A few years ago I had the chance to visit the public relations department of the world’s largest IT outsourcing organization headquartered in Plano, Texas. I was thoroughly impressed with the knowledge and expertise of the people I talked to in their PR department and the structure of the department itself. They had people dedicated to the various vertical markets they provided services for, in addition to corporate PR, internal PR and of course investor relations.

After a few hours of discussions about all areas of PR, I found it interesting that not once did they mention marketing, nor, most importantly, integrated marketing communications. When I brought it up, the PR experts (and I don’t use that term “experts” loosely…they truly are experts in every sense of the way) sitting in front of me said they did not deal with marketing. In fact, the departments were organized such that marketing was on one end of the building, while they occupied the other end of the building. In other words, they had nothing to do with each other.

I left impressed with their PR team and efforts, but just shaking my head at the thought that they had no interaction with marketing at all. Despite their success and phenomenal powerhouse position in the industry and on Wall Street, imagine how much STRONGER and PROFITABLE they could be if they had an integrated marketing effort?

Integrated marketing communications is paramount in building and reinforcing your branding. A consistent message and voice – written, visual and verbal – will ensure that your message is never diluted, but remains strong. As you communicate the same message over and over again on your web site, in your collateral, during your sales presentations, internal to your employees, on the trade show floor and in a magazine article, you’ll find that your message is stronger and becomes more recognized. Think about a TV commercial song: it plays on TV, then on the radio, on the web…and the message is even pulled into ads, on packaging and in promotions at the store. You start to recognize it, and remember it. And if it’s a strong message, you’ll remember not only the company, but the product or service its offering.

So, while the bigger corporations may be able to get away with their PR and marketing teams not working together, don’t rely on a “mish mash” of press releases, brochures and a web site that don’t have a consistent message. Because if you do, you won’t be able to successfully grow your business or increase your sales.

Instead, think integrated. That’s your key to successful branding.

~ Deb Decker

a, b, c

Do you own or work for a company that is making things happen in the Dallas – Ft. Worth market? If so we want to tell your story on our blog. Rather then just focus on ourselves at Franklin Spirko, we want to be a resource for the entire market place.

To learn more about our Dallas Business News program just visit our Contributors Page for more information,

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: dallas business, fort worth business, ft worth business, press resources, business news

I run a blog called ComTech News that I started a few years ago that has a pretty good readership at this point. I discuss a lot of technology stuff there but 80% or more is about Internet Marketing, Blogging, SEO or similar topics. About 4 months ago I did a post about Donald Trump’s blog where I was how shall we say, less then kind about it.

The post was never really about Trump or meant to be negative in any way about him or his organization. It was really for my readers (many of whom are Corporate Marketers) to understand a fundamental mistake that many companies are making today. That is blogging with out real “voice” and putting to much “sales speak” into blogging. The reality was there were some great posts on the Trump blog (Trump’s personal ones were great) but these mistakes were being made as well. I only used the Trump blog as an example because it was very well known and I felt it would make my readers more willing to admit their own mistakes.

Then something happened I never expected, several members of the blog team showed up, and opened up a discussion with me on my blog. Needless to say the discussion was a bit warm (not heated but warm). I did my best at that point to explain my criticism and do what ever I could to suggest improvements to what was currently being done. I also then posted a follow up post pointing out the many things Trump’s team was doing right. Over time we developed a relationship and just last week we signed a consulting agreement with Trump University to help them with things like improving rankings and conversions for their real estate training and wealth creation training programs.

Now let me be clear this is not the direct path I would suggest for finding new clients! In fact if I had the whole thing to do over again I would have tempered my words a bit, yet to me there are a few real lessons here.

1. Smart business people appreciate honesty so long as you have a solution to match the problems you point out.

2. Blogging indeed is worth doing, for our relatively new company to have landed a client with this level of name recognition with a phone call or by conventional sales means would have been very unlikely.

3. Companies do pay attention to what is being said about them, so be careful what you said about who.

4. When a person responds to your blog posting it is good practice to take the time to answer their questions, concerns and points fully and with a sincere desire to be helpful, even if the discussion did not start off on the best foot.

5. When you are willing to help others sooner or later it all tends to come back to you.

So while again I do not recommend that you go out and point out faults publicly on your blog of major companies in hopes of landing business with them I think there is much to be learned from the process that took place here. The real relationship with Trump’s team came after the post. It came with free advice, several somewhat consultative phone calls and a clear message that we would never let them down as a client, yet it started with a far from conventional blog post.

If you would like to see the initial post, the follow up comments and my second post you can view them here,

Initial Post

Follow Up Post

One thing is for certain we are very happy to be working with such a world class organization and brand and will be doing all we can to improve traffic and conversion for our new partner.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: blog marketing, blogging, social media, web 2.0, franklin spirko, internet marketing

I just learned about a new social networking website for Real Estate Professionals known as Active Rain.  At Frank Spirko Media we have several industries we really want to be deeply involved in and the Real Estate market is one of them.

While the network is limited to Real Estate Professionals I joined under the category “Real Estate – Other”.  I see our company a supplier to the Real Estate and Property Management Industries.  As such I want our staff to better understand the needs of the industry.   I think that every company should work hard to find a few vertical industries where they can do far more then just make money.  You should find a few industries you have tremendous respect for that you can feel good about helping.  Then seek to give first and let the business that comes from such relationships just happen.

~ Jack Spirko