A Recipe for Success - Make Your Own News

Any company working with a public relations agency knows that keeping your name consistently on the minds of reporters and editors is a vital part of scoring meaningful media placements.

Despite technological advances, PR is still a relationship business. PR pros follow up with phone calls and emails, and are almost like ambassadors for various companies and organizations, getting the media to essentially like who you are and what you do. A good PR person ensures that in times of breaking news, your company is who that reporter thinks of first when they need a comment, a photo or video footage to complement their story angle.

But in times when you don’t have a new product, service or event to promote, PR pros serve as the idea factory you need to create news where it seems none exists. Here are two examples of creating news where CMA has been successful in the past.

Operation Kill-A-Watt (OKW)
CMA collaborated with client Public Energy Solutions, an energy services company that performs energy audits and lighting retrofits in the tri-state area, to create this initiative subsidized by Con Edison. In certain zip codes of New York City, building owners were eligible to receive free Compact Florescent Lamp (CFL) upgrades, ultimately lowering the strain on the city’s power grid and saving owners hundreds of dollars in energy costs. The public relations program to raise OKW awareness reached over 5 million New Yorkers and resulted in nearly 20,000 building upgrades over the course of two years.

Member Advocacy Initiatives
The National Association of Independent Broker/Dealers (NAIBD) is composed of the Main Street broker/dealers who are most likely to help the aging boomer plan for retirement than interact with the high stakes investments of Wall Street. New regulations from the government threatened to lump NAIBD members in with Wall Street big-wigs and unfairly label them as potential Madoff-like threats. Before the regulations were finalized, CMA worked with NAIBD’s Member Advocacy Committee to create a stir within the financial media to publicize the association’s proactive quest to include revisions to the law (what is now the Dodd-Frank Act). The governing bodies now have discretion over broker/dealer audits before initiating them – helping to save members thousands in unnecessary audit fees. In this case, the “squeaky wheel” got the attention it needed to effect change through the power of the financial industry media.

A few other initiatives are currently in the works for CMA clients. How can we help you raise awareness for your company or organization through PR?

Kaitlin Friedmann
PR Manager
kfriedmann@cmasolutions.com

Getting Online on Time

An active and accurate web presence is essential in today’s market place. CMA’s website development team recently worked with the International Vitamin Corporation (IVC), a global private label and contract manufacturing company producing vitamins, minerals and supplements, to get their website up and running quickly.

Formerly a nutritional supplement division of a larger company, IVC found itself without a website after the division was spun off on its own. The leadership at IVC turned to CMA to develop the design, content, and programming for their new website.

The site (http://www.ivcinc.com/) was developed for ease of navigation and new brand design. The contemporary design utilizes white-space accented by images of health, wellness and nature. The copy stresses the company’s comprehensive concept-to-commercialization capabilities including its true integrated supply chain of global partners supplying raw materials for IVC contract and private label projects for national pharmacy chains and big box home stores.

CMA worked within a tight deadline to get the website up and running. Both the design and content helped the newly independent company define itself in the industry.

The result was a website that the company’s sales team could use as a business development tool to grow the company.

CMA Brings Joy to Local Family

CMA partnered with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Community Health Promotion Program to bring joy to a local family in need.

CMA adopted a five-person family in need for the holidays. Employees donated a variety of gifts for children ages 16, 11 and eight years old, as well as gifts for each parent. The overwhelming support enabled the firm to provide more than 12 gifts to the family.

CMA’s president and CEO, Jeffrey Barnhart, commented, “Our employees continue to think of others, especially during the holidays, and how they can make their days a little brighter. We are honored to continue our partnership with such an outstanding organization.”

From left to right: Corie Eisenberg, Kelly McKelvey, Lindsay Piccolella, Kaitlin Friedmann, Elizabeth Roe, Kristin Couch, Meghan Higgins, Colleen Reasoner and Erin Higgins.

Happy Holidays from CMA

View our interactive signature card by clicking here.

Six Marketing Don’ts for 2011

Make it your New Year’s resolution to follow this simple list of marketing don’ts for 2011.

Don’t make the same mistakes you made last year. You’ve spent the time reviewing last year’s marketing plan (link to last post). Make sure you apply the lessons learned to next year’s strategy.

Don’t just tweak last year’s plan. Changing the dates to 2011 isn’t enough. The market has changed. Your potential clients might have changed. Taking a fresh approach and building on last year’s success is the key to continued growth in the New Year.

