Your Questions About Direct Marketing News

Jere answers:

What generates a great story: it must be timely and interesting.

Before you can get a national news broadcaster to highlight your business, you’ll have to have considerable attention at the local level. If you want to do that (local), you can start by sending in a news release to the business editor of your local newspaper. Keep it short and factual. If you’re offering something new that no one else in the area offers, so much the better. As to format, keep it to a single page, and send it in on your letter to the business editor (find out his name first). You can find many sites online that tell you how to write a good news release.

Do include past history and any pro bono work you do in the community, as well as any boards you serve on, if relevant. (“NAME is also involved with The Joy Fund and Habitat for Humanity.”) But news releases aren’t brag-and-boast pieces; they’re merely to provide information to readers.

If you can enlist the aid of a PR person – even if only as a consultant – this would be helpful. They can tell you what events are newsworthy and which you should have a photographer covering. They also have contacts in the media, so it’s easier for them to get a story placed.

If you have a business weekly in your area, or a community supplement to the daily paper, those papers are always looking for new and newsworthy topics. Find out who the editor is. Again, if you’re the only one in your area who offers a particular service, you might be able to interest your newspaper (or supplement) in running a weekly or monthly column. You may not receive compensation, but the exposure would be great – and it would help you become the local “expert” in your field. And if you don’t have time to write, hire a freelance writer to do this for you.

When you give talks, you can leave behind handouts that direct people to your website.

Once you make a splash locally, you’re more likely to get the jump to national coverage.

Jere answers:

It takes time to build up a Twitter account, but if you do it properly you can achieve some great results.

You should target two types of individuals for your account. Individuals who are following cleaning-based Twitter accounts (offering cleaning advice) and Twitter accounts focused on your particular region. I would focus more on the region as your service can be utilized by pretty much anyone. If you cater to a state, search for that state on twitter (same thing if you only cater to a particular city). Look at their followers, and start following them. Why? Say for instance you only cater to people in Reno, Nevada. If you find a Twitter account that tweets about Reno News, their followers are most likely located within the Reno. Therefore, you’d want to follow these individuals.

A couple of other pieces of advice…

Send a direct message to all of your new followers (thank them for following you and provide a call to action such as a discount or an overview of your services).

Join WeFollow and MrTweet (Twitter directories)..great for more exposure

Include the fact that you are a local business within your profile.

The direct messages will help to turn these followers into lead (especially if you’re offering some type of incentive). It can take time to get sales from Twitter so tweet frequently, keep your followers entertained, and make sure they stick around so when they do decide to use a cleaning service they’ll think of you.

Any other questions feel free to private message me at primevisibility@ymail.com.

Jere answers:

You realize that much of the decline in stock prices is a direct consequence of the spending bill just passed and the additional spending bill that Obama said he will sign?

Unlike the Obama supporters people who place their own money on the line when they invest pay close attention to the effects of the spending bill.

For example – are you even aware of exactly where the money to pay for these spending bills will come from? Here is a clue for the clueless – it is going to come out of the same pool of money that normally goes into the stock market (the investment and capital market). The government is borrowing that money in competition with the people seeking to borrow money for business investment and in competition for the money that would otherwise go to purchase stocks.

Another thing to consider is that with Obama’s promise to repeal the Bush era tax reforms – stocks are not going to be a good long term investment in the future. Thus people who are looking to invest long-term are disinclined to invest in the stock market due to the massive tax increase they will be facing.

And finally, the promises of tax hikes on the ‘rich’ have caused them to move their mkoney out of economically productive investments and into investments that are designed more to protect them from the tax increases. Remember the term ‘tax shelter’ and how these things are only popular during periods of high taxes on the investing classes (which are also periods of low economic performance).

Jere answers:

If you’re targeting non-profit organizations, why don’t you try some phone advertising or direct contact? You could also send out mailers. You could also place an ad in the classifieds. You might talk to a news-person and ask if they’ll do a story on your business and your charitable interests.

Jere answers:

Basically, anything which may have a direct or indirect effect on the earnings of the company, can cause movements in prices of a stock. There are innumerable factors:

The event may be about the:

Company(eg. Labour problems, disputes among promoters, damage to plant and machinery ,etc),

Industry in which the company operates(eg. Economic slowdownin Western countries affecting software companies,etc.)

Movements in Sympathy: Sometimes, share prices move in sympathy with movements in the prices of prices of market leaders.

Etc., etc.

National economy(eg. Drought, floods, natural calamities, war with other country, etc.)

International economy(eg. Property bubble in US, inability of certain European countries to meet their debt obligations, War with Iraq, etc.)

National Policies(eg. Export, Import, Taxation, Expendture, Fiscal Deficit, Labour, Credit Policies, etc.)

Political Matters(eg. Political instability,lack of faith in Government, etc.)

Social Issues(Social disturbances, polarisation in society on various issues,etc.)

Natural Calamities(Floods, droughts, locust attacks on crops, earthquakes as in Japan, etc.)

The event may be of economic(payment problems of certain European Countries,for example), political(for example, war), social, natural(earth quake, floods, for example)