Remember when you were young, and there was that kid who spent more time dissing you or others than making something of themselves? Maybe you wanted to let them have it, but you knew (or maybe your parents gave you some advice) that it was best to take the high road and focus on your strengths and success.

There is some wisdom in this childhood scenario for grownups running businesses, product lines, and service areas, who are competing for awareness, customers, and marketshare. In every market, every town, every application space, you are going to face competition. And that’s a good thing – for companies and consumers. But maybe you are considering making a move to directly market against your competitor. Is this a good idea? The answer is, maybe, but be careful.

Let’s look at a a recent example to help illustrate some upsides and downsides for consideration: Microsoft’s recent ad campaign against Google in the mainstream business press. Here is one of their ads:

Microsoft ad, Text to the right

What I like about this ad:

1. They effectively create fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about breaches in personal security if you use Google’s products: “…the way they are doing it is making it harder for you to maintain control of your personal information.”

2. They were timely. The ads hit just as Google announced it was trimming down its privacy policy and sent a letter to the U.S. Congress

3. The tone is serious, professional, and clear: you can’t trust Google, and we’re doing it better.

4. The ad is designed to catch my eye and call out the controversy, and it did: I immediately saw it was a Microsoft ad directed at Google and I wanted to know more; it’s easy to read, my eyes are drawn to the product boxes, and I got the message – FUD about Google.

Three things I don’t like in the ad:

1. The language they used in certain areas. They took several “below-the-belt” jabs that I don’t think were needed, such as “Google is getting ready to make some unpopular changes to their most popular products” or “…Those changes, cloaked in language like ‘transparency,’…are really about one thing: making it easier for Google to connect the dots between everything you search…”. I know they’re trying to create FUD, but I believe they could have gotten the point across without taking these direct jabs. Because they did, they lost a little of my respect along the way. It seems some in the media – who influence the market and their customers’ perceptions – agreed:

In a later ad, they modified their tone and I liked it a lot more: “If you’re not comfortable with the potential of private email content or information in your private documents being used to serve you ads, we’d encourage you to explore our award-winning alternative: Hotmail and Office 365.”

2. Giving airplay to Google. As with any direct campaign against a competitor, you are growing their awareness with your dollars. Thanks to Microsoft, I became much more aware of Google’s security policies, and certainly was not going to trust Microsoft’s word alone. So they caused me to study Google even more by raising the issue. In the end, by creating this fear with users, Google may have gotten more traffic from this campaign than Microsoft.

3. There was no credible call-to-action to drive me to learn more about Microsoft’s presumed “more secure” approach. They were clearly just exploiting their competitor’s weakness, but didn’t have any technical, researched, or third-party information (white paper, webpage, etc) that I could visit to learn more. They just pointed me to microsoft.com and touted their competitive products. Lame!

So, was it effective? Were readers inspired to check out Microsoft’s products? Did the gains of directly exploiting Google’s weakness outweigh the costs of all those ads in very expensive outlets and potential harm to Microsoft’s brand?

Maybe, maybe not. I’m sure the product teams at Microsoft would justify it, but as a consumer, it didn’t inspire me to buy Microsoft, although I will say today, between this campaign and all the mainstream media coverage on the topic, I am more weary of Google than I used to be.

Instead of taking this risky, expensive approach, consider instead some alternatives as you plan your competitive attack:

1. Increase investment in search marketing around keywords where you directly compete. Place ads, create landing pages, and generate targeted content that drives clicks and organic search to your site vs. your competitors.

2. Don’t call your competitor by name. Rather, generalize with “other + your category”, such as “other service providers”, “other test integrators”, “alternative IT consultants.” You can also indirectly refer to your competitors by using their branded colors. This is a less direct way of calling out your competitors, while still getting the message across.

3. Create comparison tables of specs with your company name in one column, and “competitor 1″, “competitor 2″, etc in follow-on columns. As long as you can back up your data if someone asks, and you are accurate in your depiction, you can communicate your point without giving a nod to competitors by name.

4. Start a FUD campaign around your competitors’ weaknesses by focusing on your strengths. For example, for an enterprise software integrator, a campaign could be “Five Questions You Should Ask When Selecting an ERP Integrator”. Create a white paper, short video or webcast, and push out via social media and your blog to educate the market in a sound, professional manner what they need to consider.

5. Devise a geographic attack. As a challenger with less resources than the market leader, you will not be able to go head-to-head matching the leader’s products, advertising, and price promotions. Instead, be more strategic than your opponent and identify shifts in regional market segments that cause gaps to develop, then swiftly fill those gaps before your competitors do.

