PATRON SAINT PRODUCTIONS, INC. ~ CHAT TRANSCRIPT ~ Patron Saint Productions, Inc. Online Publicity Chat Series Topic: Session #1: Campaign Planning and Themes Guest: Steve O'Keefe, author of "Complete Guide to Internet Publicity" Date: September 10, 2004 Welcome, Angela. We'll be starting in a few minutes. Welcome, Ayn. Thank you, Steve. Hell, Valda -- welcome back. I mean, hello!!! That's an auspicious beginning. Delighted to be back! (I just e-mailed you). Got it, Valda. Thanks! We'll be starting in about five minutes. I forget what I'm supposed to do to get my name to show here. Valda, your name does not show on your screen. It shows on everyone else's though. Thanks! Ayn, do you currently have a book you're promoting? Yes, my third published book, "The Haunting," is coming out in a few months from Wings Press. Congratulations, Ayn. I'll see if I can direct some specific comments your way. Thank you. Welcome, Michael, Lois. We'll be starting in just a couple minutes. Welcome cc -- I like your screen name. Welcome Stephen. We'll start in just a minute. Thank you, Steve. Okay, everyone, let's get started. Welcome to the Internet Public Relations Chat. I'm Steve O'Keefe, author of "Complete Guide to Internet Publicity," and a guest for this chat. I'm working with short staff this week -- no one to run announcements, greet people, or do protocol, so please bear with me. You're doing great, Steve. I will provide some introductory remarks, then open the floor to questions. If it gets too congested, we'll switch to "protocol" where you must raise your hand before asking a question. I'll get to that when the time comes. For now, let me try some introductory remarks. Today's class covers Campaign Planning and Themes. I have provided a sample Online Publicity Plan on my web site. It's a Word document, and it is hidden in the Resources/Tulane Class section of the site. You might want to look for it later, so as not to lose the thread of the chat. I believe that all great campaign themes come from what I call Resonance. Resonance is the result of an in-depth understanding of two things: The characteristics of the product being promoted, and the characteristics of the target audience. When you know your product in detail, and you have meditated on the target audience -- you know what they look like, smell like, how old they are, how much money they have, you can craft a promotion with Resonance that commands their attention. What's the URL for your web site? http://www.patronsaintpr.com/resources.html#tulane As an example, I just produced an online marketing plan for the new edition of "Ripley's Believe It or Not." It hasn't been approved yet. The target audience for this portion of the campaign is schools and libraries. My theme, after meditating on the target audience and the product, is "Freaky Fridays." Each week, we will provide science teachers with a lesson plan, an article, a riddle or quiz, then host a one-hour chat with a science teacher recruited for the campaign. We are trying to position this as an educational product, not just an entertainment product. So, Steve, you're saying that you should have a marketing plan for each group that you are targeting? If there are discrete audiences for the product, you may need to do multiple campaigns. Often times, you can hit more than one audience in a single campaign, but sometimes they are too divergent, or there are benefits to running multiple campaigns. A typical example is when you have audiences in two geographical locations, and you want to provide a different local angle for each one. Everybody has heard of Ripley's. How do you market an unknown product? How do you reach schools and libraries with e-books? Lois, promoting an unknown product is different, indeed. Can you tell me what product or audience you have in mind? Children's e-books, "Orange Forest Rabbit," with spying and capitalism -- libraries would be great. Lois, you're perhaps asking the wrong person, since I am by and large not a fan of e-books. Why is that? Is there anything about e-books that may be more difficult to market? People do not like to read on computer screens, and that's a hard fact to overcome. Things such as directories and travel guides -- with chunky paragraph copy work well as e-books. Otherwise, erotica seems to be the bestseller in that category. Not too many schools and libraries want to purchase erotic e-books. I received a great deal of publicity for my hardcover book. TONS of PR. Now the paperback is out. Is there anything left to do after such thorough coverage? You can absolutely extend your campaign with a paperback release. You need to marshal your blurbs from the hardback to get credibility, then go after your target audience where they live online. Michele, you can get lots of mileage out of your paperback, too, depending on several criteria -- newsworthiness of content, timeliness, recyclability... Let me hold the questions for a minute while I segue into another short lesson. The most powerful form of online promotion is to