Craig Rentmeester's Blog

You Get what you Support

Markets, and the businesses in those markets, are there for a reason.

As soon as customers stop coming to businesses, the businesses are forced to adapt.

Whether it's the way a business sells (direct, distributor, etc.), to where a business is located, your purchases today affect investments tomorrow.

It challenging markets, customers have the power to make, break and shape the way a business operates.

Choose wisely.

You may be stuck with less than preferable options at the end of this cycle, because of the purchasing decisions you're making today.

Examples of Well-crafted Headlines in a RSS-centric World

After seeing this headline, Obamas juggle inaugral balls, in my RSS tab for CNN.com, it made me think about headlines of articles I've read via via RSS recently that I can remember as having interesting titles.

Hats off to Fast Company. I remembered four FC articles with interesting titles in particular. Also, 37Signals got in on the action.

* = Interesting article
- = Headline was better than the article
& = Great advice on customer service
% = Mildly interesting

The five I recalled were articles I've read in the past day, all via RSS.

*  Paper House for Disaster Zone Makes Three Little Pigs Jealous - FC
*  Wireless Electricity is Here (Seriously) - FC
&  The Bullshit of Outage Language - 37Signals - Signal vs. Noise blog
% These Cars are so Green they should be recycled immediately - FC
-  A House Optimus Prime Would Love - FC

Pictures, Images and Graphics

I often get asked where to find images for presentations and marketing collateral.

There are a number of free and pay-per-image resources on the web.

A few that I use are:

• Stock Xchng - Free and Paid Options
• Stock Vault - Free and Paid Options
• Flickr -*Free
• Getty Images - Paid

To get free images on Flickr, with a creative commons license, do an advanced search.

Make sure that the image licenses allow for commercial purposes if you plan to use someone else's work on a web site or brochure.

Think of Marketing like you would a chain

Like a chain, your marketing is only as strong as your weakest link.

Here are some examples of things that are easily overlooked or  moved down the priority list, but can be corrected easily.

• Web site formatting/spacing issues.
• Cleanliness of lobby and offices that customers see.
• Cleanliness of delivery trucks.
• Bathroom cleanliness.
• Quality of your PowerPoint images.
• The slowest responding or least informed customer service rep, salesperson or receptionist.
• Your neglected storefront.
• Your misused logo.

We all overlook things that we see or interact with every day.

A can of paint, and a fresh set of eyes, can go a long way to making your company more customer friendly.

Surprising Search Results

Just now I wanted to find out what the most up-to-date odds were for Big Brown to win the Belmont Stakes.

So, I searched "Belmont Stakes Odds". The surprising thing is that no gambling sites have search campaigns including that search phrase. It's three hours before the race.

Seems like a missed opportunity.

Click the image on the right for larger screenshot.

By the way, he's a 2-to-5 favorite -- meaning you'd have to bet $500 to win $200.

Enjoy the race.

Business Profile: Lulu

Lulu is one of the neatest services I've seen in a long time, and I have been meaning to talk about it for a while.

What is Lulu?
Lulu provides short-run manufacturing of books for self publishers, among other things. It basically allows anyone to write and create a physical, paperback book. In addition, Lulu provides services for reviewing content, editing, formatting, and promoting your book.

The Pros

• The service is flexible. You can choose to print one copy, one hundred or one thousand. The quantity is up to you.

• The prices are  pretty affordable.
  • 35 copies of a 150-page book, black and white and bound = $243   ($6.92/copy)
  • 100 copies of a 85-page book in full color and bound - $1550   ($15.50/copy)

• Lulu offers a free online store front to help you sell your masterpiece without the upfront production cost commitments typically associated with printing.
• You can get your ISBN number
• A wide range of services for editing, formatting and promoting your work.

The Cons

• Lulu doesn't give cash advances to authors to allow them to quit your day job while you work on your masterpiece.
• Lulu doesn't provide data about the number of authors who sell fewer than 500 copies to strangers (most) or just how many books get published each year (thousands).

Feedback/Insight
Have you or someone you know used Lulu? If so, let me know. I have been thinking about writing a basic guide to marketing for a while and Lulu seems like the perfect route for it.

Any feedback you have would be much appreciated.

Thinker, Tinker or Tanker

Which one are you, a thinker, a tinker or a tanker?

A thinker develops theories, thinks about the "big picture" and strategy, but isn't a hands-on person. She doesn't like the trial and error method.

The tinker has many hobbies, likes trial and error, and she likes variety.