6. No matter what, do NOT compete on price. It diminishes your value, lowers margin, and is hard to get the market to move away from once you’ve started

To end on a light-hearted note, here’s the very funny, albeit very risky General Motors TV commercial that ran during the 2012 Superbowl touting Chevy vs. Ford trucks.

Do you like the Microsoft ad? The Chevy commercial? Have you tried some of the suggested alternative tactics? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below. In the meantime, here are a few additional resources to check out for more on this and related subjects:

Allocate Google Pay Per Click Budgets for Maximum ROI

5 Steps to Writing Effective White Papers

If you are working to establish a media relations program or just want to increase your opportunities for editorial coverage, building strong relationships with the press contacts that are assigned to cover your company and/or industry is key to the marathon that is public relations. Here are four steps to building strong press relationships that will benefit your marketing and communications efforts:

1. Read and Comment on Their Articles

The best journalists and editors (the kind you want to build relationships with!) take great pride in the features and reviews that they put blood, sweat and tears into publishing.

A string of comments creates relationships between the commenters.

So, be sure to really read their stories and leave comments consistently, with your name and company name. They will appreciate your feedback on what you like about their stories, how you think your customers might benefit from their stories, and maybe even what you found inspiring or thought-provoking after reading their work.  They are in this profession to educate and inform, so they will enjoy getting your commentary on how you and your parties are impacted by the information they provided.  The more engaging your comments are the better, as they will help your name stand out to the individual you are trying to build a relationship with. The more your comments stand out, the more likely they are to remember you, respond to you, and begin to value your industry expertise and thought leadership.

2. Interact through Social Media

If the contacts you want to establish arelationship with are active on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook, take the time to follow them and interact with them there regularly. They are there because they either find it enjoyable to communicate with people in that way, or helpful in some way to their editorial efforts. So, look for them in social media and take advantage of the opportunity to send them messages, ask questions or answer their inquiries!

On the topic of inquiries, be sure to keep an eye out for any social media messages from these contacts where they are asking for references and/or story ideas. If you can be quick to respond with appropriate resources, this can be a great way to generate strong and positive editorial coverage for you or your company.

However, the conversation doesn’t always have to be about your area of expertise and should never be a sales pitch. Instead, keep your social media engagements with the press informal and genuine, regardless of the topic, if you want to build strong relationships with the press that go beyond just your professional expertise.

For example, if you see them tweet about a conference they are attending in your city, reply to them offering local restaurant or bar ideas. Or if they link to a favorite band or song lyric that you know, reply and make conversation about your common music taste!

3. Send Them Story Ideas

As you begin to follow their coverage and social media communication consistently, you’ll likely be able to predict what type of stories they like to cover most. When possible, email them with similar story ideas that you find compelling and that you believe will interest them and their readers. Keep in mind, these story ideas do not always have to be related to your company or product. In fact, the press contact will likely be more impressed with your correspondence if it’s just a story idea that you want to suggest and it doesn’t include a PR opportunity for you.

That said, while they will likely appreciate your time and efforts either way, this doesn’t guarantee they’ll take your idea or cite you in their article. But it will go a long way in showing the press contact that you’re following their work and interested in contributing to the industry at large by sharing your ideas. It also can’t hurt your chances of getting company or product coverage when you do have relevant news that you are trying to pitch as a story.

Strong story idea suggestions might include industry trends you are seeing, new industry statistics that point to uncommon conclusions, industry pain points you’ve noticed through your customer interactions, ways that a breaking news story is predicted to impact your industry, etc.

4. Stay in Touch

Just like building a relationship with anyone else, the strengthening of your press relationships will require patience, consistency and time. It’s important not to be a stranger and to take opportunities, like the 3 mentioned above, to interact with the press contacts on a regular basis. A good rule of thumb is to correspond with them at least once per month, whether that’s with something related to your brand or not. Be patient if your communication efforts aren’t fruitful at first, as just like any relationship, it can take several engagements (over months) to build trust and a mutual interest in corresponding.

Overall, your relationships with the press should be productive if you’re willing to consistently contribute strong and relevant information that they can use to better inform their readers. They’ll come to appreciate your insight and value your relationship as an industry expert as much as you value their ability to widely publicize your company or product name.

You can read more about media relations, and how to best approach it in these posts:

How Strategic PR Efforts Boosted One IT Company’s Feature News Coverage by 125%

Trade Show Media Relations: Do’s and Don’ts

TREW Top 9 List to Increase Your Product Launch Coverage

Social media is changing how we use the Web. It’s changing  the way we consume, search and share information, so much, that consumers are now turning to social media before company sites when researching information on a product. If you’re like many small businesses who have read all the hype around social media and registered for accounts, but now wondering, “what’s next?”…this post is for you.

