Press

Reasons Why Email Marketing Strategy Can Be Powerful

Your reasons to believe…

As defined by your consumers…

1. Reach – 93% of US consumers are email subscribers
2. Mobility – 51% of all emails sent are now opened and read on a mobile device
3. Flexibility – Email marketing is effective throughout the buyers journey beginning with acquisition, moving through onboarding and engagement, and ending with retention

And reported by your peers…

4. 88% of marketers use email marketing with their marketing mix
5. 68% of these marketers believe email is core to their business
6. 58% of the marketers plan to increase their spending on email marketing
7. 88% of these same marketers report email marketing produces ROI

Email marketing provides you with an incredibly powerful tool to precisely connect with the exact audience you need to meet your business goals. Moving your email marketing program beyond email blasts allows you the following advantages:

8. Targeting – select the people or businesses of your choice using numerous criteria including
   • Location
   • Language
   • Purchase preferences (product type, cost, frequency of purchase)
   • Position in the buying journey
   • Gender, age, race
9. Testing – determine the best subject line, content, promotional offers, and delivery timing to make your program more efficient and effective
10. Personalize – speaking directly to your audience by name with content specifically for that person or business is a huge advantage to email marketing over other communications media
11. Nurture – the ability to create a dialogue with your customers based on their immediate response or those over time is unique to email marketing and allows you to create a life time value for each customer
12. Lead generation – your direct connection and dialogue with your customers will produce immediate leads with them and likely leads through referrals to their friends and family (another powerful result)
13. Sell – promotions and coupons are well accepted by email subscribers, tracking the subscribers purchase history allows you to further define and refine your promotional plans and outcomes
14. Measure and report – you can track the number of impressions, pieces of content created, engagement, and sales to the single buyer

Finally, No. 15, email marketing can be managed as a low cost, turnkey program with a full editorial calendar, automated delivery, and high tech measurement and reporting.

Email marketing is a crazy powerful marketing and sales tool. Let me know if you would like to learn more about it.

Thank you to Exact Target for sharing their Channel Preference and State of Marketing reports.

Growing Your Business With Social Media

You’ve seen them all over your social media feeds: ads, ads, and more ads. Ever wonder as you scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed where the real content went? Business owners are flooding people’s feeds with sponsored ads because of the success other businesses have had with them. This is the evolution of social media, and it’s here to stay. It has become one of the most beneficial types of marketing across all industries.

According to Cody Neer, a successful CEO of several multimillion-dollar e-commerce companies, social media is a powerful tool for entrepreneurs who work online. Neer uses social media to drive traffic to over 300 of his e-commerce retailers. Most of his success has happened because he has channeled his brands’ social media followers to his stores using Facebook advertising.

So how can you benefit from social media ads, and what are the best practices you need to follow? Here is a simplified list to get you started.

1. Develop audience personas.

There are about 1.4 billion active users every day on Facebook, so when you create your ads, remember that it’s all about capturing the attention of your specific audience. Ask yourself who you’re targeting—are they male, female, millennials, baby boomers? What are their interests? Where do they live? Are they local, nationwide, or worldwide? All of these factors should play a role in how you create your ads. The Hootsuite blog offers a guide on how to create well-thought-out audience personas.

2. Use your organic posts’ data as a guide.

Look at which of your organic posts on your social media channels get the most traffic, likes, and shares. Use this data to guide you in what type of ads you should serve your audience.

3. Tell a story.

The content of your ads should be well thought out. Simply stating that you have a product for sale or you provide a service won’t do your ad justice. Be creative with your words. Think of your audience and how those words will resonate with them. Will they like it? Will they get it? Will it make them click the button and engage with your business?

Emotions play a crucial part in a customer’s decision to make a purchase. For this reason, brand storytelling is an important way to stand out. It allows you to connect with customers, increase brand loyalty, and sell your vision.

4. Create engaging videos.

Video content is an important tool to reach your audience. Today’s browser algorithms have changed to prefer video content over other content forms. Leading companies have noticed this; at least 86 percent of businesses make use of video on their websites, and approximately 77 percent use video on social media.

