Know what’s being said about you and where. Check your reputation. They can manage negative comments for a price;  you can see where you and your company are listed for free.  They can also help you correct all the bad info out there. You’d be surprised what comes up. I did a search and one source had me working for a company I know, but have never worked for. Another client is battling outdated info. Some sources have her business location that’s been inaccurate for more than 10 years!

There are tons of review sites: Google Places, Yelp, Consumer Reports, AngiesList and hundreds more. They can be related to service, trips, professionals, teachers, the list is endless. Then several business sites such as Amazon.com and CraigsList also have review options. Your name and reputation could be anywhere. Know it. Check it regularly.

If your business is getting less than stellar or 5 star ratings, here are a few recommendations on how to address:

1. If there is a system problem, fix it. Make sure cleaning staff have maps to location. Call two days ahead to confirm date and time and location for service or reservation. Address the scheduling needs for the client. Whatever it is that leads to the common complaints, address. It’s amazing how a poor tracking system or timing can impact customer service.
2. If there was a lack of clarity for coupon test services like Groupon, be sure to clarify the expectations for any further patrons. Sometimes the expectations aren’t clear and so the client gets disappointed
3. Reach out to every client on the bad reviews, assuming you can identify them and offer a  compensation for their service challenges. Either another stay, a free meal, something to try to make it work.
4. Take advantage of using the owners comment section to indicate how you were willing to fix this situation. You should apologize on each one and not leave them hanging. DO NOT ARGUE as the owners response. If you disagree with their assessment, don’t say so on a public comment. That just starts a disagreement war and you’ll lose. Perception is key; they didn’t like the service, doesn’t matter what went wrong. I’d use language to the effect:“ We are sorry you experienced service that didn’t meet your expectations. We have improved our follow up system and are providing staff clear directions. We are adjusting our schedule to address delays. We want you to be satisfied with your  service and are willing to make it up to you if you’ll give us a chance.” If they take you up on it, you may or may not salvage a client. But if you at least show you are willing to try, anyone else reading the review can take that into account.
   1. Don’t use the exact same language on each, address the biggest concern and tell them how you’d like to fix it.
   2. Contact the review site directly. Check if they filtered” positive comments; if the positives are legitimate, then ask the review site to put them up. Understand that if you get friends to put up comments all on the same day as the negative, that can be filtered.
   3. If any of the  negative reviews aren’t accurate or you have a different perception of what actually happened you can actually challenge the review with most review sites—but you may not be successful.

It’s tough to please clients. You might also consider sending each client a follow up email after their service and ask for a review on the site you preferand provide them to the link. You could do this every Friday or something. Make it easy. Send it to the clients who love your work and your staff at first. But get in the habit of sending to all clients; checking the reviews and RESPONDING to them—good or bad.

Just remember to always respond to negatives. Try to make it right. Get in the habit of seeking positive comments. Pay attention to what’s being said about you. It matters. It’ll save your reputation.

Without debating the merits of the SGK decision, as a Public Relations practitioner, it’s an amazing case study. First it’s a study in how not to sabotage your own organization by succumbing to internal and external pressures to change the mission of the organization. Kivi Leroux Miller did an excellent non-partisan job of covering this issue in her article The Accidental Rebranding of Komen for the Cure.

Komen changed their position after three days of unprecedented response from women and men across the country. Who knows how many thousands of people across the country weighed in nationally, locally and across every platform imaginable. The social media viralness contributed to the three day ordeal for Komen. Clearly SGK was not prepared for the tsunami of response and show how NOT to respond to a crisis of your own making. They threw a sponsor under the bus but posting a new corporate sponsor during the crisis. Whether Energizer battery intends to stick with is its sponsorship remains to be seen.And women are pissed off. Reversing the decision has opened a big problem with financials investigated, prior relationships investigated. “Pinkwashing is now a verb in the lexicon for long time detractors of Komen. Locals are finding rebuke from former volunteers not willing to do races. Sponsors not willing to connect to ‘controversial’ entities are not willing to offer race locations. And through all this the fight against breast cancer must go on.

Other groups exist to fight cancer, and breast cancer specifically. It is going to take decades for SGK to recover from their 3 days of not understanding their audience, not understanding the connection women feel to Planned Parenthood and not having a crisis communication plan in place to address their ongoing challenges. Breast cancer wins over women’s health because of the political debate. May be get back to the focus of making women’s health a priority and not political or religious debate.

Locally chapters are left relatively to their own devices on mending relationships with local donors and volunteers. Women are mad at these attacks and the politicization of women’s health. SGK failed to recognize: while one in eight women contract breast cancer, one in five uses Planned Parenthood in her life time. One percent of annual 200,000 diagnoses of breast cancer happens in men, but Komen doesn’t provide access to services or screening to men. One percent of the nearly 5 million patients at Planned Parenthood are male.

One client hopes to actually use the offer to train a staff person. But health issues and client influx ( a good problem to have) prevent this client from taking advantage of the offer. A second client hoped to delegate the role to a family member in the business. But scheduling, prioritizing a free service,not fully being able to delegate because of obligations and skills has prevented this client from participating. The third client is finding that prioritizing the biggest key-so the coaching has gone in fits and starts.

