Is Your Marketing On Track This Year? There's Still Time to Make Your Goals

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by: marshafriedman123
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Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 Time: 7:56 AM
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It's now October, and at this time of the year, a lot of companies have already given up on meeting goals or projections, and those who have are ready to put their feet up on the desk and coast through the last quarter.

More importantly, they think it's too late to start any kind of new marketing campaign. They figure ramp-up time would take too long, and they wouldn't be able to get their message out before the holidays.

The truth is they couldn't be more wrong.

Let's take a look at the calendar. With all of October left before the media really starts to focus on the holidays, there is time to launch and execute a solid multimedia PR campaign. By way of example, here's how my team would handle it:

• October: We could easily begin a campaign over the next week or two and get the research done in time enough to have a print article, a radio pitch and a TV pitch ready for client review by end of October. This process typically takes us two weeks, so the earlier a client comes on board, the earlier we could get through our process. If the client already has a Web site and if we could take delivery on sample product or books right away, we could launch the print, TV and radio campaigns by the end of the month, under this scenario.

• November: TV typically books about a month out, but during the holidays, that time frame invariably becomes shorter, as they have a lot of airtime to fill with holiday stories. The long lead print media (magazines) might still have time to get a piece in their December issues, while short leads—like newspapers and Web sites—will start to be hungry for holiday content. We would begin pitching radio hosts of shows in the top 100 markets and our TV Campaign Manager would start communicating with TV producers National and local shows.

• December: By now, we would have achieved placements in print, scheduled interviews on radio and TV as well, just at the time when people are in the meat of the book-buying (and giving) season. Of course, this type of campaign could act as a complement to any concurrent advertising or promotional campaign.

• January 2011: By this time, the media would be finished with its holiday coverage, but would be knee deep in the "New Year, New You" stories, which focuses on those copious New Year's resolutions people make. The articles and pitches we designed for holiday use could be reworked for this part of the news cycle as well.

So the fat lady has not sung her tune for 2010, yet. If you still have marketing goals that you fear may not be realized, PR is a great affordable way to squeeze that last ounce of juice out of the year. So don't worry, take a deep breath, stretch your legs and gear up for one last push for the year. PR can make the rest of the calendar work as hard for you as the previous nine months.

If you want help getting your PR campaign up and running for the holidays , please call or email us right away. My partner, Steve Friedman, and I, along with our staff of PR professionals, have been promoting authors and corporations for 20 years, and we can help you.

Plus, I think you'll be interested to learn that our fees are performance-based, which simply means that if you pay us to book you on 15 radio interviews in top 100 markets, you get booked on 15 radio interviews in top 100 markets, with similar fee structures for TV and print. Media is guaranteed with our firm, which is very different from how traditional retainer-based PR firms operate.

Feel free to explore the possibilities with Steve; he can be reached by email at stevefriedman@emsincorporated.com, or call him directly at 727-443-7115, ext. 208. We'd love to hear from you!

About the Author

Marsha Friedman is a 20-year veteran of the public relations industry. She is the CEO of EMSI Public Relations www.emsincorporated.com), a national firm that provides PR strategy and publicity services to corporations, entertainers, authors and professional firms. She also hosts a national weekly radio talk show, The Family Round Table, and is author of the book, Celebritize Yourself.