Today, I found an interesting blog post concerning how to write press releases. If you want to know more about press releases and how to write and distribute them continue reading.

A press release is also known as news release. It is a simply a written statement distributed to the media. A press release can announce a range of news items: news products and services, scheduled events, personnel promotions, awards, etc. A press release is a fundamental tool of PR work, Reporters are more likely to consider a story idea if they first receive a release.

There are several steps that will help to write a press release:

1. Write the headline. It should be brief, clear and to the point: an ultra-compact version of the press release’s key point.
2. Write the press release body copy. The press release should be written as you want it to appear in a news story. The press release body copy should be compact. Avoid using very long sentences and paragraphs. It avoids repetition and over use of fancy language and jargon.
3. Communicate the 5 Ws: Who, what, when, where, why, and how

                                          i.    What is the actual news?

                                         ii.    Why this is news?

                                        iii.    The people, products, items, dates and other things related with the news.

                                       iv.    The purpose behind the news.

                                        v.    Your company – the source of this news.

    4.   Add contact information.

How to distribute press releases?

One of the best resources for getting the word out about a press release is the Internet. That is why a lot of companies or organizations are the Internet as a press release distribution tool.

If you want to know how to distribute press releases on the Internet click here

Yesterday, I read a good blog post about how to write marketing articles. A lot of people don’t know what to do or how to get started. Companies sometimes don’t know what will work to help them to get more traffic to their website. Here are some tips to write good articles.

Writing good marketing articles

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. A company uses PR to build a rapport with customers, employees, investors or the general public. Important tools of PR are marketing articles and press releases.

Here are some tips to write good marketing articles:

1. Write articles that will appeal to everyone, that means write articles in terms that people are going to understand. When you think about it from your audience’s point of view, you will find that you have a lot of ideas for articles and generate more traffic to your website.

2. Make sure that a byline is included – When take people to your site, it might make them ask you to write material for them.

3. Sell your articles – You may find that people are willing to pay you for your articles if they are well written.

Please click here if you want to know more about Writing good marketing articles

                                                                                                                    Why does pay-per-clic advertising remain much more efficient than traditional marketing?

“The new tools for advertising come in many exotic forms, but they have one thing in common: a desire to replace the old approach to advertising, in which advertisers pay for the privilege of “exposing” a theoretical audience to their message”

For these tools advertisers pay for real actions which are measurable such as a click on a web link, on a video, placing or buying goods at the Internet.

This means thanks to the Internet, advertising is becoming less wasteful and its value more measurable.

Online Advertising and click fraud

As well as Online Advertising has many advantages, there are also problems with “click fraud”. This means the practice of generating bogus clicks for devious reasons. Click fraud is for instance practiced in order to make a rival advertiser pay for nothing.

Development of the Online Advertising market

The graphic above shows how the Internet Advertising revenues are highly increasing from 1998 to 2005 and are still growing rapidly.

Consumers tend to be more alert on the internet, whereas people might watch a television show in a semi-comatose state of mind on their couches, consumers typically surf the web leaning forward while paying attention to the screen.

Summarily, Online Advertising is very efficient and it is the fastest-growing segment of the Online Advertising market. Nowadays, most Internet portals want to catch up with Google because the advertising model is so lucrative.

Click to read the article

The article “2009 Web Predictions” of Website Magazine’s reveals that in spite of our current economy, the Web as a whole will continue to see strong growth in 2009.  

Social Media

“There will be a noticeable, albeit slight uptick in social media usage (using weblogs and leveraging online networking sites, for instance) due to increased and continued layoffs across all business sectors.”

E-commerce and Internet Retailers

 “Once reserved for only the most elite Internet retailers, small and mid-tier merchants will embrace innovation in the form of recommendation technologies and alternative payments, which both increase their margins and the profit of their enterprises.”

Gains in technology efficiency will force the e-commerce industry and Internet retailers to get smart and creative, whereas the record-breaking growth and profits of past years will not be met in 2009.

Internet advertising

Internet advertising growth is slowed on the whole, but thanks to advance in geo-targeting the experts expect an increase in spending for 2009. This means there will be greater local advertising opportunities and a stronger investment in Internet advertising of small local merchants. This presents an opportunity for search marketing agencies to create turnover and investment in the future.

Affiliate Marketing

In affiliate programs, the Webmaster or site owner earns revenue usually commission-based for conversion of leads, clicks or sales on the advertiser’s site.

“As Internet merchants find ways to reduce costs, a shakeout of massive proportions will negatively impact the opportunities of many affiliate marketers.”