Don’t plan in a vacuum. Spend time talking with current clients and even prospective clients. Find out what their 2011 plans are so you can better communicate how your company can meet their needs.

Don’t get caught with a website that screams 1995. Just having an “online presence” is no longer good enough. Your company’s website is a reflection of your overall company image. A modern, up-to-date website lets your customers know your company is moving forward and growing.

Don’t forget to get social. With the three social media leaders, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, continuing to grow and more niche industry sites establishing themselves, chances are your target market is active online. Now is the time to learn how to use these tools to establish a two-way conversation with your prospects.

Don’t send mixed messages. Is your website copy and direct mail messages in sync? Has your newsletter gone and developed its own brand identity? Chances are overtime your branding has gotten off course as marketing was treated as a project, not a long term strategy. Get everything back in line and moving in the right direction.

What are your marketing do’s for 2011?

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com

Naughty or Nice – Did you meet your marketing goals for 2010?

Come December, we all will look back on the year to see if we reached our goals. Focusing this state-of-mind on your company’s marketing program will help you compare your marketing goals to the marketing reality.

Blow the dust off of your 2010 Marketing Plan. Hopefully, December isn’t the only time you’ve evaluated your marketing tactics this year. For many, this will be the first time the plan you spent weeks developing sees the light of day. Don’t let this misstep discourage you from fully evaluating your marketing from 2010 for 2011. Go through the plan line by line to see what dropped by the wayside and what was executed.

Define Success. Were you looking to add 20 new clients or grow revenue by 10%? Without knowing what you were aiming for you, you won’t be able to determine if you got there. If you crafted a solid marketing plan, that information should be laid out for you. If the goals weren’t clearly set, this isn’t an excuse to stop the review process. Putting together metrics after the fact isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

Determine the ROI. Once you’ve pulled together a list of what was executed in 2010, planned or otherwise, you can now calculate the return on your marketing investment. A good approach is to start with the big picture and determine the total ROI for marketing for the year and then break it down by project. Seeing where the ROI is the highest will help you prioritize marketing initiatives for next year.

Be Honest About the Results. You might be disappointed to know that the direct mail campaign your team labored over for months didn’t result in enough new clients, but it was the less exciting SEO project that saw results. While it might be tempting to gloss over the missteps of 2010, it’s necessary to really look at what worked and what didn’t.

Bring Together the Team. Go through the goals for 2010 and the ROI figures with the full team to keep everyone in the loop and to get their feedback. This is the time to look beyond the ROI numbers to see the factors that led to success and the challenges that led to failed programs.

Once you’ve gone through this process, make sure you put all this effort to work for you. Learn the lessons of 2010 and plan for success in 2011.

And in 2011, make sure you review your marketing plan regularly so you stay on target!

Erin Higgins
Director of Marketing Services
ehiggins@cmasolutions.com

The CMA Holiday Card – Our Signature Creativity

For over 20 years, the CMA holiday card has symbolized the fun and creativity of our staff. The original concept was developed back in the early days of CMA, but the idea of featuring the smiling faces of our employees has remained a timeless favorite among our network of clients, vendors and friends.

Starting in 1992, when CMA was a mere five years old, the first holiday card to feature the likenesses of the agency staff was introduced using caricatures of each staff member instead of photos. The following year, the studio team and I continued this theme, but arranged for a photo shoot and positioned the staff photos to look like each member’s head was peeking out of a gift box—no easy feat in the days preceding Photoshop!

Since then, the CMA team has been seen climbing, perching, falling off of and dancing around various holiday-themed items including a snowman, a nutcracker, a toboggan and a penguin. CMA’s furry friends even got involved in 2008. Our pet-friendly office was at peak capacity with dogs, cats, bunnies and turtles during this famous photo shoot for our signature card—perhaps the one we received the most comments on ever!

Eighteen years after the first personalized CMA holiday card, this signature piece continues to be recognized with awards from industry organizations. It also continues to be a perennial favorite of our own team to create. Each member of the staff gets involved with selecting the theme, bringing in props and coming up with creative poses. By showcasing our downright goofy nature, we hope clients, prospects and vendors see the human side of their CMA contacts as well as the high level of our creative abilities.

How do you retain your business relationships? Let CMA help you determine how to leave your signature mark and strengthen your network of customers and prospects.

Dave Sherwood
Creative Director
dsherwood@cmasolutions.com