Often times, small businesses turn to expensive software services and applications to help maintain their social networks. This can be very beneficial if social media is an integral part of your marketing mix; however, we’ve learned that most small businesses don’t need all the features many of these services offer. You’ll end up spending more time trying to set up the accounts, remembering passwords, and figuring out how to use it, versus the end goal, which is to connect with your audiences and share key messages.

To help simplify social media, here are few tools that we recommend you use to manage social media and balance it with the rest of your daily responsibilities.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management tool with an easy-to-scan dashboard of all your social media accounts. Instead of logging into each account separately, Hootsuite allows you to see them at once. At TREW, we use this service to schedule tweets and Facebook updates, and easily interact with our and our clients’ followers.

TREW uses this tool because: it allows you to schedule updates at your convenience. You can schedule tweets over the weekend, or while the key personnel are on vacation. In addition, it allows you to see new @mentions and direct messages in one interface, as well as, it has it’s own link shortening service, so the analytic reports are housed here too.

Case in point: At NIWeek 2011, TREW used Hootsuite to schedule social media updates for client, Wineman Technology. At the conference, Wineman and  Tecnalia Research launched Dynacar, a fully validated, real-time vehicle model simulator for developing and testing passenger and light commercial vehicles. Intermixed with PR efforts, trade show planning, and web preparation, social media tweets and Facebook updates were released throughout the day to NIWeek attendees and show followers online. While tweets were released, TREW was helping clients on the show floor, and Wineman was occupied giving demos, meeting with press, and attending client appointments.

The result: Wineman had a strong show floor as well as off show-floor presence with over 200% web visitor growth. The graphic below shows how strategic social media can help amplify your message, which in this case was a result of the Dynacar launch at NIWeek, with the help of HootSuite for organizing and planning our social media updates. 

Klout: Klout measures the influence based on a person’s/company’s ability to drive online action. With engineered algorithms, Klout analyzes your tweets, posts, Google+ updates and other activity to determine your “Klout score” from 1-100, based on the number of people you influence. The score fluctuates in real-time, so if you’re active one week and silent the next, your score will reflect that.

TREW uses this tool because: It helps to understand our return on investment with social media. At TREW, we don’t fixate on the numerical score, but rather the other analytics that surround it. It’s a useful tool for improving the focus of your social media strategy, by gaining valuable insights on whom to target, and how to spark conversation among influential people. Then we look at the results from Klout, which measures “influence,” meaning how many users engaged with your message. It can take many forms, such as a re-tweet, @mention, or a click – ie, actions of influence to measure. By monitoring your Klout score, you can better understand the percentage of effort each channel deserves based on your results and audience influence.

TwitterSearch: A hidden gem, TwitterSearch is much more powerful than most people know. Finding things in the Twitterverse can be overwhelming, which is why this search tool is invaluable, allowing you to cut through the clutter and focus on topics you’re interested in.

For instance you can find out what people are saying about your competitors by typing in “to:handlename” or “from:handlename”. It will give results of tweets that people are posting about the competitor or if you used the “from:”, it will provide tweets from the competitor.

If you want to see conversations about your business that may not be sent directly to you with an @mention, there’s a search query for that. For example, if TREW wants to run this search query, we could type in “Trewmarketing -to:Trewmarketing -from:Trewmarketing -@Trewmarketing.” This tells the search engine to only give results of tweets that talk about Trewmarketing, and not any tweets from TREW or directly to TREW. Many times, you’ll discover a few tweets that would otherwise not be found by your analytics.

TREW uses this tool because: it’s quick, efficient, and it provides results in real-time. With TwitterSearch, there’s no need to sign up for a new account on a third-party site, it’s already accessible on the Twitter account. It gives accurate feedback about most everything you can think of, and it’s a quick way to check if you’re social media analytics are accurate for Twitter. For niche industries, this search tool can be very useful to find subjects being discussed, influencers engaged in the discussion, and opinions surrounding these conversations.

All in all, there’s many tools and services available to help you manage social media. These are three that have worked for TREW and our clients, by helping us manage accounts on a daily basis, and analyze data in an efficient and effective way.

You can read more about the benefits of social media, and how to use it with these related blog posts:

Social Media: Real-World Examples that Dispel the Myths

Social Media: Define, Act, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Repeat

Social Ad Showdown: 5 Ways LinkedIn Takes Care of Business

Last weekend, The Austin American-Statesman featured TREW Marketing in the “Statesman Startup Spotlight.” In a Q&A-style, the article highlights TREW’s startup roots, planted by co-founders and long time friends and colleagues, Wendy Covey and Rebecca Geier. The two shared many discussions over lunchtime workouts and combined their individual passions to form the agency uniquely focused in B2B science, engineering, and IT industries.

