Red Slice Founder Maria Ross Shares her HARO Advertising Success, Plus Branding and Advertising Tips

This blog is about DIY publicity.  However, publicity combined with other ingredients can create a powerful success recipe for whatever you have brewing in your business.

Help a Reporter Out is a fabulous and free media query service created by Peter Shankman that now boasts over 100,000 loyal subscribers who are interested in getting seen, head, and celebrated in the media.   HARO also offers advertising opportunities to reach these loyal subscribers, and the success stories I’ve read about are certainly compelling.

I wanted to talk to HARO advertisers to get the skinny on what really happens with HARO advertising as the secret sauce.   As luck would have it, Maria Ross, founder of Red Slice and the author of Build Your Own Brand Strategy in 10 Easy Steps — And Why You Need One Now, is a colleague of mine here in the Seattle area.   I asked her to share her success story as a guest blog post.  This blog post is longer than typical, but it is well worth your time.  And, you just might want to link back to it so everyone else in your community can read it, learn from it, and benefit from it.

I wrote my  eBook, How to Build Your Own Brand Strategy in 10 Easy Steps, to

1) help small business owners who couldn’t necessarily afford my consulting services, but needed guidance when embarking on branding to launch/refresh their business and

2) help educate and inspire business owners about what brand really means and help them create good, authentic brands in a sea of mediocrity.

My mission with Red Slice, my branding, marketing and communications consultancy, is to help businesses engage, inform and delight their target audience and keep them coming back for more.

The premise of the eBook is not only to offer a bit of Marketing 101 terminology and clarity, but to explain that brand is the core, the essence of your company. It’s more than just your logo.  That would be like judging a person’s entire complex personality based on their shoes. Your brand is how your receptionist answers the phone, how you price your products (the quality of your products), how easy or difficult you are to do business with, how your store is laid out. It’s not just the visual “logo and website” elements or pretty pictures; it’s the mind share you occupy in people’s brains. What parts of their brains light up when they hear your company name or think of you?

The eBook is a labor of love to help save the world from bad marketing – and to help small business owners save thousands of dollars when working with designers and writers, as well as on investing in the right marketing tactics and opportunities. I constantly see people trying to communicate things visually with their logo, their website, etc. without giving poor designers a clue about WHAT they are trying to communicate and TO WHOM. Also, nothing about what they want visually  - or what marketing tactics they want to do – is consistent with what they offer or the company personality.

Without a map, every road looks like the right one. A $250 booth at an event attracting 5000 people is NOT a bargain if none of those people will buy from you – and I hear that kind of thinking all the time.

I heroically completed the eBook while recovering from brain injury and a long hospitalization, so it was hard work to finish. So once it was up on my website, I knew I had to drive people to it and not waste that effort. I had been subscribing to HARO for awhile, making note of the ads at the top.  I loved that Peter Shankman had a tone similar to my tone in the book and how he personally crafted the ad to endorse the product.  This email list is extremely targeted to small business owners and marketing/PR professionals.  I knew these people were the exact audience for my book – if you are subscribing to HARO, it means you are most likely trying to get press opportunities yourself, which means you need to save money, which means you have smaller budgets, which means you must be a small business owner in many cases (or know someone who is).  Bingo! A ripe audience for this eBook.

The ad was pricey, I won’t lie, but the CPM is very cheap for (at the time) 75,000 targeted members with a reported 90% open rate.  He probably has an even larger list now. Take it from me as a marketer: that is an unheard of open rate in email marketing. I personally know I usually open all his emails and scan them for opps, so I don’t doubt this number.  He also sent over testimonials to show the effects the ads had on people’s businesses.

As of April 2009 (he may have changed), he offered four types of sponsorships:

NON-JOBS (Company/Client email) – most of the product/service ads

JOBS (Jobs/Hiring) – for job postings only if you are a firm who is hiring

HARO Gift Bag Product List – This list hits 30,000 “product” people – people who run companies that have products to donate to gift bags, people who want to get their products in front of celebrities, and the like. Virtually everyone on this list is also on HARO. if your company works in corporate events, this is a great one for reaching Event Planners and finding items for auction or goodie bags.

WHOH (What’s Hot on HARO) – 2-minute video-cast that goes out every morning, highlighting what’s hot on HARO for that day. You get a mention in the video, and a link from his blog below the video on that day. That link stays up forever.

Armed with this info, I purchased my ad (he requires payment upfront) for two months out, which was the first time he had inventory. He offers a morning, noon, and evening edition and I got to choose. I sent him a write up on the product, told him the points I’d love for him to emphasize, and set up a HARO discount code for $10 off. I calculated how many books I needed to sell to break even– everything after that was profit.

