Friday, 17 June 2011

Top Tips for SEO with Google

From a bleak winter day in Melbourne with a gap between client activities, I sat back and watched Jim Stewart's weekly video blog show on SEO (search engine optimisation). It is always enlightening and I recommend you view it and take notes if you are interested in SEO. It can be found at http://stewartmedia.biz

It seems that Google has a distinct way of compiling their search pages that only they know about, but listening to Jim over the past few years has provided me with an insight into the best way to gain high page rankings for a website. This is not only of interest for our own website at http://www.wmcpr.com.au but also for our public relations clients. One key factor is ensuring you use the best key phrase and it's interesting that even though you may use this phrase one or more times on a page, it doesn't necessarily mean a higher ranking. It's certainly a specialised art and one that Jim and his team at StewArtMedia in Melbourne can certainly help with!

Friday, 27 May 2011

How to Increase Broadband Speeds Before the NBN Comes to Your Business

Time has flown since the last blog entry. Had a wonderful holiday in New Zealand (Wellington is an attractive city and similar in style to Melbourne) and been busy helping clients with their various projects including a soft launch of Fusion Broadband's new service. This company's technology allows businesses to double, triple or even quadruple their Internet speeds. You can check them out at < www.fusionbroadband.com.au > We all know that the NBN is coming, but for many businesses, particularly in regional centres, it is still four years away. And you could be terribly unlucky and be less than a kilometre away from the NBN, like one firm in Armidale, one of the first regional cities where the NBN is being 'switched on'. So what can this business do? Luckily, Fusion Broadband can help them, and they don't have to change their existing service provider/s, although there doesn't seem to be much loyalty in this area it seems. So now there's a quick and easy way to improve your upload and download speeds on your existing ADSL, SHDSL, ADSL2+ and most other connections.

Monday, 14 January 2011

Giveaway Promotions are a Win Win Win for Everyone

Do you enter competitions? Personally, the competitions I like to enter are the ones where you don't have to write "in 25 words or less" why you like this product or that service. There's really no reason to do this because it takes about the same amount of effort to organise a "lottery" as a game of chance as it does to set it up as a "lottery" based on skill (means you are judged based on your response). I would think you'd get less people entering the more they have to do to try and win it. Having said that, you may get fewer responses, but you could end up with some valuable responses that could be used in future marketing. But do people really write the truth or just write what they think may win them the prize? Lots to debate there! Anyway, on the weekend, we arranged for one of our client's products to be part of a giveaway competition run by the Herald Sun newspaper's HOME magazine. Thermofilm's Ozflame bio-fuel fireplace < www.thermofilm.com.au > will make someone very happy, considering that it is freestanding and can be used indoors or outdoors, giving a real flame ambience. Don't forget that giveaways are a great PR tool and a win win win for everyone involved.

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Nano technology is quite incredible. I was talking to a business today that has the Australian rights to a nano (technology) liquid product that is specially formulated to virtually self clean windows. It also has anti bacterial properties so it can be sprayed on to surfaces where food is prepared to prevent the spread of diseases. It also eliminates odour. Once sprayed inside, the surface is protected for a year; outside it lasts two years. With so much research being carried out in this area, expect to see many more innovations this decade. Have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year.

Did you see in today's news that by 2015 one in three Australians will be obese? This will put so much pressure on our public health system that governments and communities need to introduce initiatives so this doesn't happen. As obesity shortens one's lifespan, families should encourage their obese relatives to drop the kilos.

Whilst on the subject of health, if you are an asthmatic or have an allergy, you'll know you can't use a traditional dry cleaner without it causing you problems. Did you know there are green dry cleaners in Australia? In fact, our client Daisy Dry Cleaning doesn't use any chemicals and its process is endorsed by the National Asthma Council. You can read more at www.daisy.net.au

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Webinars are terrific. Just attended one that was run by Suzi Dafnis's Australian Businesswomen's Network. Titled The Referral Engine, it was presented by John Jantsch from the US who has written a book by the same name. Suzi had read the book so knew all the right topics to cover for her audience of small businesses who want to grow.

If you haven't done a webinar, try them. It beats sitting in traffic to attend a seminar over the other side of town, or getting up for a 7am breakfast. You just listen from your desk with your PC sound on. I do like to have a good PowerPoint to go with them though, which today's didn't have. Seems to help keep your attention, stopping you from surreptitiously checking your emails (well, no-one can see you do this) and getting distracted.

If you or other people in your company is an expert on a given subject or subjects, why not run your own webinar? Bring in one or two more other people who can provide a contributing perspective, such as an end user and/or vendor, to round out the topic being covered. Add a moderator and a number of rehearsals and you are halfway there. Effective marketing of your webinar to customers, potential customers and other stakeholders is important. Try and get your local industry publication to support you; they have a large database and may be willing to send out a notification on the date, time, etc. Use as many (relevant) databases as you can get. For example, your fellow speakers may have databases that can be utilised.

