Arran Events, Advertising and Marketing

There is a widespread, but unacknowledged epidemic sweeping the country. It’s
called Press Release Addiction or PRA. Those suffering from PRA usually display the
following symptoms:

* An overwhelming compulsion to distribute a press release — no matter how
newsworthy it is.

* Little understanding of how the media consumes information.

* An expectation that every press release will receive significant media coverage.

Fortunately, there are two cures for individuals and organizations suffering from
PRA: knowledge and restraint.

The First Rx For PRA: Knowledge

The keys to successfully interacting with the media are understanding their
environment, needs and how they use information.

The Environment: Media work in a high-pressure environment. They are
responsible for quickly developing well-researched and well-written articles. In
addition, they must contend with countless e-mails and phone calls from their
sources, editors and people seeking publicity.

The Media’s Needs: Giving the media with what they need is the best way to
capture their attention and goodwill. Provide them with relevant information and
resources (e.g., spokespersons, reference information) that will help them do their
job. Bombarding them with irrelevant press releases and follow-up phone calls only
annoys them.

How the Media Uses Information: Recognize that the media use information in a
variety of ways — even when it is useful. Sometimes a reporter will include
information about your product or service in a story quickly. Other times, they may
decide to use the information in a future story to provide readers with context or
alternatives. Remember, coverage is valuable . . . whenever it appears.

Think about the environment, requirements and habits of the media when deciding
whether to distribute a news release. It will help you to increase the odds that your
information will be used.

The Second Rx For PRA: Restraint

Before sending out a press release, ask yourself a simple question: Why will anyone
care about this information? This question is important, because reporters ask it
everyday. The fact is if a reporter concludes that their readers won’t care about
your information, they won’t use it.

Some reasons reporters may ignore a press release include:

* The information is not newsworthy (e.g., not enough people will be affected by the
news or it is not local).

* The information is not relevant to the reporter (i.e., the reporter does not cover
the topic or industry your release focuses on).

* The information is not material (e.g., it is not of enough import to significantly
influence the organization’s profits or revenues).

Before putting together a press release, think about whether it would be better to
deliver information to your stakeholders another way. For example, sending an e-
mail to a carefully selected group of constituents with the news may be just as
effective.

Establishing good relationships with the media is critical. Understanding the media’s
needs and providing them with high-value information will earn journalists’ good
will and attention. Be sure that the press releases you distribute are relevant and
newsworthy to increase the odds that media will cover your product or service.

(c) 2005 Fard Johnmar

Fard Johnmar is founder of Envision Solutions, L.L.C., a full-service healthcare
marketing communications consulting firm. Envision Solutions provides innovative
products and services to not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. Envision
Solutions’ goal is to make our clients more efficient and successful. For more
information about Envision Solutions please visit our
Web site

Tags: Marketing, press releases, public relations

Banner Stands are a high impact, inexpensive and attractive medium of advertisement. They are usually found at exhibitions, trade shows, retail stores – just about anywhere the potential customer can be attracted by high wattage graphics.

The attractive thing about banner stands is that they are portable, flexible and easy to set up. There are different kinds of banner stands like retractable or rollup, pole, telescopic and others. The technology that enables the high quality of graphics and photos has added to the beauty of banners.

While organizing banner stands for exhibitions, there are many choices to deliberate on. For a portable trade show, the choice is between a fully customized exhibition and a portable exhibit.

The general opinion is that a portable is much better than a customized banner stand. For one, portable systems cost a fraction of a custom built one. The exhibition center built by portable is ready in a jiffy compared to the custom built systems.

Another advantage is that you can handle and test the system before using. It is flexible and can be used again and again. Also, portable systems are ready to pack and easy to transport.

Choosing the right banner stand may be considered care fully. Banner Stands can be divided into indoor and outdoor. Indoor exhibition banner stands are used for retail exhibitions and trade show conferences, indoor events and sales promotion. This category can be further divided into retractable and pole banner stands. Pole stands are cheap and strong. Roll up or retractable are easy to set up, with safe casing for graphics, and are easily portable.

Outdoor exhibition banner stands are suitable for outside use. They are weather proof, wind resistant and need outdoor resistant graphics.

Exhibition selling and advertising can energize the dullest of products with colorful and attractive banner stands. Banner stands exhibits are crucial for attracting potential customers.

Banner Stands provides detailed information about banner stands, retractable banner stands, roll up banner stands, banner stand exhibits and more. Banner Stands is the sister site of Promotional Advertising Specialties.

Tags: banner stand exhibits, banner stands, retractable banner stands, roll up banner stands

Visitors find related information by using a search engine. You may have the most incredible website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking.

The goal for your website is to appear on the first or second page of the search engines’ results when your target users searches keywords or keyword phrases. Because most people who use search engines only look at the first page or two of the search results. Search engines like Google, AltaVista, MSN etc currently indexing over 10 billion pages; hence it becomes more and more difficult to get listed in top rank.

The creation of original and high quality contents provides the highest returns. It’s extremely important to set aside time to research on your content as content plays a vital role, if you want to get listed in top rank of search engines. Content is extremely important because it ’s the content which is indexed in search engines and on this indexing position of a website depends in search engines. Also do some research to find good keywords, which you think will be used by visitors to find your website. Use good keywords with low competition. Content also play a role to get inbound one-way links for your website as if content is good then other web sites wants to link with your website.

Link popularity in simply terms is the total number of web pages that link to your web page or website. Search engines rank web pages and websites by checking link popularity of your website. Link popularity increase the visitor’s traffic and getting good web page rank given by search engines. Always try to increase incoming links on your website, as incoming links are relevant links which is relevant to your website services and products. Incoming links helps to get targeted visitors who are looking for similar type of services or products over web. Another type of link exchange is reciprocal link in this type of link webmasters exchange links with other in order to boost their link popularity. Adding links in your website is a very effective way to get direct traffic to your website.

At this time Google is at number one along with Yahoo! And MSN Search at second and third place respectively. These three search engines holds / represent between 85% and 95% of all traffic that arrives at a website directed by a search engine or directory service.

Try to add your website in all search engines and directories, if you website get listed in Google it doesn’t means that your work is over. Try to promote and add your website in other search engines also like MSN, AltaVista etc. And above all try to list your website in Open Directory (Dmoz) as it is the most important directory that exists on the web today.

MSN Search currently holds a smaller share of the search engine market than Google or Yahoo! But MSN has the constant attention of consumers, because of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, as long as MSN has such a strong majority of the browser market they are able to be in market for a long-long time. That’s why try to list your website in MSN Search also.

Sharad Saxena
Iwebresources.com

Tags: poutsourcing articles