The Best Time for a Webinar?

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Ken Molay of The Webinar Blog poses an interesting question – are our assumptions about when to schedule a webinar rational?  

Currently, most webinars are scheduled from Tuesday – Thursday to capture the largest number of viewers. But why are Monday and Friday ignored? Ken wants to hold this survey to see what you – people who attend webinars – truly think.

Please take a moment to fill out the survey. Though “unscientific” I think this will provide some interesting perspective about the timing of webinars.

In reviewing the survey, I realize Ken was seeking to get a quick pulse and minimize drop off. I wished Ken had included one question asking about industry or role. This would provide invaluable information to marketers on how to schedule webinars that may target a specific industry or management level.

For example, would financial services people want events earlier in the day or after the markets close? Would senior executives respond differently than marketing managers?

I think this survey is in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves.

Disclosure: My company provides webcasting solutions which can be used for webinars.

PR Meets Marketing Weekly Articles: April 17, 2022

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This week’s Weekly Articles looks at a variety of topics from Twitter, search to spamming bloggers. Another interesting article highlights lead scoring benefits and how sometimes a bad pitch isn’t really a bad pitch.  You can click on the  Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

If you feel that you have an article that would fit in the weekly articles, leave a comment and I’ll check it our for the following week’s digest. Enjoy.

Tweets for You – David Berkowitz of Search Insider does a great job reviewing tools that can help you search on Twitter.  Frankly, Twitter is losing out on a huge opportunity here. Instead of inserting ads in the tweets, they could have done a Tweetsearch and done a similar model to Google. Lost opportunity anyone?

Out of Focus – The Church of the Customer highlights how Vocus’ practices are pissing off bloggers. I thankfully haven’t had the “honor” of being added to this database, but they have pissed me off by incessantly calling me for services. I told them to stop calling.

Blending the New with the Old – Center for Media Research highlights a new report on blended search results.

“Since users have historically ignored the vertical offerings of the major search engines, a marketer might conclude that users aren’t interested in that type of content, and as a result, not invest in producing or optimizing digital assets,” said Robert Murray, President, iProspect. “But that would be a mistake – the findings of this study make that quite clear. Marketers have a great opportunity to claim more search shelf space by optimizing their news, image, and video assets.”

Respecting Embargoes – Rick Turoczy of CenterNetworks writes the first of three parts of how to manage the embargo process with bloggers. Check out my previous post about embargoes in the brave new world of PR. 

The Value of Lead Scoring – Laura Ramos wrote a post about the value of lead scoring for determining campaign effectiveness. This was prompted by her recent briefing with Eloqua. It’s surprising to me that lead scoring is not a normal part of marketing. Maybe I’m spoiled that my company has incorporated lead scoring into our products.   

Good Pitch, Yet Could’ve Been Better – Scott Monty of Social Media Marketing highlights a recent pitch titled “Do Taxes and Social Media Mix?” At first, he thought it was a spam pitch but realized that there was relevance to his blog. His post highlights the importance of participating or being more relevant to getting a pitch noticed. He succinctly states:

“I probably would have been even more likely to pay attention to it had the author been participating in my community, used a different subject line or been a little less scripted in her email.”

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: March 11, 2022

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I’m a little late in posting my Weekly Articles. I will try to post another set of articles at the end of the week. However, future weekly updates may be more spotty as I’m focused on an upcoming launch. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Disclosing Everything? – Scott’s Morning Brew discusses how Mitch Ratcliffe of ZDNet discloses his professional affiliations. This raises an interesting question about ethical blogging. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I work for ON24. Mitch previously invested in ON24 when the company was a financial multimedia services company.

 Next Gen Marketing – Richard Karpinski of BtoB Magazine’s wrote a recent article about next generation tech marketing. The article provides a high-level view of widgets, social feeds, mash ups and more. 

More than Media Relations – a shel of my former self highlights why PR is a two-way dialogue. Though media relations may have the “highest” visibility, Shel discusses how this is a small portion of what PR truly is. 

