1. An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR VU Brought to you by Virtual University VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 1 Virtual University

2. Whats in this e-book for me? This e-book will provide you with an overview of the most hands-on tools and technologies that any marketer and PR-specialist needs to know in this digital age. This is an introductory level e-book that will describe basic concepts and give concrete advices on doing PR. The content is divided for you into four sections. You dont need to follow the suggested order of sections and can go straightly to the chapter you find the most crucial for your business right now. Video making social media 01. Psychological aspects of effective PR video. 02. How to promote business in blogosphere. 03. How to promote business in Facebook. Marketing and PR Content management 04. Discover strengths of internal PR. 05. Effective event-management to boost your profits. 06. Web content strategy. 07. Design cheap n chick e-newsletters. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 2 Virtual University

3. Video making 01. The elements of a good video. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 3 Virtual University

4. video making 01. The elements of a good video Tolegen Bekmukhamedov Today, there are billions of videos in the Internet. Everyone watches them and this trend will not come to an end. However everyone if bored will stop the video and better watch another one. Everyone likes good video clips. However, not everyone knows why people like them. On this question why I will give an answer in this chapter. For marketers, knowing the answer is crucial and very important, because nowadays one good video clip can boost up sales dramatically. If you add online video to your sites it would be a way for you to provide a better look at the products. According to the etailing groups 13th Annual Mystery Shopping Study, usage of online video on product pages among 100 leading retailers studied increased by 18 percentage points between Q4 2009 and Q4 2010 (How Retailers Can Make Video Efforts More Effective). According to Cisco, video currently accounts for 51 percent of internet trafficand its on its way to 90 percent by 2014 (Four Rules of Effective Video). South Korean rap star Psy's music video Gangnam Style reached the unprecedented one billion views mark on YouTube, some six months after first posting on July 15, 2012. For anyone who has seen the hook of the song and easily mimicked dance, the fact that it grew to reach such a monumental benchmark came as no surprise. According to the Associated Press, the worth of Gangnam Styles success is $8.1 million in 2012 alone not too shabby for a virtual unknown whose personal mantra for success is "dress classy and dance cheesy." Psys video generated Psy, Gangnam Style, 2012 VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 4 Virtual University

5. video making 01. Rihanna, California King Bed, 2010 countless parodies and became a media sensation. We want such effect as well! Now when you are persuaded that video is very powerful and good video is the most powerful thing that you can put up to the World Wide Web, I will tell you about the features of the latter. There are very different types of videos. But no matter whether its a video explanation of the product or a music video, if these videos are successful that means that they have the following elements in common: 1. Actions will let your audience feel energy. 2. Goods will attract eyes. 3. Colors will make a video enjoyable and pleasant. 4. Music will deepen emotions. 5. Dramatic Composition will deepen emotions even deeper. 6. Timing will not make your audience sleep. 7. Good Looking Persons if they are women, the video will attract the army of men, if they are men, the video will attract the army of women. The concept of each element that is given above is just to tell you the basics of the purpose of using of them. Broadened explanations of each element and answers to the question why we like them you will find in the following couple of pages. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 5 Virtual University

6. video making 01. Dramatic Composition Any good video should have a story inside. Thats why we should learn the rules of drama. We start from dramatic composition, because its the core element that is connected with the other six ones. And if you structured (that means wrote a scenario of) dramatic composition in the right way that means you have already got the ideas for actions, goods, colors, music, timing and beautiful creatures in your video. To embrace a stranger as one's own. Shangri-La hotel chains 2011 commercial Drama is the world of ideas. Every scenario pushes forward dozens ideas, while the basis of each film are hundreds ideas. But in each case, there are some common fundamental ideas that lie in the basis of everything. This applies to the drama as well. And even if you dont want to produce a full-length movie, but a nice short video instead, you should still know the fundamental ideas of drama. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 6 Virtual University

7. video making 01. The drama should report something that continuously increases audiences interest, so that in the final it achieves peak. Then the audience is happy. The story that we tell should have the power to energize an audience. In a well-told story energy is born and transmitted to viewers. If youre lucky, in the climax they forget about everything. But we cannot rely on luck or intuition. We need the structure and the calculation of the energy involved. The structure of a good drama makes the audience to ask questions while we drop the answers. Each response contains a new question. So, controlling the information, we can keep the attention of viewers. A question an answer. Then comes a new question and a new answer... Audiences like to get the whole picture by pieces. Curiosity makes us all look how to open something that is closed. There are some simple rules how to kindle interest of the audience by telling a story: 1. Provide information in small portions. 2. Each time tell less than the audience wants to know. As long as you control the information you are in a master position. 3. Withhold the most delicious pieces of information until the end. 4. Make the characters fight for every piece of information. The more work will be invested in the search for information the more valuable they are to the audience. The main elements of drama include strong characters, dramatic situation, dramatic ups and downs, conflict, event, gap, barrier and detail. All of them radiate energy around them. Our purpose is to take a control over this energy. What is a dramatic situation? This is the position of a hero, when the pressure of surrounding circumstances is stronger than the possible nature of the character. Desperate situation happens now and here. This is called the dramatic situation. What are dramatic ups and downs? The Ancient Greeks noticed amazing effect of empathy toward the man who, while fighting for happiness, falls into misfortune. This motion from happiness to misfortune, from despair to hope the Greeks called The ups and downs. It is the key of the poetics of Aristotle. So far, humanity has not invented anything better for the audience excitement in the drama. Im sure you know what conflict is. Conflict is a key word of drama. Drama is only concerned with the actions of people towards each other, so the conflict is always at the center of our attention. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 7 Virtual University

8. video making 01. Event is also a part of the story. It is a really noticeable change of a situation. For a dramatic story to look as if it develops naturally, though being induced by invisible intentions of the author and the conflict of characters, it should consist of a chain of events. In this case, the story grows in line with our plan, but a motor of the conflict of the characters untwists its energy. Moving from one event to another event, we can create supreme tension in the story development. Gap is an abyss between you and your goal. Gap makes you do an ethical choice and opens the characters. Bridging the gap reinforces the belief in a victory of the hero. Gap makes you do the effort. For instance, reading the whole chapter of this book is the effort you should do to bridge the gap and become a more enlightened marketing person. Barrier is what the character has to overcome, achieving goals. Barriers are inseparable from gaps. But the gap shows us the obstacles to the hero, and the barrier gives the hero a chance to win the audiences love by actions. What is a detail? Detail is a part of the whole. Eye is a detail of the face. Lips, ears are all these parts, as shown in the screen in close-ups. But the detail is also a part for the whole. We show an arm or a leg, and the audience understands what the character is doing or who he/she is. Detail is an object: pen, eyeglass, revolver, keys, anything! Millions of viewers inspect the quality and credibility of details. It is useful to take a closer look. It is an overall and short explanation. The subject of drama is much bigger. If you want to become a real professional in the video market you should read a lot more about drama. My goal is to give you a direction. Hopefully, now your sight is directed to the right side and we can discuss the elements. Actions and Goods Now, when you already have some idea of drama, you can understand what kind of actions and goods you want to have in your video to catch the audiences attention. Your video should consist of the chain of actions that ends up in the most unpredictable VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 8 Virtual University

