassing Facebook strategy you’ve been working on isn’t actually where all the chatter is about your brand.  Perhaps your customers are still using forums to talk about you.

2)  Now that you know where people are discussing your brand, what’s the chatter surrounding your competitors.  What’s interesting is organizations that you may consider your greatest competitors may have no social presence whatsoever – this makes for an even greater opportunity for your brand to capitalize on.    You also may find there are organizations that you had no idea were competitors.  If their campaign is successful, there’s no harm in incorporating some of their successes into your own campaign – just make sure to make it your own.

3)  Once you’ve done your research, it should be clear what platforms you should be using to speak to your current customer base and if it makes sense to join additional networks.  While numerous companies will only focus on Twitter and Facebook, think of what your brand offers.  If it’s a consumer product or service that you find customers don’t know how to use, perhaps YouTube is a platform you use for tutorials.  Are most of your mentions coming from FriendFeed or a particular blog or forum?  Perhaps start there and once you’ve established a presence there, let your customers know that you’re also on Facebook and Twitter and have your own blog.  If you’re looking for foot traffic, create a social loyalty program with FourSquare.

4)  While you may want to dive right in and begin making updates and tweeting to your loyal customers, you should first create a six-month plan and outline goals you have for social media: Do you wish to increase sales on-site?  Do you wish to increase website traffic?  Or are you hoping that you can give your customer service phone line a break?

Once these goals are outlined, the rest of your plan should be fairly simple to fill in.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to have quality content on your pages.  If you insist on having a presence, make it a strong one.  Before you begin interacting or creating your own Facebook tab with FBML, bullet out what initiatives you have monthly, and always check back to remind yourself of your overall goals.

5)  Measure, analyze and report your findings, both successes and failures, to learn what works and what doesn’t within the realm of your brand’s offerings.  Gather screen grabs from fans and followers raving about your social media campaign, or a conversation you had online convincing an individual to visit your venue.  When your client asks for the value of social media (which they will), these will be key in demonstrating the power and value in a successful social media campaign.

Do you think there are any other basics companies should remember when creating or revamping their social media plans?

So much to say but so little time. Who has time to listen to me ramble? Poorly written pitches and press releases are a waste of both a journalist’s and my time. So, it’s important to me – as a communicator and PR professional – to constantly sharpen my communication skills to be able to communicate clearly and concisely. Here are a few tips I like to keep handy to strengthen my writing, especially for PR:

Be concise and include key information first. Like Carrie mentioned in her tips for writing a press release, don’t bury the lead. This also applies to PR pitches, e-mails, and more. Also, see if you can remove unnecessary words like just and that:

“I just wanted to let you know that new reports have found that we are being attacked by space invaders.”

or  redundant words: use “several, a few or many” rather than “a number of” or “same” instead of “exact same.”

Use active language. Write as you normally do, reread to identify passive sentences and rewrite those in an active voice if appropriate. Passive voice isn’t wrong but it’s often wordy.
“Mistakes were made by me” could be changed to “I made mistakes.”

Maintain a focus. Stay on topic rather than trying to cram all your information into one piece. Is your new product creating hundreds of jobs and conserving energy and saving the dolphins? Great. Break it up into three separate pitches.

Use proper grammar and follow the AP Stylebook. Because as a public relations professional, the AP Stylebook is my Bible and yes, I judge you when you use poor grammar.

These are just a few tips to get you thinking. What advice do you have to help strengthen writing for PR and marketing?

We talk a lot about media relationships here at Bailey Gardiner. But we do more than just talk about it internally. We continuously hone our skills and share contacts and tips with one another. To formalize this process, we just introduces a “media bootcamp” for the PR team, where we review best practices and set team goals to strengthen all our relationships with local, regional and national media. Here are a few tips from our recent bootcamp session on how to strengthen your relationships with media:

• Stay professional but human. While these are professional relationships, it is also important to stay human, friendly and authentic.

• Understand each reporter’s beat and interests. Pitching them interesting stories they will like and need is the first step to creating goodwill.

• Become a valuable resource to media. Offer them information beyond your clients and get them in the habit of reaching out to you for help.

• Be informed on news and trends in your clients’ industries. That way, when a reporter is looking for something specific that your client may not offer, you may still be able to help them by letting them know about another business or trend you have seen.

• Follow media on Twitter. Try to engage and build a relationship with them online. Media are often more open to conversations online, and Twitter is a great way to form a relationship that can then jump offline.

