PR public relations used together with internet marketing

PR PUBLIC RELATIONS USED TOGETHER WITH INTERNET MARKETING

PR public relations used together with internet marketing will help establish a brand quicker than normal advertising providing the public get behind it

Whenever I talk to a new client about marketing the first thing I always ask them is "What makes your company or product different from your competitors?" This question is often met with a long silent pause or a load of sales bluster that wouldn't convince anyone. I don't ask the client the question to put them on the spot, I ask them because I need a starting point and if they don't have a sensible answer to the question, my marketing department are going to have to come up with something that may sound great but is totally meaningless and we are never comfortable with that kind of situation.

Did you know for example that the majority of new product launches fail? And it is normally because the product was no different from anything else on the market. You see it on the television all the time: new shampoos "enriched with glucodermawhatsit to give your hair a luxuriant lustre" and new dishwasher tablets "with antiscratchythingystuff to give your glasses that extra shine."

ESTABLISH A BRAND QUICKER THAN NORMAL ADVERTISING

Dishwasher tablets started out with one colour. Then, to increase sales, they made them two colours, then three, and then they added a little red ball. Toothpaste started out white, then had two stripes, then three and no doubt they will find a way to make it spotted.

Marketing companies earn fortunes coming up with catchy names, eye catching packaging and catchphrases. They have to, because they are trying to get the public to buy products that are no different from, or any better than, anything else on the market. Sometimes it actually works and the public are convinced by the advertising employed to launch the new product on an unsuspecting market.

It isn't that the marketing and advertising agencies think that the public are stupid - they know that a huge percentage of the population is stupid and gullible. All the marketing companies have to do is come up with a winning formula.

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This is not so easy when it comes to internet marketing and launching a new product or service over the internet. You can't come up with any flashy packaging; people aren't going to walk past your product on a supermarket shelf and make an impulse buy; and you can't use a well known celebrity to endorse your product and be beamed into millions of homes and therefore convince the public that your product is the best thing since sliced bread.

PR PUBLIC RELATIONS WILL HELP ESTABLISH A BRAND

Of course you can pay a celebrity to endorse your product and do a voice over for your website, but you still have the problem of getting people to visit your website and therein lies the crux of the matter. One way or another you have got to generate traffic to your website and that is never easy or cheap.

Whatever marketing methods you use, you have got to have something that will be of interest to potential clients, whether it is a worldwide or niche market. However, your unique selling points - whether actual or perceived - must be attractive to potential clients to garner any form of interest. You have to remember that there are one hell of a lot of websites out there and many of them promise the earth and do very little. Internet users have therefore become cynical about any claims that websites make.

Furthermore, if you come up with a new innovation, you can bet your life that every scumball operating on the internet will copy your idea if they possibly can. This is why it is important to keep your internet business evolving and one step ahead of your competition. The idea is to get your nose in front and stay there to ensure your competitors are always playing catch up, or better still go under in their attempt to keep up.

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Plagiarism is something David and I have had to put up with for years. Copycat websites spring up everywhere as soon as we launch a new internet service. Our one saving point is the fact that we continue to evolve and develop new ideas and the greasy little worms that try to copy us never seem to be able to make their mark in the same way. This is because copying an idea is one thing, but making it work and understanding how to make it a success is something else.

France One Call was the first specialist internet site to provide advertising for self-catering holiday homes in France. It was the first to provide availability information, the first to provide a search and find facility, the first to provide the ability to build a website within a directory and the first to use the overspill of enquiries from other members advertising. There are of course now thousands of websites offering advertising for holiday homes in France, but France One Call has continued to evolve and develop and remains the number one website for holiday accommodation in France.

Utopele is a search engine that allows the other search engines to search its database. Website owners can build pages within Utopele and optimise them for top ten search engine rankings. Unique in the way it is set up, website owners can build static pages and link them into their existing websites. Numerous other directories have sprung up since, but without understanding how the other search engines work, they have failed to make an impression on the internet.

Boogami - The reason this search engine hit the headlines was because it was built by a sixteen year old schoolboy. The pre-launch PR campaign ensured the site received huge media coverage and millions of visitors who have continued to use this search engine. The reason it has continued to be a success is because we have been responsible for the online marketing and the continued developments and innovative free services that have been added since it was launched. There are a number of projects at various stages of development that will be added to the site to maintain public interest.

Internet marketing is a continual process and your business needs to constantly develop and change to ensure you remain in the public eye. The internet is no different in this respect from any other business sector. If you fail to evolve, your competition moves on and leaves you behind.

Having structured a good internet marketing campaign, you then need to address your internet advertising which is covered in the next chapter.

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