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.

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.

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.

PR for Client Acquisition

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

What’s the secret sauce to PR? It’s one of the most popular questions I hear from tech startups and business owners who want to understand the process or formula for media placements.

That’s like asking a defense attorney, how do you get your clients out of jail, but for simplicity sake, every PR campaign must be unique and tailored to the client for it to succeed with media placements. There is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to getting a story placed with the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or CNBC.

Earlier this week, I spoke with the CMO of a private equity firm who asked me about the process of PR. After I explained how PR works, I turned the question back to her and asked about her firm’s “process” for finding new clients. She said it involved emails, press releases and conferences.

Let me compare those three processes – email, press releases and conferences – to PR, as a form of client acquisition.

Emails – An email marketing blast is only as good as its list, but what is your personal response to spam? Do you view it in a favorable light? My PR firm has sent out invites to hedge fund/private equity forums, using email services like Chimp Mail. We weren’t selling our services – only inviting people to a free forum that discussed emerging trends in alternative assets. Less than 3 percent of the respondants even opened their email from Chimp Mail. This approach didn’t even give us a chance to introduce the forum because spam filters kept the message out. When I asked that CMO about their ROI from email, she admitted, it didn’t perform too well. This marketing approach will become even less influential as cyber hackers attempt to penetrate more emails via spam.

Press Releases – The term Press releases are thrown around randomly in the world of business. For clarity, a press release is not a method for getting a story on the news – contrary to what most people believe. A press release is posted on a PR newswire and no journalist, reporter or producer will go to the PR newswires to look for a story idea. However, a press release can help you with SEO when it is written correctly with key SEO terms. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of my press release before you send it out. A press release can be especially effective for tech startups that need to establish an online presence or put a milestone on the record, but if you’re hoping it will lead to a story in the Wall Street Journal, it’s a waste of money.

Conferences/Networking – We all need to network and conferences provide intimate opportunities to meet potential business partners in a less threatening environment. I’m actually speaking on a panel this week at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas. If 100 people hear me speak and I meet another 100 new people, I will consider it a succeess. But it’s hard to introduce your services on a larger scale at conferences. Even if you bring a large team to the conference, most of us can’t associate a face with a business card after 15. And with some conferences now costing upwards of $8k, that is money that could be invested in a multi-month PR campaign that better spreads your message.

PR – I’m partial because I own a PR firm, but I’ve seen how a story in the news can lead to new clients. Mobile apps are one of the best ways to quantify the value of a PR campaign. Earlier this summer, Macias PR launched a communications app, Blush No More, to help position our top-rated firm in the news. One story in the Daily Mail UK led to more than 900 downloads. That Daily Mail story led to interest by Channel 11 in NYC, which ran a TV story on our mobile app. Another 800 new app downloads followed that Channel 11 story. But you don’t need to be in the B2C space to take advantage of PR. Media campaigns can target trade publications, giving your business an opportunity to find new business. Next month, our B2B client will be in Wall Street Lawyer -a prominent B2B Reuters publication. That story will introduce this company to new potential clients that can use their services.

Online advertising is another new business approach and for tech startups it can be their first thought for publicity, but a recent Google report showed that roughly 50 percent of all online ad views are seen by robots. You know what that means? Advertisers are getting cheated from their ad buys because companies are paying for a certain number of page views and only half of those are legitimate. Keep in mind, the source of that report is Google – an online advertiser.

So the next time your CMO wants to measure the ROI of the different marketing approaches, think about why we actively solicit news articles and actively avoid viewing ads.

Is PR the next Disruption to Finance?

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

Technology has sent the giants falling like dominoes.

Blockbuster Video, Tower Records and others – destroyed after they failed to adapt to technology.

Asset management has remained primarily immune to any major disruptions from technology but that could change soon.

In September 2015, Macias PR hosted a hedge fund and private equity forum where we brought together industry leaders to discuss some of the emerging trends and threats they are seeing in alternative assets. One of the panelists detailed how cyber security is a potential tech disruption to fund managers and predicted it will hit the small and medium sized funds hardest.

But there is another potential disruption that could hit the alternative asset industry. It’s a legislative disruption, called the JOBS Act, which drastically changes the way fund managers find new investors.

