Increase Holiday Sales with PR

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Mark Macias

top tech pr firms

By Mark Macias

Most Internet retailers will turn to online ads for their holiday promotions, but PR can in many ways be more cost effective and targeted than any online ad campaign. First off, Internet bots steal much of your ad budgets. (You can read another article I wrote on Internet bots by clicking here), while online news stories typically remain on a news site long after your PR campaign ends.

But here is an even bigger reason why PR can be very effective during the holiday seasons. The journalism bar for news coverage actually drops during the month of December, especially for tech startups searching for publicity.

During my time as an Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York, our news staff always dwindled in December as the staff went on vacation. However, news programming hours remained the same, so there were essentially fewer people doing the same amount of work. In print, this news staff shortage is even more pronounced in December because their ad page volume increases, which means more articles are needed to fill these additional pages. At the same time, their news staff shrinks with journalists taking their end-of-the-year vacations.

So how can you take advantage of the lowered journalism bar this holiday season?

Macias PR has published a holiday PR guidebook that can help business owners and entrepreneurs identify the holiday news peg that can get them on the news. The PR guidebook reveals five PR tactics that can increase your chances for coverage during the holiday season. You can download the free PR guidebook here.

Macias PR was named the 2015 “PR Consultant Firm of the Year – USA” by Finance Monthly. The firm was founded by Mark Macias – a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. Macias is a weekly contributor with CNBC.com and author of the communications book, Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media, which has been featured in the NY Times, Fox Business, NY Post and others. Macias PR has run media campaigns for tech startups, financial groups, service providers, nonprofits and politicians.

Publicity vs Crisis Campaigns – The Different Strategies

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Mark Macias

siren

By Mark Macias

Crisis campaigns are always run differently than publicity campaigns. With a publicity campaign – especially for tech startup campaigns, the narrative is established before any reporter is pitched and when the campaign is executed effectively, the message should remain on point.

But with crisis campaigns, the script changes as the negative news develops. This is why one of the best strategies for crisis communications is to always get in front of the story. Don’t wait until a reporter has the story before you begin addressing the problem. Also, don’t avoid the negative news. Instead, address it straight on.

Here’s a recent article I wrote for CNBC that uses a real-life example as a crisis communications case study. In this situation, the person in the middle of the scandal – Charlie Sheen – executed this crisis campaign to near perfection. Click here to read the story.

Macias PR was named the 2015 “PR Consultant Firm of the Year – USA” by Finance Monthly. The firm was founded by Mark Macias – a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. Macias is a weekly contributor with CNBC.com and author of the communications book, Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media, which has been featured in the NY Times, Fox Business, NY Post and others. Macias PR has run media campaigns for tech startups, financial groups, service providers, nonprofits and politicians.

PR Firms – East or West Coast

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

East or West Coast – is there an advantage to choosing a San Francisco PR firm versus a PR firm in NYC?

In today’s world, publicists are able to pitch reporters from anywhere. Few publicists meet reporters in person so an office in New York, Miami or San Francisco shouldn’t provide an edge when it comes to pitching stories to journalists. However, there is a large advantage to being on East Coast time if you are pitching national news outlets.

Look at it this way: if you’re a publicist in LA, beginning your day at 9am, you’ve pretty much lost half the day with reporters in New York. Many reporters in New York, Boston (or any city on the East Coast) go to lunch around noon, just about the time when publicists in LA or San Francisco are getting to work.

Making it even more challenging for PR firms in San Francisco or LA, most reporters are under deadline after 3:30pm EST, so you don’t want to pitch them a story in the late afternoon.

Do the math and you’ll see a publicist in LA or San Francisco has only 2.5 hours to get a story in front of reporters, while a publicist in New York competes on the same time zone.

I can already feel the heat coming from publicists in California who will say they work later than people in New York. True – but as a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York, I will tell you a publicist is wasting his or her time by pitching a story to reporters outside of work. No reporter or TV producer wants to read his work email at 7pm, which is only 4pm in California.

PR Firms on East Coast Time Have an Advantage

In addition, most news cycles only have a shelf-life of 24 hours. If there is a story that develops overnight, our team learns about it while we are getting ready for work. If we can position our clients into the news, our team is pitching that story to journalists before the morning news meetings. This is roughly the same time that publicists in California are hitting their snooze buttons.

I say that in a snarky way, but there is truth to the news cycle running on East Coast time zone. Even the entertainment TV shows, like Extra and Access Hollywood work on East Coast time. I have many former colleagues who work on those entertainment shows in LA and they loathe their morning meetings that take place at 5:30am – local time.

