PRWeb Public Relations Blog

Consumer-Driven News - Hint

PRWeb® has decided to use the power of the blogosphere to announce the new features that have been added to its press release distribution platform since June 10, 2006. These new features (there are between 1 and 10), have been added to enhance PRWeb's distribution offerings. Rather than create a press release to announce all of the new features, PRWeb decided to have the blogging community help construct the announcement by utilizing its TrackBack technology.

Hint:  Within the following paragraph is a word that is key to identifying one of the enhancements.

Don't wait to get your entries in.  You do not have to identify all of the enhancements at the same time.  The first bloggers to identify any single enhancement may be quoted in the final press release announcements that result from this experiment.

-- See you at the top.

David

The Smartest Business Person I Know

I almost want to keep this one a secret, but you caught me on a generous day. So I will share this with you. Roy Williams is probably the sharpest mind in advertising and marketing, bar none. What makes someone brilliant? In my mind, it is his/her ability to assemble available information and put it to practical use. The best bakers (see how it comes back to food with me) in the world do not have an advantage because they have different ingredients. They have an advantage that comes with time, experience and the ability to combine those ingredients into something remarkable.

What's remarkable about Roy Williams is that he shares this knowledge with everyone. He teaches it at his Wizard Academy. His Monday Morning Memo is how I start my week. I recommend spending an afternoon reading through the archives. No time to read, download his podcast. I do both.

Now I did it. I just shared with you something that will change the way you approach marketing, public relations and advertising. Why did I share this with you. Because if Roy makes a recommendation I know that I better pay attention.

I attended a Wizards of Web conference in Austin last month where the topic of conversation for two days was Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, the new book on Persuasion Architecture by the Eisenberg brothers. I have read it many times. Why, well initially because Roy recommended that I do so. Then I re-read it and made it mandetory reading at PRWeb. Don't do it because I said so. Do it because Roy recommends it.

See you at the top!

-- David

The Need for Something Other than ROI

As we set out to revamp how PRWeb reports statistics to our users -- a major overhaul of our metrics is due out shortly -- we have debated, sometimes hotly, how ROI applies to PR. My opinion on this subject runs hot. I have recommended scrapping ROI and statistical reporting altogether, largely because I believe that current measurement standards miss the mark. I know that there are folks that are tackling this head on as we speak, but here are my thoughts and opinions on the subject.

ROI (or return on investment), in my mind, is largely an artifact of accounting and company business prevention units. It heralds back to the days of Fredrick Taylor and the scientific management of business, long before the Internet. But too much focus on ROI often prevents the business from doing the right thing for their customers. I have felt this on more than one occasion at PRWeb.

For example, when we launched PRWebPodcast.com the first question I received was "how are we going to monetize this?" followed by "what is the anticipated ROI?" I made the decision not to build a business model around our podcasting product. Podcasts are free with our premium distribution. We actually lose margin with each press release that is podcast enhanced. There may be ways that we monetize part of our podcasting service in the future, but I foresee our current service remaining in force for years to come. It is the right thing for our customers and at the right time.

Some things you do just because they improve the customer experience. For example, I am a huge fan of Enterprise car rental. Ask Mick Jolly, or anyone else who has had the misfortune of booking me with a company other than Enterprise in the past, how passionate I am about Enterprise. I guess that this is partly due to my personality -- I am sure that the other rental agencies are just fine. In reflecting on my Enterprise experiences, I think they have a unique point of differentiation. If they are ROI driven they are not as transparently ROI driven as other car rental companies. As far as this renter in concerned, Enterprise focuses on the entire customer experience--and it's predictable.

For example, I am 100% certain that by offering bottled water to their customers Enterprise is reducing their gross margin. It's simple math, right. But the economics of building a customer experience offsets any loss in margin. What if someone in the Enterprise business prevention unit decided the company could save millions a year by eliminating the bottled water because it could not be measured in terms of traditional ROI? Would they lose me as a customer? Probably not. But they would remove an element of their business that improves the customer experience.

So how do I measure ROI? I have always measured ROI in terms of gross revenue and margin at the end of the month, not by any one component of our business process. I am sure that if I had taken the ROI measurement approach, I could not have justified more than half of the enhancements that we have made to the PRWeb platform. I would have thought they were bad for business.

The Internet bubble burst not because a lack of focus on ROI. We had measurement back then. I think it was more because some companies didn't provide value. Companies with high customer value propositions survived while the rest of the industry imploded.

So help me out -- where do we go with ROI? I would like to see some measure that provides more insight on the long tail effects of product enhancements, word of mouth, messaging and branding.

Market Wire Credibility Woes, Round 2?

Several weeks ago, I attended the Wizards of Web seminar with Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg outside of Austin, Texas, at the Wizard Academy.  It was a great event to be sure. Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, warned about being sensitive to the BS meter when developing online copy. 