9. video making 01. way. It would guarantee that viewers would watch the whole video. And if everything is well done you will get the result you want. Nowadays, people are bored by the overflow of information, so you should not show them boring actions. Try to involve in the scenario of your video some interesting actions. Something that not everybody can do or somewhere where the action is not supposed to be done. Main idea is to show something that people havent seen yet. Here your fantasy is your only limit. The same principle is applied to the goods. Now, I hope you understand what I meant by goods that will attract eyes. Goods are details, small and big ones, parts of the whole, from which the whole is constructed. They should be interesting to the viewer. Show something unreal, combine simple things into something fresh. Your viewer should feel the freshness and it would make them watch your video till the end. Goods should look beautiful or exotic, exciting, thrilling, or supernatural. The idea is to surprise your viewer and once more, your imagination is your only limitation. Colors and Music The World Is Just Awesome. Discovery Channels commercial VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 9 Virtual University

10. video making 01. Colors and music of your video are much simpler subjects than the previous ones. Colors should correspond to the idea of your video. However, if you are already tired of the concepts, there is one kind of color that will work effectively in any situation. Color should be vivid, rich and juicy. And thats all. Music is a very powerful thing in the video. Music directly transmits to us some mood. It can be lyrical and the viewer will feel pleasant sadness. If it is joyful, the viewer will feel happiness. Important note: your music should match the mood of your characters, or the overall directionality of your video. Both these elements of a good video seem to be not very important in comparison with the drama thing. However, if you would apply vivid color and tuned music to the complete drama video, the effect of drama will be multiplied by 100 times. Timing and Good Looking Persons The simplest things are timing and GLP elements. Your video should not have unreasoned seconds. Its desirable to have in your videos some good-looking persons the sex of them should be dictated by the sex of viewers that you want to attract. Timing is essential and GLP is desirable. Summary To sum up, the list of the elements of a good video ranked by priority look like this: 1. Drama 2. Actions and Goods 3. Colors and Music 4. Timing and Good Looking Persons You may think that if they are organized by priority, some elements that listed in the bottom are not important. However, its not true. The idea is that before you come to the last elements the first ones should be already done. Every element is important. Every element gives to your viewer some portion of inner joy. If you have all elements in your video interconnected with each other, your viewer will be fully satisfied and he or she will definitely share it. Why do you think he or she did so? VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 10 Virtual University

11. social media 02. How to drive traffic using social media. 03. How to promote business in Facebook. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 11 Virtual University

12. social media 02. How to promote business in blogosphere Ainur Kaldygulova The most helpful and effective advertising is blogging based on marketing. Blog is a tool which can be used as the cheapest tool for searching target audience and potential clients. What makes advertising in bogs so effective? Firstly blogger should be a charismatic person who is able to write advertising posts in an informal style. The main advantage which makes advertising in blogs so effective is an opportunity to receive a number of favorable comments. It means that after posting your readers can leave their comments. Comments work because visitors of a blog page pay attention to numerous comments, likes and shares. It depends on the talent and creativity of a blogger. Everyone can become a blogger, and no special education is needed. What can you advertise in blogs? The answer is anything whether these are books, tourism destinations or services. The main thing is that the advertising material must be interesting to visitors of a resource. But which blogs are appreciated by readers and what attracts an audience? The main indicator of the quality of any blog is a number of visitors and views, and a number of followers and comments. It allows you to write on the hottest issues right away and post information live. If a post results in people discussing it, the success is guaranteed. The more visitors of the blog you have, the more VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 12 Virtual University

13. social media 02. potential clients can work with you. The main goal of any advertisement is to inform the largest number of potential clients about your service. Now there is a huge variety of blogs to read. It means that you have a huge number of competitors. Bloggers analyze the latest news in business, economy, politics and culture. They offer interesting topics for discussions, write reviews on services and products. Therefore visitors have problems with a choice of a good platform. They choose platforms which offer not only advertising of services and goods but informative ones, with a good analysis and research. Visitors must trust a blog page: it should be reliable with facts and statistics provided. Followers constitute that group of readers who give the blog a sense of credibility. Besides, they are those who will promote the blog and encourage others to read it. Moreover, while writing in a blog you can know what needs of your target audience are, what they talk about, why they complain. Its a good tool for marketing research. It is an excellent and inexpensive way of advancement. As was mentioned before, comments under a blog post sometimes make on readers much bigger influence, than advertising itself. Discussing unique service offered by you a power unit for a computer or software commentators will provide the most important thing, namely, the interest in your product or service. Many visitors of blogs pass the content and go directly to read comments, and only after that they read articles. And it should be considered! So I finished why blogs are important in business. Therefore we can start a topic how to manage personal or corporate blogs. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 13 Virtual University

14. social media 02. How to manage blogs? First rule, bloggers should try to avoid personal stories. You have to write for potential clients, and leave your bad mood or complaints about your family and friends to colleagues. You can add a little personal touch in articles and news: comments personally from you about goods and services, but not about your dreams, wishes or desires. Remember that you must be friendly, open and kindly, but professional. Second rule is not to touch upon too disputable subjects. Disputes on which of the latest updates to install, or how a new algorithm can affect a website appearance in search engines are okay for discussions. The policy, minorities or religion these subjects are better to lay aside, you can risk losing an audience and potential clients. However, if you decide to discuss one of those topics have in stock enough arguments to prove the point of view to the opponents. Otherwise, visitors will never come any more to your blog. The blog advances business, and not in reverse. Over time you can forget what for you established a website and start placing there references to third-party resources, opinions on competing products and goods. You should always remember that at the end of an article, a reader has to know firmly that you sell or offer something. Otherwise, it will be again possible to call it a personal blog. Don't give everything for free. If youre an expert in any area, especially, in education or information, you need to write a lot of useful articles and provide a valuable advice to all audiences. But theres a problem in here. You won't earn any money if you offer free information. Give a part of it for free, so that get people interested and later pay for fullfledged goods or service. A good example: Supermarkets often allow tasting something, for example, tea or candies. They give you not a block or a box, but a small slice. If it is pleasant, buy the whole packing. Write in a business blog regularly. To have as much clients as possible write daily. Its mandatory to write regularly. Readers and potential buyers have to get used to see new useful information on your blog every day. It is clear, that spending some hours on writing articles is difficult, but you can divide this task by days of the week: Monday news, Tuesday new goods, Wednesday article, and so on. We finished part about how to manage your blog and now we transfer to the topic how to attract visitors. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 14 Virtual University

