The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Why’s that then? Why aren’t I skipping off to my computer right now to market my business? (Oh yes, I’m already at my computer…) I’d say that the book is definitely food for thought. There’s no doubt that it helps you look at things with a fresh eye. But…
… I find myself left thinking “now what? now what do I do?”. Yes, it’s given me a lot of theory but nothing that I can really get my teeth into. I find books like that frustrating. It’s like I’ve asked a cook “how do I bake a cake?” and they’ve replied “in an oven, you can make chocolate cake, or carrot cake, or coffee cake, it’s great”, when what I really wanted to know is how much flour to use, how to compile the ingredients and how long to cook it for. Do you know what I mean?
So, I would say that if you’re interested in reading up on the theory of using the web to market your business then this could well be the book for you. But if you’re after a step-by-step guide to putting the theory into practice then you might not get so much from it.
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Press Here! Managing the Media for Free Publicity
Press Here!: Managing the Media for Free Publicity
I particularly liked the case studies at the end of each chapter. The author used three different scenarios - two businesses and one freelance journalist - and followed their stories throughout the book. Absolutely brilliant. They reinforced the advice given in a very accessible way, showing how it could be applied in a real situation. It was also very useful to get an insight into how a journalist thinks and the pressures they are under - somehow makes contacting journalists seem less daunting.
Definitely a book to refer to again when I’m ready to launch into some PR.
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Still working on being brilliant
I’ve just completed the fourth week of my 90 days of brilliance plan and I’m still hanging in there. I started off by preparing very detailed weekly plans and sticking to them very closely, but that has tailed off somewhat. Instead I’m now setting overall goals for each week, giving myself much more flexibility day-to-day. I’m feeling pretty good after four weeks:
- We’ve launched our new website and are actively working on expanding it
- I’m feeling much more confident about networking and as a result more enthusiastic about going to stuff
- I’ve prepared a 28-day marketing programme and started it (today in fact)
- We’ve defined our vision for 5-years and are actively working towards it
- I’m reading on average one book a week
- I’m signed up for an SQL course which will be starting in a few weeks
It’s all good stuff. Tomorrow will mark the end of the first 30-day plan so it will be time to sketch out what I want to achieve in the next 30 days.
Gearing up for some marketing
I’ve spent the last couple of days preparing a 28-day marketing plan as laid out by Get Clients Now!. I’m hoping that following a plan will help us kick-start our marketing which has been a bit non-existent recently. We’ve had quite a lot on so project work has been taking most of our attention, but now that we’ve got a few big projects coming to an end we need to get out there and find some new clients.
It’s going to be quite an intense 28 days. Actually it’s something that I’d planned to do as part of my 90 days of brilliance - so part of following my 90-day plan is to follow a 28-day plan. Hmmm, do you think I’m taking this a bit too far? Well, it’s helping feed my need for lists of things to tick off at least.
My goal for the 28 days is to find 6 new prospects - that’s 6 solid prospects to prepare quotes for. Is that asking two much for 4 weeks or does it sound like I’m not aiming high enough? I’m finding it difficult to tell.
I’m due to start the programme on Monday (good to start at the beginning of the week). Shall report back on my progress!
Get Clients Now!
The book acts as a kind of cook book for putting together your own tailored program. You choose what you want area you need to work on (filling the pipeline, following up, getting presentations or closing sales) and the ingredients you’re going to use and then form a plan to follow daily for 28 days. Brilliant! There’s nothing like having a solid written plan to follow.
I’ve read the book twice and put it into practice once and would highly recommend it. In fact I’m gearing myself up to have another go. Marketing is one of those activities that keeps getting pushed to one side while I tackle the day-to-day running of the business, but I find having a defined number of tasks to complete each day really helps me find the time for it.
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