This is something that I have been wanting to blog about for some time now.  Perhaps I have let it slide -- until I found a company and industry that I know well.  No matter what online industry you look at online, there seems to be at least a half dozen who claim to be industry leaders per category.  Do marketers think they can get away with this?  It barely passes the laugh test anymore.  It’s obnoxious unless it can be substantiated.

That leads me to Market Wire’s (remember Internet Wire and GINA) latest release. I would rather not even entertain it here, but it does illustrate my point. Let’s see… where do I begin with this one?  Let’s start with the first paragraph of the release:

“Market Wire, one of North America's largest newswires, and a full-service distributor of company press releases and material news, announced important industry milestones today for its revolutionary press release optimization solution, SEO Enhanced.”

Okay, you ready?  Here’s my analysis with the BS meter on “stun”:

“One of North America’s largest newswires”

Okay, I guess that is all in how you measure large.  And you can pretty much claim to be one of anything relating to your industry.  I will give them a pass here.

“… revolutionary press release optimization service”

This is frankly where they lose me.  Especially in the context of the following sentence:

            “Since SEO Enhanced was launched one year ago…”

I guess if we define “revolutionary” as finally “showing up” close to a decade after a movement has started, we could give them a pass.  But frankly, that hardly passes my test for revolutionary.  To be truly considered revolutionary one must contribute to the discussion and community.  There are others who supported us when this was new and revolutionary. Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, Lee Odden, Mark Effinger and many others all joined PRWeb in the discussion and evangelism of SEO press releases.   

Furthermore, Market Wire appears to have “borrowed” SEO principles from PR Newswire, which was essentially modeled after PRWeb, v1.0.  What do they say about a copy of a copy? (See the movie “Primer” for a less than subtle hint).  Bottom line: it is less of a Market Wire revolution than a Market Wire “catch-up.”

Now for some real fun.  Let’s look at the second paragraph.

“Since SEO Enhanced was launched one year ago, it has been used in thousands of press releases, on behalf of companies representing 137 different industries. Use of SEO Enhanced has grown from less than 1% of Market Wire's monthly release volume to nearly 6%, with nearly 30% of the company's SEO Enhanced releases being delivered for publicly traded companies. To date, over 10% of Market Wire customers have used SEO Enhanced with nearly 40% of those customers using it more than once. SEO Enhanced users include small privately held and Fortune 500 companies alike. Recently, Fortune 100 technology giant IBM agreed to SEO-enhance more than 200 of its press releases.”

What would the identical paragraph look like if it were used to talk about PRWeb’s SEO program?  Alright, just to make it easy on you, I’ve  taken the guess work out of this exercise and filled in the blanks for you. (I took out the bit about IBM as n/a to PRWeb.  I also removed references to growth in this space because we launched the service with SEO; therefore it is not relevant.)

“Since PRWeb SEO was launched nine years ago, SEO technology has been used in nearly 400,000 press releases, on behalf of companies across 250 different industry targets. Use of PRWeb SEO has been used by over 170,000 customers including a CA-based communications company of a Market Wire founder. To date, 100% of PRWeb customers have received some level of the PRWeb SEO service. PRWeb SEO users include small privately held and Fortune 500 companies alike.”

Here are just five reasons why I am not worried. 

1. PRWeb is Revolutionary -- We choose to lead and not follow.
2. The traditional wire service model prevents companies like Market Wire from taking full advantage of true SEO.  I would be more specific but will decline to do so in this forum.  Why give them the blueprint. 
3. While other wire services have their eyes focused on SEO, we have moved the cheese. SEO alone is not going to get the job done anymore. 
4. The community knows who pioneered this space.  The community has invested in the PRWeb platform and adopted our vision.
5. Our users are loyal.

Regardless of their marketing we welcome Market Wire to the game.

As always, open for comments. -- David

PRWeb Hires Industry Veteran Stuart Dean as Senior VP of Sales

PRWeb, best known for revolutionizing the press release industry with search engine optimization of press releases and its patent-pending fully Web 2.0 enabled press release service, announces the hiring of Stuart Dean to head its direct sales team.               

"PRWeb's phenomenal success has been built almost entirely on word-of-mouth traffic," PRWeb Founder and CEO David McInnis said. "We have spent very little in marketing and nothing in sales since we started the company in 1997. Stuart will now carry our message to larger public companies and agencies to expand our growing portfolio of Fortune 500 companies."

Stuart Dean joins PRWeb following 18 successful years in the news and press release distribution business. Dean most recently served as Senior Vice President of Sales, Americas for PR Newswire, where he led the sales efforts among 24 offices and 150 sales personnel in the Americas.

Dean recognizes the importance of tapping online social networks.

"I am excited to be part of such a vibrant and rapidly growing company," he says. "It is clear the importance of reaching the online media and working with new social networks has never been greater. PRWeb is a visionary company, pioneering technologies and building a platform to help companies and agencies improve their visibility with this important global audience."