15. social media 02. SEO, or search engine optimization The majority of beginning authors writing for network magazines forget about the most obvious and most effective method of free promotion of a virtual project search engines. By the way, need for search engine registration of a blog like Yandex and Rambler concerns even owners of the resources placed on so demanded servers as a LiveJournal. So what is SEO and do we really need it? According to SEO specialist Murat Rahimov, SEO is a package of measures that focuses on positions of a website. It is directed on raising the website in results of delivery of search engines in response to certain queries. Competent use of search optimization can strongly affect the number of visits of your site. The matter is that, statistically, the essential share of audience clicks only on links in organic delivery of a search engine. These links also are the main object of optimization. Today search optimization, or SEO is one of the main tools of Internet advertising, the instrument which allows increasing sales. The cost of transition to a site from delivery of a search engine is 3-6 times cheaper, than transition cost from a contextual advertising. If you as a business owner for any reasons refuse from using SEO, youll receive less profit. Catalogs, ratings. Certainly, the basic at the moment is the rating of blogs provided by Yandex. It isn't necessary to refuse to count visitors and attendance. Original idea. One of the most effective methods of promoting the blog is to create an original idea and attract an audience. Your blog should be different from others. Posts should make visitors coming back to page again and again, studying new materials and recommending the project to friends. It is the main reason why a blogger must be ready to give interesting information. He must be a professional in his field. Updates. Bloggers must be ready to create content of a page and work on articles. Visitors wont be interested in old information. It is especially often recommended to update content daily: one-two articles in a day. By the way, the frequency of updating depends on blog subject. Attractive headlines. A headline defines whether a visitor will want to read the source or pass away. Headlines of posts must be attractive and interesting. They should make people curious. But you shouldn't be fond of a creative component of giving the headline is obliged to correspond to the content, in other case a reader will be disappointed. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 15 Virtual University

16. social media 02. Key phrases. The tag of any record has to contain the greatest possible quantity of keywords, it describes. Then visitors will find a material through search in record. Lets discuss how to choose blogging software. When we talk about blogs we mean how to create them. There are different packages to choose from. However, we should understand the advantages and disadvantages of each package. Most of them are similar, but one difference they have is their service hosts. They must be very flexible and comfortable for using and working. So we have hosted blogging at Wordpress. Its really easy for using and comfortable for working. It is easy to learn and allows you to get started within minutes. Wordpress is flexible and useful because it supports different communities. It means that you can join to different groups and inform about your blog. It provides solid exporting functions, so if you want to change to a different platform in the future, you can take your work with you. The next topic is how to avoid mistakes when you work with social media and blogs. Recommendations from Kazakhstani PR specialists Social networks can't be moderated rigidly. People express any opinions, including negative, and rigid moderation frequently does only worse. It is impossible to predict in advance how a campaign will work. The main thing is to react quickly, to speak openly and be able to direct discussion. In certain cases the simple explanation of an expert is enough. You shouldn't begin if you don't know what specifically you want from work in a social network. It is necessary to understand, why you do it and to realize that you subscribe for a long time. Blogs need to be supported constantly and you need to react instantly. Even if someone wrote a post at two o'clock in the morning, it is very important to answer, even with a delay. Dont start if you are not sure. On social networks it is rather easy to promote services banking, insurance, tourism. Now we can transfer to social media marketing, or SMM. SMM involves optimizing social media campaigns on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. What you need to know before implementing an SMM campaign. Firstly you need to estimate your target audience. It is necessary to understand who your audience is. There is no need to blow all social media at once choose for a start only one VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 16 Virtual University

17. social media 02. where your users prevail. Moreover you need to earn your followers and readers. Dont wait that right from the time you start a blog readers will visit your page. It takes time. Number of followers is an indicator of brand users approval. So earn it publish an interesting content, start an advertising campaign, place a social network widget on a website. Readers will stay with you if you have a good content and useful information. Planning is mandatory. If you dont plan your time and ways how to manage community you risk losing audience. Many companies come to social networks with a set of ideas, enthusiasm and burning eyes. However, they dont plan their campaign and after a week they are not able to create the content for a page. Therefore it is necessary to make the detailed, clear and feasible plan of activity for half a year or one year and to adhere to it. Also you need to be ready to stimulate communication. You need to show your audience that their opinion is important for you. Therefore questions and discussions are vital. One of the most important rules is network etiquette. As a rule, users wait instant answers to the questions so don't tighten with response. If business concerns negative comments then speed has paramount value. The delay with an answer increases conflict and harm of brand reputation. Moreover dont annoy audience with unnecessary information. Don't try to give out at once all the content available for you. Adhere to the rule: one publication at a time. Advices of SMM specialists of different companies Viveka Von Rosen, expert in LinkedIn: The company page in LinkedIn is not only an excellent way for branding, but also a good platform for the target market coverage. Using targeting settings, you can broadcast messages to audiences from different branches (medicine, the financial sphere or law). You can create a clickable banner to induce users to visit your site, the target page or pages in other social networks. Ric Dragon, CEO DragonSearch: The purpose of any business is to reach desirable results. There are 5 main approaches to social media which lead to different results: 1. Brand service: monitor all channels and answer, when necessary. 2. Community forming: reveal lawyers of a brand, fans who like yours product/service, VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 17 Virtual University

18. social media 02. develop community. 3. Influence expansion: you find influential people in your branch and make them by the conductor of your ideas. 4. Management of reputation and project development 5. Surge in interest: big creative campaign which will draw attention to a brand for a certain quantity of time. Build strategy, based on these five approaches. Marcus Sheridan, co-owner of River Pools and Spas, founder of PoolSchool.us: If we can find information which is necessary to us on a site, we will come back there again and again. For this reason one of the best strategies for the company to become the expert in the branch. Follow the rule: they ask, we answer. In other words, if the consumer ever asked a question connected with your field of activity, you have to answer it on the site. Considering that potential clients have thousands questions, lack of a content doesn't threaten you. Neal Schaffer, president of Windmills Marketing: The blog is an ideal place to declare itself as the expert of branch, to set a topic of conversation on social networks and to attract users on a site. Blogging is also a contribution to search optimization. Key to successful blogging creation of a content which others would like to share. Create the plan of publications on the basis of your marketing plans and write posts of times a week on the declared categories. Stephanie Sammons, founder and SEO Wired Advisor: For success you have to use system approach. Coherence in marketing is important. Developing system approach, you will get used to the schedule and you will manage to reach efficiency. Your strategy have to include the following components: time of creation and the publication of a unique content for a month; time of participation in discussions in social networks; time of building of community; time for the analysis of that works and that it is necessary to improve. If you draw up the plan and you will assume obligations, you will achieve results. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 18 Virtual University