The Statesman Startup Spotlight shows that in a crowded marketplace of marketing and advertising agencies, TREW distinguishes itself from competitors by staying true to our niche and using smart, collaborative business tactics. For instance, TREW organizes into small teams to meet clients’ marketing needs, where one team may be executing an entire Web redesign for a customer in Germany, another is leading a product press tour in New England, and a third in Silicon Valley for a trade show – leading event PR, social media, and developing new business for the company. In these ways, TREW has been able to grow in our industry and maintain close relationships with our customers, many of whom have been with TREW since our founding.

TREW has also been named a BtoB Top Agency in 2012 in the small agency category. To compile the list of Top Agencies, BtoB Magazine surveyed agencies in its database through an online form in four categories (small, midsize, large, and interactive). The finalists in each category were selected based on percentage of total business that is B2B, revenue growth, client wins, and innovative work. We were included in the Top Agency Special Report for achievements in the following marketing programs:

• Product launch success with 125% more media coverage than any launch in the client’s history
• Search advertising program with an 82% increase in AdWord click-through-rates and a 60% decrease in pay-per-click spending
• Product launch with media coverage in top trade magazines Test & Measurement World, Design News, ECN Magazine, Design World, and Engineering TV of Dynacar, the world’s first fully validated vehicle model simulator by Wineman Technology and Tecnalia Research
• Web Redesign for DISTek Integration which received a 37% YOY Web traffic increase, 68% increase of time spent on site by visitors, and 92% increase of organic search traffic
• Consistent visual and textual branding for communications and 12-month marketing plan for DISTek Integration

• 34% YOY revenue growth from 2010 to 2011
• 179% increase in site web traffic to trewmarketing.com
• Launched an award-winning e-book, Smart Marketing for Engineers, that resulted in a 600% increase in web traffic for TREW
• Online and print coverage in the Wall Street Journal for being a finalist in the publication’s “Small Business, Big Innovation” national competition

Completing Q1 of 2012, TREW is off to an impressive start to the year. In addition to these features, TREW has increased first quarter revenue earnings by 145% from 2011, and also was recently covered by The Austin Business Journal for a marketing partnership with Kline Technical Consulting.

To read the full article on TREW’s Startup Spotlight from Austin American-Statesman, click here.

Last week, TREW attended the Design West Conference in San Jose. Here, exhibitors demonstrated products and services with the common purpose of helping design engineers be innovative, efficient, and produce reliable, secure solutions. While walking the trade show floor, I spotted several effective marketing tactics for attracting booth traffic, conveying key messages, and sticking in my memory well after flying home to Austin.

1. Impactful, attractive, low-cost booth graphics.

Crank Software used a set of three lightweight, retractable graphics placed closely together to act as one image for a 10×10 booth. My eye was drawn to the lime green swoosh, which contrasted nicely against the gray and black elements. With a quick scan, I could tell that Crank offers HMI software – evident by colorful software screens and graphics that take the design engineer through the design phases of prototype, develop, and deploy. While there are some slight improvements I’d make to the design, such as de-cluttering some of the repetitious phrases, I think this booth graphic is a nice model for a small booth presence.

2. Direct mail – still alive and kicking

As a pre-registered attendee, I received several pre-show promotional emails, none of which I found very compelling. On the other hand, I received one (and only one) physical postcard, sent by Datakey Electronics. Attached to the postcard was a key with an embedded chip that contained data of which prize awaited me at the booth. It spoke to me on two levels –  I was guaranteed a prize, but more importantly it was an interesting way for Datakey to quickly demo their rugged, portable memory products. The Datakey staff measured their direct mail effectiveness over multiple years, sharing interesting results: 10-13% of mailed postcards are redeemed at the booth, and the mailer boosted their traffic by close to 50%.

3. Hands-on lab

Rohde & Schwarz, one of the larger Design West exhibitors, dedicated over half of their booth real estate for an in-depth, 30-minute hands-on lab. Each of the ~10 session attendees used demo equipment and prescribed exercises to explore Rohde & Schwarz’s instrumentation. A knowledgeable engineer guided their audience through the exercises, and answered questions. Attendees also enjoyed refreshments, a nice enticement for attendees during the long conference day.

4. Happy, dancing mascot

Ok, now I admit that not every engineer enjoys a happy, dancing mascot, but I will say that this little dude drew lots of attention to his booth, VIA Embedded. VIA extended the mascot’s presence with small stuffed versions of him that trade show attendees can take home to their kids. (Full disclosure: some bias might be involved, due to my year stint as a high school Tiger mascot).

