Archive for February, 2010

02.25
2010

By Felicia Wyrick

News

Feature generates immediate lead

Although the management team at Cedar Crest had more than 80 years of experience in supplying writing instruments to the promotional products industry when they opened their doors, the company had zero name recognition.

We collaborated with their industry’s premiere trade association to put together a feature article that appeared in their monthly magazine.  Our client shared these results:

“Today we already received a call from a distributor in Texas who wants to be a customer of Cedar Crest based on reading the PPB article in the January issue.   Hopefully others will follow his lead.  We are going to print out additional copies of the story to hand out to distributors at the upcoming Orlando and Vegas shows to help share our story.  It should be very helpful.”

Doug Miskimen – President

Cedar Crest Mfg. Inc.

Public relations builds credibility for your company and augments the rest of your marketing activities.  If you’d like to learn more about generating leads from editorial coverage, contact Felicia at fwyrick@adfinitymarketing or 319.363.3338.

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02.17
2010

By Felicia Wyrick

Adfinity Advice

Is your trade show strategy gellin’?

Your sales and marketing staff probably think working a trade show is a long, exhausting ordeal.  How would they feel about working a booth for 6 months?  The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, considered to be the first trade show promoting products of the Industrial Revolution, ran from May to October, occupied 991,857 square feet of exhibit space showing over (more…)

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02.11
2010

By Betsy Caszatt

Adfinity Advice

Accent on wry. Hold the rubber chicken.

Did you hear the one about the family in Ohio who sits down to dinner and all of a sudden the little sister finds a grasshopper leg in the salad?

I don’t hear you laughing. You can bet the little girl didn’t. Or the supermarket that sold the packaged greens. Or the grower to whose field the lettuce was traced.

The seriousness of food industry issues — safety, nutrition, heart health, obesity, government regulations — doesn’t make its business-to-business trade press a hotbed of funny ads.

However, are we to assume that all industry marketing has to be (more…)

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02.11
2010

By Betsy Caszatt

Adfinity Advice

Can I interest you in a 207XZ? Hello?

It may be Project QAQ-4502 in-house. Lock the doors and keep it there. Out in the world, it’ll be toast. When customers can’t remember a product name, attach a mind-picture to it, or even pronounce it, they’re not likely to be talking about it either.

Of course, we can all name the exceptions. Ever hear of Xerox? But it takes serious advertising dollars to turn a less-than-familiar collection of letters into an industry colossus. Consider the resources Nike expended to teach the world’s runners that it didn’t rhyme with “hike.”

For both business-to-business and consumer marketers, a good product name is like (more…)

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02.10
2010

By Felicia Wyrick

News

Get your (PR) show on the road

While promoting Ringling Brothers Circus, publicist Lee Solters gave this classic definition of publicity:  “When the circus comes to town and you paint a sign about it, that’s advertising.  Put the sign on the back of the elephant and march through town, that’s promotion.  If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flowerbed, that’s publicity.  And if you get the mayor to comment about it, that’s public relations.”

While food industry press coverage isn’t the circus we observe in mass media, trade editors get a freakish amount of press releases and story pitches everyday.  It is important to know what they consider to be legitimate news and what they might dismiss as a hoax to ensure the success of your public relations efforts.

For example, you should resist the urge to send out a press release announcing you’ve changed (more…)

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