19. social media 03. How to promote business in Facebook Assel Altaigulova Many people dont understand the true genius of Facebook. They think and consider Facebook as a tool for having fun, posting pictures and chatting with friends. But not many people know that Facebook is a perfect place for creating an ideal business platform, developing interesting marketing campaigns, finding right target market and getting potential customers be informed. According to DigitalBuzzBlog, more than 500 million people in the world have Facebook accounts. It means that every entrepreneur who understands the real value of Facebook and have already started running business through Facebook deals with the biggest audience in the world. Many entrepreneurs think that running marketing campaigns on Facebook is just creating an account and making friends. But this thought would be wrong because running business on Facebook requires deep research, smart strategy and effective operations management. Get the audience Fans! The more people like your page in Facebook the more possibilities it has to be noticed. Dont forget that you may have 500 fans and every 500 of your fans have more than 100 friends, and when 500 of them put like to your page, their 100 friends see that, some of them get interested and some of them also put like on that. Leads! Dont forget that since that 500 people liked your page they automatically become leads. You or a company marketer send them information about the company, tell where your company is located and what kind of products your company offers. Customers! Just small percentage of leads described above might be interested by your page and become a potential customer. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 19 Virtual University

20. social media 03. TARGET AUDIENCE Segmentation If you are recruiting company selling snowboards it is unlikely that housewives or people over 50 will be interested by your page. Sometimes companies make same mistakes by trying to attract attention of inappropriate segments. It leads to waste of time and ineffective usage of money. Gender Education Occupation Location Age Interests According to Hubspot.com, in process of defining the target market you should consider several aspects. The good thing about Facebook is that you can learn about your audience: who likes your page and divide them into different segments. Choose the right time It is always important to choose the right time to run an ad on your Facebook page. According to the e-book How to attract customers with Facebook, the best time to run an ad are weekends. In any case this information should be monitored and researched. Appropriate time can be dependant on things such as country, culture and mentality where you are going to promote your business. In Kazakhstan appropriate time would be Monday morning, when people come to their work places, check their mailboxes, Facebook accounts and read news. As usual, at this time of the day they are open for different information. Identify the problem and give your customer what he/she wants By understanding the decision process of your customer and his needs you can find out about the character, needs and wants of your customer. It will give an opportunity to create a right advertisement and positioning of your product. Need Recognition Research Evaluation of Alternatives According to Hubspot.com, every organization should promote itself as an alternative solution of a customers problem. In order to do that, organization should identify customers needs and wants. Organizations should do a research and find the best way of approaching the customer and offer the best way of solving his problem. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 20 Virtual University

21. social media 03. Listed below are several questions that organization should think about: What are the problems customers are trying to solve? What kind of alternatives are they looking for? Why is your product better than the product of competitors? After getting an answer to these questions organization will truly understand the system. Moreover, organizations should create a credible source to make potential customers trust them. To do so, an organization should place full information about them, starting from history, social responsibility principles and how to order a product and pay for it. Implementation According to Socialmaximizer.com, posting interesting marketing content is the best way of developing your business through Facebook. Hubspot.com also supports this idea and claims that all the marketing activities have to have a calls-to-action. Enterpreneur.com claims that information on a Facebook page should be constantly renewed. Organizations always should post interesting staff that can catch the attention of potential customers. It might be unrelated to business but the main trick here is to show potential customers that you care about them and are always there for them with good advices and actions. What to post? Publish external and industry news. Post about what is happening on the market, create tests between two products and compare pros and cons, give advices. It will give the feeling that you care about your customers and wish them the best. Provide new product information. Daily or weekly organizations should post the information about new product or special offer. Promote events: make posts and notifications about coming events. For example, if you work as a distributor of Apple products you can post the news about coming presentation of iPad mini. Blogs and communication with fans. Organizations often create something from the entertainment section, posting funny videos or pictures, and encourage their friends and VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 21 Virtual University

22. social media 03. fans to discuss the given topic. Usually, it helps develop the relationships between buyer and seller and improve level of trust of customers towards the supplier. So after defining the audience and understanding the division of your segments you can automatically send mails, messages, bulletins and just announcements about coming events or special offers. Advertisement on Facebook Now you got a well-organized Facebook page. So now is the time to think about advertisements. There are two effective ways of advertising on Facebook. Sponsored stories. What is good about sponsored stories is that it gives you opportunity to reach friends of your friends who liked this story. So, immediately it gives a great chance to reach the audience who didnt know about you before. If your sponsored story is catchy and have interesting content it can bring you additional followers. Ads. Advertisements are also good tool in attracting audience attention. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 22 Virtual University

23. social media 03. Facebook Ad Manager Glossary Ad Manager Glossary gives you data about how many people clicked to visit your page, at what time and day. Overall, it helps you to count what percentage of your target market you have reached. Here are the terms that help entrepreneurs to measure their business on Facebook. Campaign reach How many people have seen your ad. Frequency How many times each person saw your ad or sponsored story in their newsfeed or on the sidebar of their profile. Social reach How many friends of your fans have seen a sponsored story. Clicks The number of people clicked on your ad that went to your page, external page, or event. Actions This is the number of actions from people within 24 hours after seeing your ad. Control post click operation Try to reduce confusion Always try to make your page maximally understandable for your friend or reader. Take care about the pages that your reader land in after clicking at your ad. Remember that users get annoyed quickly if they see something is wrong and confusing and hurry to leave the page. In order to avoid this situation, create everything simple and organized. Customer service After creating an attractive fan page and writing fancy text about the service, care about providing really good service. Remember that audience will be critical to new products, so if they notice even a minor problem they better switch to another service provider. Control the whole operation: Do you have enough specialists to answer incoming questions? Are they really informed about products? Are they kind and pleasant with a potential customer? Be open to new findings Five years ago we could not imagine that internet and social networking will take such a big role in education, entertainment and business. Tendencies are changing dynamically, always step together with time and new tendencies. Think about new entertainment tools on your page, open something that your competitors wouldnt manage to create. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 23 Virtual University

24. marketing & PR 04. Discover strength of internal PR. 05. Effective event-management to boost your profits. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 24 Virtual University