As a contrast to the happy lime green mascot, another company hired scantily-clad women for their booth (sorry, I somehow neglected to snap a photo). One was even wearing wings, which as much as I could tell had nothing to do with the company’s key messages for the show. They did draw attention, but from afar – I think the booths directly across from the models saw a boost in traffic, as the show attendees were not keen to walk through the “interaction path” of these women. After a barrage of negative tweets (and emails, I imagine), the company wisely pulled the women from their booth after the first day of the show.

5. Interesting demo incorporating a product partnership

Cyth Systems had a demo stand within the National Instruments booth, where they showed off a bioreactor using NI’s embedded SBRIO technology. The demo was eye-catching and easy to quickly understand. It also did a very good job showcasing both companies’ products clearly and effectively, which is often not an easy feat in a partnership demo. And finally, because of this demo, I now know how Botox is made (yuck!).

6. …and a few final observations

• Social media: Several exhibitors, including Texas Instruments, did a fantastic job of tweeting specific, compelling content about their presentations and demos. A few others did not quite fare as well, with banal posts, such as “come by our booth and win an iPad.”

• QR codes: A surprising lack of QR codes were utilized by exhibitors. I can’t help thinking that this is a huge missed opportunity. Or is the adoption rate really that slow for people to use QR readers? However, I did see MANY QR codes used in the airport – TSA had them on practically ever sign as I went through security.

• Eye-popping shirts: Kudos to the LVDT folks, who I nicknamed “the purple people” for their memorable (but professional) booth attire.

• Big monitors for “mini-theaters” in smallish booths: this is a great solution when you don’t have the space for a large theater presentation. And theater presentations were a big hit at this show in all booth sizes.

Are you looking to marketing strategies for your next trade show? TREW Marketing has deep expertise in events. Contact us today to find out how we can help you improve your trade show program and increase your return on investment with every event.

Today, TREW Marketing launched an online survey asking technical engineers questions on their media choices for news on the latest technologies and industry trends. The survey addresses marketing media topics ranging from web search habits, to industry publication and social media usage, as well as planned media investments for B2B science and engineering companies.

“Engineers and scientists use a variety of media sources to seek technical information, which are constantly evolving. This can be challenging for companies who target this audience,” says Wendy Covey, Co-Founder & Principal, TREW Marketing. “With this survey, we aim to better understand the changing media habits of engineers, then use this data to help guide custom marketing plan development for our growing list of B2B technology clients.”

The survey will be conducted both online and offline at Design West. Located in San Jose, Ca., this conference brings together diverse groups of high-tech professionals, including embedded hardware and software design, total systems integration, power management, open source software, android, embedded security, LED’s, and MultiCore, Sensors. TREW Marketing will be in attendance on the show floor from March 27th – 29th, conducting the survey and meeting with select companies to discuss their marketing strategies.

For those not attending Design West the survey is also available off the show floor through this blog, and we’d appreciate your participation. Click here to take the survey. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete. After completing the survey you will be entered into a drawing for one of four $25 Starbucks gift cards. You will also have the opportunity to be notified by email when the results and findings become available.

TREW plans to announce the survey findings on our blog. Check back for the link to download our full report. In the meantime, download our free e-book, Smart Marketing for Engineers, a practical guide that includes positioning and planning, website development, content creation, search marketing, turning leads into sales, and social media.

Agency Chosen for B2B Technical Focus; Breadth of Marketing Strategy, Planning, SEM and PR Expertise

AUSTIN, Texas – March 19, 2012 – Kline Technical Consulting (KTC) announced today its selection of Austin-based TREW Marketing to lead development of the company’s multi-campaign marketing program, with initial focus in brand positioning and messaging, web design, and content development. KTC chose TREW Marketing because of the agency’s ability to understand the specific needs of engineers and its experience with highly technical products and solutions.

KTC is a global consulting firm specializing in the delivery of integrated national defense and security solutions. For more than 45 years, global organizations have trusted KTC to develop fielded systems and concept of operations – from tracking enemy forces and leading anti-piracy efforts to implementing large cyber warfare networks.

“Working in mission-critical security, electronic warfare, and advanced technology applications for demanding clients, KTC’s marketing must be planned and executed accurately and thoughtfully,” said Rebecca Geier, Principal & Co-Founder of TREW Marketing. “With TREW’s broad-based marketing services, we can build the most efficient and effective marketing plan to help KTC grow its awareness as a warrior-minded provider of engineered security solutions.”