5. Provide free content.

Internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk introduced the idea of providing lots of free content on social media in order to entice visitors and get them to buy. He believes that customers hate being sold things but love to buy nevertheless. Offering a copious amount of useful resources and content on social media builds trust with an audience. If you solve their problems, they will love you and be happy to purchase something from you rather than from someone else when they need it.

6. Design your ads with mobile devices in mind.

According to a report by Hootsuite and We Are Social, more than 3.25 billion active social media users access social networks through a mobile device. That means more often than not, your customers will see your ads on their mobile device, so it is important to design your ads for a smaller screen. If you have text in your ad, make sure it is large enough and legible enough for someone to quickly see it and read it without having to zoom in.

7. Test your ads for optimum performance.

When it comes to social media ads, one of the greatest benefits is instant feedback. You can see within 24 hours or sooner how your ads are performing. If they are performing well, then great, you can leave them running. If the results are not to your liking, you can stop running them, make changes, and run them again to see if the changes make a difference.

Another and more effective way of testing your ads is to do A/B testing (testing one ad against the other to determine which works best). This guide on A/B testing can help you get started.

8. Understand your results and report on them.

When you start your ad campaigns, you start with a goal in mind, so it is important to measure your results so you’ll know if you’ve hit your targets. This will allow you to understand what worked and what didn’t so you can make changes going forward.

In today’s competitive environment, social media is one of the most effective ways to reach a niche audience that is interested in what you’re offering. Making use of this powerful resource will help you engage customers and increase sales.

Communicating a Luxury Brand: Exclusivity, History and Expertise

When marketing a Luxury Brand – there are three main elements that are shared between all of the great Luxury PR and marketing Campaigns over the years.

The three main elements that you must focus on when promoting a luxury product or a luxury brand are: Exclusivity, History and Expertise.

EXCLUSIVITY

Whether it’s a muklti-milion dollar property or home, Rolls-Royce, a Rolex, or Dom Perignon champagne from the best year ever produced, it’s almost all about the exclusivity of the products, when brainstorming a Luxury PR campaign.

Rolls-Royce buyers usually wait a couple of years before the car they ordered is delivered.

That’s because they are built by hand and only a limited number are made each year. Rolex – well there’s the ones at the bottom of the price range.

Those are pricey but not all that uncommon in certain circles, but the 1942 Chronograph – if you could find one – would run you well over a million dollars.

Even in 1942, they were limited, now nearly 75 years later, finding one is nearly impossible.

Those are old-world kinds of exclusivity – products that have stood the test of time. But what about more current items – Tesla sells their cars often a few years before the car is even available for purchase anywhere.

We now live in a world where there are many millionaires and billionaires, so exclusivity may not have as much punch as it once did with luxury items.

HISTORY

Personal history and family history sometimes have a value that can far outweigh any newly purchased product. But those items that can be passed down through more than one generation need to be of such quality as to stand that test of time. And some of those items may not be the most costly ones either.

A father spends time with his son while working on a certain type of automobile. They build memories as well as value in the product. If, having lovingly restored a 1968 Ford Mustang, the father then passes the car to his son as a college graduation present, the car will have an intrinsic value to both of them, but it will also have a value to collectors as well.

If the products made by a company can tap into a heritage aspect and offer a high-quality product that lasts long enough to go through a few generations, the product can be marketed as a luxury item and PR campaigns can be centered on the heirloom factor.

EXPERTISE

When a product is the finest made because of the expertise of the company and its workers, then luxury is built into its appeal. This can be true of artists working in different types of items from furniture to jewelry. But then there’s also items like bespoke suits.

A fully hand-tailored suit by an expert could cost tens of thousands of dollars and might also take nearly a year to be made. However, there are many levels of bespoke menswear that can also be called custom tailored and come at a more reasonable price. Those can still be considered luxury items, just at a lower scale.

When marketing luxury products, it is necessary to decide which features need to be highlighted and then to focus campaigns around those features.