I meet hedge fund managers all the time who say they don’t need publicity. But when I ask them: would you want your fund to appear in a Wall Street Journal story? All of them say yes.

One-on-one introductions with investors won’t go away, but now that the JOBS Act allows funds to market themselves to investors via the media, suddenly smart fund managers can reach thousands and even millions of targeted investors with only one news story.

Keep in mind, I’m not talking about advertisements. I’m talking about news stories that appear inside the influential financial publications, like the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Institutional Investor Magazine.

Here’s an infographic that takes a closer look at why PR is positioned to disrupt the financial industry.

How to create a media narrative

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

I like to give PR tips on our Facebook page. Earlier this month, a tech startup entrepreneur inspired a post after she said she spent 30 minutes on the phone with a New York Times reporter, but her business was never mentioned in the final story. She never identified a media narrative. It led to this post:

PR Tip of the Day: A great narrative is important when dealing with reporters, but your pitch must always include enough intrigue that the media can’t do the story without you as the expert.

On a macro level, this is similar to what we are seeing right now with VP Joe Biden’s potential entry into the race. Will he run or won’t he run? The suspense is putting Biden in the center of the narrative, which if he decides to run, will give him an advantage with his media campaign.

How can intrigue work to your favor with the media?

Click here to read the media analysis I gave to CNBC and how VP Joe Biden is using it to his advantage.

Selling PR like a Magician

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

Sometimes you just get lucky.

As a business owner, I am extremely lucky to work closely with the CEO of one of the country’s oldest lending organization. Every time we speak, I learn how to become a better business owner, entrepreneur, publicist and person.

Earlier this week, this CEO led an inspiring speaking series where he explained how he uses “magic” to sell in his boardroom. Not the kind of magic that deceives people, but the kind of magic that allows people to believe in you and your product.

We may not realize it, but if we want to grow our businesses, we must inspire others to believe in our products or services. Tech startups, young entrepreneurs and even experienced business owners must continually prove to potential customers or clients why our expertise will take their business to a higher level. We must also convince journalists to believe in our tech startup or business if we are going to succeed with media placements.

As a former Executive Producer with NBC in New York, I needed to believe in a story before I approved it. Now, as the owner of a PR firm, I need to get other journalists to believe in our clients if we are going to succeed in our media campaigns. And after listening to this inspiring speech, I am going to sprinkle a little “magic” as we try to sell our stories to reporters.

So what is this magic that this CEO shared with his audience made up of business owners, entrepreneurs and sales people? Click here to read that story I wrote for Digital Journal and to watch a video excerpt from his speech.

ROI of PR vs. Advertising – Infographic Analysis

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

I converse with business owners on a daily basis and the conversations inevitably lead to the various marketing strategies/trends, along with the ROI they bring. Surprisingly, there are many misconceptions of PR in the business community, including you can’t quantitatively measure the ROI of PR.

Our team put together this infographic that compares the ROI of two of the most popular marketing strategies: PR and Advertising. Everything is sourced for your own analysis.

Mark Macias is a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. He’s also 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 consults small and large businesses on how to get publicity. You can read more on his firm at MaciasPR.

How to Stay on Message with the Media

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

Politicians are notorious for not answering the question. Journalists ask the yes or no question, and they scramble to another topic instead of staying on the message. Here’s how it came across recently when an MSNBC reporter asked candidate Scott Walker a simple yes or no answer.

KASIE HUNT: Do you think that birthright citizenship should be ended?

SCOTT WALKER: Well, like I said, Harry Reid said it’s not right for this country — I think that’s something we should, yeah, absolutely, going forward-

HUNT: We should end birthright citizenship?

WALKER: Yeah, to me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country. And I’ve been very clear, I think you enforce the laws, and I think it’s important to send a message that we’re going to enforce the laws, no matter how people come here we’re going to enforce the laws in this country.

HUNT: And you should deport the children of people who are illegal immigrants?

WALKER: I didn’t say that — I said you have to enforce the law, which to me is focusing on E-Verify.