The True Measurement of Social Media? – In this post, KD Paine highlights why trying to develop a standard way to social media is not possible. Rather, she ends her post, “Sorry to inform you folks, but a standard metric will not solve the problem. Listening to your customers will.”  

More than Media Databases – Peter Himler of the Flack blog provides his perspective on how Vocus is systematically spamming people in their media database. Frankly, in the age of permission marketing, these databases should be forced to take people out of the database upon request. 

Quality Versus Quantity – Brian Carroll of B2B Lead Generation Blog is an expert on lead nurturing. In this post. Carroll brings up the issue of measuring the effectiveness of programs by cost-per-lead. Rather, he advocates looking at the cost-per-opportunity. This way, better quality leads are forwarded to sale. Sending quantity doesn’t do anything if sales views the leads as “poor.” Hence, you may be generating lots of leads and blame the sales team for not following up. But who’s truly at fault? 

Online Marketers Don’t Feel Recession – Betsy Schiffman of Epicenter writes that online marketers are bullish despite overall industry indicators of a recession. Unlike the dot.com crash, if there is a recession, online marketing will weather it better than other types of marketing spends, such as print advertisements.

technorati tags: BtoB Magazine  Brian Carroll  Epicenter  KD Paine  Marketing  Media databases  Media relations  Morning Brew  Online marketers  PR measurement  Social media  The Flack  Weekly Articles
del.icio.us tags: BtoB Magazine  Brian Carroll  Epicenter  KD Paine  Marketing  Media databases  Media relations  Morning Brew  Online marketers  PR measurement  Social media  The Flack  Weekly Articles
icerocket tags: BtoB Magazine  Brian Carroll  Epicenter  KD Paine  Marketing  Media databases  Media relations  Morning Brew  Online marketers  PR measurement  Social media  The Flack  Weekly Articles

The Value of Tradeshows

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I noticed a recent spat of posts about tradeshows. Some discuss the value of participating in the show while others discuss the “emergence” of virtual tradeshows. At one point in my career, I had focused on conferences and speaking engagements – originally with Niehaus Ryan Wong’s Speakers Bureau and eventually starting the Conference Strategies for Blanc & Otus. 

From a PR perspective, I view conferences as an opportunity to establish thought leadership and to increase a company’s awareness. However, it’s also important to understand how this fits within the marketing mix for organizations. Attending a show is not a small endeavor for a company. It’s costly, requires staff and must provide concrete results in the form of sales gold – the almighty sales lead. These folks have done a great job as discussing the value of tradeshows:

1. cadence blog – The Emergence of Virtual Tradeshows
2. Sales Lead Insights – Better Ways to Qualify Leads at a Trade Show
3. B2B Lead Blog – Virtual Trade Shows – Are they the Better Alternative?
4. B2B Lead Blog – Trade Shows – Branding or Demand Gen or Waste of Time and Money? Marketing WTF?
5. The Lonely Marketer – Are Trade Shows a Waste of Time and Resources?
6. Marketing Pilgrim – Trade Shows Go Virtual 

Disclosure – my company has developed online conferences and events and provide live and on-demand streaming webcasts into virtual tradeshows for organizations.  

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: February 28, 2022

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Here is this week’s summary of articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

 Building Relationships – Valerie Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent discusses how revealing yourself is a key part of building relationships. As part of this post, Valerie provides her 4 good and bad things to do when pitching her.

  Reinventing Journalism – Though written last week, I found Scott Karp’s post on Feb. 20th about reinventing journalism interesting. If more publications move to including links from other sources, how does this impact PR? And from a press room perspective, what is the value of creating a useful resource that also links to “competitive” coverage? 

 One Chair Creates Conversation -The Lonely Marketer had an interesting post about how a person created internal conversation at her company. All you need is two chairs, a sign and a person willing to listen. IMO, the last part is sometimes the most difficult thing to find. 

