As a company, you have a logo which identifies your brand and you have a website and other marketing collateral that describes your products and services and all of these are closely related to the image of your company and are part of the brand awareness you’re creating for your business. If you think about the images, the actual photos, used to depict your products and services, do they fit the type of customer you’re trying to attract? Are you allowing prospective buyers to see themselves using your product or service? Do you project through realistic photos and images the ways in which your products fits into the various lifestyles of your buyers?

Having photos that correspond with the lifestyles of your target audience is critical to projecting your brand’s best image. If your target demographic is a baby boomer entering retirement, you probably don’t want twenty-somethings as the models in photos showing your product. If the “average” housewife or working mom is who you are trying to reach, showing a neatly kept house with everything in it’s place is not likely to be a realistic image that your audience is going to relate to (unless you are marketing a cleaning service!).

Before you start snapping photos and grabbing the next closest employee to model for your photo shoot, really think about the lifestyles of your target audience. If you take photos that capture a setting or action that your prospective buyer can picture themselves in, you’ll be more likely to make the sale. And if your target audience is diverse, make an effort with your photos to show how your products or services apply to as many lifestyles as you’re trying to appeal to.

We spend a lot of time working on the words that go into our websites and marketing materials and often the photos that accompany the words are an afterthought. Photos are an opportunity to underscore the message you are sending and you don’t want to send mixed messages by not investing in the right kind of photos. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but if the picture doesn’t show your target buyer in a setting they can relate to, it’s like your picture is speaking a foreign language.

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon

Everyone wants more business, more clients, more work, ultimately leading to more revenue. Clients, whether they are business or consumer clients, are generically speaking part of the public sphere. In order to attract new clients from that public sphere, you have to have some sort of plan on how to reach them, educate them about your company and product, and attract them to do business with you instead of your competitors.

This basic concept of interacting with the public has three main components that I believe are the foundation of defining public relations: Reach, Educate, and Attract. How you do each of these things will depend on your target client, the type of product you have, the message you aim to send, the marketing materials you have available, and the person or team you have dedicated to your public relations campaign. Some companies are large enough to have an in-house PR person or team focused 100% of the time on the public image, message, and visibility of the brand. Others might have one person who juggles PR, marketing, and sales. Some may outsource PR to an experienced professional or firm. Regardless of who is handling your PR, equal energy must be applied to the multiple tasks necessary to build your relationship with the public.

Reach Your Audience

You might read “reach your audience” as “find your audience.” There is no question that public relations requires finding the targeted public, but beyond finding them you have to actually reach them, engage them, interact with them, confirm that they are indeed part of your audience. A good bit of research as well as trial and error should be put into finding and reaching your audience. With multiple media formats available, your desired new clients could be on the other end of television, radio, newspaper, magazine, email, website, social media sites, conferences, networking events, or even the dinner table. Knowing your demographic and how they use each of these media as well as word of mouth will help you determine where to spend the most energy in finding and reaching them. Once you have identified where the audience is, start to interact with them. Multimedia such as TV and radio will require that you have a story to tell as well as a call to action that motivates your audience to come to you. I personally think these forms of media push the “reach, educate, attract” goals all into one campaign where you must accomplish everything at once.

I believe print and online media offer platforms in which you can build a relationship with your audience. Reaching an audience on the other side of a magazine can be done through having press releases or articles published, letters to the editor printed that speak directly to your clients, or photos used that show your product being used in a way that the audience can relate to. The more your target audience sees your company or product, the more they will be getting to know you.

Online media is an endless array of opportunity to find, reach, and connect with an audience. I’ve written before about Twitter which is an invaluable resource for reaching an audience. Social media sites abound where you can create profiles to show the public face of your company and interact with clients. Interacting on blogs, message boards, and other networking sites are also open doors you can walk through to reach your audience.

Educate: Share Information

Take the time to educate your audience–teach them not just about your company and product but about your industry, where it’s been, where it’s going, how you are a part of it. Tell them how your products are made, how they’re used, what you have changed, what has evolved, and what you have learned from other customers. Use your full field of vision when sharing information with your audience. Don’t limit yourself to talking about just what is in front of you because when you talk about more than just yourself you give your audience a chance to understand where you stand in the industry and where you stand on industry issues. Give your clients as much information as possible so that they can ask educated questions of both you and your competitors and make well-informed purchase decisions. Chances are if you educate the audience better than your competitor, you will reap the sales rewards of having shared valuable knowledge with your clients.

