Media needs content. Business announcements, human interest stories, community activism, events, etc., are the kinds of topics news reporters, producers and directors need in order to keep their products interesting to the public. Therefore, they depend, no they are dying for fresh, relevant and interesting content. If you’re wanting to get the word out about your product or service there may not be a more efficient and cost effective method than a well written, properly placed and appropriately timed press release, business announcement or media alert. Here are the basics:

A press release should only be 1-2 pages max. It should always answer the 5 W’s - who, what, when, where and why. It should include a quote or two and the exact contact info for the public and reporter that many want to conduct a follow up interview.

Next, you must have a very good media list. These days, email press releases are preferred over fax press releases because the content can be copied and pasted rather then retyped. Your list need to be updated regularly to make sure you’re not getting a lot of bounce backs.

Lastly, you should use the content created for your press release in as many web-based resources as possible such as your blog, website news, Facebook page, etc.,

If your story gets published and is posted on your various web resources you’ll get increased SEO through the multiple placements of the same content.

There are many more vital elements to a successful media campaign beyond what is listed above, so if you want as much low-handing fruit of advertising as possible contact us at Navigation Advertising in Murfreesboro, TN for more info. http://www.navigationadvertising.com

Is your email database yours, did you buy it from a broker or did you copy and paste it from a bunch of websites?

Will your email blasts contain relevant content that people want to read?

Will you want to use a template or will your email blasts be custom designed each time your send it out?

Those are just a few of the questions we ask our clients when determining if they should embark on an email blast campaign. For several years email database brokers convinced many folks (including us) that if they bought a list of 10 gazillion emails and sent out an email blast the phones would ring off the hook. Well guess what happened along the way to email blast heaven the CAN-Spam ACT of 2003 came down hard on spammers, i.e., those that send unsolicited emails to people. So, everyone began dropping in “opt-out” links on their email blast in order to comply with the federal law, but little did advertisers know that the consumer cranked up the “spam filters” on their email applications. These spam filters typically catch and dump the majority of unsolicited emails coming to their email address. 

These are our basic rules for launching an email blast campaign:

1. Only use “opt-in” email addresses, i.e., the folks you send emails to should only be those that have explicitly signed up for your email communications.

2. Use a text-based email blast template rather than a graphic-based email blast. Using a text-based template will give your email blast a better chance of making it past the spam filter and into the inbox of the intended recipient.

3. Make sure you provide relevant, interesting and concise content in your email blast.

4. Your subject line should be attention getting and prompt the recipient to open the email.

5. Be sure to use a professional email service such as Constant Contact or Campaign Monitor to distribute your email blast. These services keep you complaint with federal regulations and they provide exact tracking of your campaigns.

6. Enlist a professional ad agency like Navigation to design, write and distribute your email blast campaign.

7. Last, but not least. If your audience doesn’t respond to your email blast campaign with either views, click thrus, or forwards to a friend, then by all means just blog, blog, blog…

For any questions about email blast campaigns, direct response campaigns, corporate branding, tv commercials, radio commercials, billboards or a really nice brochure please call us at 615-898-1496.

Wedding Videos, Athletic Videos and Political Advertising are just some of the other kinds of work we do here at Navigation.

As a full-service advertising agency located in Murfreesboro, TN, we often find ourselves being asked to design and produce projects for clients that don’t exactly fit the “advertising” category. For many years we chose not to work in any field other than advertising, marketing or public relations, but as our skills and project management capabilities grew we discovered that we could branch out. So, we did. Hence we’ve had the opportunity to film dozens of weddings throughout middle Tennessee. For more info on our wedding video info you can visit: http://www/adventurevideoservices.com.

