Friday, November 27, 2009

Business Etiquette

Upon receiving a rather rude email the other day for no valid reason, I felt compelled to write a blog about manners and etiquette in business.

I have personally found that more and more people are willing to be rude and obnoxious via email without thinking about the consequences of what they are typing. So, I would like to put forth an idea..... imagine that one day you become the president of the USA or any country for that matter. Now imagine being scrutinized by the public which results in revealing past emails that were nasty to past business contacts. You would be judged by the way you deal with people and how you may deal with key contacts such as foreign leaders or the public at large.

You really never know who is going to one day see your emails and how you conduct yourself in business so my advice is to maintain your personal PR with everyone you deal with. Be polite, cordial and friendly. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Grant others respect. These points will take you a long way in life and business. Hopefully this blog article reaches those who need it most.

Warm regards,

-Robert Cornish

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Let's Clarify the Goal....

While there are many talented, smart and creative people and firms out there for PR, Advertising and Marketing I have found that many have deviated off course from what the job truly is, what the goals really are and what the clients really need.

Creative ideas and bright ideas are absolutely vital however, they must push forward the end goal – sales and revenue. In this day and age this is not a nice thing to have, it’s a must. That sounds like a simple thing to say and a common and basic knowledge but I see examples everyday that are clearly off-course and not forwarding client goals.

Here’s an examples:

A Facebook widget or video game – look, I like to have fun as much as the next guy and I am guilty of downloading a game or two on my iPhone for sure but here’s the thing… what is the clear goal for the Facebook Game? How are you measuring it? Are you getting reach, interest, sales? There were many many many bright ideas during the 1995-97 period for dot com companies and ideas that sounded cool which distracted millions from the actual goals of what a company must do – which is produce sales of their product or service and generate revenue. It’s not a negotiable point.

The job of any PR agency, marketing firm or advertising agency is simple – create an idea, execute a strategy and communicate with the clients target public audience in order to make the client known to them, create interest and generate actual reach that can be used to assist the sales team and further the company growth and revenue. That’s it! If you have been sold on something other than this, well then they probably are creative geniuses but they are not serving your best interest.

Now is the time to get back to basics while the shift of traditional media continues to become less effective and new media is the vital way to communicate with the massive audiecne that is online using the interest that is now intertwined into every aspect of their lives from laptops to iphones. We must focus on people, relationships, what they need and want and how to communciate with them, service them better and build, cultivate and nurture those relationships in order to generate long term clients.

If you focus on the audience and the clear goals of your company to drive sales and revenue your PR, Marketing or Advetrising efforts will be dramatically improved. Don’t lose sight of the goal. Every tweet should have the goal in mind. Every facebook post should reflect the goal. Every blog article, press release, banner ad, video, photo gallery etc should have the goal clearly in mind and being systematically executed.

-Robert Cornish

Richter10.2 Media Group

http://www.richter10point2.com

Monday, November 9, 2009

Attention = Income


image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystalflickr/190713106/


The concept of attention is a drastically underestimated element in most companies, CEO's and business people's mind. While gauging ROI for a given promotional strategy be it marketing, advertising or PR, many people fail to take into account the power of attention and what that means to the company and why it is absolutely an intrinsic value item that must be looked at to calculate ROI.

The amount of attention a company can attract will directly relate to how well that company does. To the degree that you have "heard of" a company will dictate how well they are doing.

Have you ever heard of GE? How about Virgin? Geico? BMW? They all get a huge amount of attention for their brands. They are all a "heard of" quantity. Yet I speak to companies daily that won't allocate funds to their brand and attention in order to become a "heard of" quantity because they can't figure out the ROI. The fact is that their target public audience may need or want their products or services right this second but - they have never "heard of them". These companies are failing to get a sufficient amount of attention in order to become a known quantity.

Get attention and you will gain clients, customers and revenue, period.

You can never get enough attention. It's something that must be pushed and expanded week after week. Your public audience needs to know about you. They need to "hear about you". If they don't, it will be rather difficult to cultivate new business.

The amount of attention you are attracting will affect your bottom-line. Get the word out! Put your company in the spotlight.

The ways to do this are unlimited with the internet these days. Here are a few ideas:

- Social Media
- Blogs
- Videos
- Press Releases
- Photos
- Events
- Twitter
- Status Updates
- Comments
- Websites
- Bookmarking
- RSS Feeds
- Advertisements
- Recommendations
- Mobile Apps
- Communities

To the degree that you are failing to fully utilize the above, you are missing or losing business and hurting your bottom-line revenue.

Make a point to expand the attention you get week after week and watch your sales and revenue grow

http://richter10point2.com