Attract Relationships

All of the effort you put into public relations is about building a relationship. From finding, engaging, and interacting with your audience to sharing information with them, understanding their questions and responding to their needs you are creating a two-way relationship. Once you’ve invested in getting your company name and product in front of your audience and they know who you are, you have to provide them with a call to action, a reason to come to you and stick with you. Whether you are appealing to their emotions, needs, goals, or budget find the thing about your company that is most attractive to your audience and make it work for you. If you’re not sure what that thing is, ask the audience. Remember, it’s a relationship which requires open communication to be successful.

Public relations allows you to show your best side to your audience and if you put the many pieces of public relations together, you will find that the audience you intend to reach will continue to grow, you will have more information to share, and you will find yourself in many happy relationships.

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon

Miami Boat Show: image from The Hull Truth

A week ago today marked opening day of the 68th Miami International Boat Show. It was my 5th Miami show and the first one as an independent public relations  professional. I had planned events and meetings on my schedule but I was also looking forward to the unplanned aspects of the show.

What would the exhibits on the dock look like? How would consumer traffic be at Sea Isle Marina? Would the Convention Center halls look like empty bowling alleys or be jam-packed with buyers? What influence would the economy have on conversations between buyers and sellers? Would the spirit of boating still be alive and well?

Attendance

Sea Isle Marina as far as the docks are concerned looked pretty much the same at first glance. It has a unique horseshoe-shaped center dock arrangement and had mostly full slips all around. Seeing the marina from the causeway, it certainly looked like a boat show. The outer end of the marina, however, normally has several hundred feet of additional docks added to it and this is where I saw the stark contrast from previous years. The extended dock space had been reduced and there were a good handful of boat manufacturers missing from the typically overwhelming trawler section of the show. Miami is without a doubt an expensive show to participate in so it makes sense that some companies might have cut the exhibiting expense from the budget.

Traffic all around was also lighter than in previous years. But what seemed to be missing were the stiletto heels, the gold chains, the hords of baby strollers, and the beer-toting vacationers. My interpretation of this is that serious buyers were still at the show. Attendance was reported down 26 percent from last year but when you see that there were still over 96,000 people checking out boats and gear, the potential for follow-up sales remains strong. The NMMA who runs the show believes attendance was from quality consumers and that those who purchased at the show were pre-financed. For individual dealers, only weeks and months of follow-up will indicate how serious their boat show leads are.

The Conversations

I love talking to people at boat shows because something about being on a dock, in 80-degree weather, surrounded by boats that fulfill people’s dreams creates a common bond. What I love more than talking, is listening. Builders, suppliers, salesmen, marketers, everyone I listened to was talking about the future. They were not dwelling on today’s economy. Today’s poor economy is a reality and everyone has to deal with it as best they can and what I heard was excitement for doing more. I found it encouraging that companies are working on their websites, sending out press releases, creating new display banners, focusing on new ways to promote their product, connecting with their customers, and defining their place in the market. This all sounds very vague, but the circumstances are different for each company in the industry, and I was hearing folks identify their focus. Every little thing counts.

I heard consumers asking questions, seeking education. Sure, there were a few lamenting over financial timing, needing to sell a house or a business before buying a boat, but even these consumers were there with a plan and to learn how to make their dreams happen. At the display of one of my clients, potential buyers were talking with current owners and asking questions about where they’d been, where they’re headed, wanting to know how they’ve used the boat. Potential buyers were putting themselves in the shoes of those out there doing it and learning how to follow in their footsteps. I listened to a couple ask a manufacturer endless questions about batteries, power supply, renewable technology, and hull construction and he was genuinely digesting every answer he received. The conversations I heard were not about the down economy, they were about boating.

I think the buzz that the Miami show created is all about timing. Being on the water is something that people who attend boat shows love whether it is in a kayak, a RIB, a Hobie Cat, performance sailboat, fishing boat, expedition yacht, or trawler. Their passion for being on the water does not crash with the stock market, though that might affect when they move on to the next boat. For most people, it’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.”

And it’s the industry’s job to be ready for them.