For the business client with both retail and service we started with breaking down the everest of planning into rolling hills to overcome week by week. Our work is helping the client determine which elements to start, flesh out till  proficient, and what to add. Prioritizing the marketing approaches likely to bring effective marketing with the time resources.

Start with your website. Make it current, interesting, able to capture contact and using key words and content worth sharing.

Second work the lists you have. Updates need to go to clients-either via email, direct mail, social media, texting–whatever your channels. But talk to your clients. Give them a call to action-make them your sales force, while keeping your business top of mind.

Expand to find new audiences–could be social media, publicity, traditional media, events–all depends on the audience and time/resources of the business.

Coaching helps do a couple of things: create deadlines and accountability; and it helps justify when its time to delegate or outsource. Coaching helps you determine the plan and figure out how to realistically accomplish marketing when you are a small business owner.

MCASwiki picture. Site no longer updated.

To find out what your clients want, sometimes the best thing to do is ask them. Take advantage of the survey options available. You can go to online tools like such as Survey Monkey or Zoomerang. Depending on budget you can mail, do phone, in person.

Celebrity Solstice photo from Gran Caneria, in no way related to the Costa line or tragedy

Likely you’ve seen the news and know about cruise ship Costa Concordia. You know, the Italian cruise where the captain used his ship to play chicken with the coastline, abandoned ship (oops, fell into the life boat) and tragically more than 30 people are missing  or dead.This tragedy has impacted a variety of businesses.

In my Pilates class, several friends are taking advantage of the “huge discounts” all cruise ships are offering to counter cancelled trips. The cruise line industry is feeling the repercussion of one incompetent captain, creating a public relations crisis they didn’t make and have no control over.

The Washington Post blog by Melissa Bell talks about the poor timing of an American Express direct mail piece suggesting the recipient “immerse” in the Mediterranean cruise experience aboard the…you guessed it Costa Concordia. The Amex advert was offering a $50 onboard credit for the end of February/early March cruise. Talk about timing. Now Amex is dealing with a public relations crisis, again that they didn’t create.

If the travel industry is on its game they’ll be sharing blogs and social media posts, direct mail and email conversations with their patrons about the safety records of their ships and captains, and generally addressing the concerns in addition to the incentives.

American Express if its on its game will also address the situation. I couldn’t find any media statements or comments on their website or Twitter account about cruises, their safety or their recommendations. May be you can.

You’re a small business and you know there are dozens of public relations marketing options for your business, even as you confess you aren’t sure what public relations marketing IS. And you want to get your arms around this social media thing. And how do you find time for it all without running around like a chicken with your head cut off?

For those living in the Reno Nevada area, I’m hosting a workshop on just how to tame herd those chickens and determine the right public relations marketing mix for your ideal client. For those not in the area, we’ll be recording and selling the recording shortly after-so look for it. Can help small business owners, board members for professional group in charge of “marketing”; non profit staff having to do it all with no ad budget, transitioning journalists who are now doing public relations in house.

Information

Saturday, Jan 28th, 2012
$149 per person

The seminar price includes refreshments, all seminar materials and an individual assessment of current PR practices. Class runs from 9:30-11:30 am. The course will cover target audience, situation analysis, uses of the most common public relations tools: (customer relations, networking, social media and social networking (and what’s the difference), publicity, media relations. Includes an assessment tool for current practices and how to evaluate. Sign up here

1. First write a business plan–or update it if you have one on a shelf. You can buy my friend Erica Olsen’s book. Can’t bother with a book, try her online program to help you keep track. Whatever it takes, make a plan and review it regularly.
2. Target your audience. Really dig deep in their demographics-age, gender, marital status, everything you can figure out. Then figure out what their lifestyle is. Then figure out what motivates them to buy what you offer. If you have clients it’s easy to engage them. If you are starting up a business you need to research the possibilities and check competition.
3. Next flesh out the marketing plan. Know just how much networking, customer relations, social media, publicity, events, media relations, etc you need to reach the clients on your plan.
4. Invest in list management.You need a place to put your leads and a way to communicate. Ideally you move beyond the capability of the 50-100 limited emails you can send with your personal email. You need at least 5 times as many people to talk to so you can get the “yes” sales you need. That’s a lot to track. We use iContact. Also recommend Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. There are others–find what is most user friendly to you.
5. Work your customers. Best sales force is word-of-mouth. Best way to get positive WOM is to talk to your customers. Stay connected. Offer them value. Engage them into your company-you know, like a relationship. Not a hook up.
6. Focus your business growth on what you do best-not on the 10% that you suck at. We spend so much time trying to fix that last percent of what’s broken–and will never get fixed–rather than build the best thing into the superlative thing.Focus on what you love or are best at.You’ll grow even more.
7. Make things easy for your clients. Whether its sending them reminders about their appointments or offering to drop materials off at their work site–whatever it is you can do to make their lives easier do.
8. Make time for sales and marketing. You spend 40 hours a week making the product or doing the service. It’s best if you sell it.
9. Delegate what you can’t get done. Building on the fact that you should be the primary sales force, what can you delegate to others? Bookkeeping? Marketing and public relations? Being in the store? Remember focus on your favorite element for your own pleasure and then delegate–enlist family or hire staff or outsource some services.
10. Play it forward. You’ll really reap more if you give to prospects and share with others than if you are stingy with your time.
11. Make sure your marketing outreach materials are current. When is the last time you updated your website? Your handouts? If you pulled everything together and put samples on a board can you tell it’s the same company or does it look like you picked up an assortment–if visually it doesn’t look the same, you need to do some branding.
12. Stuck? Hire a coach. Coaches can help you puzzle through what blocks you; train you on beginning steps; help you break down a giant project into manageable pieces. They also can provide the accountability you might need to meet deadlines. Not to mention the encouragement. Solo-preneurs definitely need that sounding board. And we can help you with that.