Then we were able to develop another company named Recruit Reels. Recruit Reels focuses on high school athletes that are seeking a college athletic scholarship. This company was formed a couple of years ago and we’ve been able to film athletes from Florida to Texas, Alaska to New Jersey and California to Tennessee. You can learn more about Recruit Reels at http://www.recruitreels.com

Last, but definitely not least, is our venture into the world of politics. We’ve been designing a wide variety of political promotional tools for conservative candidates for many years, but not until recently have we been promoting our skills separately from Navigation. Now, you can visit http://www.navpolitical.com

Some might believe venturing off into other areas might distract us from our primary focus, but we believe it’s just the opposite. We learn so much from other fields that ultimately help us do a better job for our clients and it’s keeps things interesting and diverse.

What do we look for in a vendor? Creativity, experience, affordability and promptness are the obvious characteristics, but there some intangibles that make all the difference. For instance - enthusiasm. If a photographer, web developer or copywriter doesn’t love what they’re doing, it will show in their work. They might be able to get the job done on-time and within budget, but no ones’ socks will be blown off. We always try to give accurate creative and production direction—but how awesome it is when a vendor sees something we didn’t and suggests a better solution! It happens occasionally and it’s those vendors we turn to first. Courier Printing in Smyrna, TN has met every deadline, stayed within budget and always has great insight when it comes to making valuable suggestions. Heck, even a few times they’ve caught a mistake or asked a question that caused us to rethink or correct the printing project. Richard Chisum is another valuable vendor. Richards enthusiasm for shooting and editing video is unparalleled in our many years of producing tv commercials and corporate videos. Additionally, Richards vast music background and love to technology ensure we’re going to get the best product from him every time. There are numerous other vendors that serve us well and we appreciate them all.

In our town (Murfreesboro, TN) of over 100k people and county (Rutherford, TN) of over 200k we are experiencing a dramatically changing demographic landscape. Therefore, our advertising, marketing and public relations strategies are completely dependent on the service, product, brand, audience and client goals more than ever. Gone are the days when a company could take out a 1/4 page ad in the local newspaper, a couple of billboards and a few tv commercials and see a rise in sales. The competition from other advertisers over a more diverse and informed audience has caused each and every advertising campaign to be more complicated, researched and savvy. For instance…recently we launched several direct mail campaigns for Allied Waste Services for Old Hickory, Mt. Juliet, LaVergne and Smyrna. Each city has a different demographic makeup which required us to develop three separate messages for three differently timed mailings. Not only did we believe each message appealed specifically to it’s audience, but using this approach also allowed us to gauge the results from each campaign. Our client was especially pleased because their call center and sales force was able to track results geographically so they at they could be more efficient in providing their services.

There are a few basics we adhere to when doing demographic research. 1.) Determine if they audience is financially qualified to become a customer of the client’s service or product we are promoting. 2.) Determine if the desired audience will be attentive, i.e., is it summer vacation season or are these folks back in their regular schedule of work and school so that they will be more inclined to view and react to our clients campaign. 3.) What form(s) of advertising will be most effective for the desired audience? We never recommend throwing all of our “advertising eggs” in one basket, therefore all of our clients are counseled to make sure they have both the budget and the infrastructure to conduct a comprehensive and integrated advertising, marketing and public relations campaign.

We use three different services for our demographic research as well as conducting a thorough interview with our clients about past advertising successes and failures to determine the most objective and accurate campaign information so that we can zero in on the audience. It’s often said the most expensive advertising is advertising that isn’t done, but we also believe an unnecessary expense can be poor research and wasted efforts. From loyalty and rewards campaigns to existing customer bases and brand development campaigns to new audiences—we do the research needed to make our campaigns as effective as possible.