A high resolution Photo of Stuart Dean available at PRWeb Photowire http://prwebphotowire.com/releases/imid636.htm

Contact David McInnis by email here extrahoop.com/david

Your PR and Web Usability

There is a press release on today's PRWeb front page that also stresses the importance of not leading your reader or customer astray.

Sigmund Freud on Web Usability? discusses the short attention span of Web users.

"They are on your site voluntarily and aren’t willing to take the time to 'figure it out'," the folks at VKI Studios point out. "Functions must be more than self-explanatory; they must be self-evident. Frustrate your visitors with an awkward interface, and they’ll be gone in seconds. Delight them with an enjoyable experience, and you can turn those visitors into loyal customers."

Where do I buy this? The importance of good landing page design.

Today I was reviewing press releases at PRWeb and found the following release Modera Assists Estonian Number One Popstar Become Global Internet Hit.  I followed the link the the web sites provided.  Where do I purchase her music?  It is actually pretty good stuff.  Easy to listen to while I am working.  Perhaps I just do not understand how the music stuff works; but then again, I shouldn't be required to understand the inner workings of the music industry to be able to purchase music.  Right?

Let's go another direction.  Perhaps I just could not find the right link when I clicked through.  Landing pages should not be Easter egg hunts for the media.  Poorly thought out landing pages are a firewall between you, the media and your consumers.  (Okay, I admit it.  I am a bit guilty here because it is easy to run short on time.  In fact I just made this error in my latest press release.)

I really like Hannah and hopefully someone can point me to a place I can purchase her music.  I cannot find it on iTunes.

Modera, you are doing a great job getting the word out about Hannah, now please tell me where I can make a purchase.

-- David

PRWeb Opens Content to Podcasters - What does this mean?

In the most simplest of terms, PRWeb is allowing visitors to take sound bites or entire podcast episodes and roll them into their own podcast and or CGM (Consumer Generated Content) productions.  This is actually great news for the podcast community which is constantly on the prowl for ideas and content to fill talk show formats.  Our entire archive past and present is available for their sampling.

Let us know  how you are using the podcasts.  (This is not a requirement but we do find it interesting.)

Enjoy. -- David

RSS Adoption Studies

Several weeks ago I was at lunch with a very smart person.  She asked me what I thought of Yahoo's latest RSS adoption study.  I asked her to watch my blog for my response.  So here it is. 

I want to call an end to RSS adoption studies.  They're just plain silly.   To start with, we cannot even determine what to call RSS within the tech-savvy community.  Is it Rich Site Summary, Real Simple Syndication or the newer Really Simple Stealing? 

But regardless of what you call it, RSS is still used in too many places where its usage is transparent to the casual Internet user.  I know this because PRWeb feeds show up on tens of thousand of sites in their rendered format.  When users visit these sites they are not exposed to raw RSS XML code, but rather, to a nicely formatted display of press release content. 

Does this make a reader any less an RSS consumer than someone reading news through an RSS reader?  I don’t think so.  Any movement to measure RSS adoption should be, at a minimum, an attempt to measure the amount of blogs and Web sites that render RSS on behalf of their visitors.  If anyone knows of such a study, do me a favor and post it below in the comments to this blog post.

The bottom line is, we all are consumers of RSS whether we know it or not.  Just because we do not always see the raw file does not mean that file wasn’t used when the page was rendered.  Attempting to measure adoption of RSS in today’s environment is akin to attempting to measure the adoption of HTML, JPEG or PNG.

RSS and ROI

I recently participated in a roundtable discussion on RSS where some of the discussion centered on the measurement and ROI of RSS.   I voiced my opinion during that discussion and feel the need to share my thoughts here as well.  First, I don’t know where the notion first started that you should be able to measure ROI on everything.  But someone should find those people and give them a big spanking.

I am reminded of a keynote speech given several years ago by Doc Searls at the very first Syndicate Conference in NYC.  At the time, he postulated that not everything needs a business model.  He gave several examples of things that we use every day in our business or personal lives that do not have business models associated with them.  For instance, our parking lot does not have a business model.  A toothbrush does not have a business model. The absence of a business model does not mean that these items are unnecessary just because you cannot tie them back to ROI.  Bravo, Doc.

I feel the same way about RSS. Trying to measure ROI on RSS is silly; it's like trying to measure the ROI of your HTML or JPEG.  While all these things are ingredients used to build platforms that can have ROI attached to them, they do not have any ability to generate ROI in and of themselves.  I am not saying that properly implemented RSS strategies cannot improve the bottom line for your company.  They can, and we are seeing this every day.  Offering information to your users in alternative formats is always a good idea.  If in doing this you generate cost savings or build your brand, you have impacted your bottom line.

We have taken this approach at PRWeb, and are the RSS leaders in our industry.  Why, because we were convinced that we could measure ROI?  No.  We made the investment for one simple reason.  Providing your content to consumers in their preferred format is always the right thing to do.