Useful Tips for Pitching News

As a marketing or PR professional, it is quite likely part of your job to pitch news to journalists and magazines.

It is important to realize that not every interview you arrange or information you sent will be published.  

Once you have news to share, seek out the magazine that matches your target audience.

Below are some tips for pitching your news:

• Get to know the writers/journalists by checking out what they have written about before.
  
• Feed the right story; it must be interesting / newsworthy.
• Only pitch new products or significant product changes.
• Only .pitch case studies when your company is mature / well-known
• A pitched case study or article must contain a hot topic, such as solving a business problem with a proprietary technical solution.
• Only pitch executive profiles of well-known appointees / executives.
• Only respin old news if it has a new angle.
• Highlight the unusual.
• Pitch in a timely manner; the earlier the better. If not pitched in 0-day, the hot topic will be all over the news within 2 hours.
• Provide compelling collateral; supply sources that are appealing.
• Pitch by email; journalists and writers hate to be “stalked”.
• Never intimidate; be professional.
• Once published, distribute the article via your own channels (Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin).
• Search on social media and forums for the article. Once found, share and leave comments. Also search Twitter for tweets about the article, and retweet.

Success!

Starbucks Bugs Customers – Adding Bugs To Drinks Is Not A Good Idea

Recently, Starbucks decided to use a new colorant for is pink drinks and glazing. Instead of using milk products and real strawberries, the coffee chain decide to use chochineal extracts that consist of crushed bugs from South America. 

Cochineal extract is allowed by the FDA as a food colorant. Since it is cheaper to use, Starbucks used it to color its popular Frappuccino Strawberry and Strawberry Smoothies. 

Vegans and vegetarians were not pleased when they found out that their soy milk Frappuccinos and Smoothies suddenly contained animal products. Customers in general were bugged by the idea that there were bugs in their Starbucks.

As usual, the power of social media was harnessed; sentiments were vented in online forums and in YouTube videos. The online petition on Change.org got almost 7,000 signatures.

Starbucks got the marketing message and announced that from now on, lycopene extracts (from ripe tomatoes) will be used. Cliff Burrows, the President of Starbucks U.S., apologized and posted the following blog post:

“As I first shared on March 29, we’ve learned that we fell short of your expectations by using natural cochineal extract as a colorant in four food and two beverage offerings in the United States. Our commitment to you, our customers, is to serve the highest quality products available. As our customers you expect and deserve better – and we promise to do better.

After a thorough, yet fastidious, evaluation, I am pleased to report that we are reformulating the affected products to assure the highest quality possible. Our expectation is to be fully transitioned to lycopene, a natural, tomato-based extract, in the strawberry sauce (base) used in our Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino® blended beverage and Strawberry Banana Smoothie.

Likewise, we are transitioning away from the use of cochineal extract in our food offerings which currently contain it (Raspberry Swirl Cake, Birthday Cake Pop, Mini Donut with pink icing, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pie).

This transition will occur over time as we finalize revisions and manage production. Our intention is to be fully transitioned from existing product inventories to revised food and beverage offerings near the end of June across the U.S.

We thank you for your continued feedback, support and comments, and we encourage you to continue to share your thoughts here as well.”

Although Starbucks bugged its customers, it did excellent crisis management.

Ten Steps To Get Purchasing Approval

As a marketing or PR professional (or any other manager inside an organization) you often need to get permission for a purchase. Depending on your function, it can vary from a software application to the services of a PR company. Getting permission is not always easy.

Following are 10 steps to make it easier.

1. Ask the Chief Financial Officer, Controller or VP for your company’s purchasing guidelines
   
2. Determine the minimum criteria required to obtain approval for a purchase, including guidelines/thresholds for return on investment, net present value and internal rate of return.
   
3. Get vendor testimonials and/or customer references.
   
4. Identify the main 3 to 5 quantifiable benefits for the organization as well as the KPIs that can be used to measure results for each of these benefits.
   
5. Ask the vendor for their ROI model or the vendor for their ROI model or assistance in quantifying the financial benefits from the purchase.
   
6. Identify the payback period, ROI and NPV.
   
7. Prepare a business case with the ROI model and explain why the purchase is essential for the department and the enterprise. Emphasize the quantifiable benefits that senior management looks for to justify investments and explain the qualitative benefits and how the solution will benefit the organization.
   
8. Once the purchase is approved, put in place a measurement process to track its return on investment and impact on the organization.
   
9. Document the results and share them with senior management.
   
10. Perform a follow-up analysis 12 months after the implementation to show the ongoing benefits of the purchase. This will increase the chances of getting the next project approved.

Success!

How the JOBS Act Helps Startups With Crowdfunding

President Obama recently signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act which makes it easier for startups and SMB/SME to raise funds online.

Main highlights:

• Small companies can increase their number of shareholders to1,000. This is double the amount that was allowed under the old regulations dating from the 1960s. Small businesses must now file with SEC when they reach 999 shareholders.

• SEC regulations are also loosened to encourage crowdfunding. Small businesses can generate up to $2 million from various small investors.

• Small businesses that want to go public also have it easier now. The ceiling for exception was raised from $5 million to $50 million. The logic behind this change is, that more investments will be made and more jobs will be created.

• Companies are allowed to use advertisements to solicit investors; this was previously forbidden under an SEC regulation.

• Is has become easier for companies to go public sooner. Furthermore, as an “Emerging Growth Company,” a SMB/SME can avoid the bulk of SEC regulations and fees in the first few years of being public.

• Last but not least, the number of shareholders investing in a community bank is increased from 500 to 2,000.

JOBS Act allows companies that raise funds through crowdfunding to sell parts of their company or pay back the money. Before, they had to compensate investors by giving away rewards for different levels of investing. They would give investors a free copy of their product or free use of their software app for a certain period of time. Other companies opted for more creative compensation, such as dinner with the inventors.

With the new legislation, we can expect a slew of new crowfunding portals. If JOBS Act will also be a powerful instrument for creating new jobs remains to be seen.

Library Marketing – How A Dutch Library Enticed Social Media Users

Libraries are going through a tough time due to changing reader’s behavior. Readers want to read digital and prefer to look up information on Google or Wikepedia instead of in an encyclopedia. That is the reason why Encyclopedia Britannica recently announced that they will stop printing their gorgeous, leather-bound tomes.

In The Netherlands, many libraries had to close down or merge. As a result, they lost their function as a local information hub and place to relax and recharge

One library came up with a clever reach out plan. It hosted a meeting of a local Social Media Club and made sure to inform the media about it. The director hosted the event to turn the digital trailblazers into advocates for the library. As part of his strategy, he made is very personal by serving each participant a cup of coffee. They happily tweeted about this positive experience. To keep an ongoing relationship, the director gave each of the 80 participants free membership card (valid for 6 months).

Why was this marketing strategy so successful?

• The experience was very personal, which is a nice change from digital interaction
  
  
• Participants will associate the digital event with the library
  
  
• Giving a free membership card is soft and non-intrusive “sell”
  
  
• By personally serving coffee, the director built one-on-one relationships
  
  
• The library showed that libraries and digital communities are a nice fit
  
  
• Participants were turned into brand advocates, using their social media to share their positive experience

(Image: "Book 4.0" artwork)