We’re very proud of the website we designed and built for the Rutherford County GOP in the winter of 2010. Since it’s launch the site has soared to new heights at every level. Website traffic averages well over 3700 unique visits and 1 million+ hits per month. We run our client sites through WebsiteGrader.com to get an objective analysis of the website’s strengths and weaknesses so that we can properly optimize the site for search marketing. The Rutherford GOP website scored a 94 out of 100 on two separate occasions. Before we designed the site we reviewed the sites of several comparable groups throughout the region and across the nation. Two of the primary weaknesses we saw in other sites was poor navigation and sloppy graphics. Beyond building an easy to use site, we also wanted it’s design to be both appealing and timeless. We believe we did exactly that and trust the GOP will be able to use the site for several years before needing an overhaul. The primary way we accomplished these goals was through designing the site in Expression Engine. EE is simply one of the most functional and robust CMS’s (content management systems) we’ve ever worked with and recommend it to everyone we can. In addition to its clean and savvy design, we included functions such as database capture, volunteer forms, social and RSS feeds, e-commerce and multiple blogs.

We’re grateful to the Rutherford County GOP for trusting us with their web presence and we look forward to keeping the site performing at it’s best and designing similar site for similar clients.

http://www.RutherfordGOP.org

Special events are often overlooked or avoided due to their expense and hard work. While they can be expensive and a ton of work, they can also be the jump start a business needs to create awareness and response. We’ve planned and executed several ribbon cuttings, grand openings, conferences, symposiums, press conferences and trade show exhibits for numerous clients over the years and believe in their effectiveness.

One of our favorite tactics is the age-old practice of holding a special drawing for an item of value such as a restaurant gift certificate or flat screen tv. That’s right—some folks will give you their child’s social security number in order to win a flat screen tv. Flat screens are cheap and have more of a wow-factor that a free ride on the space shuttle. I’m not sure what that says about our society, but for our purposes it works. What are our purposes in having a client hold a special drawing for a flat screen tv? The database silly! Once we have that person’s business card or they fill out an online entry form we now have their email address (with their consent of course) and can message them about our client’s products or services.

Event planning is one of the most difficult promotional efforts, but also one of the most rewarding. Where else can you get in front of a lot of potential clients for such a low cost? Traveling to them or using several advertising vehicles adds up quick. But at a grand opening or trade show they come to you. There’s a special energy you achieve at an event that you can’t get on a sales call. We make sure we promote the event directly to our client’s audience then make sure when they arrive they feel special, drop off their contact info and leave with a promotional item to remember our client by. Be sure to delegate the event duties and responsibilities to competent folks and have weekly (if not daily) meetings to make sure everyone is accomplishing their goals. Nothing is worse than the cookies or photographer not showing up for your special event.

Just when you thought you’d figured out SEO (search engine optimization) along comes another powerhouse concentration. Social Media Optimization goes way beyond opening up a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. It’s really all about having an ongoing relationship-based conversation with your audience(s) so that they first trust you, then second want to interact with you. This approach is similar to the tried and true strategy of using warm colors when advertising food or calming earth tones at the doctors office or hospital. Social Media campaigns should provide environments that invite the various preferred audiences into your “space”, so that they do a variety of things such as become aware of your brand, message, product or service all the while being inspired, informed, entertained or encouraged.

SMO employs aspects of another tried and true strategy called “lifestyle marketing”. Lifestyle marketing is often used by companies such as Nike or Bass Pro Shops. Nike or BPS rarely say, “buy our shoes” or “buy your fishing pole here”, instead they provide their audiences with tons of information about the lifestyles their audiences enjoy which in turns creates massive brand awareness. Their audiences simply want to be part of the same lifestyle these companies promote which in turn causes them to want their products or services.

Too often businesses simply want to flood their social media presence with sales, prices or product descriptions. Once their audiences know this info they’re ready to move on. Their audiences want more from the folks they give money to. They want relationship. They want to reply, engage, provoke, sympathize or simply chat.

The biggest obstacles most companies find in developing an effective Social Media Campaign is producing creative content and then keeping these campaigns fresh and relevant. When a business owner has to choose between posting to Facebook or tending to a customer in their showroom—well you can guess the result. Therefore, we often recommend outsourcing Social Media Campaigns to us! We’ve been developing and maintaining Social Media Campaigns for years. We know how to ask the right questions, create the creative content and distribute it to the right audiences by using the right Social Media outlets.