locate the highest-traffic web sites used by your target audience, then find a way to get a visible presence on those sites. If the target audience is women, you would love to have a presence on iVillage, Oxygen, etc. If the target audience is sports fans, you want to be on ESPNet or Fox Sports online. If it is mystery readers, you want to get involved with online reading groups devoted to mysteries. This is a very powerful strategy for several reasons: You save money on building your own web site and pulling an audience to it when you partner with sites that already have your audience, and you get far more exposure, for less time, less money, and less maintenance. Steve, how do you approach the owners of these sites? Do you offer them a commission or something? Audrey, you prepare materials for them in advance. You prepare excerpts from books, tips sheets, quizzes, fun games, contests, and you get those sites to host these materials for you. You prepare a talk show -- like this one -- and get those sites to host your show. I did a series called "Health For Dummies" for IDG Books. Did we run this chat series on IDG's web site? No! We ran it at iVillage on America Online and at America's Health Network on the web. One book/author a month for six months. For each book, we provided an excerpt, formatted in HTML and Word and text, containing promo info on the book, of course, and installed the excerpt at the web sites. Then we did an hour-chat program. What was the response for the authors and the books with this type of program? Results? Six months of continuous promotional presence on two of the highest-traffic sites in the genre. Audrey, by and large, web sites love getting this free content for their sites: free articles (excerpts), free programming (chats), plus they get traffic, and they get revenue if they sell the book through an Amazon or B&N affiliate program. They win. You win. The audience wins. But getting them over the hump of saying "yes" to the concept can be tricky. May I digress on this point? The key is to produce everything for them in advance, in a format they like. You don't say, "Would you like to use an excerpt from my book?" You say, "Here is an excerpt from my book, already formatted in HTML. Feel free to install it on your site." Let me give another example. I am right now producing a 10-week talk show for the web for a client of mine. If you go to the URL I provide in just a moment, you'll see the web page I made to lure a high-traffic site into hosting the program. The page has everything the host site needs to say "yes" to the program and to promote it. It has artwork, promo announcements, topic schedule, bios of the guests, and -- of course -- a plug for the book. The URL is: http://www.patronsaintpr.com/samples/CHERISH/cherishshow.ht m. Questions??? While I'm waiting for questions, let me list some basic online campaigns: 1. News releases sent via e-mail. 2. Discussion group postings. 3. Syndication of excerpts/articles/op-ed pieces. 4. Chats and chat tours and chat series. 5. Online seminars. 6. Contests. That should keep you busy! So, let's return to Michele's questions: 1. Who is the target audience? 2. Where do they hang out online? 3. How can you get in their face at those sites? Steve, what tactics would you suggest for B2B technology services? I can't see host sites with our product info. Brenda, are you sure you can't see host sites with product info? My guess is you have expertise in some special niche. People can benefit from your expertise in the form of an article or a tip sheet. You write and format the article, and include a byline that links to your site. Online PR is all about helping people in your target audience, whether that target audience is the government, investors, customers, suppliers, etc. And the most common way for you to help them is to share expertise. Steve, the URL works fine. Thanks, Valda. I like to call this strategy "Share Value." When you share something of value with your target audience your "share value" will go up. You just give, and give, and give till it hurts. People take notice, and when they need your services, they turn to you first. No questions? Let me go on a little, Brenda, on the B2B stuff. Online seminars are good for a professional crowd. You prepare a five-day seminar, with a new topic for each day. You collect questions, send them to an expert for responses, format the whole thing as a Q&A thread, then send it back out to those who've registered for the seminar. These seminars can result in help files that can be distributed to other sites and uploaded into online libraries. For example, have you seen MSN Groups, or YahooGroups, or AOL Groups? These are forums where people share ideas and resources around common interests. Most of these forums have libraries. If you become a member of the group, you get permission to upload files in the library. So you can self-install excerpts, articles, and op-eds in the libraries in these groups. Other than preparing the background material, how much