Any other tips for PR professionals to help strengthen media relationships?

Press releases are a communication tool that have been used (and abused) for years.  At Bailey Gardiner we are extremely selective about when we write and send out a press release. And while they aren’t as common as they once were, they aren’t going away any time soon. The following are my five tips for writing an effective press release.

1. Don’t bury the lead. Key information of a story is often placed somewhere in the body of the release – put it first.

2. For quotes sake. Quotes should only be included in the release if it adds value. Some companies and clients will insist on quoting the CEO, but unless it’s saying something you can’t otherwise state in the release, skip it.

3. Just the facts. Press releases are a place for news and facts, not fluff and sales language. Sales materials exist for a reason and absolutely serve a purpose, but the excessive use of adjectives and fancy copy doesn’t belong in a news release. It will immediately turn off media and discredit the company.

4. What’s the news? Be sure what you really should be writing is a release and not a pitch, media alert or business brief. A press release is used for a variety of reasons, but should not be the ‘catch all’. Evaluate the information and newsworthiness and guide your client or company appropriately. Sometimes people simply aren’t aware there are other options.

5. Get to the point. I am a big believer in short succinct releases. One page is great, two pages maximum. If there is a lot of background, analysis or data that needs to be shared a great way is to hyperlink in the release to the company’s website where this information can live. It’s a terrific way to drive traffic to the website and it doesn’t bog down the release at the risk of losing the media’s interest.

Trust your PR instincts and if you don’t find the news your sharing interesting, it’s likely the media won’t either.

I wanted to share some inspirational museum marketing stunts that have resulted in generating lots of museum publicity.

The first is the Space Invader Walk.

As part of it’s promotion for the exhibition “Viva la Revolucion” (beginning on July 17) the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego has planted 21 space invaders throughout the city.

The space invaders—recently featured in the Banksy film—are strategically placed so that their locations create the outline of a giant space invader when seen from above (see Google Maps image below).

Not only is this a great way to get publicity for the museum, it’s also a living exhibition all on it’s own as you can literally travel around the city, finding all of the invaders, a great weekend activity that is conveniently located near MCASD’s downtown San Diego location.

The second is the Red Cube Project.

This project was created to support “500 Ways of Looking at Modern,” the Art Institute’s yearlong exploration and celebration of all things modern.

The museum hid 500 cubes around the city (including 4 extra large versions), each one with it’s own art project attached. The lucky finder is tasked with completing the assignment and returning the cube to the museum. A few of these lucky artists then had their work showcased at the museum.

The museum encouraged those who didn’t find a cube to create their own and post a picture of it to the project’s website. A smart idea that encouraged people from all walks of like to get involved helped the campaign go viral.

You can see many more of the cubes that were created on the museum’s Flickr page.

Have you seen any other inspirational museum marketing campaigns recently?

When is it Time to Use a PR News Wire?

If you are in the business of Public Relations, you know that time is money, and there are certain tools that can help you stay efficient. One of these tools is a PR news wire, which allows professional communicators (that’s us) to distribute information to the media and public. It’s a win-win situation. We cut hours spent grueling over e-mail distribution, while also maximizing exposure for the client. Whether you are launching a new product, or have a media alert that needs sharing, a PR news wire service can help you do it all in less than one day’s work—now that sounds like music to my multi-tasking ears.

So, how do you sell your client on it? The first step is to open up the conversation. Update your client on the benefits of a PR news wire service, but let’s keep it short and sweet. The three major reasons for your client to utilize a PR news wire service are as follows:

• Increase company visibility on major online websites like Yahoo!, Fortune, Forbes and we all know the rest.

• To allow reporters to easily find your clients newsworthy information.

•  To improve your SEO (that’s search engine optimization for those who were wondering). Distributing your news online helps tremendously when promoting a company website and/or blog through strategic use of hyperlinks and keyword tactics you are able to boost your rankings within the search engines.

Now that we’ve discussed perks with the client, it’s time to talk money.

There are a ton of great news wire companies out there that essentially do the same thing, so do your research and figure out which one best suits your respective client’s needs and budget. Lastly, present a list of upcoming projects which would benefit from the news wire within the next year—set a realistic value to the service and let your client know how they will specifically reap the benefits. Whether we like it or not, the PR news wire is an important aspect in how we are delivering news for our clients and should be evaluated as a tool for most PR campaigns.