Video Importance for Marketers
In 2009, “Online video is continuing its explosive growth, thanks to everyone with a recording device and ideas. It is no difference for marketers, except that promotional opportunities are set to boom.”

To read the article click here

Click here to see a creative video spot of the International Green Week in Berlin

IBM Media Innovation Study 2008

In 2008 IBM undertook a media innovation study in order to analyze the changes in consumer behavior. Companies addressing the prosumer market must make an effort to educate prosumers about the value of their offerings. Prosumers can be reached in many ways:

• through traditional consumer channels such as direct mail
• nontraditional channels such as e-mail, online, or sites such as  Google or Second Life
• or through business-to-business channels as for example industry site advertising, trade publications

It is very important for the media companies to understand the needs, attitudes and motivation of the Web 2.0 – generation. The prosumer forces therefore the media companies to convert their business plans and marketing strategies.

Promotion through Internet videos and games will for instance increase  in order to reach more customers.

Moreover, there will be a shift of power between agents in the advertisement field.  Click to see graphic of value added chain

User trends of mass media in2008

The use of the media changed dramatically in the last view years. After a media innovation study of 2008 the Internet is the most important media for more than a half of 800 interviewed persons.   

While the print media showed a stable net balance sheet, the TV is depressing in favor of the Internet. In March 2008, 57 % of 800 consumers declared to use the Internet more frequently, whereas only 7% remarked an increase of watching TV.

In order to take buying decisions, 50 to 59 year old persons prefer using the Internet compared to print and TV. The average of Internet users across every age class is about 63%.

Alvin Toffler already predicted in the eighties a coming change from the consumer to a prosumer who not only interact but also generate contents by him- or herself.

To read more about ibm-media-innovation-study-2008

Influence of Web 2.0 on the consumer’s behavior

Nowadays, “prosumers” represent a new category of potential customers. The term prosumer is a combination of two words – producer and consumer- that perfectly describes the millions of participants in the Web 2.0 revolution.

In the article ”Prosumers: A New Growth Opportunity” the author explains the new phenomenon of consumers who  are defined as  someone who blurs the distinction between a “consumer” and a “producer”.

Alvin Toffler used the term in his 1980 book “The Third Wave”. Web 2.0 enables consumers to become producers by their selves. Today’s consumers can be consumer and provider at the same time. That means he is no more passive but takes actively part in generating contents in the media.

Characteristics of a prosumer

The spread of high-speed-Internet-access and the enormous popularity of community platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace or StudiVZ let the companies start thinking about how to address these potential customers most efficiently.

After the article of ”Prosumers: A New Growth Opportunity” prosumers are characterized as following:

• “They need to be connected to work and family—anytime, anywhere.
• They want simple-to-use, seamless solutions.
• They are interested in entertainment, and spend more than the average consumer in this category.
• They want to access files at home as easily as they do at work.
• They are mobile, and usually own several devices such as a mobile phone, iPod, and laptop computer.
• They are frequent, intensive users of the Internet and mobile technologies at work and home.”

To read more about the article ”Prosumers: A New Growth Opportunity”

Levels of managing products

The product decisions are an important aspect for marketers because they decide if the customer will be interested in buying the product or not. Marketers are confronted with many decisions concerning a product such as special benefits, the package and the form of a product. The article “Managing Products” explains the different levels of Product Management such as: . . .

·         Product Item level

·         Brand Product Line level

·         Category Product Line level

·         Product Mix level

At the Product Item level responsibilities are associated with marketing a single product or brand as for instance a startup company may initially market just one product.

Then, at the Brand Product Line level the marketer has to manage two or more similar product items. Similar are products which carry “the same brand name, fit in the same brand category and offer similar solutions to customer’s needs” such as different packaging sizes, different forms (powder, liquid, etc.) or different added features. Brand product lines are often managed by a Product Line manager or a Brand Manager.

At the next level, the Category Product Line level, responsibilities are associated with managing two or more brand product lines within the same product category. These products offer similar benefits but target their offerings to different needs.

Finally, at the Product Mix level the manager decisions include “more category product lines that are directed to different product categories. In large companies the product lines are “very diverse and offer different solutions”. That means that the category product lines require similar general solutions but are aimed at different target markets in order to enlarge the target groups and to increase sales.

Importance of product decision-making

Product decisions represent just one aspect of marketer’s overall activities but these decisions are often the most important because they lead directly to the reasons for why the customer decides to choose the organization’s goods, services or ideas.  Click to read article