Update 10.17.07 Final Results are in from Blog Action Day

20,603 Blogs Participated

23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)

14,631,038 RSS Readers

Today is Blog Action Day – as of this moment 15,861 blogs with a combined RSS reach of 12, 697,713 readers display posts about the environment. In researching BlogWorld & New Media Expo speaker blogs, I found Copyblogger Brian Clark’s Blog Action Day post, “The Butterfly Effect and the Environment: How Small Actions Can Change the World.” Because Brian writes about butterflies, I’m adding one of my images here to show how social butterflies can be – like bloggers?

Read the Blog Action Day Press Release

Why You Need Environmental PR

After watching Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” for the first time over the weekend, I’m still in a mild state of shock. Last Friday, Forbes.com ran a story called “The Inconvenient Truth About China”- the story continues.

No matter where you stand politically – and let’s be clear this is not a political blog – the environment’s health affects our water, our economy, our lives, our weather, our quality of life, and our future.

Can the environment really be in that much danger? How could Manhattan, San Francisco and Amsterdam float away? Will millions of people be without water? To get the answers, you’ll have to watch the movie. But, hopefully, you’ll do more than that. Taking action to protect the environment is our collective responsibility. But, how can you integrate protecting the environment into your marketing and PR strategy?

Test out one of these suggestions . . .

Churches and Non-Profits

Form an environmental justice group – our church sells green bags for groceries and recently presented a program on “Our Precious Water” to help us all conserve resources and gauge the purity of our local resources. One of our biggest takeaways: a small amount of motor oil dumped in a storm sewer can contaminate millions of gallons of water.

Businesses

Investigate the availability of renewable resources in your vendor lines. For example, one of our clients offers products made from high yield renewable hardwood taken from trees that mature two to three times faster than hardwood trees grown in colder climates.

Ask your employees to reuse water containers made specifically for reuse, like glassware or sports bottles. Drinking out of a plastic water bottle sold in stores is contaminated after the first use and is often of no better quality than tap water.

Print your business communications on unbleached recyclable paper with soy inks.

Publicize your efforts and encourage your industry or company to be a leader in environmental awareness.

Partner with an environmental awareness group as an information or a fund-raising sponsor.

Marketing and Public Relations Practitioners

Refer to this comprehensive environmental public relations guide by our European colleagues at Confédération Européenne des Relations Publique

Watch “Inconvenient Truth” for ideas on how to:

- make a complex issue simple and actionable

- present concepts in a variety of media: charts, animation, video

- personalize the story by explaining the motivation for action

- weave in your history to the issue

Entrepreneurs

I personally like Brian’s suggestion – quit your job and work from home.

How do you help save the earth? Join in our conversation or . . .

Donate to Blog Action Day’s environmental charities.

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A string of questions about email systems recently caught my attention. Because I find myself wanting to answer every one, I’m consolidating my thoughts into this reference post.

For awhile now, I’ve been wanting to share the benefits of using AWeber. As a customer for over a year and an affiliate [yes, this post contains affiliate links], I decided the time was right after a comment came up in my marketing execution class this week.

When one of my students told me her programmer said an email service is extremely costly, I asked her. “How does $30 a month sound?” That’s all it takes to send out 150,000 emails to 20,000 subscribers every month. I only hope her list is 1% of that size. You pay less if you send less.

Although I use two email delivery systems, I prefer Aweber. Besides the fact the company’s blog is a great email marketing resource – see the latest posts at the end of this post – I find their personalized service refreshing.

When was the last time an email service provider sent you a personalized, signed letter thanking your for your service? Never? Thought so.

Customer service is incredibly responsive, When I called asking how to integrate Aweber with my landing page software, they were ready for me. As soon I described my request, the customer service rep asked for my email so he could send me instructions. They arrived in under five minutes. An online chat service allows you to get instant answers.

With Aweber you can . . .

- Schedule delivery timed to the minute way in advance; set it and forget it email

- Stagger messages for personalized auto-delivery for effortless ongoing contact 

- Check in on daily reporting that monitors new additions and lets you know the number of clicks on your links

- Arrange for double opt-in to insure your list is populated with people who confirm twice that they want to receive your messages

- Toggle back and forth between lists and see stats at a glance on your control panel

- Send emails in text, html or one of over 50 templates

- Include broadcasts in a web based archive by linking to the Web archive or RSS feed, both links go to MTN News archives.

- Test out Aweber’s email marketing service with a free trial

- Watch Aweber’s blog updates email marketing innovations – check out the latest headlines

Have an email service you recommend? Let us know with a comment below.

Today I completed my first marketing execution class at our local college. The topic: branding for non-profits. This is the first of four courses. It was good to hear that four people referred me as the instructor of choice. How’s that for branding and word-of-mouth?

Because I designed this to be a student-drive course, I started off asking about their biggest marketing and PR challenges. Here’s what we came up with:

- getting the message out on a limited budget

- raising awareness about an “invisible” population

- building advocacy

- delivering value

- promoting events and getting participation in advance

- recruiting volunteers and leaders

- conveying consistent messages

- how to generate viral marketing and buzz marketing across the generations

- how do you do marketing 101?

