Content marketing and exposure are becoming increasingly important in digital marketing and today’s race for eyeballs. In the automotive space, there are many companies that do great jobs marketing and optimizing exposure for dealerships through websites, search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay per click ads, newsletters and more. While these companies do an…

Target’s massive data breach, which caused an estimated 40 million credit and debit cards to be compromised during the holiday period, will end up costing them more than just headaches. Target first became aware of the breach a week prior to announcing the breach to the public. This slow response time imperiled consumers.

I was personally affected by this…

A lot of people have the misconception that a public relations firm simply deals with the media while churning out press releases. While this may have been closer to the truth in the past, the digital age has greatly transformed the opportunities available to gain exposure for clients. Great PR firms have capitalized on these opportunities to further increase exposure for…

The folks over at DiGiorno Pizza seem to have given someone their Twitter password and said, “Go for it!” They are engaging people in the Twitter-verse in ways that would make many companies cringe. I’m fairly certain that football fans are in their target demographic so it makes complete sense that they are engaging football fans – both real and fantasy. However, they aren’t just talking to them about stats or complimenting great performances. They seem to have an affinity for trash…

Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. People start lining up for sales hours and sometimes days in advance for an opportunity to purchase a television or other hot holiday item and save money. For many, it’s the thrill of the hunt. However, it’s estimated that consumers will spend half of their holiday…

In business, you are what you are perceived to be.  Your customers not only have their own opinions of your business, but they can also influence other potential customers. How you actually run your business is certainly important. Just as important, however, is how customers that have never stepped foot in your business perceive you. Before they ever step foot into your…

The challenge many businesses face is personalizing themselves to their customers. Businesses try and accomplish this through many methods. They create unique commercials, ad campaigns and other marketing. They can hire a public relations firm to assist them in gaining exposure via various methods. They can also employ many services that help them better connect with their…

Businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of having an online presence in social networks. Consumers have come to expect it and, whether you’re there or not, they will have conversations about you. Every year sees a higher percentage of consumers turning to business’ social media accounts for a variety of reasons including praise, complaints and support. Simply…

In the business world, and in public relations, it’s not uncommon for customers to vent on social media networks when they encounter problems and feel the business is not interested in assisting them with a solution. The most famous example of a disgruntled customer is the gentleman who had his guitar broken by United Airlines, then wrote a song and uploaded a…

Content. That word scares a lot of dealerships. They’re told they need it from every vendor, at every conference and in every article. They need it for SEO, for blogs, social media, and their website. Advertisements? No problem. They have tons of cars and know what is a good deal in their market. They have ad agencies designing the ads and helping to assemble them. Content,…

About a month ago, Time Warner Cable blacked out CBS in several major markets including Los Angeles, New York and Dallas, because of a dispute with CBS over pricing for retransmission fees. Both sides, of course, point fingers at the other with CBS saying that Time Warner…

As the fall conference season approaches for the automotive industry, many vendors miss opportunities for exposure. Owning a public relations agency, my job is to maximize my client’s exposure to their audience. Conferences offer more potential customers for my clients, concentrated in a single place at a single time, than just about any other marketing opportunity. However,…

July 2013 saw history happen -- and it happened with flying sharks. The Syfy Network aired what has been universally reviewed as a horrible movie about sharks caught in a tornado that then go on a flying shark rampage. The show was cheaply made and had almost no viewers (including the actors that were in it).

Yet, this movie, according to SyFy channel owners,…

Press releases are a great way to promote and disseminate information about your company.  I’ve written many articles on how to write and optimize press releases to increase the chance of being discovered amongst the hundred or thousands published every day. Most of the major press release services…

Sounds ridiculous, right? It’s real, however. A case study involving a pizza joint in New York has shown that offering ridiculous rewards can pay off. This particular pizza joint has several “over-the-top” rewards but none as much so as the promise of a free Ferrari…

On Monday, June 3, Chrysler had a choice to make. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked them to recall 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and 2007 Jeep Libertys, according to this article in USA Today.  In this case, Chrysler didn’t…

In my last article, I discussed what a Public Relations firm does. One of those tasks, which I hope you never need but is important to understand, is crisis management. Not every company is going to go off the deep end like…

Many people really don’t know exactly what a Public Relations firm does. The common answer is “write press releases,” but I can guarantee you public relations firms do not sit around all day and just write press releases (or at least good ones). So what, exactly, do we do?

As defined by the Public…

Writing a well-constructed press release is a challenge in and of itself. There are many reasons you should be writing them and using them in your company’s marketing plan. Simply writing one isn’t enough though. To maximize the exposure your organization can get through press releases,…

A few weeks ago, Ford managed to accomplish a task that many brands dream about but never achieve… to have an ad go viral. You might think this is a good thing except for the fact that this particular ad went viral for all the wrong reasons.

JWT India, Ford’s…