Once it is over, it can be made available on your website for people who want it, following a simple pre-registration process. This means the webinar continues to deliver prospects to you long after the event.

PS as a follow up to last month's blog post, our client Daisy won the Environmental Sustainability-Products & Services Award at the City of Port Phillip Business Awards. Also, congratulations to another client, Stylemaster Panels, for this month winning the national award for Best Large Shop at the Australasian Paint & Panel Autobody Repairer of the Year Awards.

Thursday, 21 October 2010

Daisy is up for more awards at tonight's City of Port Phillip Business Awards and is a finalist in a few categories. Daisy is the world's greenest dry cleaner and as part of the opening of its first franchised store in Lara, Shane Wakelin, Environmental Ambassador and AFL great, kindly officially launched the store for us. Shane is well known in Victoria, having played for St Kilda and Collingwood (total of 252 games). He is an Ambassador for numerous environment groups and campaigns and is a keen cyclist, opting to cycle rather than drive; this is just one way in which he walks the talk.See the story and photo at http://www.wmcpr.com.au/category/press-office/page/2/

Attended a council dinner last night and was entertained by the keynote speaker, Pino Migliorino, Chairperson of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA). Pino is passionate about multicultural affairs and provided some excellent suggestions on how to connect with different cultures and turn them into customers. So from now on, I am going to assess the value of incorporating into our and our client's strategies, "intergenerational cultural and linquistic maintenance. Every business needs to harness the benefits of multiculturalism and another speaker, Vijay Susarla from Q1 Systems suggested there are numerous places to get information on this subject including this government website: http://www.multicultural.vic.gov.au/projects-and-initiatives

Some stats that demonstrate how important this market segment is: 43.69% of Victorians were either born overseas, or have a parent who was born overseas. Victorians come from more than 200 countries, speak more than 230 languages and dialects and follow more than 120 religious faiths.

Go for it!

Friday, 24 September 2010

Good luck to our client Daisy Dry Cleaning for tonight's My Business Awards in Sydney. They are entered in the Best Green Business Award. Daisy <www.daisy.net.au > is the world's greenest dry cleaner being the only five leaf (star) dry cleaning business in the world and operating on a carbon neutral basis. It is chemical free and has just opened its first franchised store in Lara, Greater Geelong.

Most dry cleaners use perchlorethylene (perc), which is toxic and leaves its unpleasant 'signature' smell on garments. The downstream effects of perc on the environment are quite damaging.

I have written a white paper about the benefits of entering awards and you can see it by clicking here.

Big day tomorrow in the AFL Grand Final. Let's hope it's a close match for the footy fans.

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Newsletters remain an valuable B2B communication tool, whether circulated as a hard copy or electronically. As long as the information is informative and beneficial to readers, there should be no reason why recipients would not want to receive it. Of course, you need to make sure that the frequency is spot on, so they aren't bombarded too often or forget all about you because it's six months between each issue.

Newsletters are an extremely cost effective medium, but don't make the mistake of using images that detract rather than enhance the story. In fact, most often it is the photo that carries the story. So don't scrimp on paying for a professional to take photos. If you know you will be requiring a selection of photos over the next three or four issues of newsletter, have the photographer take the shots at the same time. This way the cost can be spread over numerous issues.

If you are struggling to find content, create an 'editorial' team comprising people from different departments and offices. Set up a conference call every month and discuss the content and ideas/suggestions they have, which hopefully they have developed following conversations with people they work with.

Does your company have an internal newsletter? I always think it is important to have a regular newsletter to employees that covers the more human side of the business. Yes, marriages, engagements, births and the like should be included, along with entertaining human-interest pieces such as people profiles, promotions, industry news, new products, new employees, safety issues and successes, awards and recognition for both employees and the company, current advertising campaigns, community engagement projects, photos from recent exhibitions, new company policies and strategies, and a message from the CEO (optional).

Don't forget that sending out your customer newsletter unsolicited is a no-no. Make sure you have their permission. And use tracking software to see who is opening it, what stories they are clicking on and who requests to be unsubscribed (and make sure you comply with their request!).

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

Taking the topic of case studies one step further, using third parties to endorse your products and servics adds considerably more credibility to your PR efforts. There are many ways you can utilise comments or quotes from third parties in your promotional material. For example, if your company has won an award, try and obtain quotes from the award organiser or its CEO saying the reason why you were chosen. Sometimes it is better to get a quote from a member of the judging panel. We did this once for a Coobara Wines, which won an award for its cool climate shiraz. We spoke to the judge, who was well known in the wine community and used his comments as to why he thought the wine was so good.