Exclusivity is not always the route to take, but making it something that is a step above the norm justifies a higher price tag on all fronts.

How You Can Make a Lasting Impact on the Built Environment

In the words of most G20 world leaders, climate change is “one of the greatest challenges of our time”.

When looking at ways to address the issue, thoughts typically turn to the likes of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy; switching internal combustion engines with electric motors, and transforming congested city streets into green, open spaces.

What people don’t often consider is the role buildings can play in combatting climate change. However, as buildings account for more than a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and a quarter of all our water usage, perhaps it’s time they did.

A greater focus on making the homes, factories, offices, schools and hospitals we use greener and more energy efficient could go a long way towards reducing their impact upon the planet.

Tap our experience in partnering with real estate clients to achieve greater brand awareness and business performance.

Our campaigns are fully aligned with your sales and marketing goals and are characterized by thoughtful and strategic media relations, integrated digital marketing, social media strategies and events and partnership programs.

As our cities become more advanced, efficient, and connected, powering impact as a developer or provider of smart city technology demands an integrated PR & marketing effort channeled towards both the public and private sectors.

Achieving consensus on large-scale planning and development initiatives demands a creative, thoughtful, and agile approach to a communications campaign. We craft the messaging and identify the media platforms that will successfully tout a development’s benefits, dispel misinformation, and rally public support.

Finally, our integrated marketing and PR practice is focused on real estate, sustainability, destinations and hospitality, smart cities, and urban planning

Crisis Communications for Coronavirus and COVID-19

For almost every organization dealing with a pandemic such as coronavirus its uncharted territory. Many of our clients have already reached out for assistance in navigating internal and external communication strategies both in preparation for potential COVID impact, or in response to an incident.

A general principle when dealing with a matter of public health and safety is to be proactive. You never want a situation where potential harm could have been avoided, if only we had been more proactive and forthcoming with what you knew.

Anyone right now will understand and accept an employee that could be potentially be infected with the virus, and that might have come into contact with others. What the public will not accept is if you knew this information and did not share it, or if you weren’t fully prepared.

With that in mind, we wanted to offer some best practices and considerations.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

• Develop relevant internal & external messaging pre-crisis and templates for post-crisis
• Identify your crisis team’s assignments and roles
• Compile a list of key team member contacts
• Perform a media audit and update the contact list
• Decide on a preferred vendor list
• Outline a digital communications plan comprehensive of best practices and guidelines

CRISIS PR TEAM INTERNAL PROCESS NEEDED FOR:

• Engaging Media during Crisis
• Staff Responsibilities in a Crisis
• Internal Protocol
• Crisis Team and Communication Channels

For more information on crisis communications services contact us at mike@bontspr.com.

Digital Marketing to Increase Lead Generation in the Era of COVID-19

Finding and closing new business means sourcing as many high-quality leads as you can. Now with coronavirus on everyone’s mind and the cancelling and postponing of events and meetings, it is more important than ever to use tools and marketing strategies that go beyond face-to-face.

What is Your Real Estate Development Marketing Strategy?

Trust is one of the major factors to drive success to your real estate business.

Whether you are a developer building a new community, establishing yourself as a new broker or you have been selling residential or commercial properties for years, real estate public relations and marketing is also a vital part of the sales process.

Everyone knows real estate is all about location, location, location. But to a real estate developer, it’s called great dirt. One day, we’re wearing hard hats touring a reporter around a job site, and the next night, we’re passing the punch and cookies at a contentious neighborhood entitlement hearing.

In a competitive industry like real estate, developers and builders must always be searching for new leads and new avenues to promote communities and properties for sale or rent.

We think great dirt deserves great media coverage, effective digital marketing, great Web sites special events and targeted ad campaigns.

We help builders and developers find innovative ways to showcase communities and homes while staying within a marketing budget.

We create a strategic marketing and public relations plan that promotes developments and properties while establishing you, our client partner, as an expert source.

Our PR solutions enable you to constantly focus on your target market. Making your brand visible online and off.

If interested. Let’s talk.