technical skill is needed to set up these chats? That's smart marketing, and it isn't that hard to prepare a helpful document, format it properly, find the groups, and upload the files. We'll cover this tactic in more depth in classes number 4 and 5 on Syndication and Discussion Group Postings. Welcome, everyone. This is the Internet Public Relations Chat. Today we are talking about Campaign Planning and Themes. But feel free to ask any questions you have related to online PR. We've had some success with tip sheets submitted to the media. These have shown up in various groups, but submitting files directly by becoming a member seems a little deceptive. Brenda, there is nothing at all deceptive about joining a group and then uploading a file to the library for that group. If you wrote a cookbook, of course you're welcome to upload recipes in groups devoted to recipe swapping, cooking, etc. If you upload an *Advertisement* for your book, that would be bad form. But a tip sheet with a little soft-sell copy at the end is perfectly acceptable. Steve what's your thought on purchasing e-mail list to send out e-mails to your audience? Audrey, I'm strongly opposed to most direct e-mail marketing, especially with a purchased list. I don't care if people opted-in or not... Thanks. Brenda, if I may, Steve, you HAVE to make sure that your material is on-topic. Folks don't want unsolicited commercial messages, and they sometimes retaliate if you send them. Nowadays you risk being hacked, blacklisted, sued, or arrested. There are so many better, cheaper ways to approach your target audience. Why take the risk? It's true that the methods I advocate take some time, preparation and attention to detail, but if you're smart enough to navigate this chat, you're smart enough to do the work required to market in more appropriate ways. Marc is dead-on about the need to be on- topic. If something about 800onemail.com appeared in my hockey fans' group, I wouldn't take it very well. I sent an e-mail news release to a media list of about 500 journalists last week -- lifestyle editors with a Valentine's Day pitch. One guy wrote back that he only covers sports stories. Whoops! He was nice enough to write back to me, and I corrected my database. Most journalists (and individuals) will just filter you out. If he had filtered me, when I had a sports story to share, I wouldn't be able to reach him. Filtration is imposing discipline on online publicists. More about that in class #8 on E-Mail News Releases. Your "Freaky Friday" campaign -- should the solemnity or catchiness of the name be geared to the probable target's mood? Valda, YES! You need to capture the spirit with your campaign themes. They have to RESONATE with the target audience because they are right on target. "Freaky Friday" works because it takes advantage of the Ripley's content of curiosities, plus it makes the lesson plans more inviting for teenagers -- a primary target audience -- and teachers looking for more ways to make learning about science fun. And it doesn't hurt that it uses the name of a recent motion picture popular with teens. Off-topic media pitches are one of journalists' worst pet peeves. Marc, again, you're correct about the danger of sending off-topic pitches, whether to the media or the public. That's another reason why I like to partner with high-traffic sites that appeal to the target audience. If folks don't like the material, let them complain to iVillage or MSNBC, not me. I'm going to segue into another lesson point before taking more questions. I think developing partnerships with high-traffic venues is key to magnifying the impact of a promotion. But you need to budget time for this. It can be tricky to find the right contact person at a site to pitch. Partners will also take more control over the promotion than you might like. Whenever you bring on partners, you lose some control, and it takes more time. Here are some time guidelines for common campaigns. 1. Article syndication: Two weeks, start to finish. 2. E-mail news releases: Two days, start to finish. 3. Chat tours: Three months. 4. Online seminars: Three months. 5. Contests: Six months. That means, you have to start six months ahead of when you want the publicity to peak for contests. Some take longer than that. When I work on contests, I like an annual schedule. Once a year, we'll do a contest. That's a comfortable time frame for most marketers. We've only got a few minutes left. Before we go, I'd like to thank you for your patience with my typing and lack of staff today. So far, the chat interface is working pretty well. Next week, we will be covering Web Site Registration and Search Engine Optimization. If there are no questions, I have a closing riff about documenting the results of your campaigns. First, it is very important to document the *process* -- something you have control over -- not just the *results* -- which you often can't measure directly or have no control over. So when you create documents such as e-mail news releases, discussion group