The tanker gets things done. The tanker takes out the garbage while cooking breakfast and gets the kids to school, in 45 minutes flat (33 minutes with no traffic). The tanker has processes they've built over time and they work, for her.

Does your view of yourself match up with your actions? Does your job match up with your style?

Happy Oscars

Tonight is Oscar night. It's party time for many.

I thought I'd pass along a link to an interesting Oscars article, title "Oscars by the Numbers".

Also, here's a link my post from the past about the PR value of winning an Oscar.

Happy New Year - What are your resolutions and goals?

Happy New Year.

Being that it's New Year's Eve, I am thinking about some things I want to accomplish in 2008.

I understand this is a selfish post, as it mostly pertains to my goals. However, I am interested to hear what goals other people have, so please share them in the comments. If there is  any information I can share related to yours I'll be sure to do so.

I think that writing goals down (and posting them online apparently) with steps on how to achieve them is a good way to stay on track.

So, allow me to share some personal and professional goals 2008.

Professional Goals
One of my (professional) goals in 2008 is to grow my network of interesting and talented professionals in the Twin Cities.

To do this, I am going to actively participate in trade organizations,  networking events and meeting new people on a day-to-day basis.

Another goal of mine is to take on freelance marketing projects in 2008. To do this, I am going to launch a personal Web site -- www.craigrentmeester.com -- complete with a portfolio of past work and information about my personal/professional background.

Hopefully, those two goals will complement one another.

Personal Goal
A personal goal I have is to do at least six days worth of big mountain skiing in 2008. To do this, I am going to take a trip in February to Colorado. Hopefully, I'll be able to take another long-weekend trip next Fall to either Montana, Utah or California.

Hopefully the weather cooperates :)

What are your goals for 2008? How will you reach them?

Irony in search advertising

Here is a link to an interesting article I read earlier this week and meant to link to sooner. It is from Search Engine Watch.

If you don't read their blog already, I strongly  recommend it. It usually has useful tips and data regarding (obviously) search engines.

Skimmers and Flippers

It’s likely that your ad or article will get flipped past or skimmed over.

People rarely read magazines and newspapers cover to cover. Rather, they'll scan headlines and articles for articles and topics that are relevant to them.

 

What does that mean?

Use great, eye-catching images.

Write in small, digestable chunks.

Use lists and bullet points when possible.

Here is a good reference article that I found about writing on the web. 

Name that Tune (or Brand)

To keep things light,  I figured I would dig up some  renditions  of theme songs.

Not only are these performances fascinating, they go to show how catchy theme songs can actually be.

 

Good work guys.

Thanks for visiting, commenting and sharing

I'd like to say thanks to those of you who visited this blog, posted insightful comments and shared links. It's the users and contributors that make it worthwhile.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Craig

What to Provide to and Expect from an Editor

In media relations, the person to contact is the editor. Depending on the size of the publication, and especially at daily newspapers, it will likely be the editor a particular section (National, Local, Sports, A&E, etc. )

When establishing contact with an editor, or journalist, it's important to know what you can expect and what your media contact will expect. Here's brief list of items to prepare for journalists once they've decided to move ahead with story on your organization

Company History - View an example.

Fact Sheet - View an example.

Logos - Print (300 dpi) and Web (72 dpi).    dpi = pixels per inch.

A person that is available for comment. Preferably, someone with clout that manages or leads the department that the article is covering.

Product/service Information

Contact Information

Milestones and Awards, etc. - This may already be covered in the company history depending on the design.

For publicly-traded companies, the journalist or editor will want to financial results for the past fiscal year, the company's stock symbol and which Index the company is listed on. 

Other helpful things to provide are recent press releases, if they apply to the story angle, and links to other coverage you've received in the past three months. Journalists do not want to rerun a story that someone else has already done.

In return for doing this work, gathering these resources and making people available for the media, you're ultimately guaranteed nothing. News controls the media.

However, you should expect to be notified by the publication if a story doesn't run that was expected to.

Types of Stories that Publications Run

Here is a fluid list of stories that publications often run.

Business Profiles
Business Issues
Case Studies
Columns
Interviews
Seasonal articles
Sidebar
How-to articles
Interviews
Op-Ed
Personality Profile
Human Interest
Essay
Exposé
Photo Essays
Letter to the Editor
Reviews (Products, Services, Movies, etc.)

If you have additions that you'd like to make to this list, feel free to do so in the comments section.

Another thing that newspapers often do is run a picture with a caption, but no story. This works especially well for things related to weather or a time of the year.

It allows people to submit their photos to the newspaper and for organizations to submit photo news releases.