But what about tech startups who want to reach Silicon Valley? Yes – it will help being in the Bay area, but a PR firm in NYC can pitch stories just as easily to tech reporters and time the pitch so it hits their inbox as tech writers are logging onto their computers.

Click here if you would like to learn more about how we can help your business on the West Coast.

Finance Monthly named Macias PR the 2015 and 2016 PR Firm of the Year. Mark Macias – a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York – founded the firm after spending time consulting other global PR firms. Macias is a frequent contributor with CNBC.com and author of the communications book, Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media, which has been featured in the NY Times, Fox Business, NY Post and others. Macias PR has run media campaigns for tech startups, financial groups, service providers, nonprofits and politicians.

How PR Helps SEO Ranking

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

All tech startups and entrepreneurs want to improve their website ranking because we know it leads to a rapid increase in business. Like most business owners, I get unsolicited emails from SEO companies every week, promising to improve my SEO ranking.

But before you enlist any SEO firm for help, let me give you some insight into how SEO works.

Years ago, tech SEO companies bought back-links and blasted out press releases to smaller news sites in hopes of improving website rankings. That strategy actually worked, until Google changed its search algorithm.

While Google does not publicly reveal the Panda algorithm, there is enough information out on the Google Panda patent that gives entrepreneurs guidance on what Google uses to assess a website’s rank. You might want to try these online strategies if you are trying to push your business website higher.

1) Create quality content. The latest Panda algorithm places a large emphasis on high quality content that is produced for the consumer – not for commercial purposes. In more simple terms, if you want consumers to find your business, create a blog that speaks directly to your customers, like this story. Many SEO firms write “commercial” content, using popular keywords that they hope will help push websites higher. Under Google Panda, this type of commercial content will rank lower than consumer content.

2) Backlinks and press releases aren’t as important. Potential PR clients frequently tell me they want press releases as part of their campaigns. Yes – press releases can help when the content is produced in a consumer manner, but a press release strictly for SEO purposes won’t move the SEO needle like it did a few years ago.

3) Get your brand or business mentioned on the web. SEO firms don’t get your story on the news, and that is what the Google Panda patent – which you can read here – is using to assess rank. Specifically under Panda, Google is measuring buzz, online chatter and news stories to assess the value of your business.

Don’t worry if you’re confused. You are in luck. Getting our clients on the news, generating buzz and online chatter is exactly what Macias PR does for our clients.

It’s one of the 10-reasons why we were named the 2015 top “PR Consultant Firm of the Year – USA” by Finance Monthly. It’s also why we usually rank on the first page of Google when searching for top tech PR firms in NYC. Email us if you want to hear how our PR services can also raise your online profile.

Is All Publicity Good Publicity?

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

All publicity is not good publicity – contrary to the popular myth. In fact, sometimes even good publicity is wasted when it’s published on the wrong avenue.

I recently had a conversation with a NYC hotel marketing director who was trying to attract business travelers to her downtown hotel. She told me about her recent media campaign that targeted “mommy bloggers.”

When I asked why she was targeting stay-at-home mothers when her targeted clients were business travelers, she repeated that popular PR saying – “all publicity is good publicity.”

It’s important that every media campaign target its audience or you risk wasting valuable money on publicity that doesn’t bring a return. Yes – that publicity with mommy bloggers helped the hotel with exposure it didn’t have, but it would have been more effective if they would have devoted those same resources to business or travel writers.

If you’re a tech startup, dig deep to identify your targeted audience. What news outlets are your customers or clients reading? If it’s a tech B2B, it’s even more important to target the publications and trade magazines to ensure your campaign is successfully helping with your new business outreach.

So the next time you get publicity for your business, take it a step further – ask yourself: did this reach my targeted audience? If it didn’t, you might as well have posted a big billboard on an alley that no one sees.

Public Relations ROI – How to Measure an Effective PR Campaign

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

There are several traditional ways to measure the Public Relations ROI:

1) number of media placements
2) demographics and reader base for those media outlets
3) increased credibility, which helps close sales;
4) actual sales, which can be measured through links published in the news story 5) and SEO – since search engines now use news stories and blogger comments to measure the value of a website.

I hear the “how do you measure the ROI of PR” so frequently that our team put together a short white paper that goes more in-depth on it, which you can download here.

But there is another ROI of PR that is frequently overlooked. It’s more difficult to quantify but according to researchers out of Motista – a consumer intelligence analytics firm – it’s actually more persuasive and leads to higher revenue for brands.