Strategies for Commercial Real Estate Public Relations

Commercial real estate firms can be greatly impacted by a strategic and effective public relations plan. By using PR tactics like press releases, media pitches and blogging, firms can create brand awareness and establish themselves as experts in the field, gaining the trust of customers.

So, what sets commercial real estate PR apart from PR for other industries?

CRE firms have it both easier and more challenging when it comes to public relations.

For CRE firms, there’s news all the time. Any time a project is announced or a property is sold, for example, there’s a potential story.

However, the media doesn’t necessarily find every single announcement newsworthy. The challenge comes in using CRE announcements to create angles that the media finds unique, and it’s a huge success when that’s accomplished.

Our job is to make that happen.

Ways to Communicate Sustainability Beyond Words

Gone are the days when we used only words to tell a great story. Today, especially when communicating sustainability, we rely more on the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Please don’t get us wrong; words, statistics and data measurements are crucial to sharing a company’s focus on the triple-bottom-line, but we need to use more visual and compelling elements to truly portray a commitment to sustainability. That’s the only way to break through. Furthermore, effectively communicating sustainability can be a key driver in positive organizational change.

We live in a world where people are bombarded every day with new messages and up-to-date information. In fact, here are a few statistics supporting this phenomenon:

The average person gets one information interruption every eight minutes, or approximately seven an hour and 50-60 per day.
The average American is exposed to 247 commercial messages and 3,000 advertising messages each day.

Message vehicles vary from social media posts to text messages, emails, face-to-face interactions, radio commercials, online and in-print articles and advertisements, bus signage, billboards and even logos on buildings.

In the midst of this chaos, we have found several ways to cut through the clutter and stand out — sustainability is too important not to communicate it effectively.

The Role of Social Media in Luxury Real Estate Marketing

In the ultra-competitive field of luxury real estate marketing, social media can be your secret weapon. Here’s how strategic platforms can help set your brand apart, and drive conversions.

• Social media is an ideal place to create and share your brand narrative.
• With social media usage consistently on the rise, these platforms help lead users to your website.
• The visual nature of social platforms like Facebook and Instagram is ideal for marketing luxury real estate.
• Luxury real estate doesn’t exactly sell itself — if you’re a marketer, you’re well aware of this fact! The relatively limited customer base and highly competitive field make it crucial for luxury real estate brands to set themselves and their properties above the pack. When it comes to marketing luxury real estate, social media can be your best friend.

Of course, social media marketing and real estate are a match made in heaven. Real estate is inherently personal, even at the corporate and luxury levels, and marketers can use social media to great effect in cultivating productive relationships with leads.

Earned Media: Still Relevant for Targeted Audiences and Real Estate Brands

As the influence of digital and social media has soared, PR agencies who focus primarily on earned media (once known as publicity) are often warned that they’re falling behind.

There are regular calls for PR services to include paid media and other offerings. Many firms like to brag about how little they depend on earned coverage generated for clients. They’ve moved on to other things.

This is understandable, in part because PR is much more than media relations. But it’s also about the bottom line; the fastest way to grow is to offer more services, ideally those that can be automated and offered at high margins. PR agencies naturally want a piece of the digital media budget pie. Large firms in particular have big overhead to feed and face constant pressure to add offerings.

Earned Media: Labor-Intensive, Hard To Scale
Earned media work is notoriously hard to scale. When Tom Foremski referred to public relations as “an artisanal, hand-crafted service operating within a brave new digital media world that rewards scale,” he was probably talking about the back-and-forth that results in earned coverage. It’s difficult and time-consuming in practice — an inexact and often inefficient process that takes talent, imagination, and timing, and that rests on relationships.

But reports of earned media’s death are premature. A new study on the credibility of various information sources shows that it may be more relevant than ever. Three researchers looked at how people evaluate earned news stories, traditional ads, native ads, independent blogs, and branded blogs. The study’s authors surveyed 1500 members of a consumer panel and conducted focus groups with 46 of them.

The upshot? Consumers found earned media stories the most credible of all the information sources they reviewed.