The Importance of Staying on Message

I work with many tech startup entrepreneurs who are typically less media savvy. Their delivery frequently works to their advantage because they are authentic, but this isn’t politics. If you’re trying to promote your business or service through the media and you have a reporter listening to you, it’s important to stay on message and to continually sell your services.

Don’t learn the hard way. A video client recently told me that she was interviewed by NPR, which is a national news organization that reaches influential and educated listeners. She told me a reporter spent two different days on the phone with her but she wasn’t mentioned in the story. She asked me what she could have done differently.

I wasn’t listening to that interview, but if a reporter calls you twice – he or she is rooting for you. They want you to give them the context or sound that they need for their story. Journalists are inherently self-interested, which isn’t a negative stereotype in this situation. When it comes to writing their story, they need to be self-interested or every other person will influence the direction of their message.

Media Advice for Interviews

This is why it’s so important to stay on message during an interview with the media. You have little time to persuade this journalist that you belong in his story, so measure that time well. Don’t spend 15-minutes giving background on facts if the reporter didn’t ask for that. Facts don’t sell the story. Context sells your story. Perspective brings commentary and color to any story. Reporters want color and context because color brings a story alive and context makes it relevant.

Remember that the next time you get a chance to sell your tech or business story to the media. Stay on message, the clock is ticking.

Channeling Steve Jobs – An Entrepreneurship Lesson

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias

I frequently come across old stories I wrote for different publications. This morning I read a story I wrote for an entrepreneurial magazine after Steve Jobs died. As one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, we can all learn from his vision, execution and tenacity.

Here’s a shorter vision of that story I wrote on Steve Jobs shortly after his death – in my attempt to become a better entrepreneur.

I think I know what Steve Jobs would say about all of this news coverage.

“Write something different. Obituaries are for dead people.”

When I write, I want to learn. I want readers to walk away with something they didn’t know, but how does a writer accomplish that when every news outlet on the planet is covering the Steve Jobs death in the same way.

Here’s how I would cover this story if I were still a journalist with NBC or CBS. I would try to channel Steve Jobs.

I never met Steve Jobs nor do I claim to know his thoughts, but I do promise these quotes are directly from Steve Jobs’ mouth. Their analysis – however – is from me, which means only time will reveal if these insights are true for you. For now, go along with the journey.

Steve Jobs: “I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?…What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Mark Macias: Every entrepreneur, journalist, and businessman wants to be creative, but few know how to achieve it. Steve Jobs is the inventor of creativity, so let’s take his advice. Creativity is about losing yourself. When I was an Executive Producer with WNBC, I learned that power is an aphrodisiac and once you taste it, you never want anything else. That’s fine if you can sustain the habit, but fame and power are both fleeting. Sooner or later, it will escape your grip. Steve Jobs learned something at an early age that every person in power fears: Power constricts your creativity because you are so focused on the act of maintaining control. Creativity and control are juxtaposed. They don’t work together. As a man who gained and lost power, I can tell you when a person loses power, his ability to think becomes clearer and as your mind becomes clearer, the spirit of creativity is manifested.

Steve Jobs: “When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation…On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself.”

Mark Macias: So many of my friends worry about losing their jobs and it’s an understandable fear. But rather than fret about the unknown, let’s apply Steve Jobs’ advice – “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” When we are hungry and foolish, we have nothing to lose and that’s how entrepreneurs succeed. When we have nothing to lose, we will take the gamble because we know inside, there is no place to go but up. When you’re hungry, you work harder to find food. When you’re foolish, fear disappears. The only thing I fear – right now – is the day when I lose this foolish fear of hunger pains.

Steve Jobs: “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new…Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Mark Macias: Steve Jobs left behind a fortune worth billions of dollars. He could have done anything he wanted or traveled anywhere, met any person. Luckily, he grasped the big picture of life and that is, in my analysis: Life is just the first act, and as soon as you realize that, it suddenly gets fun. You don’t worry what people say or believe and as a businessman, journalist, or entrepreneur — you don’t follow others. My Dad always told me to create my own path. I didn’t understand that as a nine-year-old. I thought he was trying to tell me to get lost in his own polite way. Now, as an adult, I think he was telling me what Steve Jobs told us: Have the courage to follow your heart.