The new partnership entails marketing projects including:

• Corporate-level branding brain and messaging
• Marketing communications strategy and campaign-based activity plans
• Marketing collateral and content development – white papers, case studies, flyers
• Whiteboard presentation development
• Website redesign
• Web content development including corporate blog

“TREW’s match of strength in marketing and market-related involvement drove us to choose the agency as our marketing partner,” said Dr. Robert Kline, Founder and President, Kline Technical Consulting. “Working with TREW Marketing has made us think about our brand, goals, and marketing plans differently.”

KTC expects to introduce its new website, blog, and marketing materials later this year.

Click to Tweet: New from @TrewMarketing: National Defense Solutions Provider Selects TREW Marketing http://ow.ly/9FYGK

About Kline Technical Consulting

Kline Technical Consulting was founded in 1966 and provides security, electronic warfare, and advanced technology solutions for government agencies and defense-critical industries in the USA and Allied States. With a combination of warrior, academic, and technology expertise, KTC transitions innovative security and response tools and knowledge into unique fielded systems. Recent work includes contracts for the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, as well as Government of India and other organizations that defend against electronic warfare.

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service B2B marketing firm uniquely serving leading engineering and scientific companies that target technical markets. TREW uses decades of specialized experience to create custom marketing programs that help customers efficiently and effectively achieve their business and sales. TREW takes an integrated approach using a wide array of marketing services, including market research, brand identity, positioning and messaging, product launch planning, website strategy and design, search marketing and public relations.

For more coverage on TREW Marketing and Kline Technical Consulting’s marketing partnership, see  the article by Austin Business Journal, here.

Exhibiting at an industry trade show can be a great investment for companies of all sizes. It provides an opportunity to showcase your products and enables you to meet in-person with customers, partners, analysts, suppliers and contacts from the industry media. Whether you plan to reach out to media contacts in advance to try to set up interviews, or try to catch their attention on the show floor, keep in mind the following do’s and don’ts of trade show media relations:

1. Do Provide News and Eye-Candy…

Editors and reporters who attend trade shows are primarily there so they can report on the “news” from the show. This is why it is important to offer them an opportunity to learn something new about your company, products, customers, or industry. If you don’t have something newsworthy for the event, give the media an opportunity to learn about your 6-month product roadmap, sharing appropriate details in order to pique their interest.

• Offer something visual. Many editors will appreciate if you can offer them a visual demonstration of your product or give them a chance to video a Q&A conversation with one of your executives or customers. This allows the media to share with their non-attending readers.

For example, demonstrate the way your new product works in one of your customer’s applications. This will help your booth stand out to the press who are looking to share fun stories and highlights about the show with their readers.

For example, here is a picture of the car that one of TREW’s clients had in their NIWeek booth, running the new test software they announced at the show.

But Don’t Expect All Media Contacts to Be Available for Meetings.

For highly anticipated trade shows, the media contacts are often outnumbered by hundreds of exhibitors. Simply due to time limitations, media contacts can’t meet with each exhibiting company. To maximize your time, qualify the list of media to those that will be most inclined to meet with your company.

2. Do Look for Informal At-show Opportunities to Build Rapport…

• Be aware of media badges. All attendees are given some type of identification to wear, and the media contacts typically have “media” written on their ID badge or nametag. As you attend sessions, keynotes, and even meals, keep an eye out for people with media identification. Take these chances to casually introduce yourself and company.
• Spark a friendly, casual conversation. Ask how their day is going, local happy hours, etc. Building relationships with the media is no different than building a relationship with anyone else – it takes time and intentional conversation to build rapport.

But Don’t Bombard – Exchange Business Cards with Added Details on Back.

When introducing yourself, don’t dive right in to an elevator pitch about your company during an informal, unexpected meeting with a media contact. They may not be covering the type of content you have. That said, it’s never bad to offer one of your business cards. Add a brief note on the back with what your company specializes in and why you think they might be interested in following up with you later. Even better, jot down brief points of supporting customer testimonials and/or upcoming news, that may interest them. This way you give them something enticing to revisit as they review business cards they collected at the show.

3. Do Make Spokespeople Readily Available and Prepared for Media Interviews…

• Be on time and flexible. Media personnel are typically booked with back-to-back meetings, and often, when one meeting runs late a domino effect occurs for the rest. Be sure that 1-2 dedicated company spokespeople have flexible schedules, so they can easily reschedule if needed. Furthermore, be willing to meet during informal time slots, such as coffee breaks or meals, as this may the only time you can get with that media contact.
• Exchange cell phone numbers. If you have set up at-show meetings in advance, be sure to exchange cell phone numbers, so they can call or text you if their schedules change, and you can do the same if your spokespeople has a time conflict.
• Rehearse sound bites and interview techniques. Be sure your company spokespeople are well-prepared for media interviews. They should be equipped to handle questions concerning the product, company, competitive landscape, pricing, and customer base. Have them do several mock interviews prior to the show, practicing their sound bites, holding a microphone, and standing in front of the camera.