I can’t say enough good things about this ad – if this is the target audience you need to reach. My email started lighting up the day the ad ran, with PayPal alerts about all the new transactions.  I got some great monetary rewards, as well as future marketing opportunities.

• The four months before the ad, I sold about 3 eBooks. Within four weeks, I sold 45 eBooks from the ad. Some sales trickled in much later.
• I got two paying clients directly from the ad  - in Pennsylvania and the Netherlands!
• A very-well connected marketing consultant in California saw the ad and absolutely loved the eBook  - she started following me on Twitter and we met when she was in Seattle. We might be partnering in the future.

And I will be using HARO again for other products targeted to small business owners and marketers.

Rules to Follow:

Make sure this is the right audience. Make sure your product appeals to the target audience of small business owners, PR or marketing professionals or it will be a waste of money.

Offer some HARO Love: Offer a HARO discount code for dollars off or a freebie. Not only is this a good incentive to entice conversion, it seems to be the standard on HARO ads. This is a very loyal, tight-knit community.

Know there will always be a bad apple. One woman demanded a refund, saying my eBook was just a huge ad for my business. I got pretty bent out of shape about this, especially since I wrote the eBook SPECIFICALLY for people who did not want to purchase my services and I gave lots of useful and unbiased marketing advice and information. She also really thought Peter was endorsing the product and that this was not a paid ad. But I got so much other great feedback, I had to let it go. Peter assured me there is one in every bunch – so make sure you don’t take this personally.

Price Right: Make sure this is a decent price point that is not too high. These folks are all over the country and may not know you from Adam, so you may have better luck with products priced between $10-50. That’s the price point I typically see on his ads for physical or digital products. Make it easy for people to respond. If you are merely advertising your services and they are thousands of dollars, I’d suggest creating a Starter Kit or Trial Package priced at $100-200 and make it a HARO exclusive.

Have a goal in mind. I knew exactly what my goal was for this ad, and anything else – the clients, etc. – was just gravy. Are you trying to sell a certain amount of product? Are you trying to get more names for your email list? Are you trying to encourage people to sign a petition? Clearly state the call to action – the action you want people to take – in the ad. Don’t just say, “Hey, Look at my Business. We do cool stuff. This is not only not measurable (except maybe web hits?) but they have no incentive to act AND targeted email marketing like this is not meant for branding and awareness – it’s meant for direct, action-oriented marketing.

Negotiate – Fairly. Never just pay the Rate Card price without seeing how flexible they can be on price.  Once you get the rate card, try to negotiate down closer to your budget. I did this and got to a fair number for both of us (although it was still pretty high).  Be sure to make a reasonable offer back in good faith and hopefully you can meet somewhere in the middle. If the ad is $1500, then $100 is not a reasonable offer so use your best judgment and think about how you would want to be treated.

Thank you, Maria Ross, for sharing your favorable experience as a HARO advertiser so the loyal and growing readership of this DIY publicity blog can profit from the wisdom of your experience.

Maria’s ebook is really, really good.  I invite you to check it out if your brand strategy needs improvement.

And if advertising your business to this targeted audience of marketers, business owners and PR professionals is a perfect fit for your business, connect with Peter Shankman at HARO to arrange for your ad in perfect timing with your needs.

DIY Publicity Tip for Today: If you are serious about growing your business and inviting meaningful results at the cash register, remember that DIY publicity — combined with other high powered advertising ingredients — can pack the punch you are seeking.  As Maria writes, PR is just one aspect of promotion.  It is about making sure the truth of your story surfaces clearly and is heard.   She also writes,  “PR cannot just come along and — poof — make you thinner, prettier, or more popular if the fundamentals are not there — if the BRAND is not there.”

Here’s a red apple for Red Slice Founder Maria Ross, who taught us a few valuable lessons today.  Delicious, and so good for you and your business.  Love that.

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Do a Six-Month Review of DIY Publicity Action and Results Before June 30

Now that June is here, the timing is right to look back at the last six months of DIY publicity activities and business results to determine which of your DIY publicity activities have been delivering the greatest good for your brand, reputation, and your business results.

Ask yourself about the five most powerful lead generation strategies you have employed and consider how consistently you have applied them. If you are falling down on the consistency piece, commit now to do a better job in that regard. Nothing fabulous typically happens with a one-time effort.  Most successful people in the world work with passion, consistency, and purpose over a long period of time to achieve lasting success.