postings, articles, op-eds, show pitches, etc., make good copies of them, and share them with your trade contacts. When people see you're working it, they get more excited about your products. To document results, you want to take SCREEN CAPTURES of any placements you get online, whether promotions for chat tours, or excerpt syndications, anything. You often will *not* get traffic numbers from sites that host your materials. You *won't* get sales reports from third-party affiliate or associate stores. You may not get the kind of data that leads to intelligent ROI calculations. But most people can FEEL IT when a campaign is working. We used to look in the shipping department at a publisher I worked for. If everyone was busy in there, something was working. You kind of had to guess what was having the biggest impact... It's not all a numbers game. When you get numbers, great, but don't let the numbers fool you. For example, many ad agencies are being pushed to do more online marketing -- not because it necessarily produces better results, but because it's easier to track numbers online. It would be a mistake to discard tried-and- true publicity tactics just because no one knows how much a positive review in the New York Times is worth. I've said what I came to say. Hope to see you all next week. OK, thanks, Steve! See you next week! Thank you, Steve. Thanks, Steve, see you next week (and I hope I'll be there at the beginning this time). Steve, is there any way to save this chat (short of copy-and-pasting it)? Marc, we're going to try to prepare transcripts. A couple of people have recorded the session. As soon as we get staff to clean them up, I'll post a notice that they're available. So long, everyone -- I gotta go teach tonight! __________________________________________________ ABOUT THE GUEST STEVE O'KEEFE is the author of the outdated classic, "Publicity on the Internet" (Wiley, 1997), and the updated new book, "Complete Guide to Internet Publicity" (Wiley, 2002) -- based on over 1,000 online campaigns. Steve pioneered many online marketing techniques which are now considered standard practice. Steve's writing has appeared in over 100 publications including The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, Internet World, PR News, Outside, Small Press, Salon, Curio, NetWorth, and HotWired. Steve is a member of the adjunct faculty at Tulane University where he teaches online public relations. He is Executive Director of Patron Saint Productions, Inc., a publishing consultancy specializing in online marketing strategy, campaigns, and training. __________________________________________________ ABOUT THE BOOK Complete Guide to Internet Publicity: Creating and Launching Successful Online Campaigns by Steve O'Keefe Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2002, ISBN 0-471-10580-5, 436 pages, softcover, $34.95) Available in most bookstores online and off. "Nobody knows more about making a splash on the Internet than Steve O'Keefe. And no book reveals better how to do it than this one." -- Fraser P. Seitel, Author of "The Principles of Public Relations" "Steve O'Keefe's book is, by far, the most comprehensive Internet publicity book available. It's a tool that any business owner or publicist needs to read to conduct an effective online PR campaign." -- Lorilyn Bailey, CEO, NewsBuzz.com "Complete Guide to Internet Publicity" is the bedrock reference book for designing and implementing online publicity campaigns. The book takes a "how-to" approach, with detailed instructions for planning the campaigns, creating the materials needed, launching the campaigns, dealing with any problems, and measuring the results. The instructions are highlighted with anecdotes culled from hundreds of campaigns conducted by the author and other Internet publicity professionals. Chapters include: 1. The Power of Internet Publicity 2. E-Mail News Releases 3. Online News Rooms 4. Discussion Group Postings 5. Newsletters and Direct Marketing 6. Chat Tours 7. Online Seminars and Workshops 8. Web Site Registration and Linkage 9. Contests and Other Fancy Promotions 10. Syndicating Your Promotions 11. Building an Online Publicity Operation "Complete Guide to Internet Publicity" is a goldmine for those people responsible for online publicity operations, whether as managers, professionals, instructors or students, including such professions as marketing, advertising, web site design & construction, e-commerce, direct marketing, and customer service. The book and companion web site both include templates for all the campaign materials described, and time-saving resources to help locate target audiences online. This book is essential to anyone charged with promoting a product, service, company, person, or web site. Order your copy today. __________________________________________________ Copyright ©2004 by Patron Saint Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please request permission before duplicating or distributing this document. 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