 The Emperor Has No Clothes – I frankly couldn’t improve on the title of this post by Michelle Golden of Golden Practices. In this post, Michelle discussed how her brutal honesty in reviewing CPA websites has won her fans. This wasn’t done with “marketing” in mind, but rather to share her expertise and provide counsel. This positions her as a thought leader and expert. And isn’t that what PR and marketing is all about? 

 technorati tags: Authenticity  Conversation  Customer  Journalism  Marketing  Relationship  Weekly Article
del.icio.us tags: Authenticity  Conversation  Customer  Journalism  Marketing  Relationship  Weekly Article
icerocket tags: Authenticity  Conversation  Customer  Journalism  Marketing  Relationship  Weekly Article

AdAge Power 150 (or 500): How long will it last?

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Wow – I was checking my dashboard stats when I noticed that a couple of folks came to my blog via the AdAge Power 150 – or in this case top 500. AdAge Power 150 (technically 500) looks at various factors for compiling this list such as subjective points, rankings by Google PageRanks and Technorati, and in bound links. 

 This raises an interesting question about how these lists are compiled. Over the past few weeks, I’ve benefitted from the frequent posts about the upcoming Blogger Social. Why? Because most are also include a list of attendees, which has increased my in bound links and in turn my appearance on this list. 

 These lists are useful to filter out the number of blogs being created every day. I’m not the only one who looks to these lists to find blogs from a PR and marketing perspective. At some point I wonder – which list do I want to follow?

Other lists to check out:

Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs

 Brendan Cooper’s PR Friendly Index

w Magical List (list of female bloggers)

 So I’ll enjoy it while it lasts! =) 

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: February 15, 2022

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This past week has seen some interesting conversations about press releases/newswires, how to conduct social media campaigns and the relationship with customers. Enjoy this last issue before the President’s Weekend Holiday.  You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.  

 The Power of News Wires – Read/WriteWeb has an interesting post about how BusinessWire’s influence and ability to be a top Techmeme source. If newswires are able to gain this much influence for a press release, does this mean PR folks will be “lazier” in getting placements for press releases?  

When a Release is Not a Release – B.L. Ochman highlights her experience with PR Web’s decision not to post a release because it didn’t satisfy their standard of a press release. The release was a funny announcement for procrastinators on Valentine’s Day. The tone was perfect for this type of announcement, yet PR Web insisted that B.L. make some changes. Frankly, who’s to decide what is and isn’t a release. I could understand profanity but because it wasn’t written in the third person? Puh-lease! 

Blogs are the Music to My Ears – Mack Collier writes about how blogs have contributed more to music sales than MySpace. Need I say more?

Valentine’s Day Special: It’s About the Relationship -Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog put together a special post for Valentine’s Day. She lists 62 responses to how to create great business relationships.  Tons of great tips from all walks of life and industries. I like #4, #7, #12, #27, #34 (this one is tough for me.. ask my husband =), #62. My tip? Be humble and admit that you don’t know everything. 

Successful Customer Case Studies – Jeremiah Owyang is on a roll. He’s providing great insight as an analyst that should help every PR person out there. This week’s nugget of wisdom, creating successful customer case studies.  

SMRs in the Real World – Brian Solis posts an email from Steve Kayser who has outlined his experience using SMRs in the real world. Very informative regarding what to be aware of as one proceeds down this avenue. 

Social Campaigning… Not! – Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology highlights a good point about Social Media. Social media can’t be considered a campaign as a campaign eventually ends. It require diligent work and commitment. Only then can you see reap the rewards of entering the social media world. 

Measurement Makes Your Executives Care – Dave Fleet reminds us that measurement is key for executive support and understanding. Like Social Media, it can’t be an one-time project. It has to be monitored constantly. I previously wrote about the PR measurements I track. It’s quick, easy and can be maintained weekly. Leave a comment if you’re interested in learning more.  

Six Deadly Sins of Social Media