PR & Marketing An authentic press release The most important thing to remember as you develop a marketing and PR plan is to put your products and services to the side for just a little while and focus your complete attention on the buyers of your products (or those who may donate, subscribe, join, or apply). Devoting attention to buyers and away from products is difficult for many people, but it always pays off in the form of bringing you closer to achieving your goals. Case studies – Think Starbucks for a moment. Is the product great? Yeah, the three-dollar cup of coffee you get from Starbucks tastes pretty good. And most marketers, if given the opportunity to market Starbucks, would focus on the coffee itself – the product. But is that really people are buying at Starbucks, or does Starbucks help solve other buyer problems? Manybe Starbucks is really selling a place to hang out for a while. Or, for that matter, isnt Starbucks a convenient place for people to meet – to connect clients or to carry out interviews or to use Starbucks free wireless Internet connections? Maybe Starbucks 10 minutes in your day because you dont have to grind beans, pour water into a coffee maker, wait and clean up later. For some of us, Starbucks just represents a little splurge because, well, were worth it. Starbucks does all those things. Starbucks appeals many different buyers personas, and it sells a lots of things beside just coffee. If you are marketing Starbucks, it would be your job to segment buyers and appeal to them based on their needs, not just to talk about your product. PR (Ford in Myanmar) Let me exemplify with a Myanmar press release that carries messages about an American motor vehicle brand – Ford. Maybe I am one of dozens of people who recently received a copy of the release via email. Talking about a series of Ranger Pickup which is manufactured by the Ford Motor Company based in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.A., the statement, dated January 17, 2015, highlighted the three things following: Ø Momentum continues in Myanmar with 2014-full-year sales rising 223 percent to 642 units. Ø Ford and its partners prepare to open a new facility in Mandalay in February. Ø Ford remains committed to supporting local communities. I assume it is encouraging, and it is a good news item for the vehicle company plus its operations in our country. Well, if given the opportunity to me to talk about the series, I would manage to organise a story based on the voices of a few vehicle customers and buyers of 642 units over their experiences using the vehicles bought. Such a story, I am sure, would make the statement more vibrant and more interesting if with the story prioritised over just talking about the sales branchs products and services. The story should also include counter-remarks quoting customers as saying about how the company and its partners have solved the buyer ptoblems. We need not be afraid of counter-messages because they reinforce the stand of the Ford operations in Myanmar. In this way the marketing and PR departments not just alert dozens of appropriate reporters and editors but develop relationships directly with condumers like you and me as well. I guess the way they use the press release was aimed at luring someone in with one-way messages but not educating him/her about the companys products. In the old days a press release was actually a statement to the press so such documents evolved as an esoteric and stylized way for companies that nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors these documents were written with mediaunderstanding in mind. In a typical case a tiny audience of several dozen media people got a stream of product releases from a company. The same thing is true about other online market programs. With a focus on the buyer the typical press release and media relations program is built on what the organisation wants to say rather than what the buyer wants to hear. There is a huge difference. Companies that are successful with direct-to-consumer news release strategies write for buyers. Anyhow I wish domestic as well as foreign organisations be achieving their goals with new ideas and new approaches applied confidently. And I hope the organisations contribute to the bettet ment of Myanmar society in as many adpects as they could.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 02:36:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015