25. marketing & PR 04. Discover strength of internal PR Azamat Zeinolla Internal PR is the function responsible for effective communication among employees within an organization. Effective internal PR is as important as your external PR because it promotes motivation and loyalty of employees, staff cohesion, productivity, and prevents the outflow of skilled personnel. Internal PR provides a comfortable communicative environment at all levels of corporate hierarchy. It bonds the organization together. The company's employees are its main customers. They represent the organization and create a public opinion about the organization. Today, its not necessary to convince anyone that the chief value of business is the company's staff. According to British marketing company MORI, in 2003 67% of executives believed that the main competitive advantage of the company is its staff. And most managers recognize the need to build the best, mutually beneficial and respectful relationship with the companys main asset. Smart employers realize that in the environment where employees are able to move from one employer to another with relative ease, it is in the companys best interest to retain the smarter and more productive employees. Companies do all their best to communicate with employees, inform, influence and enter into some sort of psychological contract with them. You will never convince anyone about the competence, viability and usefulness of your organization, until it doesnt trust the majority of its employees. This is the main conclusion, which should make any organization aiming at success. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 25 Virtual University

26. marketing & PR 04. Anyway, today's worker is not a "mercenary force." The effectiveness of the modern company depends on the cohesion of staff, trust and interest between management and staff. Investing in external PR and without paying attention to internal communications is waste of money. Managements attempts to impose corporate views onto employees, as a rule, are not successful. Eventually they even cause resistance and rejection of employees who perform, in this case, only the role of mechanical performers. It is proved that the loss of the companies from disloyal attitude of the staff is on average three times higher than that of competitors' activities and hostile media. Conducting research in several large organizations, the American consultant David Kirk found that 91% of the factors shaping the loyalty of employees and 99.5% of the factors that influence job satisfaction are directly related to effective communication. Thus, the internal public relations is a part of personnel management policies, designed to increase the loyalty and motivation of employees and to improve team spirit. Internal PR uses the same mechanisms as the external PR. There are, however, a few special features. As the audience of the internal PR is employees, whose lives and well-being depend significantly on the success of the company, their need for information is much higher than of any outside group. Technology of "silence," "permutation of emphasis" and "shift the focus of attention," taken in the external PR, are ungrateful techniques. The lack of official information is sure to be replaced by rumors and gossip, which can lead to a serious crisis. Objectives and instruments of internal PR Really working internal PR is a complex activity where a variety of tools can be used. The main thing here is to meet the goals that your company wants to achieve by building a system of relationships with its domestic audience. Internal PR aims to enhance the loyalty and motivation of staff, and thus its effectiveness. In addition, this brings elaboration of a positive image of the company in the eyes of employees affected by the companys image in the outside world, as staff is one of the channels for transmitting information. The main goals of internal PR are: The alignment of corporate communications; Establishing and strengthening the corporate culture; Strengthening of staff loyalty. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 26 Virtual University

27. marketing & PR 04. The main objectives of this initiative include: Creating a common information space; Mutual understanding; Feedback from the staff of the company; Demonstration of the openness of management; Clarification of corporate policy in the field of training and staff development; Establishing uniform standards of conduct in accordance with the corporate code of ethics and the company. Over the years there have evolved various ways of communicating internally. It all started with informal and formal one-to-one and one-to-many meetings, where the boss would communicate with his employees in a strict top-down fashion. Of course, the employees would then informally discuss with each other their views and opinions, out of earshot of the boss. Communication then evolved to include printed materials for formal, top-down message transmission newsletters, annual reports, memos, and so on. The advent of digital technology, particularly the internet, introduced e-mail to the business setting. That was the starting point when the nature of communication radically changed. No longer did communication take a little while to produce, allowing for a period of reflection and consideration. Now anyone could bang off an email at a moments notice, often without consideration of the impact of the message. Those who were unskilled and untrained in the art and impact of communication suddenly found themselves causing more angst than they realized. Training took place amongst senior managers in the more enlightened organizations to show them the effects of poor communication habits. Today, digital technology has evolved to the point where not only can employees and employers freely e-mail each other, forward messages without any editing (showing the whole conversational trail), and forward those messages outside of the corporate walls, but also employees and employers can use these emails to bring about grievance procedures, litigation and dismissal. Equally, employers now find themselves at the mercy of employees who may e-mail VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 27 Virtual University

28. marketing & PR 04. each other with libelous comments about competitors or fellow employees. Deleting these e-mails from personal inboxes has proven to be no defense against litigation and investigation by external regulators and legal agencies. Nowadays there are lots of techniques and tools to communicate, both up/down and side-to-side within an organization: One-on-one meetings, staff/team meetings Emails, voice mails Video broadcasts Web-site, Social Media, Intranets Audio files Staff-to-staff news letters, corporate newsletters, posters, leaflets, reports, surveys... orporate events, sport events, seminars, corporate training, adaptive training, professional competitions Where to start? If we say that all activities of the company's employees should be directed to gain extra profit, you need to engage actively with PR. How can a PR specialist earn (or save) your money? Very simply by improving the efficiency of your staff, reducing staff turnover and implementing a unified corporate business standards. Corporate culture, in this case, understands the company's goals, common to all employees, and promotes the willingness to work towards its adoption in ways of doing business. Thus, PR specialist should start his work with the formation and consolidation of the corporate culture and common standards of behavior. Internal PR activity should start with monitoring the relationship of employees to the VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 28 Virtual University

29. marketing & PR 04. company policy, its values and corporate standards. It is necessary to identify the basic values that exist in the company's corporate culture and to compare them with the perfect picture. Identify existing standards and values prevailing in the corporate culture. For that you need description of the ideal corporate culture that meets your business objectives and plans for its development. Then try to identify any contradictions and form descriptions of missing rules and/or standards. So, bridging the gap between the ideal model and rules and standards existing in reality is a ground for specialists in internal PR. When to start? In order to understand it, answer yourself a few questions. Does your staff know the company's strategy and future plans for its development? Do your employees know what is done in the next department? Have you conducted diagnosis of staffs attitude to the policy of the company and its management in the last year? Was your last corporate event (if any) successful? Is the staff turnover low in your company? Does your company trust the rumors and they do not have a noticeable impact on the work of the employees? If you answered "no" to most of the questions, it's time for your organization to implement internal PR. The basic steps Here is a sample list of activities carried out in the framework of the internal PR. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 29 Virtual University

30. marketing & PR 04. STEP ONE Diagnostic Diagnose the corporate culture and internal communications. Define basic values and standards that exist in the company. Compare them with the standards and values that are necessary to achieve the business goals of the organization. Fill the gap in the communication flow. STEP TWO Unified info space formation Create/improve corporate media (magazine, hall of Fame, bulletin boards, posters, letters, greetings, electronic newsletters, website, Intranet, e-mailing, radio, points, etc.). Identify hot topics. Practice shows that employees are most interested in the following: wages and social benefits, training opportunities and career development, organizational changes in the company, resignations and appointments, corporate events, the companys development plans. Involve the staff in the corporate media. Work on gaps in the communication flow. Get feedback from employees. STEP THREE Corporate rules and standards creation Work on contradictions and gaps between real and ideal corporate values. Describe the companys objectives and rules in the form of corporate codes. Develop an official copy of the Corporate Code. Bring to life the rules of the code. Use the code for adaptation of new employees, and training of the current staff. Critical point: Code execution by top-management. Work systematically on new communication channels. Get feedback. Deliver companys management speeches to employees. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 30 Virtual University