And Don’t Forget to Take Notes for Follow Up.

As you meet with the press, take notes during the interview about what types of questions they ask. You may notice some journalists are more interested in customer applications, some probe for technical details, and others are inclined to learn about your corporate structure or partners, etc. Be sure that you are explicit about areas where you or your spokesperson will follow up with more detail, if needed.

After the meeting, it’s ideal to send the media contact a brief email with useful post-interview resources or requested documentation. This helps ensure your key messages are included in the write-up. It is also appropriate to send a social media “thank you” from your company.

4. DO Have Fun!

While trade shows can be busy and exhausting, they should also be a fun experience for your company reps. Enjoy the time to let your work shine and celebrate once it’s all over by putting your feet up and reading through the media coverage that you are hopefully able to secure as a result!

Need help with your media relations or trade show planning efforts? TREW Marketing can help! Contact us today to get started.

Related blog posts:

5 Core Steps in the PR Marathon

5 Marketing Activities for Trade Show Success

How Strategic PR Efforts Boosted One IT Company’s Feature News Coverage by 125%

Photo by: Nick Simonite

On Friday, February 24, 2012, the Austin Business Journal featured TREW Marketing Co-Founder and Principal, Rebecca Geier. The profile highlights Rebecca’s startup success with Wendy Covey in forming TREW Marketing, her volunteer work with the education program, FIRST Robotics, and her personal music passions, family, and inspirations.

The Austin Business Journal shows that Rebecca’s understanding of an engineer’s technical mind spurred from  her work at National Instruments, her 15 years of volunteer robotics coaching, and her science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) advocacy at Davis elementary. Seeing first-hand how STEM education through FIRST Robotics can build a child’s character, Rebecca discusses her passion in the article, saying, “Kids are literally working with Legos, solving the same kinds of problems that design engineers are trying to solve at NASA, at Ford, at Apple. They are using the same software and they don’t know it. It builds teamwork. It builds complete disregard for failure because you keep trying and trying.”

Rebecca’s success and passion are easily recognized by community leaders and education experts. In the article, Susan Dawson, President of E3 Alliance, notes that “Rebecca combines the creative talent, personal rapport and organizational skills of a great marketing and PR person with the enthusiasm of a really passionate community advocate and the drive to get things done.”

Her eye for teamwork translates into her business at TREW Marketing, which is noticed by clients. “I have known Rebecca for 13 years, and during this time, she assembled more than a couple of high-performing and high-character teams. She continually watches for talent and synergy between seemingly different styles,” said Chuck Boecking, Director of Education and Marketing at Adaxa USA.  “Her teams seem driven by passion and more importantly bound by courage.”

In a candid Q&A section, Rebecca reveals her weak spots for chocolate ice cream, most impulsive moment – jumping off the First Street bridge with friends during Aquafest, and Sunday morning routine of reading the paper, watching her favorite TV show, and her husband and son cooking breakfast. A true Austinite, Rebecca talks of her musically talented husband and son, love of live music, and iPod playlist of 70’s musicians – Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles.

To read the full article, visit http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/print-edition/2012/02/24/journal-profile-rebecca-geier.html, or pick up a copy of the Austin Business Journal at local Austin newsstands this week.

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As businesses continue to tighten budgets and work to do more with less, decision makers increasingly rely on third-party commentary from a variety of external sources to help them determine which products and services stand out amongst the rest. Often, topics that are discussed on blogs and in social media circles are born on trade and business news media websites and in journals. Given the growing stakes around such media coverage, having a strategically-minded and intentional public relations (PR) program is an increasingly important part of most B2B company’s marketing and communications programs, as it helps to:

• increase awareness
• strengthen consideration
• position against competitors
• build credibility through expert opinions and exposure to real-world customer experiences

However, running an effective PR program requires much preparation, research, perseverance and determination – much like running a marathon. Whether you are just crossing the initial starting line, or working to strengthen your existing PR program, here are the 5 key foundational steps that must be taken as part of successfully enduring the marathon of PR:

1. Define Goals and Objectives

What do you hope PR will do for you? By when? Are you trying to generate more awareness of your company over the coming 12 – 24 months? Is there a new product launching later this year? Are you trying to promote the expertise of your executive team over time? The intentions that you have for your PR program shape the goals you set, help you prioritize the program activities and enable you to evaluate the program’s success in the end. Once you have established your goals, you can define specific measurable objectives to achieve, such as:

• Securing a certain amount of feature articles about a new product
• Increasing the number of times your company is mentioned in the industry media per quarter
• Securing a specific number of interviews with your company’s executives and the media

A PR program typically has 3-5 goals, with related metrics, to be met over a specific period of time.