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon

Blogging is like any other aspect of social media in that it should be social, interactive, a two-way conversation, which means that you will have to do more than just write; you will also have to promote the blog and invite people to read it. By informing your customers through your ads, your existing website, conversations, marketing materials, and cross-link programs that you have a blog, you will be able to at least attract your existing clients and those you reach through marketing. If you properly optimize your blog, pay attention to writing with keywords, including links to useful resources in your posts, and blog regularly, search engines will find and index your blog which means people who don’t yet know about you can find you as they’re surfing the internet. Take it one step further and include a link to your blog posts on your Twitter account, in your responses to posts on message boards, and get your blog listed in blog catalogs so that you can reach an entirely new audience with your content. Blogging can help you reach your audience because you will be giving them something new to read every time they come to your site, you are inviting them to participate and communicate with you through the blog, and you will be building your brand through content that can be shared indefinitely by yourself and visitors to your site. Once you embrace the idea of blogging as a way of communicating and interacting and decide to integrate it into your marketing and public relations plan, you have to find something to write about.

Writing Ideas

Not everyone likes to write and I can certainly appreciate that the less you like to write the more challenging blogging becomes. If you are thinking about blogging the same way you think about writing copy for your ads, promotional lingo for your marketing collateral, or a press release, the first step is to change your thinking. Blogging is an opportunity to engage an audience by showing a personality, telling a story, giving insight and sharing information beyond what you can normally accomplish in other print or online content. You don’t need to be launching a new boat or introducing a new product just to write a blog. So what should you write about?

A recent post from Online Journalism Blog shared a great list of 12 ideas for blog posts. The author’s ideas easily translate to the marine industry and offer enough starting points for anyone to overcome writer’s block. His ideas are in bold and my interpretation of them follows:

1. Respond to something elsewhere on the web. Do a Google search for your company and find blogs or message boards mentioning your company, brand, or product. Simply copy and paste a significant line (good or bad), quote the source, and respond.
2. Suggest an idea. Your blog begins with something like “We’re thinking about adding a pilothouse design to our existing models. What would you suggest its main features include to fit a hypothetical cruising couple?” Invite editors and buyers to contribute feedback and you have a blog post! Tom Tripp had great success with this on his recent OceanLines series about outfitting a Kadey-Krogen helm station.
3. Interview someone. This could be the CEO of the company, your naval architect, a customer who uses your product, one of your dealers or distributors. Interviews are an opportunity to put a face to your company and a personality to the blog.
4. Blog an event. Boat shows, rendezvous, owners’ meetings, open houses…tons of blog opportunities in our industry.
5. Ask a question. Once you have developed traffic to your blog site, an individual blog could be as simply as asking people about their summer cruising plans. Ask them to send you their stories and photos for inclusion in the blog. Or, take a poll and publish the results as a new blog post.
6. Pick a fight. The suggestion here is to respond to someone else’s blog or an article with which you disagree; maybe it’s a recent editorial or something more broad like the state of the economy and what that means for the marine industry.
7. Reflect on something. Are you celebrating a major company anniversary or the sale of a certain number of units? Talk about why those are good things and what got you to that point. Or, make it personal and reflect on your own experiences that have helped you connect with boaters and the marine industry.
8. Do something visual. Share photos, videos, diagrams. Visuals appeal to the senses of your site visitors and can appeal to their emotions as well as help put your company in perspective. Show them how they can enjoy your product.
9. Review something. While it can be self-serving to review your own products, it can’t hurt to blog in detail about your newest offering. Or, share someone else’s review (with their permission, of course).
10. Make a list. Top 10 places people cruise in your boats. Most creative uses for your product. Top five success stories of your company. 101 reasons to come visit you at the next boat show.
11. Write a how-to. I strongly believe in educating consumers. Rather than tell them why your product is the best, explain to consumers how it works, what problem it solves, and how it relates to other systems on a boat. If you can write a how-to that doesn’t even include your product, even better in my mind because it shows the consumer that you know more about the bigger picture of boating than just your own product.
12. Let someone else post. Otherwise known as guest blogging. Invite one of your customers, a company you partner with, an editor, or even someone else within your own company contribute to your blog.

Or, you can do what I just did and blog about someone else’s blog. At the very least it gives you something to write about and by putting your own twist on it and applying it to your own company, you will give site visitors something new to think about.