PR Influences Emotional Motivators

Motista researchers discovered 10 actions or urges – called “emotional motivators” that drive consumers to make a purchase. They included: a desire to stand out from the crowd (or fit in), feel secure, succeed in life, freedom and others.

You might not realize it, but “emotional motivators” are also a subconscious factor in most news stories you read and if played correctly, they can add another ROI to your media campaign.

For example, if you are a financial advisor, you need to continually find new investors. If a prominent news story articulates how your firm outperformed the markets – and grew the assets of your clients, you are achieving an “emotional motivator.” Your news story told investors they can achieve freedom, success and feel secure by going with your firm.

If you’re a tech startup in need of credibility, a story in Techcrunch can lend credibility to potential investors who might need an “emotional motivator” to buy into your product or service. Likewise, if you’re an online retail startup, like Jet.com, taking on a behemoth Amazon, your media campaign might leverage the “emotional motivator” that connects with consumers who want to be different. How so? By pushing news stories that support how the Jet.com online retail experience and model is different and better than Amazon.

ROI of PR – Big Data Analysis

This ROI might sound nebulous to the analytics driven CMO, but Motista actually used big data in identifying how “emotional motivators” lead to higher revenue. It cited a credit card company that used “emotional motivators” to connect with Millennials for a new credit card launch. New card sales grew by 40 percent and usage increased by 70 percent with those consumers.

Are you feeling an emotional connection to Motista?

As the owner of the top-rated PR firm, Macias PR, I want to pick up the phone and hear more about how their data can grow my business. According to their researchers, that action would classify me as a “fully connected” consumer because it inspired me to inspire others. That’s another component of PR; it pushes your brand into the conversation.

As a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York, I suspect that story I read on Motista was placed by a publicist. If so, Motista got a high ROI from that PR campaign. It not only raised the awareness of the brand to me – but it also raised the awareness of their brand to you. That’s the direct power of PR.

The VLOG below gives a little more insight on how to value an effective PR campaign.

Macias PR was named the 2015 and 2016 top PR Firm of the Year – USA by Finance Monthly. The founder – Mark Macias – is a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. He is also a PR contributor with CNBC, providing media analysis, insight and crisis advice on timely business topics.

Top Financial PR Firm of 2015 – Macias PR Selected

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

During my time with NBC and CBS, I was nominated for five Emmys in five different categories. It felt good to be honored by my journalism peers, but today Macias PR received an international recognition that feels even better than those five Emmy nominations.

The international publication, Finance Monthly, announced today that Macias PR is the 2015 top “PR Consultant Firm of the Year – USA.” The M&A Awards contained several big named firms, including Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, but Macias PR was the only Public Relations firm selected from the USA.

Every industry and era inspires a business or technology that tries to disrupt the status quo. In a critical thinking profession, like public relations and journalism, I suspect it may take a few decades before robots learn how to gather news and pitch publicists.

But I’d like to believe Macias PR is slowly disrupting the public relations industry, and challenging the PR giants on innovation, cost, strategy, expertise and deliverables. Now, Finance Monthly has validated that belief by selecting Macias PR as the “PR Consultant Firm of the Year.”

The Finance Monthly editorial team of researchers applied a 10-point criterion to select and identify the top PR firm in the USA that included measurements of:

Strategic Thinking and Planning
Expertise and Innovation
Innovation in Client Care
Peer Recognition and Personal Achievement
Deliverables in the Previous 12 Months Compared to Industry Peers
Involvement in Significant Transactions
Size (value) of Involvement within Transactions & Deals

Our team always knew that we delivered more media placements at a faster pace than any big-named PR firm, including many of the largest tech and financial PR firms. If we are fortunate enough to earn your business, I believe you will see why our team has discovered passion and conviction, combined with hard work and critical thinking will always outperform the industry leaders in any profession.

Online Ads Are Cheating your Budget – Infographic Analysis

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

Online advertising is typically the first approach for many tech startups and small business owners, but there is a big silent secret that is stealing a portion of your online ad budget. It involves Internet bots that are disguised as consumers and secretly clicking on your ads without you knowing.

Some exposes (like this story in Moz) have alleged the ad networks are working together with the ad agencies to essentially provide “fake” clicks on ads that generate revenue for the ad networks. Google has publicly come out against the bots, even issuing a report on what it was doing to prevent these “bots” from clicking on online ads.

Here’s a closer look at how Internet bots are stealing a portion of your online ad budget without you even realizing it.