Press Release for Effective Marketing!

Consumers buying decision have always been influenced by the PR efforts. What media tells about your product/brand influences the shoppers more than the direct advertisements. It appears like third party view and seems more dependable piece of information. A recent study about buying pattern of customer revealed that they recently read about the product somewhere or saw the recommendation on some third party source. Information put on company website or company material is seen more as the Advertising rather than authentic information. Opposite happens with good PR, just talk is also considered as authentic information!

A Press Release is the start of all this. How to use PR as a conduit to boost sale? Try this

• Choose Effective and Influential Media: Press Release helps gain media coverage that reaches to the targeted audience. With specialized websites and blogging media, it is possible to run the PR entirely online. Even the social media and networking sites can be used for the reason. Target specific online editors and popular webmaster, use the freely available news distribution service online to reach to thousands of online newsrooms or even run personal e-mails to the editors of conventional media sources. The way customers are getting interest in online shopping in India, gaining coverage in online media will build Brand's credibility and influence shoppers decision at a point in their shopping process when they can directly go to your shopping site.


• Direct Customer Focused Press Release: Your product might not be of great interest for the media at current phase of your company. May be it is not big enough to grab attention of the media but for sure may grab customer fancy. You may turn your simple press release into an effective sales tool by sending it directly to the customers mail box from your customer database, embedding it in the body of the mail, not as attachment. Include the link to the appropriate landing page to give direct product experience for the customers who want to click through. It seems innovative and maximum times it compels your customers to check out what is new and exciting happening on your website.


• Online content offer: Users online have a tendency to look deeper before they make their first buying experience. It is important to make sure your website has a News, a Testimonial and a Press Release section attached to it. Customer show great interest in purchasing from a business that supports a cause they care for, include press releases that shows your company's policy related to such cause and the work your company is doing for that cause. Make your potential customer aware of the positive news happening at your end, the chances of them buying your product over competition is more.


• Search Engine Optimization: The distribution of your Press Release can be directly related to the SEO for your website. Optimize each of your press release to include your most related search terms. Press releases are like a chain of links that leads traffic to your website and gives the spiders of the search engines to find your page in better way.

And to do this you don't need to sell out earth. There are several ways you can do it online and for free.

Effective Customer Connect program

Recently I have been meeting various brand managers and marketing experts from different industry segment. Invariably all the discussion was aimed at the Customer Behavior towards a brand and their loyalty to the Brand they have. Though the meeting happened with different segment of the industry, I think taking this blog in sections would be a better idea.

Let me start with the Telecome Industry, the focus is Telecom industry in India.

Some stunning facts before we actually come to our discussion-

1. The mobile sector has grown from around 10 million subscribers in 2002 to reach 150 million by early 2007. An average growth of over 90% Y-o-Y.
2. The growth of GSM in last 8 years has been in the range of 57-110%
3. The growth of CDMA in last 5 years has been in the range of 70-700%
4. The current Telecom market is in the tune of more than $100Bn (INR 45000 crore)
5. There are only 5-6 major player in the telecom domain
6. At leaset 5 more big players are planning to enter the telecom market

Despite this the fact remains that

1. In telecom sector, hardly 13-22% customers complete over one year with a service provider!
2. Number portability is still not a reality
3. Once number portability will be in place the rate of retention is expected to fall even more
4. The major growth is happening in the urban and semi urban area and the most dropouts are also from these ares only.

With these facts in view, it is very tough situation that on account of customer retaining, the companies are not at all in a good condition. In fact the companies are forced to put the benchmark customer retention figure very low!

• It costs 10 times more to get a new customers then to retain an existing one

While talking to the brand managers about this situation, maximum times they don't realize and accept the problem. This is like not getting ready for the diagnoses of the problem. The major excerpts were-

Our Customers are Satisfied with us. See the number of customers are increasing every quarter-

This is one of the notions that the Brand Managers are attached to. They present the growth of customer base Q-o-Q as a proof.

Addition of new customers is a very organic event. This happens because of the obvious reason of demand. But when asked about the customers falling in the loyalty program, the real picture appears. The percentage loyal customer in some zones is in single digit of the total customer at any given time!

What are the reasons- The brand managers won't stop citing reason as Competition or Better Service quality by the competitors. But is it?

A study conducted by Google Advertising professional shows that the biggest reason the customer leaves a brand is not Competition or Product Quality... these count less than 9% and 15% of the whole lot of customer who leave the brand!

Research found that the benchmark quality is a pre-requisite to enter and stay in the market. In the mature market these are not the reasons customer leave a brand for. Than What is the reason?