One last thought. Most companies do not need to be on every possible Social Media outlet available. If you spread yourself too thin you will lose impact and the ability to keep up with it all. Master the few Social Media outlets that make sense first then expand as you can,

If you have questions on Social Media Optimization please contact us at 615-898-1496.

BLOGGING. In the next few paragraphs we hope to provide helpful information to those of you that are considering blogging or may have started and given up so that you blog and blog often. Blogging is simply posting your thoughts, feeling, insights, perceptions or demands online in an official “blog”. The term “blog” is derived from combing the two words “web” and “log”. There are over 156 million individual blogs in existence around the world with subjects ranging from baking to political activism. Some folks also include graphics, pictures, illustrations, audio files and video files. Why are blogs vital to good Search Engine Optimization? The main reason is that search engines such as Google seek to display websites that contain fresh, relevant content and blogs are tailor made for presenting new, relevant content to a website’s audience. 

RULES AND PRINCIPLES. Why the intimidation factor? Sometimes it’s because someone believes they can’t come up with enough content, sometimes they believe they’ll develop too much or sometimes they are simply intimidated by exposing themselves to the world in a published venue. Whatever the intimidation factor may be, we always encourage our clients to follow a few simple rules when blogging.
1. Use the five W’s format, i.e., write about who, what, when, where and why.
2. Structure your blog by telling them what you are going to tell them in the intro, tell them in the body copy, then tell them again in the summary. This writing structure makes sure your audience gets it and it doesn’t let you chase rabbit trails.
3. Keep it simple. Start with simple bullet points then go back and fill in the content.
4. Make sure your blog asks questions which often prompts readers to react rather than just read. Engage them with hypothetical situations, not just a rhetoric.
5. Provide helpful info which creates goodwill and will causes the reader to not just return but refer others. This info can be directly related to your business or cause or it can simply be helpful information about events, the weather or advice.
6. Blog often—at least once a month and preferably several times a month. We’re guilty of failing to blog as often as we should due to work load, but that’s to our own detriment and we pledge to blog more often.
7. And lastly, be careful not to commit slander, libel or say something you’d be ashamed to tell your mother. While a little controversy never hurt anyone, always remember people are watching and we all must remember to be smart when blogging.

KEYWORDS. Now, since we’ve discussed a few blogging rules and principles let’s talk about the most important aspect of blogging in relation to growing your business. Keyword rich content is vital to your blogs success. That is, add in keywords that you believe the type of person you want to attract to your blog will search for in a search engine such as Google. For instance if I own an air conditioning repair company in Murfreesboro, TN it would make sense for me to use words such as “Murfreesboro”, “air conditioning”, “repair”, “service”, “Tennessee”, “Rutherford County”, “HVAC”, etc., because it’s very likely that someone in need of a air conditioning repair in mid-July in Murfreesboro, TN will use words such as “air conditioning repair murfreeesboro, tn”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER. What are some of the subjects you could blog about that would be helpful to your targeted audience or would drive search engine traffic to your website? How often do you read blogs? Would you like more traffic on your website without paying for expensive tv commercials or newspaper ads?

SUMMARY. Blogging is fun, fruitful and often free. If you’re intimidated by blogging we can help get your started or we can build, maintain and update your blog for you. Call or email us to discuss the process of building a successful social media campaign for your company or cause.

Robert is a Marketing Intern that is currently pursuing a degree in marketing with an emphasis on Sports Marketing and Business Administration from Middle Tennessee State University. He also is alum of the Phi Delta Chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity. While there he was on the brotherhood board and the Brotherhood Events Coordinator. After graduation he would like to work for an Advertising agency and practice photography on the side.

Robert is also in the Air Force Reserves and is currently stationed out of Montgomery, Alabama as an Aerodynamics Specialist.  While in high school Robert played a major role in his youth group and helped his local Habitat for Humanity group build several houses. Robert is currently engaged to Whitney Pruitt and has a wedding date set for June of 2012.