Whenever you have a gathering for your business, don’t forget the photographer. Doesn’t matter if its a networking event, a fundraiser, board retreat, business opening, new product–be sure to take pictures.

Ideally you use a professional photographer; when you can afford to, do it. They are skilled at capturing the right moments, recognizing the lighting and working with what’s available, they can manipulate the picture or know what frames well in a picture. Tips like not wearing name badges, or wires above your heads, or shadows across faces–all skills a keen photographer’s eye can capture.

When working with a photographer, try to think in advance what you want to DO with the pictures. Annual report? Submitting people shots to the local news people-watching column?This is an excellent option for publicity–sometimes you can promote your business if you’ve hosted an event and just submit pictures of the attendees. Get the media requirements for this–typically you can submit photos from an iphone if the quality is good.

Write up a check list of those kinds of shots you need-shots of happy kids, active shots of business interactions, people mingling.

Negotiate the ownership of the pictures. Many photographers will sell you all the shots; some may only sell use of the artwork for a period of time. There’s valid reasons for both, just know your options.

If you can’t afford a photographer, you can still take pictures–and should. All these shots can be taken–it’s often just remembering to bring the camera or assign someone to use it during the event.

We are a visual society. The more you can add graphics, especially pictures of real things the better for your blog, Facebook posts, annual reports, investor reports, publicity submission. Click away!

The first recommendation is to send emails out in the evening so that they arrive first thing in the morning in the “inbox”. Middle of the day the reader is likely to put off for another few days. As you probably guess many of us open our emails first thing in the morning.

Second is plan your strategy. Your content should match and a theme of information should be consistent in your communications, from emails to blogs, from website updates to social media.

Third is to understand the calendar and “hook” accordingly. For example. lots of non-profits make a final, year-end pitch as people consider their tax write-offs. But they wait till the last day of the year. That fell on Saturday for 2011; hopefully most of you pushed for the final letter (and social media and email, etc) to drop on the last Monday of the year to give people time to give. The same attention should be paid for businesses. January is resolution month, if you’re in the fitness or healing arts you should be sending info and deals out. February can be presidential or romance or Black History, if any of that resonates with your business and clients, start planning Now.

The fourth tip refers to who you send to–we call it “working your list”. In your list of donors, activists or clients you have people that consistently support your non-profit or small business. Certainly you need to interact with them–treat them as the VIPs they are=make them an offer, send thanks, but let them know they are appreciated. But don’t forget the “maybes”. It’s time to start connecting to the people who you haven’t really. Send a survey or better still call them individually and inquire what they like about the company, why they signed up on an email, what can you offer that they aren’t seeing. Connect. And keep connecting.

Hoping your New Year is prosperous and that your public relations are planned, implemented and measured.

Young Riley noticed and articulated what is wrong with most marketing practices and highlights our cultural failings around gender roles in one small video.

From a public relations marketing perspective, her rant against the ‘all pink’ trick is something marketers (as in those who devise and focus group test the products) need to heed. As a culture we have a responsibility to create toys that generate more than princess syndrome for little girls. Not all children, regardless of gender, fit into the same box. Not all 40 year old women do either–there are 40 year old grandmothers, 40 year old new moms and 40 year old highly successful single women with no desire to parent. We can no longer market merely by age and gender. Instead we need to focus our products on LIFESTYLE and what consumer behaviors are.

As small business owners, we likely make products that we love–but not all our customers will look  like us. And that’s something to take into account.

In Riley’s case, we need to figure out if our target plays with dolls or super heroes or both. And if they play with either, what colors do they prefer–or are they color blind (figuratively or literally)?

The packaging and advertising needs to target our audience, but not to the exclusion of those who might be interested in the product if we don’t over market to one segment. Princesses could come in a rainbow of colors. Princesses can be superheros. And superheros come in a variety of colors. This is the balance for all products and services and takes self control for small business owners. Not all sports or hunting fans are men; not all home decor designers are women or focus on women. And some girls don’t want to be tricked into pink princesses-they’d rather have a super hero.