Offering an expert source to comment on a news event is a time-tested and perfectly honorable way to pitch a client to the media. But often such pitches are so vague they reduce your chances of success. I recently received an e-mail offering a source to discuss "the Yahoo-Zimbra deal or the Mozilla Thunderbird announcement." [...]
About a week before the launch of Windows Vista, I got the following e-mail from Courtney Smith, PR coordinator at network security vendor Still Secure. "As you may know, Microsoft is launching Windows Vista for enterprise customers tomorrow. While Vista brings promises of better security, it only marks the client phase for Microsoft Network Access [...]
Got an F-16 in your marketing budget? I don’t either. But the National Guard does, and knows how to use flashy military hardware — and the Web — to recruit. A recent air show left me deaf from screaming jet engines, but with some good lessons about marketing. Know Your Customer: For the armed forces, [...]
Clients today typically want a multimedia campaign that includes not only print ads, white papers and product briefs but Webinars and podcasts. "Spoken" content keeps the customer educated, involved, and aware of the client’s brand. But writing for the ear, rather than for the eye, requires some special tweaks. I first learned these back in [...]
I recently had a briefing from a vendor looking to stage a comeback in an important product area. (The examples below are disguised to protect the guilty.) This was a great opportunity to position themselves as thought leaders, but they blew it by forgetting some of the basics of good media relations. These include: Have [...]
isn't dead and when you should pay for it as part of your content marketing strategy.