Earned Media Beats Paid And Native Ads
It always comes down to credibility. That’s what earned media offers – within limits – and that’s what many PR agencies still deliver. It’s also notable that although the highest percentage of study participants found earned media stories the most credible among all the news and ads provided, they valued posts written by independent bloggers, rating them more credible than corporate blog content.

The news isn’t all bad for paid media, though. Though study participants considered ads less credible than earned media, they found them useful and showed a sophisticated understanding of how different information sources work together. The study’s authors points out, “people recognize that companies will face legal consequences if they don’t tell the truth.”

Negative Comments Add Credibility
Interestingly, negative information or reviews aren’t a dealbreaker for most people; in fact, they tend to enhance authenticity and therefore can make an earned media story or social post more credible.

What fared the worst in the study were the native ads shown to participants. Nearly half considered them the least credible information source, using words like “sneaky,” “tricky,” and “disingenuous.”

So, should PR agencies double down on their earned media offerings? Not necessarily.

The point is that when preparing to buy a product or service, people tend to get information from many sources. PR campaigns should continue to deliver messages and tell stories across paid, earned, shared, and owned channels. Yet the study does reinforce the central role of earned media as a PR deliverable, and it’s backed up by the results of PRWeek’s most recent Agency Business Report. Earned media remains a centerpiece of what we do, and although many agencies are expanding their offerings, it’s valuable both as a key service and as a point of view that stresses the credibility of a brand message.

PR Firms Can’t Be All Things To Clients
There’s also the credibility of the agency offering itself. The mega-firms who’ve invested in paid media services can plausibly do so, but many simply can’t be all things to all clients. Look at the flipside; today it’s common for branding, digital marketing, or even SEO agencies to say they offer PR or earned media services. But no knowledgeable communications professional would trust them with a major PR campaign. The promise just isn’t credible.

Bottom line, we should focus less on the superiority of any one source of information and more on better integration of messages that are consistent and compelling across all platforms and channels – including earned media, which will be a key part of public relations for a long time to come.

Relationship Management is a Hybrid of Marketing and PR

There was a time when PR was associated with free publicity and marketing with paid advertising. That distinction has blurred since the popularity of the internet, especially social media. On the other hand, it depends upon whom you ask.

For companies selling products or services, marketing, and public relations have the same goal of producing positive returns that result in increased business and profits. That has never changed but social media has drawn the lines closer together in what’s called relationship management. It’s also called relationship marketing.

How so?

Paying for an ad on Google would normally be labeled marketing while paying for materials to nurture a potential customer would generally be considered PR. It was kind of a one-two punch. PR set up the potential customer and generated goodwill and interest wile marketing followed up with a deal that the customer couldn’t refuse and acted on.

What Is Relationship Management?

Relationship management aims to draw a consumer deeper into the company’s service and/or product circle with comments, feedback and offers to become more engaged. Once a person likes a product or service on social media, it opens a doorway for the company to connect even more closely by sharing and informing the customer about recent advances, changes, etc. for what they liked.

Relationship management then is a hybrid of both marketing and PR.

Different Schools of Thought

Some observers would tell you that social marketing aims for a larger market, while PR concentrates on the existing one. Others would argue that PR today throws out a bigger net to not only appeal to current customers, but also potential ones. That outreach could be enormous. Consider how some GoFundMe stories and sites have become overnight social media sensations and successes. There’s validity in the latter argument. In order to survive and grow, PR has to extend its boundaries. That’s the value and difference of blogs, influencers and other strategies that weren’t popular a decade ago.

As with the evolution of so many other things, it’s time for marketing and PR to unite.

Combine Both For Success

Should marketing and PR be separate? To achieve maximum success today, both should be located within the same department so they can coordinate and collaborate. They should be supervised by the same person.

By working more closely together, marketers and PR folks not only learn to collaborate but also discover more about each other’s arenas which enables them to become even more effective and successful. Providing meaningful content as well as exceptional information to customers and potential ones will only serve to generate more leads but also a much-appreciated increase in sales

Now is the time to bring the PR and marketing together.