About Media, Content, and Communicating

I learned the value of two traits - persistence and focus - from a 90-year-old home-bound sales rep in the late 1990's.

I had been given a specific area of revenue management at the newspaper where I was employed and that area of responsibility included Mrs. Altie.

The day I took over, Altie was 90. She could not drive - 100 percent of her sales were by phone only. And she had no base and no draw - she was straight 10 percent commission. And she worked half the week - all day Monday and Wednesday (8-5, one hour for lunch and one hour of "admin" so 7 hours of calling) and until noon on Friday - because Friday afternoon was quilting time at church.

Despite the limitations, and there were others, she was one heck of a productive advertising sales representative.

Why? I think Altie exhibited two traits that are sometimes missing these days.

Here's a story. I received a call one day from a car dealer. He wanted to place several half-page ads. I forget the number - it was four or six. And then he said "I want Mrs. Altie to get the commission." Looking at the revenue, I certainly was not going to argue, but I asked "why?" His response? "She has called me every Wednesday afternoon for a year and a half."

Point number 1: Altie was persistent. She stayed after it no matter what. The only way to get her to stop calling you was to flat out tell her to never call again. And sometimes that only bought you a short break.

Another advertiser told me once that if he said "try me again in a couple weeks" three-fourths of reps would not call him back. He said Mrs. Altie would call back two weeks later, sometimes to the hour.

But there was another trait.

When our high school won the state basketball championships, I asked her to sell congratulations ads..."as many as you can." She sold 96 ads. When I said "Altie, how did you sell 96 ads?" Her answer was amazingly simple. "I called every business in the yellow pages."

Point number 2: Altie had intense focus. She had a day helper/nurse who would come in and clean, cook, etc. The nurse one day told me that the worst mistake family or friends could make during Altie's "work time" was to call or visit. Altie refused to deal with any personal matters during her sales time. In this age of Facebook and cell phones, how many of us can honestly say we maintain this level of focus on our jobs, whether or not sales are involved?

I remember taking her some things one Tuesday, and looking at a piece of paper on her TV tray that served as a desk. It had 100 - that's right, 100 - names and phone numbers on it. I asked her what this was.

"Tomorrow's call list," was her answer. Again, that was 100 names. She said a good rep working a phone only should do a call every five minutes - that's 84 in a seven-hour day. It was rare to see her really grin big, and this was one of them. She grinned and said, "But I'm not good, so I get in a hundred."

An amazing phone salesman. Period.

Questions to ask yourself:

How persistent are you? Do you give up easily? Do you work, claw and fight for every dollar? Do you refuse to take no for an answer?  Do you always follow up?

How focused are you? Do you have the ability to crank down and make 20 or 30 in-person calls or twice that many telephone calls in one day? Do you keep the personal calls to a bare minimum? If sales is your primary function, do you honestly put in seven or even six hours of calling a day?

None of us are perfect by a long shot, and I include myself in that list. These are areas we all fall short on in some way.

For some reason, though, I got to thinking about Mrs. Altie recently and examined why I thought she was so bloody successful. Perseverance and focus are the two reasons I came up with, and I simply wanted to share this with you. She is long gone, having died about 10 years ago, but perhaps her work traits can inspire each of us.

An old fashioned letter

Many months back, I'm sitting in a conference room meeting with a public relations professional and she made a comment about my materials arriving via the USPS. She seemed a little surprised, but it sure got her attention.

We are in a society in which we are bombarded by e-mail. Being a nerd, I went back and counted.

Yesterday, I received 47 e-mails. It was actually a light day for the middle of the week. Also, I received one direct communication through Linkedin, two through an Ning I belong too and I don't have a clue how many tweets. Add to it that, while I received no e-mail through Facebook, there were quite a few "updates" from my friends. I'd hate to count.

That's why when I get a letter - an actual letter - it stands out. Letters of introduction, thank you notes, reminders, etc., are perfect fodder to sit down, write something out, address an envelope, actually stick a stamp on it and mail it off.

And I don't know...the appeal of getting such a letter today definitely exists, and its awfully nice to open your mail and get something that's not junk and not a bill.

Plus, it makes an impression.

Here are several in the last couple years that really impacted me:

• A thank you note. My best friend's son spent a couple weeks with me and about a week after he went home, I got a hand-written thank you note in the mail from him. That's classy in my book.
• About 18 months ago, I had to put a cat to sleep. The vet sent me a card with a thoughtful hand-written message, through the mail, after my final visit there. It was much appreciated and I still have it.
• Another thank you note. I was publisher of a newspaper and this note came from a public relations professional. Hand-written, I got the impression that she appreciated the time I gave her during our breakfast meeting to discuss her client.