31. marketing & PR 04. STEP FOUR Reinforce staff loyalty STEP FIVE Monitoring & new task development Monitor corporate culture and relationships within the team. Get feedback. Evaluate and compare the actions undertaken with the tasks. Develop objectives for the new cycle. Work to promote staff development and social protection. Adaptive learning. Implement the system of professional development. Implement internship between divisions (branches). Organization of training (exchanges) between the branches is highly efficient for transferring successful experience and create strong community among employees. Organize corporate events (holidays, corporate competition, sport events, etc.). Develop corporate media. Get feedback. As mentioned above, the sequence and significance of the above actions is determined in accordance to the real problems faced by a company at every stage of its development, and may include both of the above mentioned, and other activities in the field of personnel management and public relations. It is important to remember, communication with your employees must be ongoing. And this is the key to success of your business. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 31 Virtual University

32. marketing & PR 05. Effective event-management to boost your profits For many of us preparing for an event is an awful headache. All these plans, to do lists, guest lists, budget planning, etc. is really exhausting. But what if I say that it can be easy, fast and absolutely not boring? Anybody who has faced the event-management problem understands that it is the laborious process. Frequently, mistakes that we did are very stupid. Its very easy to avoid these typical mistakes. All you need is to follow few advises, which will help you step by step manage your event. Types Of course the most important part of preparing for your future event is choosing the type of it. Because it is the main point which will influence the whole preparing process. The guest list, the place, the content: everything depends on it. There are many different types, which you can use: business event, PR event, social event, sporting event, cultural event, etc. Be careful when you are choosing the type. You should pay attention to two points: 1. What is your purpose? 2. Which results do you want to achieve with this event? On the assumption of these two points, choose the most useful type for you. For example, you need to collect money for a project. For this you can use a cultural event like charity performance. But of course, it is a classical way to do it. Be creative and invent new ways! Maybe, you will hold an auction and put children pictures or some handicraft up for it. Make your event remarkable. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 32 Virtual University

33. marketing & PR 05. Guests Now, you should decide who your potential customer is. Find out the exact group of people who is interested in the theme of your event. Take into account six main points, which you should pay attention to: 1. Age 2. Gender 3. Religion 4. Social status 5. Political views 6. Interests Topic of your event must be attractable for all of them. For example, you wont invite children to a political event, as you cant invite old grannies to a sport one. However, sometimes an offbeat approach to working out a guest list can play into your hand. Even the friendly football match between grannies within the scope of a charity event for the nursing homes can be a brilliant idea. But be very careful, because here an overly original way can be a failing way. Also do not forget about media. Invite some representative from newspapers, magazines or television. Place and Time Next important step is to find and prepare a place for your event and choose the best time for it. Best choice of these two properties will bring you the 40% of success in your holding your event. First of all, think about the place. As I have previously mentioned, everything depends on the type of your event. If it is a sport event you should be looking for a stadium, sports ground or just an open air area. Also take into account your guests needs. Place for your event VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 33 Virtual University

34. marketing & PR 05. should seat necessary amount of people you want to invite. Here must be the restrooms and other premises which your guests will need. If your event involves some performance, find a place with a stage. Moreover, you should prepare it for the performance. Find equipment: illumination, microphones, acoustic systems, amplifiers and so on. Always make a sound check before the event to avoid any technical problems. Be sure that people can easily reach this place by public transport or taxi. If this place is hard to find, make for your guests a special brochures with a route plan. Next step is to choose the time. The time should be comfortable not only for coordinators but mostly for the audience. Never start the event early in the morning or too late at night. If it is an open-air event do not forget to check a weather forecast: even the light rain can destroy all your plans. Try not to hold an event at the same time with other big event. This way you can lose your guests and as a result your event will fail. Promotion Now, when you already decided what is the type of your event, which people you want to attract to it, when and where it will be, and which is the content of your future event; you must advertise your event. A classical way of doing it is sending e-mail messages or personal invitation cards to all your guests. But this way is not for us. We need to attract as much amount of people as possible; but not only the people from the guest list. To achieve this goal, you should experience how the information about your event can easily reach your prospective audience. So, find a place where they can fast learn everything about your event. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 34 Virtual University

35. marketing & PR 05. Of course, there are many different places and ways. However, the most beneficial for you is the use of social networks. Why? Because nowadays its the biggest information source for people. In the social networks like Facebook, My Space, Twitter or any else there are many tools which you can use for event promotion. Facebook is the most opportune in this way. Here you can create a group which will cover your event. Add all the necessary information about your event. Except a short info piece about time, place and content of your event, you can also add materials about your event subject area, its history and other additional information. It can be everything you wish: video materials, articles, even the audio can be used. Add here the people, whom you want to see on your event. The biggest advantage of this type of advertising is that people whom you already added into your group can invite their friends or acquaintances who can be interested in your event. This way you can increase the number of guests by three or even four times. Another advantage is an opportunity to moderate your group. You can find interesting points about how to make your event more interesting and remarkable for the audience. Just read what they write in your group: comments and likes will help you. But be sure that youve prepared it early enough. Make it two or three month before the exact event. It shouldnt be a spontaneous chaotic heap of information which you post in the group. Content One of the most important parts of your event is the content. Remember that it should be: 1.Interesting 2.Informative 3.Demonstrable VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 35 Virtual University

36. marketing & PR 05. Your audience expects from your event a lot of information. For example, you are presenting your product. Give your future customers all what they need: description, characteristics, price, quality, places where they can find and buy it. Make a slide show or video record to represent your product for an audience. It is easier to explain and tell about your product and at the same time show it. Also it will be good to make some banners with pictures of your product and name and logo of your company. Do not forget about entertainment. It should not be a bare listing of facts and information. You can make a little break for tea or include into your event some performances like dances or songs. It can have a small lottery or competition. Of course it all depends on your goals and audiences. Holding the Event Always be ready to start on time. If your event should start at 3 p.m. start it at this exact time. Of course you can wait for the guests who will be late, but not for a long time. Try to follow the scenario or the plan of your event. Just make a minute by minute plan, where you write down every component of your event. Do not forget to include here all the speakers, performances, presentations or any other thing you want to show during your event. Choose the best host, because a professional host can improve your event. Sometimes it happens that speakers take too much time or a performance delays for some technical reasons. In these situations an experienced presenter can save the situation. Do not forget about snacks and drinks. It can bring you a huge advantage. Of course, it is very hard to please the tastes of your guests, but at least the simplest snacks should be there. The same deals with drinks. Water should be placed on each table. Take into consideration the event type and place: if it is a sport event, or an open-air event in a sunny day you need to prepare enough fresh water. Prepare booklets with all important information and contacts. It reminds your guests about everything they saw or hears during your event. So, if you follow these easy but important rules, your event will be organized on the highest level. Just do not forget, that the earnest of success is a good plan, creativity and hard work. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 36 Virtual University