- changing public perception

- becoming a subject matter expert

We came up with these words to describe branding: identifiable, persuasive, targeted, recognizable, consistent, taglines, emotional appeal, relevant, trustworthy, credible, timely, influence, impact

In the personal branding exercise, I asked them to talk about their relationships to their target brands. Beverages, toothpaste and Tide made the top of the list. No one walked in with a Starbucks, but that’s because most of them have a love/hate relationship with not only Starbucks, but Target, McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

We found these common attributes across their favorite brands: energy [all Diet Coke drinkers], quality, fair, tradition, loyalty, informative, responsive, immediate, convenient, accessible, all-inclusive, personalized, excitement, partnership, collaboration, opportunity, efficiency, organization, mobility, cool, renewable resource, low cost, hand-made, all natural, sustainable, healthy, comfortable fit.

What’s your biggest branding challenge?

Here’s the latest from Marketing Transformations News

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Ten Branding Methods: No Need to Marinate First

by Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media

To request permission to reproduce or republish this article, contact connect AT corywestmedia DOT com.

Do your customers see you as the company or person you think you are? You can define your business and personal branding style with values, messaging and images that match the perception you want to project. In this article, you’ll take a look at the variety in the ways you can brand yourself. Being consistent across the board builds your brand equity and makes it easier for your customers to recruit new prospects for you.

1. Identity Design – logos, layouts, look must match your brand

While you may be a fashion plate, your business doesn’t have to be. Are your customers conservative? Then go with a strong, yet neutral image. If you’re confused about your look, your prospects will pick up on that. Interview a few graphic designers and don’t think about cost – at least at first. Investing thousands in an image pays off as your look becomes well known.

2. Virtual – Search results, Social Networking Sites

What’s your virtual branding profile? It’s easy to find out. Search for your name or company in several search engines. Click on news and images to see what’s out there. If you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook, your crowd is your brand. Be careful about who you associate with and always check profiles before you accept invitation.

3. Multimedia – videos, audios, podcasts, radio shows

If you’re a speaker or want to be interviewed as an expert, you need at least one video. Recording audios is less intimidating than shooting a video, but seeing is believing. Podcast short interview or tips to build up an audio library. Offering multimedia products positions you as being ahead of the game.

4. Word of Mouth – what’s your reputation?

What do people say about you or your company? If you ask your best customers, they’ll tell you what you want to hear. Search in forums to see who’s talking about you. Set up a survey to get anonymous feedback.

5. Awareness – do people know about you?

Some businesses and organizations think everybody knows who they are and what they do. Probably not. Employees may not have the story straight. Think about how much awareness you need versus what you want. It’s okay if your major clients know who you are and what you do, but your neighbor only knows you grow roses.

6. Personality – what are your traits?

Do you tolerate change or fight it? What do you champion? Realize that your personality won’t click with everyone. That’s good. You want to attract people who like you. The ones who don’t will naturally go away and find someone who suits them.

7. People- who represents you – board members, staff, partners?

Cloning the perfect employee won’t work, but you can teach everyone who represents you to model the same public image with messaging, language and ethics training so that anyone who comes in contact with one of your representatives will recognize your company right away.

8. Experience – what is your customer experience, could it be better, different, more impactful?

Everyone’s customer experience is part of their brand. Don’t be fabulous one day and mediocre the next. Aim for a level experience that’s set to high standards and be ready to react right away if something goes awry.

9. Community – who carries out your message????

Grow your own community and communicate with them frequently. If you do it right, you’ll know what’s on their mind and how you can better serve them.

10. Word of Mouth

The trickiest to manage and the most powerful branding of all, word of mouth is how your customers and prospects talk about you to their own community. Strategic public relations campaigns can fuel word of mouth and energize a company.

How did you do? Which of these is your most effective branding method? Which ones will you work on first?

About the author . . .

An in-demand publicist, professional speaker and marketing communications consultant since 1990, Barbara Rozgonyi is grounded, edgy and prophetic. “Panoramic PR,” Barbara’s latest project, compresses everything she knows into an affordable, manageable course that teaches small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, experts, coaches and anyone else who wants more free publicity how to get completely covered by being fully exposed. Claim a free report and get automatic articles like this one at http://www.powerprsecrets.com.

Here’s the latest Marketing Transformations Newtork News article . . .

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Instant Replay PR: Get Multiple Uses Out of One Release

by Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media

To request permission to reproduce or republish this article, contact connect AT corywestmedia DOT com.

Why write one release when you can take the same story and re-release it over and over again?

Here’s how to take a standard evergreen release and repackage it multiple times for major impact. Using a basic PR pattern allows you to reinvent your news and keep it fresh.

Tell an Evergreen Story

Once you write out who, what, when, where, why for each audience, go back and highlight the most important feature for them. Look for timeless stories that can be easily tied into today’s news. Use this chart to get started.

Choose Categories

How do you categorize your message? Knowing where to put your news helps you be in the right place every time. It’s okay to be in more than one category, but probably not in the same release or article. Set up interchangeable components to personalize your message for each category.

Track Results

After testing out your system, you’ll be able to see which audience in which categories works best. Stick with these and keep going.

About the author . . .

An in-demand publicist, professional speaker and marketing communications consultant since 1990, Barbara Rozgonyi is grounded, edgy and prophetic. “Panoramic PR,” Barbara’s latest project, compresses everything she knows into an affordable, manageable course that teaches small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, experts, coaches and anyone else who wants more free publicity how to get completely covered by being fully exposed. Claim a free report and get automatic articles like this one at http://www.powerprsecrets.com.

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Check into the Wired PR Works blog therapy suite.

All site content copyright Barbara Rozgonyi, CoryWest Media 2005-2007