Next time you really want to make an impression, think about sending a letter or note instead of an e-mail. Trust me, it works.

Note: Over the next week or two, I'll be moving to a new blog location, http://www.nashvillecopy.com/blog. I'll keep you posted about when the final move will take place.

Improve your writing - Practice makes ... better

There are two factors that determine how good of a writer you are - talent and skill.

Talent. Well, we can sit here all day arguing about whether talent can be improved, whether or not you are born talented, and to what extent it can advance or hold back your creative limits.

But here is what I know beyond any doubt. Writing is also a skill and like any skill, you can improve  with practice.

I believe that any person, with practice and training - and of course some guidance - can become a skilled writer. This does not mean you'll start producing Hemingway, but it does mean you'll be able to clearly, concisely and professionally relay your message to your audience.

Here are some tips to improving as a writer:

• Write often. This can sometimes be hard to do, however, practice is vital. As a newspaper publisher, while I have no reporting duties, I make sure to write weekly editorials and blog postings to keep in practice. If you have moved into management, and copywriting is no longer one of your duties, perhaps you can still find time to write a press release, article or blog on a regular basis.
• Stretch your boundaries. I'm a published fiction writer (short stories). However, I will sometimes practice by writing poetry (which nobody ever needs to read!). This provides training in brevity, organization, style and the construction of passages in ways I'd normally not pursue.
• Get a mentor/reader. You need someone who will be honest and specific. My girlfriend claims not to be a writer, but I've found her input to be absolutely accurate 99% of the time. I love it when her e-mails responding to my request for her thoughts start with something like "Now, you are the expert, but....".
• Find the technique that works for you. Maybe you prefer to write initial drafts long hand. Maybe you can't go to page two until page one is flawless. Everyone has an approach that works well for them. Figure out yours and use it. For me, I throw everything on the page as fast as I can, then revise and refine over several drafts.
• Finally, study up. Sometimes you need to "go back to school." About three years ago, for kicks, I took an online "basic news writing course" offered by a press association. I've been writing for decades and part of me - perhaps an overly confident (arrogant?) part - thought, "I don't need this." However, the simple fact is that when I opened my mind to the training, it was valuable. There were some great reminders and I think I completed the course a better writer and reporter.

Next time I address the "improve your writing" topic, I'll provide some specific exercises I've used to help reporters improve their skills.

Social media and small papers

I had the honor of being a guest blogger yesterday at Susan Hart's Everyday PR blog.

The topic concerned how small town newspapers - or one in particular - used social media to aid in covering the flooding that struck the Nashville area in early May. You can read it here.

Are you thinking about Breast Cancer?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and PR professionals who aren't thinking about it yet may already be behind schedule.

It's a great month and serves an important function, but it is also a period that creates an overflow at media outlets across the country. How you approach the media will make a huge difference in helping your client with the vital role of increasing awareness and education.

A couple years ago, I was editor and publisher of a string of papers just across the bay from Corpus Christi, Texas. We were between managing editors so I was engaged in those duties as well as my own.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month approached, so too did the press releases. Lots of press releases. Tons of press releases.

It seemed to me that every hospital, every clinic, every women's health organization, women's advocacy organization and countless other groups were engaged in awareness, education and fund-raising campaigns during the month of October.

I remember my assistant setting up a folder on the computer and she filed all items received in the folder. While there was admittedly some duplication (some agencies sent press releases to every single employee at the paper), at the end of the first week, the folder contained over 100 press releases.

While this is great, there was no possible way our papers could support them all by running the press releases.

We made a decision. We'd run a page every single issue during the month of October (these were weekly papers) and the pages would be 100 percent local content, featuring local survivors, local doctors, local experts and local advocates.

Having worked in PR, I am sympathetic to the young person who has the task of calling to follow up on the press releases, and I explained our position and our local slant carefully. And everyone was very understanding.

“But our cancer center is in Texas,” one told me once, thinking that was local enough. I explained to her that Texas is a big place and the cancer center in question was a ten-hour drive away.

He sent me a press release and various materials from a noted cancer hospital in Houston. Still three hours away and not local. I explained I needed the local tie, and for Breast Cancer Awareness Month we were all set with local resources.

He thanked me for my time and moved on. Seemed nice enough. What I didn't know at the time was he'd figured it out.

About a month later he called and told me something stunning that I did not know. The county in which my papers circulated was the highest in the entire state in terms of preventable deaths from treatable cancers, particularly prostate and skin cancers.

He took it a step further. After checking with them of course, he had patients that had been treated at the hospital – patients from our county, call me and agree to be interviewed. His hospital was prominently featured, along with many local experts, in a very large article on the subject.