Another example would be third party comments and quotes that can come from independent authorities who can endorse company statements. If business XYZ says it runs a carbon neutral operation, it would be more credible if an independent organisation can be quoted to say that they have accredited XYZ and have verified that they are carbon neutral.

In many public relations situations it's worth remembering that when writing a news release or article for a newsletter, newspaper, magazine or blog, try to incorporate quotes from third parties: people or organisations that have benefited from the product or service you are writing about. The comments should not be flowery or embellished with superlatives, but written in a way that summarises the benefits they gained.

On another note, received a wonderful email this morning from an old client who moved to Perth and is now CEO of Mobilarm, man overboard safety systems at http://www.mobilarm.com/ He referred some new business to me saying, "Jason is in need of some PR to launch a new business venture and I have assured him you’re the best in the business!"

What a lovely way to start the day.

Monday, 5 July 2010

When you get a new customer or client and start racking up some good results for them, it's a good idea to prepare a case study. There are so many uses to case studies, including: sales brochure/flyer that can be used by sales staff, handed out at exhibitions or shows, etc.; excerpts can be used on your website, including really good quotes from customer that shine a light on your services and products; advertisements that include a customer quote, or even just their logo, is seen as an endorsement of what you have to offer; editorials for use by trade journals, business magazines, newspapers and online media; and when submitting tenders they make great reference material. Make sure you have the customer's approval before you start putting pen to pape, otherwise all your good work could be for nothing. Usually they are happy to agree to case studies as it gives them additional - and free- publicity. It also looks good on the CV of the customer representative being quoted.

Wednesday, 22 June 2010

Just returned from two and a bit weeks in the NT Top End, touring around Darwin, Kakadu, Katherine and Litchfield National Park. Was very interesting looking at the Aboriginal rock art and hearing the stories about the paintings. The wet was a month later than usual so there was a lot of water around. And what does water mean? Mozzies. Thousands of them. Still a small price to pay for the great views of so many wonderful birds, including the Jabiru or Black-necked Stork.

If you are looking at creating some interest on your stand the next time you exhibit, how about giving visitors a scratchy card that reveals whether or not they are a winner. I suggest you have lots of small prizes in a barrell that they can delve into when they have a winning card. We've just designed a scratchie for a client that includes a list of their services and their logo, printed in their corporate colours. The interactivity of the scratching process and returning to the stand to collect their prize will hopefully mean they will remember the company for more than five seconds. And if the prize has the company logo on it, so much the better.

An update on Stylemaster Panels and their award entry. They were runner up in the award, so were thrilled with this. What award are you entering this year?

Thursday, 20 May 2010

Good news. Our client Stylemaster Panels has been announced as a finalist in the FBA awards, as mentioned below.

Thursday, 13 May 2010

Helping our clients to win awards is very rewarding. Of course if they don't win, it can also be disappointing - for the client and ourselves. We have recently submitted an entry in the 2010 Family Business Association Awards for one of our clients and in a couple of weeks the winners will be announced. Fingers crossed Stylemaster Panels will win their category and go on to the national finals.

I've recently written a white paper on why businesses should enter awards - you can read the complete document by clicking on this link .

In summary though, winning a business or industry award provides independent recognition of your expertise and success. And if promoted well, it allows you to stand out from your competitors. It also provides the opportunity to raise the profile of the company, demonstrate you are well-run and successful, attract media coverage, increase the company's appeal to potential investors and be seen as a good employer, which can help attract top flight staff. Winning is also a fantastic morale booster for everyone and sometimes provides a valuable prize.

To choose which awards to enter, investigate all the possible awards that are applicable to your business, both industry and business related. Don't forget to check out international awards as well.

In addition to the above benefits, there are other advantages in entering awards. The first of these is the actual process itself. Answering probing questions about your company succinctly will allow you to drill down to the key issues that make your business a success and stand out from the rest. Listing your major achievements and quantifying them is an excellent process that can be used in other areas of your business.

I strongly recommend that a professional writer or PR consultant reviews award entries before they are submitted. Make sure the answers are relevant and use real life examples to demonstrate your claims. It is so important to read the conditions of entry and ensure every item is ticked off so a technicality doesn't cause the entry to go to the bottom of the list. The award we submitted for Stylemaster Panels was also given to our graphics designer to improve the presentation, and it really did look good.

Of course, once you win an award, or even if you are a finalist, there are so many things you can do to promote this fact and take advantage of the kudos you receive. Check out this list in the white paper, which can be found here .

Wendy McWilliams

PS I welcome any feedback, questions or queries. Just drop me a note at info at wmcpr dot com dot au.