37. Content management 06. Web content strategy. 07. Design cheap n chick e-newsletters. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 37 Virtual University

38. content management 06. Web content strategy Regina Akhmetova The single most important thing most websites can offer to their users is content that those users will find valuable. Websites achieve their business objectives through web contents and functions. There are four main business objectives of the websites. Companies may change their websites business objectives over time. 1. General awareness and publicity is perhaps the most popular business objective of websites. Companies can enhance their reputation and attractiveness by promoting companys information, logos, images, products, and services on the websites. 2. Customer service is another important business objective of websites. Web technologies allow customers to contact companies by different tools: online forms, chats, and frequently asked questions (FAQ). 3. Online information exchange is the third business objective of websites. Online information exchange is fast, accurate and less costly. Many companies use websites for better communication with their suppliers and customers. 4. Online sales is the fourth business objective of a website. Online stores allow customers to find the products, add them, choose payment and shipping information, and receive the product. Companies benet from online shopping by increasing sales, awareness, better targeting the customers, and decreasing the costs. Organizations are just now beginning to understand that. Along with the products and services that they offer, one of their core products is information. Web contents refer to all the digital subject matter presented on a website, including text, images, audio, and video, and other content tactics. Content Tactics Blog Blog brings your brand to life. It can entertain and inspire readers in an easy way. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 38 Virtual University

39. content management 06. Blogs with RSS-options and comments can be a useful CEO tool. They help to establish customer relations with your audience. It is better to blog every day, so your readers will not forget you, also participate in other blogs. Increase involvement of your audience, encourage conversations, answer all comments, even the negative ones. This is an opportunity for developing good customer relations. E-newsletter A permission-based means of regular communication with current and future customers, usually distributed monthly or weekly. Available electronically, via text-based or HTML pages, they can include complete articles or brief descriptions with links to articles on your Website. You should always have a permission of you client, that he or she wants to receive your e-newsletter. ou can use e-newsletter in order to promote your other website tools: webinars, Y e-books, white papers, blog, etc. Read more in the next chapter. White Paper White papers are usually 8-12 pages long to demonstrate leadership of your company. They are usually written on technical issues and can be also called: conference paper, research report, or technical report. Positions a company as a thought-leader and can generate leads. Can be in a print form, PDF- or digital magazine formats. Article A flexible tool that can have different formats, your article can address issues, trends, discussions, and topics that are interesting to your audience. You can also use your articles in print media and on your own website. It is better to have series of articles and divide them by different topics. Your article should be interesting to a reader. It also should contain valuable or new information. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 39 Virtual University

40. content management 06. eBook An article in any digital reading format, usually 10-50 pages long, that gives profound content that is informative, visually attractive, reader-friendly, entertaining, and easy to read. Use visual tools thoughtfully: use of bullets, graphs, pictures, etc. Have strong call for action, how the readers will receive your e-book, you can also ask client to fill in the form for your database. Case study This is a successful story based on real-life events about the company, brand, or person, takes usually 1-2 pages. It can build credibility and trust. You can use it also in press kits, sales materials, etc. It should have: challenge, solution, results, and conclusion Use direct quotes to reinforce the story, and statistics when describing the results. Testimonials Trustworthy source, recommendation of your clients, it can help potential clients to overcome purchasing hesitation and make a decision. Should be specific about kind of product or service, its quality, etc. Always ask you clients for testimonials after completing the deal. You can also combine this tool with a questionnaire for your customer. Webinar/Webcas Webinars make an excellent call-to-action or follow up offer to other forms of content, such as e-books, white papers, e-newsletters. You benefit twice: first, from the live event, then from the people who download the archived event. You should promote your webinar through additional tools, as your website, blog, e-newsletters, SMM (social media marketing) channels to make it successful. Video Sites like YouTube and Vimeo make uploading and sharing the Video easy and fun. You can use SMM tools for interacting with your audience. You can use inexpensive editing tools like iMovie or Final Cut to make your video professional looking. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 40 Virtual University

41. content management 06. Consider series of video, use playlists that will increase interest and help your content go viral. Online Press Release Nowadays press releases can be written not for press only. With online press releases you can reach your buyers directly. By using the release services effectively, you can appeal directly to your buyers, and have more widespread distribution. Dont write only about big news, you should always have interesting reason to communicate with your customers. Have SMM tags so that your press releases will be adapted to your customers to respond to your press releases faster. Social Community site This is a place where your customers can communicate with you, but mostly with each other. You can have a forum, and other forms of content, created by the users themselves, so that they could share their stories, comments, photos, and videos. Think about reward system for most active participants. Moderation is very important: establish a person who will answer the questions, moderate the website, and also protect the website from negative comments and SPAM. ou can use your Community site to promote the other tools and activities. Y Digital Magazine Electronic form of the magazine to increase web presence of your content, can be in PDF format and have a print version. The main difference from other tools: it should be published periodically, monthly or quarterly. Consider adding other interactive tools, as video or audio podcasts to your digital magazine content. On web site www.nxtbookmedia.com you can find different digital magazines all over the world. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 41 Virtual University

42. content management 06. Executive Roundtable This is a tool that can be used by an industry leader or those who plan to become a leader. A gathering of executives who are the experts in their industry, who share their ideas, concepts, give presentations and interact with other participants. Consider interesting executives, whose personalities are appealing to people. Ask roundtable to participate in your website, through guest blog, column in your digital magazine, or video presentation. se the results of Executive roundtable in other interactive tools: blog, article, online U press release, SMM or an e-book. Virtual Trade show Internet-based virtual trade assembles leaders, drive ideas, generate revenue, improve communications with potential customers. To use as content consider a series of seminars, presentations, webinars than can be launched. So, the content is always about what the reader needs or wants, not about the company itself. The web content starts with giving something valuable to your customers, that cant be just your products and services. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 42 Virtual University