If you are tasked with promoting an organization's effort during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, or any other period of time in which many organizations are working toward a common cause, keep this in mind...and it's from an insider:

• Provide me the angle that suits my media outlet. For a small town paper, it's something local. If you represent a Nashville hospital, a few minutes of leg work should turn up cancer survivors treated by your client from darned near every small town around Nashville. For a magazine about stamp collecting, it could be a story about the breast cancer stamp from a few years ago. A trade pub could run a story about a prominent industry leader who is a survivor.
• Don't turn me off by forgetting the point. There were one or two folks who were so bent on press for their clients – rather than the real point, which was increasing awareness – that I got turned off to them. Of course, I'm not admitting to holding a grudge as an editor, I'm just sayin'.
• Tell me something I didn't know and make sure it is something that I simply cannot ignore. The statistic about the county's rate of preventable cancer deaths was stunning to me, and it was something I'd have been irresponsible to ignore.
• And the best one to me – work ahead and ask the editor, “how can I help you with your coverage this year?”

Simple points. Pretty common points when working in media relations, really, but if you follow them and take just a little extra time, you may find yourself getting quite a bit more ink, air and bytes for your clients.

When the attack comes

Some time back, one of the newspapers I publish came under attack from an "online news source" that billed itself as a "local online television station." The web site was, in my view, really much more of an opinion-oriented site that consistently made accusations against various local entities, often with little or no backing.

The site appears to be closed now, but some of their repeated accusations and actions against the paper included:

• The paper was exchanging positive stories for receiving the legal notice business from one city government.
• The paper was exchanging positive stories for receiving the legal notices from the county government.
• This was a big one to me. The paper is the reason that women who are the victims of sexual assault are afraid to come forward.
• During the coverage of an alleged sexual impropriety on the part of an elected official, the site constantly referred to us as "male dominated," even though the competitor is owned by a man, and at our paper 50 percent of our staff, including 2 of 4 department heads, are women.
• The site frequently ran mock-ups of our front page with the word "manure" on it instead of our actual name.
• Our graphics were constantly referred to as "dopey" and our managing editor frequently referred to as a "fool."
• And you can imagine the beating we took when the owners of our company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

There is much more but I hope you get the point. At no point did this news source obtain any information from us about any of their allegations - no quotes, no comments, no supporting materials, etc.

What would you have done if your client faced something similar to this?

I can tell you that our actions centered around the high road and simply doing better. Here are some things we made sure were happening:

• We made absolutely certain that we posted more stories and photos faster than the other paper.
• Near the end, we were posting more video than the "online television station."
• We clearly, in print and online, posted our web traffic and statistics, something our competitor did not seem to want to do.'
• We heavily promoted the many things you get from our paper and web site than nobody else offers.
• I started a blog about the paper - its plans, accomplishments and challenges - increasing transparency.
• We heavily leveraged our print product - which has about 70 percent market penetration - to further promote our web site.

Here is what we did not do:

• At no point did we ever mention the other site in our stories. There was one photo, published on the web only, but that was only after they vacated their building. However, it was not "of them." Rather it was a photo of the county courthouse on election day - reflected in their front door.
• We did not publicly bash them, attack them or even acknowledge them. When asked directly about them, our stock response was "They do what they do, we do what we do."

Here is the damage we suffered:

• We continued with our net increase in paid print subscribers.
• We increased web traffic, including unique visitors and page views.
• We lost not one single advertiser in print or online.

Make no mistake, it was sometimes not an easy period. Both staff and myself were often angered and sometimes demoralized by what we saw on their web site.

But what is important is to understand how you will react when your client calls screaming (and they will scream) about a similar attack.

For all its great benefits, the Internet is a place where people have what I call electronic courage. They will say anything about anyone, be it on a web site, in a blog or on sites such as Topix and other discussion boards. And sometimes they present no proof.

Some pertinent points to consider are:

• How will you deal with a client who is hurt, angry or demoralized by such comments?
• How will you evaluate the actual damage being done to your client by these accusations?
• Will you directly address the accuser? If so, will this just inflame them further?
• Will you counter the accusations, or should you just let them slide and ignore them?
• What tools will you use to counter the attack? Blogs? Traditional media? Facebook?
• Where is the line to consider legal action?

I'm sure there are other considerations.

Traditional vs Social Media

Over the last few months, I've read so many posts and had a myriad of conversations about public relations and whether or not traditional PR was even useful anymore.

A young person - a Facebook friend who just graduated college and just got her first job at a advertising/PR firm - told me recently she's probably never read an entire section of a newspaper in her life.