No Customer Contact Strategy!

But we have a fantastic Customer Care facility...

The customer care facility works in both ways.

More Customer Care Center = More Customers

More Customer Care Center = More Business so More Customer Calls

More Customer Care Center = More Customer Complaints!!!

There might be many such equations, but ask from a customer who calls these customer cares for a problem and see how the solution is provided? Any authentic survey will reveal why customers call the customer care center and what is their take from the call!

Proactive Customer Care or Reactive Customer Care?

Now when we talk about customer care, there are two approach

1. Reactive Customer Care - Maximum of the current customer care practice falls in this approach. As customer are going to call, there should be someone to listen to! or Company needs to promote something new... might be selling some new product to existing customers.

2. Proactive Customer Care - Corporate understands that the customers should be approached proactively also. This kind of practice is however limited to the new customer in maximum cases. A Dish TV or TATA SKY, Airtel direct-to-home or Reliance BigTV may call their customer after the installation to know if the connection is working fine or not. Similarly the Telecom companies call their customer to know if the connection is good, or sometimes just to let them know that the plan is started on their handset.

But both these forms does not come in the periphery of Customer Connect!

Recently I got a call from one telecom service provider I took the connection from. The customer care call was to say me Thanks for paying their bill on time. I got three such calls! Good to get a Thanks You call from my telecom service provider. But only hitch was, I got two calls when I was driving and was not interested in such calls. But certainly the intention of the caller (and the company) was good. Thanks me on paying the bill on time! This was an example of Customer Connect Program.

But, there was a problem. They tried to invade in my personal time. Calling me on my cell to say thanks was again like an unsolicited call. This might be the reason that I did not get such call again for the next month, though I paid all the bills on time. Probably they also realized that this is not the right way of doing this.

Than what is the right way of Effective Customer Connect Program:

To device an Effective Customer Connect program, it is very important to understand the difference between Customer Care and Customer Connect. Customer care is to provide day to day support for customer queries related to their service. Customer Connect is to connect to the customer on a regular basis. Not just by sending bills. Not just by using up selling techniques. Not just by sending pre-recorded offer messages or text SMS.

Sending regular feedback form, sending thanks you messages, and if your can manage sending a Thanks You card to the customer. A Birthday card for the customer from the company can do a magic. No offer, no gimmick. A general Greeting Card to the customer wishing them, makes they feel connected to the brand. No body hates wishes. No body dislikes being felt Special.

So this can be for the Brand Managers trying to find a better way of Customer Connect. A better way to create Customer Loyalty and make your brand more visible.

E-market: Retain and increase customer flow

Email Marketing: To Keeping Customers Coming Back

This is e-age. Today Internet provides users an instant access to anything and everything they can think of. However, this instant access is not good enough for most people. Because of this many people will visit a website once or twice and may not visit it ever again. The attention that your website will get in the initial visits is just a transitory one. Even if you have the best looking site on the Internet, people will not want to constantly come back to see if you have updated or added fantastic new content, items or services. If you feel I am talking about your website, you need to read this...

This makes some sense:
Email marketing can provide the customers with an easy and quick way to see if you have updated or added anything new to your site without having them actually visit your website. If you think that sending mails to your mailing list, don't worry. In fact, sending email newsletters will increase the traffic to your site because people will get to know if anything new is added there which might be of their interest. At the same time, newsletters give you a great opportunity to tell them of any new products and specials that you may be offering.

Keep them informed:I am sure that you must have taken the consent from your customer for sending e-newsletters of other offers, announcements. Once you have got your customers to sign up to your newsletter, don’t stop there. But don't be very optimistic that they will ever open and read the mail. Studies suggests that more than half mails directly gets deleted. People not even open them. What makes them to open the mail? It is the subject line that you are putting. In order to keep them interested, offer them prizes and specials so that they have to open the email to see what they can win or save on.
Keep them coming back Once your customer’s are signed up and reading, give them a reason to visit your site. There are several ways to do this.

• Make sure to update your site before you send out your newsletter. This will give them an opportunity to see what has changed and if anything interests them.
• Try and promote new products and services so that the customer will go to your site to find out more.

People like things to be quick, easy, and automated. By giving your customers an easy way to see if your site has been updated, you should be able to increase traffic to your site and convert them in sales. Doing so does not require much technical expertise or financial status. If you are a small company or start-up, try doing it yourself. If you feel that you want to start an email marketing campaign, but do not have the time or energy, there are great companies that are willing to work with you.