I really believe that Jack Canfield writes in “The Success Principles.”  He says, “Practice the Rule of 5.  This simply means that every day, do five specific things that will move your goal toward completion.”  How are you doing in that regard?    Now that June is in full swing, there are six more months to 2009 during which you can bring more passion, tenacity, purpose, and consistency to your DIY publicity efforts and everything else you do to build and grow your business.

We can’t control what goes on in the economy, but we certainly can influence the factors under own own control to fuel our own prosperity.  Learn new skills.  Connect with a powerful potential partner.  Share your expertise with a new audience.   Make some magic manifest.  If not now, then when?

Speaking of learning new skills, today is the last day to register for the June 12 Publici-Tea™ in Portland, OR.

And, I am taking an abbreviated, high value DIY Publicity Workshop and Q&A Session for a spin in Tacoma, WA on Wednesday, June 24 from 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. with my co-host Tammy Redmon.  Premium ice cream for all will be provided by Cool Cycles Ice Cream Company! You can read all about it and register at this link.

These events give you the opportunity to connect with other, like-minded business owners who share your desire to get seen, heard, and celebrated in the media and have an open mind about new ways to build the buzz to advance prosperity.  Treat yourself to some time away from the work-a-day details of your busy life and business, and learn some powerful, lasting skills to keep your business in the media spotlight. The price for the Tacoma workshop ($40) is a huge bargain for all the high-value , actionable information and special bonuses that are yours to enjoy. I’d love to meet you and be a partner in your DIY publicity success.  Register today.

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Making Sense of DIY Publicity Results with Google Analytics – Part 2

Today, Jason Shindler’s posts about making sense of DIY publicity results with Google Analytics by offering two more advanced ways to benefit from the information.

Have a Goal in Mind. When you invite visitors to your site, you should have a goal. For example, get them to sign up for your mailing list, have them buy a product, or have them send email your way. Each of these goals can be tracked in Google Analytics, and you can generate meaningful statistics. For example, you could find out that 23% of your visitors signed up for your mailing list or that your latest advertising campaign cost you $30, while delivering $500 in sales. To read more about how to set up goals in Google Analytics, click here.

Know your Audience. As a group, what do your website visitors look like? Do they have fancy computers with fast connections? Do they all speak Swahili? Knowing more about who visits your site might change the choices you make. For example, realizing that all of your users have slow connections might make you more mindful of the time it takes to load each page. You can find all of this in the “Visitors” tab. Key stats to look for are connection speed, screen resolution, and flash version (if you use Flash on your site).

What have you put in place to learn from and create winning results as reflected by your own Google Analytics? Let us hear from you. You can respond here, or read more about Web site development at Jason’s blog.

Thank you Jason Shindler for contributing two useful posts to help demystify Google Analytics.

If you have content expertise that is on target to serve the publicity-seeking needs of my readers, connect with me by email at nancy@nsjmktg.com to suggest how your content can make a difference here.  In return, you are welcome to reprint with attribution any and all of my DIY publicity articles in your blogs and ezines to guide your followers with my DIY publicity expertise.  Here’s an easy link to my Ezine Articles Inventory so you can find the perfect fit article to add value for your readers.

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Making Sense of DIY Publicity Results with Google Analytics – Part 1

I met Jason Shindler through our involvement at BizNik. After chatting on the phone and meeting in person at the recent Village Bellevue Net-Linking Event, I knew he had value to contribute to readers here.  Here is Part 1 of two posts intended to guide those who are a bit unclear about how to read their Google Analytics to make sense of the results they are enjoying at their websites as a result of their do-it-yourself publicity efforts.

Jason is the owner of Curvine Web Solutions, a Web site development firm in Bellevue. The company develops websites for small to medium-sized businesses. You can read more about Curvine Web Solutions by visiting this link and its blog.

Jason writes:

So you have listened to Nancy’s great advice on how to use use public relations to build buzz for your business, right? As a result, customers, clients, reporters and other people are visiting your website. Now, it is time to take action and evaluate what has occurred and decide on future PR strategies.

Using Google Analytics, you can see who is visiting your website and take action based on the information. In this post, I’ll  present two related ways to improve your PR using the information found in Google Analytics.

Quality versus Quantity. People tell me all of the time that there site gets thousands of hits. But what does that mean? Did you get 2,000 people who weren’t interested in your services and products?  Or were there lots of people who were very interested in you and what you offer? You can determine this by visiting the dashboard and reviewing the number of pages per visit. People who visit one page are generally not interested. People who visit 10 pages might be more interested. There are no universal rules to how many pages per visit is normal, as the structure of a site, the technology used and the type of content make every site different.  However, higher pages/visit is typically better. Note that many people get confused between hits, page views, and visits.  A great piece on the difference between these confusing terms is located here. Read the rest…

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