Todd Defren has an interesting blog post on the subject, and yesterday, I looked at a web site for a social media marketing firm that flat out said traditional media and the press release are dead.

The divide exists and I fear that ignoring either type of media will not bode well for your clients.

On the social media front, we cannot ignore facts:

• According to checkfacebook.com there are about 465 million users of the social media site. Facebook itself says it has more than 400 million active users and 50 percent of them log on daily.
• Twitter ended 2009 with over 75 million accounts.
• Special interest social media groups are springing up everywhere.
• Isn't e-harmony social media? I saw a report that one in eight couples getting married now met online.
• Social media clearly allows people to target very specifically.

But we should not ignore "traditional media" facts:

• Newspaper web sites are rated as most trusted when it comes to local news and advertising.
• A Google-commissioned study found that newspaper ads actually drive traffic to the web.
• While cable television is increasingly fragmented, it, like radio, allows advertisers to target very specific and highly specialized demographics.Likewise, magazines offer specialized markets and the ability to target certain consumers.
• There remains over 1,400 daily and more than 8,000 weekly newspapers in the United States. On any given day, approximately 55 million people read a paper (62 million on Sunday).
• And frankly, who doesn't listen to the radio or watch a little television?

The point is simple. There are so many great benefits to social media, but there is still strong usage of traditional media, despite the many challenges it is facing.

And yes, I am certain the shift will continue, but can you call something read by 55 million people dead? Television has had an equally scary drop in ad revenue, but is it dead? Can you as a responsible marketing professional ignore the opportunity to reach those people? I'd say no.

As a PR professional there is a tool box and it has all sorts of things in it...press releases, white papers, brochures, television interviews, events and more. Also in the toolbox are things like Facebook, newspapers, Twitter, blogs, television, and radio.

At home, your toolbox has various screw drivers, a hammer, a tape measure, a variety of wrenches and sockets and other items. And the simple fact is you wouldn't use a hammer to accurately and neatly cut a piece of wood.

But if you ignore Facebook, or Twitter, or newspapers, or television, or magazines, or blogs, or radio...if you decide press releases are dead or there's no point to arranging a television interview anymore, you just may find yourself cutting wood with a hammer.

Use the right tool for the job and make sure your toolbox is filled with all the tools you might need.

Improve your writing

I find it interesting that of late, I've repeatedly read two similar comments regarding public relations. One is that writing is one of the, if not the, most important skill for a young PR practitioner. And that it is the skill in which more and more practitioners of PR show weakness.

And speaking from experience, I have seen the same thing in aspiring journalists.

On one hand, writing is indeed a talent. I'm not sure if you can improve the "talent" side of things, but I do believe writing is a skill, and skills can be improved.

So the big question is how do you improve your writing? I'll give addressing this a shot over various postings during the next few weeks.

In his great book On Writing, Stephen King makes the comment that to be a good writer you must do two things, read a lot and write a lot.

Let's focus on reading for now.

I read constantly. When I'm really on a roll, I can knock out two or three books, along with some magazines and newspapers, in a week. Now, I've not been on that kind of roll lately, but I still read a lot - and pretty much everything.

Often I feel guilty. I'll be at a friend's house and pick up something - some piece of direct mail, a correspondence or letter, or something else. The point is, whatever the item may be, it is none of my business. However, I'm not concerned with the subject matter, but rather I'm interested in how it is written. I find myself asking questions such as:

• What types of verbs are used?
• What is the sentence structure and the paragraph structure?
• How well organized is the content?
• Does the piece stay focused on its message?
• Is it effective? What role does the language play in the effectiveness of the piece, or lack thereof?

My newspaper teams used to laugh at me. Even though it has been a decade since the responsibility of deciding which press releases run and which don't fell to me, I still read press releases all the time. The reason is that I'm always intrigued by the differences in approach, tone, style, skill and other similar factors.

It is important to read the good and the bad. You can learn plenty about what works and what does not from both.

So get your hands on some writing and read away. Everything you can read is fair game - ad copy, press releases, newspaper articles, magazine articles, brochures, sales letters, collection letters. As you read give thought to the effectiveness of the copy and why the copy does or does not work.

At the same time, and I hate to say this, I think it is important to read on the craft of writing. I do not mean those cheesy "How to Make a Million Bucks Writing a Novel in 30 Days" type books but rather, books that actually help the craft of writing.

I'll close with some recommendations. And please note that I don't choose any book that addresses a specific type of writing. I believe that if you improve your general writing skills, you can then become better at writing specific things, such as press releases, articles, seo content, or whatever. But the basic foundations come first.

