August 24, 2010
When a company executive read a news brief about a Nashville-based transportation firm, he hired the firm for a $5 million annual contract. A news item about a company carries three times the credibility, and has six times the readership or viewership than an advertisement.
• “PR — even though it is underutilized — is extremely effective when properly leveraged.”
– Harvard Business School
• “Seventy-one percent of business owners say their marketing dollars are best spent on PR.”
– Inc. Magazine
• “You’d better get yourself a PR partner! PR is not always as visible and not overnight, but it helps subtly and significantly over time.”
– Tony Mikes, advertising industry consultant
• A sale is 89 percent more likely when unpaid messages generate positive discussion in advance of such purchase. Such messages include media coverage, one type of PR, referrals and word of mouth.
• Nearly nine in ten (86 percent) of Americans say reading about a company in the news is more influential and credible than reading a company’s advertising.
• A news story written about your product or service has six times the readership and three times the credibility of an advertisement of the same size.
– Starch Research
• Brand managers: PR is the most effective way to establish brand credibility, gain media coverage and get the best return for marketing dollars spent.
– McBain Associates
• “Eighteen hundred corporate executives said product development, strategic planning, PR, research and development are more important to a company’s success than advertising.”
– American Advertising Federation
• “Seventy-two percent of senior level marketers said PR is most valuable in supporting product marketing and product launches.”
– Advertising Age
• “Marketing executives said PR is the most effective marketing discipline for launching new products or services (55 percent), building awareness (52 percent), generating word of mouth (51 percent) and building brand reputation (50 percent).”
– PR Week
• “If I had two dollars left, I would spend one on PR.”
– Bill Gates
• Sears estimated that a positive mention on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” segment later lead to more than $13 million in direct spending for the retailer.
– Counsel of Public Relations Firms
Your company, like those in the Harvard Business School study, is probably underutilizing the power of public relations. Let us show you how to leverage PR properly for extremely effective results.
Posted in CEO Impressions, NewsBureau, Tips & Trends, tips | No Comments »
April 23, 2010
I have a speech scheduled next week. It’s a fairly causal presentation. I anticipate that there isn’t direct business on the line or even in the room. Regardless, I want to give it my best. To me, my best is a clean, clear, concise, confident, collaborative, informative and memorable presentation.
When I think about outstanding presenters in our modern era, I think instantly (and so do others) of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. When it comes to innovating and energizing an audience – be it customers, shareholders or employees – he’s the man!
So I did a quick Google search on Steve Jobs and his speaking skills. I quickly found the following “Present Like Steve Jobs” video on BNET. I’ll also review a BusinessWeek article titled “Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs” that I found by the same man, Carmine Gallo. He must be a really big fan of Jobs’ speaking capabilities.
Here’s the summary tips for your use in your next presentation and mine.
- Make your theme clear and consistent
- Create a headline that sets the direction for your meeting.
- Provide the outline.
- Open and close each section with a clear transition
- Make it easy for your listeners to follow your story.
- Demonstrate enthusiasm – wow them!
- use action, positive and powerful words like: exordinary, unbelievable, amazing, cool, fun, incredible
- Sell an experience
- Make statistics meaningful and significant
- Analogies help connect the dots for your audience
- Make your presentations visual
- Allow your words and word choice to paint an image (imagery)
- Paint a picture that doesn’t overwhelm
- Give ‘em a show
- Idenitify your memmorable moment and build up to it
- Rehearse. Rehearse. Rehearse.
Committ and spend time rehearsing.
It only looks smooth, confident and natural because of rehearsing.
- “One more thing…”
- give them a little more… a little more value or an encore.
Watch the video. It’s well worth it. Maybe I’ll have the courage to upload a video of my next presentation. Until then, I owe Communications Skills Coach and Author Carmine Gallo the credit for this Steve Jobs video and tips outline. More than 95% of it came from him.
- Jason Mudd, APR
AXIA CEO
Posted in CEO Impressions, KeyNote, public speaking engagements, Tips & Trends, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
November 10, 2009
The following is slight transcript from the popular social media video Social Media Revolution
Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Welcome to the World of Socialnomics.
- Is social media a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?
- By 2010, Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers and 96% of them will have joined a social network.
- Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web.
- 1 out of 8 married couples met in the U.S. last year via social media.
- Years to reach 50 million users: Radio 38, TV 13, Web 4, iPod 3. Facebook100 million in 9 month. iPod applications: 1 billion in 9 months.
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s four largest, with China being 1st, India being 2nd and the U.S. being 3rd.
- China’s ‘QZone’ has over 300 million using their services.
- US Depart of Education: On average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction.
- 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum.
- The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females.
- Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama.
- 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences
- Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé. Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshman.
- YouTube is world’s 2nd largest search engine with over 100 videos.
- Wikipedia has over 13 million articles. Studies show it’s more accurate than Britannica. 78% of these articles are non-English
- If you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $156.23 per hour.
- There are over 200,000 blogs. 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily.
- 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
- 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands. Do you like what they’re saying about your brand?
- People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them.
- 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 14% trust advertisements.
- Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do.
- Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009.
- 70% of 18 to 34-year-olds have watched TV on the Web. Only 33% have ever viewed a show on DVR or TiVo.
- 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video on their phone.
- 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle.
- 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.
- In the near future, we will no longer search for products and services. They will find us via social media.
- Social media isn’t a fad; it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
- More than 1.5 million pieces of content such as web links, news stories, blogs, notes, & photos, are shared on Facebook daily.
- Successful companies in social media listen first, and sell second.
- Successful companies in social media act like party planners, aggregators, & content providers than traditional advertisers.
Posted in Social NetWork, Tips & Trends, Trend, social media | No Comments »