43. content management 07. Design cheap n chick e-newsletters Yulia An U.S. Internet users prefer getting promotional messages by e-mail. Among 1,500 U.S. online consumers surveyed by ExactTarget 77% say their preferred channel for promotional materials is e-mail. This gives great opportunities to companys e-newsletters as tools for corporate promotion. Beyond that e-newsletters take the third place as the most trustworthy and the least annoying media after the press and TV, while having unquestionable benefits against the first two mediums. First, it may cost you almost nothing, since some e-mail marketing services allow sending out e-mails to up to 2,000 subscribers for free. And second, you just avoid enormous media and advertising clutter and go with your offer straightly to your consumers mailbox. Remember: consumers receiving e-newsletters spend 83% more, order 28% more often and have these orders 44% larger when shopping, iContact says. But theres also the third point we need to note: tons of fancy e-newsletters end up in Spam or Trash, or just remain unread in a better case. As the data from Pamorama says, 91% of e-mail users have unsubscribed from the list of the company that they had previously signed up for. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 43 Virtual University

44. content management 07. Moreover, benefits of using electronic newsletters seriously outreach ones of traditional printed newsletters in terms of results measurable. In traditional newsletters companies write full-length articles and hardly know which topics interested the audience most, which headlines were the most attractive. How many customers after reading the articles decided to call your organization or visit a website? And how many of those unique visitors of your website were driven by a paper newsletter and not excellent search-engine-optimization (SEO) strategy? With printed newsletters you get tons of wasted paper, and in the end of the day you can hardly even know the return-on-investment (ROI) rate. While according to iContact, the average ROI of e-mail marketing equals to $44.25 for every dollar spent. I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. Rudyard Kipling, The Elephants Child E-newsletters are great tools for driving your website traffic and getting measurable results. Putting a catchy subject line and headline, an interesting lead and a link to your blogpost can significantly boost your website traffic. Just think about it. Even your devoted readers may miss the content youve published. Give them a hint. And dont forget to follow statistics: e-mail open and click-through rate, new e-mail subscriber behavior, number of spam complaints, and e-mail open and click-through peaks by time of day. How to manage the content: Five Ws As in writing journalism articles, five Ws and one H are the key questions you need to address while both preparing your e-newsletter content strategy and by writing your e-newsletter posts. Who is your target audience? While creating your e-newsletters you should always keep in mind the people on the other side of the screen who will be eventually reading your content. Who are they? What are they interested in? If youre a public relations agency eager to offer its services to small business enterprises in your area, just think about the needs and wants of your potential clients. Think what they need to do to improve their external communications and provide them a piece of great advice. Bombard your potential customers with highly targeted messages. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 44 Virtual University

45. content management 07. Segment your audience. Create distinctive e-mail lists that will be categorized by customer geographic, demographic, psychographic or behavioral specifications. This means, you can sort the clients by state, age, lifestyle patterns, or even by how often they use your products or services. For example, you can divide your customers into three e-mail lists by number of their employees: big businesses, small businesses, and individual entrepreneurs. Or if youre a B2C company you can even create lists based on unique customer profiles, e.g. young mothers, business folks, and indie kids. Target the segments. After youve sorted your customers into distinctive e-mail lists, think about the best-fitting message to each group. Send multiple newsletters matching interests of each group. For instance, youre a PR agency serving customers in the hospitality industry. After the segmentation stage youve come up with two segments: restaurants and bars, and hotels. Customize your subject lines, article headlines and articles selection in accordance with what will most interest the two customer groups. An excellent subject line for a newsletter to your restaurants-and-bars segment might be: Ten free tools to promote your restaurant in social media. For a hotels-segmented newsletter write a different subject line: Why do backpackers choose motels to stay with? Five unexpected reasons. According to MailChimp 2009 statistics, e-mail campaigns that used list segmentation got 14.444% better open rate and 14.994% better click-through rate than the list average. Why should a reader open your newsletter? Think about a unique selling proposition (USP) of your company. What can you say in your newsletter that will be so different from a whole bunch of other similar companies? Choose distinctive benefits that your company can give to customers, not just features of your products and services. And dont just speak about all those benefits. Deliver them directly to your clients mailbox. Provide the value in a form of hands-on information, free consultations, whitepapers and giveaway announcements straight away in your newsletter. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 45 Virtual University

46. content management 07. Where do your potential customers read your e-newsletters? Many studies show a significant growth in the mobile internet usage. As written in the unbounce infographic about B2B generation lead, 64% of decision-makers use mobile devices to read their e-mail. However, still a very small share of marketers use responsive e-mail design in their newsletters. Most of e-mails coming to customers inboxes are still not responsive in design. When do you send out the newsletter? And how often? The time of your e-newsletter delivery can significantly influence the open and click-through rates. Around 19% of subscribers open e-mails sent through MailChimp open them on Wednesday and Thursday. While the opens peak by time of day is between 2 and 5 p.m. The frequency of your e-mail marketing, in its turn, can influence the number of unsubscribed users. Over a half of respondents of litmus (litmus.com) agencys survey said they unsubscribed because e-mails of companies came too frequently. What is the content? Content+ says 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via its articles rather than advertisements. This means that writing good content must become your strategic goal. How to write an article that will be read by subscribers? Here are few hints that might help you find your own path. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 46 Virtual University

47. content management 07. According to Bredin Business Information, in 2007 the most wanted e-newsletter topics of 26% of small businesses executives were strategy and leadership. Specific words and terms used in subject lines can also increase the click-to-open rates. Words issue (8.5%) and top stories (5.9%) perform above average in click-to-opens, while research, interview, and video score above average for opens, but below average for clicks and click-to-opens, says the recent July 2012 Adestra Report. Even the number of words per link can influence the click rate. The highest rate, in MailChimp e-mail marketing base, have texts with 8 or 12 words per link. And dont forget about visual content. Images can increase articles views by 94%. But dont go too far. Having one to two images for one link can lower the click rate to fewer than 5%. Video starts taking dominant positions too. Video e-mails and video newsletters can boost your productivity by large. Read about how to produce effective videos in this chapter. VU An ultimate guide to cutting-edge PR 47 Virtual University

48. VU Virtual University About Virtual University Virtual University (V-U) is a non-profit institution that offers a revolutionary new model for education, including online, multimedia textbooks; Web conferencing for live online seminars and workshops; and work-study internships and apprenticeships around the world. Our current partners/customers base includes over 2,500 communications and public relations agencies in the United States. Virtual University employs highly skilled professionals with profound over-30-year experience in mass communications, public relations and advertising. More Information Visit the Virtual University website for more creative ideas on cutting-edge public relations. To learn about Virtual University e-mail Executive Director Jonathan Pixler at Director@virtual-institute.us or virtualclassroom@hotmail.com for details. Photo credit on cover by Cyril Berthault-Jacquier.