On Writing, by Stephen King

The AP Stylebook and Libel Manual - Lots of good stuff on word usage.

The Elements of Style - It is a classic on the subject of English usage, and so much of it still applies today.

The Grammar Bible - Come on! Grammar is a basic tool of writing and you are a professional writer. Stop whining and deal with it.

Fowler's Modern English Usage - Another great book on usage. One of my favorites.

Helen Thomas

At first, I missed the comment and was somewhat shocked when I heard that White House Correspondent Helen Thomas, quite a legend in the news industry, was retiring over remarks she made concerning Israel and Jews.

Now the debate, at least amongst the White House Correspondents' Association - the organization that will assign the seat - is who gets to sit front row center.

Politico has predicted either Fox News or Bloomberg News will get to move to the front row.

I don't wish to get into a political debate over what she said and whether she is right or wrong. Like many folks, I have my opinion, but it's going to remain that...my opinion.

Rather, I have a hope that this incident will not mar the legacy Helen Thomas leaves behind. 

Thomas has always been considered a hard-nosed journalist who wasn't afraid to question power. She began her career at the Washington Daily News (now defunct) as a copy girl and joined United Press International in 1943. In 2000, she became a columnist for the Hearst News Service.

A few accomplishments from her biography:

• She was the first female officer of the National Press Club.
• She began covering the White House under President Kennedy.
• She traveled the world with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. 
• She is the only newspaperwoman to travel to China with President Nixon on his famous trip.

Her biggest accomplishment, in my mind, is her ability to show up every single day, ask tough questions and do the difficult, draining work of a journalist over a career of mind-boggling length.

She's been outspoken before and gotten in trouble for it before.

And I'm not condoning her comments, obviously stemming from deep emotional feelings and seeming blurted without thinking of the consequences.

But she has been a professional and a pioneer for women in journalism. While the final incident will follow her, I hope her other accomplishments will follow her as well.

You got 'em. Now what?

In all the blogs and articles I read about marketing, one aspect is missing. It's what I call part 2.

Basically, you've got them in the store, now what?

In many ways, that moment when they are in the store, your actions are marketing, though some may call it customer service.

In retail it is pretty obvious and the contrast is sharp. About a week ago, I went to Sonic to indulge in a forbidden fruit - the blended root beer float. I left without my float after 20 minutes of waiting. While I could claim a conspiracy involving my doctor, my girlfriend and Sonic, I think they simply were unable to handle the customer load - which didn't seem all that heavy to me.

A recent trip to a nail salon with my girlfriend - yes I like pedicures - resulted in a 45 minute wait before they started on us. And there wasn't even an apology for the wait.

By contrast, I've recently moved to Mt. Juliet and for the first time have begun shopping at a Publix. In every department, there is an employee asking how I'm doing, if I'm finding everything, or if I need help with anything. There is a strong feeling that the employees want me in that store. It was impressive to the point that I e-mailed corporate about their excellent service.

But there's something to this in any environment. In the newspaper industry, I once had a sales rep who made  a comment about an advertiser along the lines of, "Oh it's ok. They are already running in the paper." Bad, bad, bad.

We all all understand and talk about customer service, yet in practice we often don't go the extra mile. Yes, an existing customer is an excellent source for new business, but only if you treat that customer well, which our sales rep was in danger of not doing.

Think of customer service as an actual investment in marketing. I'd suggest making it part of the marketing plan.

A few years ago, I did some PR work for a retail chain in New England. The company was Boomer McLoud and it was a chain of independent car stereo installers and retailers. One of their internal catch phrases was to provide "outrageous customer service."

If you decided to install a new set of woofers or subwoofers yourself, and got stuck, you could call a Boomer McLoud installer and he'd talk you through the problem for free. That time was considered a marketing expense. The free wiring harness that cost $3 or $4 was considered a marketing expense. It was all designed to build brand loyalty.

In my own business of copywriting, I'll be honest. To say I don't desire billable hours would be like playing Fantasy Land. So I market myself hard.

But there's something else. When you make a decision that you need a copywriter and you give me a call for that first project, I work like there's no tomorrow on that project...I will try to do an outrageously good job on the project. Why? So you'll call me again. And again. And again.

There are a lot of freelance copywriters out there. Just like there are a lot of grocery stores, car stereo shops and places to get blended root beer floats.

The ones who are poor at marketing to existing customers (in other words, customer service) will fail. The ones who are OK at it will do just that - OK. The ones who are excellent at it will gain much more than the others in repeat business.

And they'll have the added value of word of mouth and positive recommendations.

Call it what you want, but this level of "in the shop" marketing should be a big part of your marketing plan, and not just dumped under a general phrase of customer service.