2. Identify the Target Audience

Once goals and objectives are established, it is equally important to identify the target audience for your PR efforts. To determine this, ask: who are your customers and prospects influenced by? For example, if you’re a B2B security software vendor, your customers might be the IT professionals of worldwide enterprises, and you’ll find that they are often influenced by bloggers and journalists that write for IT technology trade publications. If you are a service provider in the automotive R&D space, your target audience likely seeks out experts in automotive design and test outlets. To increase the likelihood that your PR efforts will reach the eyes and ears of your target customers, you must be sure that you know who they are and where they are reading information to guide their purchase decisions.

If you’re not sure, ask your customers. Also, look at where your competitors, partners and other companies in your space are advertising. Read up on magazines’ websites about their readership, topics they cover, and which reporters best match with your company’s expertise. Through this, you’ll be able to build your list of prospective media contacts to target.

3. Create Relevant Content and “Hooks”

Reporters are constantly looking for news and stories to fill their online and print space – product news; application examples; new ways of saving money, time, or improving quality and processes. As an expert in your field, you are in an ideal position to be a source of information for them. So before you contact your target media, create content that explains the essence of what you are trying to promote – whether that’s a product, technology, trend, application, or customer success. It is vital that you’re able to readily provide new and engaging content that helps to explain the value of what you are working to sell.  Content can come in many forms, but the types of content that are most helpful for reporters include:

• press releases
• customer case studies
• corporate blog posts
• FAQs
• company and product fact sheets
• white papers
• videos
• infographics

A key to success with PR is not just having the content, but presenting it in a way that piques the reporter’s interest. This is called the “hook” – you cast your line out (i.e., your content and idea) and hopefully the reporter bites and gets interested. The best way to come up with good hooks is to read what that reporter has done in the past. What do they seem to be interested in? What are their hooks that grab their reader in the first paragraph of their stories? By studying the hooks they use in their headlines and stories, you can start to hone in on an effective hook for your story, such as reducing costs; speeding time to market; reducing risk; etc.

The more you can turn your content and idea into a relevant, attention-grabbing hook that the reporter can easily turn into a story, the better chance you’ll have of ultimately catching that fish, e.g., media coverage.

4. Reach Out and Build Relationships with the Media

When you are ready to make contact with the media, craft an email “pitch” that will serve as the first correspondence where you introduce yourself and throw out your hook. Here are a few tips to help your pitch stand out:

• Read through the publication (online and/or in print) and customize your pitch to their style. Is their content focused on breaking news? A certain industry? New products? Case studies?
• Summarize your company “elevator pitch” into 1-2 succinct sentences, emphasizing what you do differently from competitors
• Present your hook and offer an opportunity to speak with an executive or representative of your company about it
• Provide updated contact information in case the media person wants to contact you ASAP

After you send your email, give the person at least 48 hours to respond before you send a follow up email.  It’s ok to follow up with a phone call after 48 hours as well, but proceed here with caution, as media contacts receive dozens of pitches every day and they don’t typically have time to answer or respond to phone calls from every company that is vying for their attention. Keep in mind that they certainly will respond to you if/when the story is right for them.  If they do not respond at first, try again with another pitch angle in a few weeks or months (depending on the timeliness of your hook).

5. Measure Results and Reassess Goals and Objectives

Take time to monitor your PR efforts, the amount of time spent on them, and the number of pieces of coverage or media interviews that you are able to secure in the end.  Often PR program measurements track company media coverage, competitors’ media coverage, as well as tracking the number of media interviews or engagements.  Here is a sample of how we track company vs. competitor coverage at TREW:

As your company focus shifts, you offer new products, or build deeper relationships with journalists, you’ll be able to set new goals for your PR program.

PR = Pacing Required

PR programs certainly require persistence, patience and time in order to generate frequent media coverage placements and strong media relationships. Be sure to pace yourself by setting realistic goals that can be increased to match your growing resources and capabilities over time. With the pacing and focus of a marathon runner combined with each of the strategic steps described above, you are ready to implement a successful PR program and secure media coverage to help your company and its products and services stand out, one mile-marker at a time!

Related blog posts:

How Strategic PR Efforts Boosted One IT Company’s Feature News Coverage by 125%

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