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon

This saying has stuck in my head quite a bit recently with regard to things we as an industry can do to better promote our brands, to foster new relationships in the industry, and to help boating as a whole. I’m not necessarily talking about marketing or boat shows so much as having brand awareness, offering remarkable customer service, and keeping an open mind to try new things. Branding and customer service are SOP in business models so my suggestion is to reevaluate your approach to them. If there’s something we‘re surely looking for right now, it’s things we can do that don’t cost anything! So what are they?

Brand Awareness

What is the mission statement of your company? Do all your employees know it and somehow integrate it into their actions and interactions on behalf of your company? Your mission statement should support your brand whether that is your company name, a specific product, or your service, and brand awareness is knowing how the brand is actually being received, recalled, and passed along as a result of your branding efforts. Ideally your branding efforts, communication with consumers, and ad campaigns are educating the industry on your product to enhance their understanding of the value of your brand. Taking the time to understand how people are receiving your brand is one of those things that doesn’t necessarily “cost you anything.” It might cost you time, but in the long run it will allow you to improve your branding. Do you ask people where they heard of you when they call? Knowing where people come from will provide insight on who is spreading the word about your brand and confirm which of your branding efforts are most effective. Do you monitor message boards, Twitter, blogs, and news feeds to see how the public is discussing your brand, if at all? If they are talking about you, feel free to respond. Engage. I used to shy away from responding on message boards to defend my brand because I just didn’t want to deal with the “after-effect” good or bad, and so I would ignore posts that wouldn’t have cost me a thing to reply to. Big mistake. If you see that people love your brand, thank them. If you see that folks are bashing it, misrepresenting it, or are confused, treat it as an opportunity to resolve, educate, and protect your brand. So long as you know your brand, its value, and are confident of its place in your company then you should have no problem responding to how others perceive your brand.

Customer Service

Though I don’t have any hard facts at my fingertips (I’m looking though!) I believe it is widely accepted that good customer service is key to keeping customers which means that outstanding customer service will not just keep customers but grow business. Customer service has to be a two-way street. Simply waiting for people to come to you with compliments or complaints is not enough to make your service stand out. There is no question that responding positively, in a timely manner, with knowledge of the problem and the solution will be to your advantage when called upon to handle customer complaints. Handling things in the best possible way for the customer will usually mend any threatening brand damage and also doubles as effective public relations and marketing for your company. However, if you reach out to your customers before they need or want to come to you, you can create a positive customer experience rather than waiting for one to happen on its own. It sure doesn’t cost you anything to check-in with your customers every now and then. Ask them how they’re doing, what’s working, if they need anything else. Give them an opportunity to share their experience with your product with you, share your own experience with them; it’s all about building a relationship and offering personalized customer service.

Step Outside The Box

It is very, very easy to get into routine, to stick with what works, to trust in the path that has been created and tread upon, and to trust what you know. I am not suggesting that abandoning the familiar is a great strategy to propel you forward during tough times. However, I do not believe in the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Just because something isn’t broken doesn’t mean it can’t be better. So much of business is interrelated that by trying new things with marketing you may improve your sales which may improve the visibility of your brand which may influence your customer service. When it comes to new things that it usually doesn’t cost to try, I lean toward strategic partnerships and building your online presence.

Strategic partnerships can range from sharing ad campaigns to joint sponsorships to cross-promotions to customer referrals to combination events. Identify companies you work with on a regular basis who either support or sell your brand. Put yourself in an “Amazon” state of mind and think “if you like this, you might also like…” and approach companies that complement your product. You might also go the opposite and consider teaming up with companies in an entirely different niche or market but whose customer demographic matches the one you are seeking to connect with. By combining forces with others you can increase your visibility to a much broader audience than you can capture on your own. If nothing else, it can’t hurt to ask.

You might think that having a website equates with having an online presence, however, it only scratches the surface of the digital, viral, and social media available today. The internet is an endless resource of information and therefore provides infinite ways to reach your customers. From adding content to your website to writing a blog to creating and using a Twitter account to joining online social networks and virtually communicating with others in your industry as well as consumers, the list of things it doesn’t cost you anything to try is seemingly endless.

What have you tried that’s new? What worked? What didn’t? And other than time, what did it cost you?

I strongly encourage you to link through to the various articles as they all have something to share, will provide a fresh perspective, and can be applied to any business model.

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon