I am quite sure that the title of this blog is a little off beat but stay with me for a second… I realized the other day that fleas have a very strong strategy after doing a little homework on them due to one of my animals having them and I have been in full on warfare with the fleas ever since.

If we took the flea approach to business management we would discover many valid points related to a strong business strategy and operational management discipline. So here are the flea’s rules of engagement:

1. Persist – Never, ever, ever give up. The name of the game for any business owner or any person in business for that matter is sheer persistence. Persist on a given target no matter what the obstacle is and you WILL achieve your goals. Fleas persist and persist and persist, putting their enemy into apathy and winning small victory after small victory until their opponent is defeated and most likely moves or burns their house down.
2. Growth – Focus on ways you can grow, always. How can you expand your company, expand your team and spread your reach as far as possible. Always focus on aggressive growth targets and never contract. Strength in numbers. More staff, more clients, more market share, more awareness, more PR, promotion, advertising, etc. Fleas always grow and spread until they have dominated and taken over the desired territory.
3. Speed – Do it fast! Don’t hesitate for anything. Don’t delay decisions. Make fast decisions and even faster actions. Speed is the secret to your expansion. Slow actions relate to slow thinking and a slow company that gets sluggish. Be fast, use speed as your ally and be nimble. Fleas don’t hesitate to pounce on their target; they move fast and grow fast, quickly taking over what was once a virgin territory to attain their victory.
4. Attack your targets – Focus on what your targets or goals are and attack them head on. Don’t get distracted. Write them down and focus on what you are exactly going after. Be relentless with your targets until they are attained and checked off. Fleas focus on what they are going after and attack with ferocity in numbers to completely take over the target (cat or dog).
5. Become resistant to attacks – Develop a level of immunity. Don’t let attacks on you bother you or hurt your momentum. It’s all business and part of the game. You will get attacks from competition or unreasonable complaints from a few clients or other means of attack. Don’t let them phase you. Become resistant and continue to grow and expand regardless of the attacks. This will knock your enemies into complete apathy which will allow you to grow more. Fleas become incredibly resistant to sprays or shampoos or anything for that matter that tries to stop them.
6. Work in teams – Always work in teams. Work well and coordinate with your team. Business is a sport – treat it that way. Build your teams, encourage your teams and develop your team skills. Take your targets down as a team. Make sure your entire team understands and acknowledges the agreed upon goals and works together toward them. Fleas are experts at working in teams that build and build until they have completely taken over the target.

Here is to a prosperous 2010 with a flawless application of the flea management principals.

Cheers,
Robert Cornish
CEO
Richter10.2 Media Group

A few months ago I had a question about the Internet and so I did a little research and read the entire Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

It was a great experience since I deal with the Internet every single day, as do most of us.

I have found over and over that many people have mixed up concepts, mistaking the Web for the Internet or just generally don’t have a full concept of what it is and how it works.

My advice to you is to take the time to read the entire Wikipedia page about the Internet. It will dramatically improve your understanding of it and help clear up any concepts you had that may have been inaccurate.

-Robert Cornish

Happy Holidays from the team at Richter10.2 Media Group!

When pondering the question….. “I could hire a firm or do it myself in-house….” the thing that immediately pops to my mind is reality. While you may be thinking …. gee … I could save a few bucks if I had some of my staff handle this “in-house” … here are a couple points to consider:

- What is the learning curve?

- Who is going to handle it and aren’t they already busy doing what they should be doing?

- If you hire someone, what is the ramp up, how much will it cost, and is it comparable?

The reality is that while many things sound like a good idea to “handle in-house” – you most likely will way under-estimate the time and money involved.

You should always spend your time and money on your core competency only – which is whatever it is that you do best. The other stuff should be left to specialists like accounting firms, public relations agencies, ad agencies, etc. Why work harder when you can work smarter?

Be realistic when looking at initiatives within your company and estimate the situations correctly before making bad decisions related around the “idea” of saving money. It’s easier to pay the money and spend your time making more money anyway. Don’t waste precious time and resources on initiatives that you really shouldn’t be spending any time on.

-Robert Cornish

It’s that time of year again when companies frantically try to wrap up sales, collect income and push statistics for the year end bonuses, expenses and overall revenue numbers. Although it is such an important time of year, consistently I have found companies to become slow and lazy around this time. They seem to be hard to reach and have developed a bad case of procrastination… The line “We will look into this after the new year…” seems to come up all too frequently.

Now is the time to promote! Get the word out and get in front of your target market fast! Saving all of your money and not spending money is not a strategy! Your focus should be on how to get in front of your target market audience to stay on their radar and close deals like crazy before the end of the year. Your company, your people and the entire economy is dependent upon large amounts of production, sales and revenue around this time of year, so my strong recommendation is for you to promote. Promote your brand, promote your company, promote your products and services, promote in order to get new reaches, new sales and new revenue before the year is out.

If you have been operating in lazy mode or procrastination mode, my advice is to knock it off, pull up the socks and get into action now! While you wait for next year… there are thousands of companies and people making it happen now… this year!
Happy Holidays!

-Robert Cornish

While there are many talented, smart and creative people and firms out there for PR, Advertising and Marketing I have found that many have deviated off course from what the job truly is, what the goals really are and what the clients really need.

Creative ideas and bright ideas are absolutely vital however, they must push forward the end goal – sales and revenue. In this day and age this is not a nice thing to have, it’s a must. That sounds like a simple thing to say and a common and basic knowledge but I see examples everyday that are clearly off-course and not forwarding client goals.

Here’s an examples:

A Facebook widget or video game – look, I like to have fun as much as the next guy and I am guilty of downloading a game or two on my iPhone for sure but here’s the thing… what is the clear goal for the Facebook Game? How are you measuring it? Are you getting reach, interest, sales? There were many many many bright ideas during the 1995-97 period for dot com companies and ideas that sounded cool which distracted millions from the actual goals of what a company must do – which is produce sales of their product or service and generate revenue. It’s not a negotiable point.

The job of any PR agency, marketing firm or advertising agency is simple – create an idea, execute a strategy and communicate with the clients target public audience in order to make the client known to them, create interest and generate actual reach that can be used to assist the sales team and further the company growth and revenue. That’s it! If you have been sold on something other than this, well then they probably are creative geniuses but they are not serving your best interest.

Now is the time to get back to basics while the shift of traditional media continues to become less effective and new media is the vital way to communicate with the massive audiecne that is online using the interest that is now intertwined into every aspect of their lives from laptops to iphones. We must focus on people, relationships, what they need and want and how to communciate with them, service them better and build, cultivate and nurture those relationships in order to generate long term clients.

If you focus on the audience and the clear goals of your company to drive sales and revenue your PR, Marketing or Advetrising efforts will be dramatically improved. Don’t lose sight of the goal. Every tweet should have the goal in mind. Every facebook post should reflect the goal. Every blog article, press release, banner ad, video, photo gallery etc should have the goal clearly in mind and being systematically executed.

-Robert Cornish

Richter10.2 Media Group

http://www.richter10point2.com

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystalflickr/190713106/

The concept of attention is a drastically underestimated element in most companies, CEO’s and business people’s mind. While gauging ROI for a given promotional strategy be it marketing, advertising or PR, many people fail to take into account the power of attention and what that means to the company and why it is absolutely an intrinsic value item that must be looked at to calculate ROI.

The amount of attention a company can attract will directly relate to how well that company does. To the degree that you have “heard of” a company will dictate how well they are doing.

Have you ever heard of GE? How about Virgin? Geico? BMW? They all get a huge amount of attention for their brands. They are all a “heard of” quantity. Yet I speak to companies daily that won’t allocate funds to their brand and attention in order to become a “heard of” quantity because they can’t figure out the ROI. The fact is that their target public audience may need or want their products or services right this second but – they have never “heard of them”. These companies are failing to get a sufficient amount of attention in order to become a known quantity.

Get attention and you will gain clients, customers and revenue, period.

You can never get enough attention. It’s something that must be pushed and expanded week after week. Your public audience needs to know about you. They need to “hear about you”. If they don’t, it will be rather difficult to cultivate new business.

The amount of attention you are attracting will affect your bottom-line. Get the word out! Put your company in the spotlight.

The ways to do this are unlimited with the internet these days. Here are a few ideas:

- Social Media
- Blogs
- Videos
- Press Releases
- Photos
- Events
- Twitter
- Status Updates
- Comments
- Websites
- Bookmarking
- RSS Feeds
- Advertisements
- Recommendations
- Mobile Apps
- Communities

To the degree that you are failing to fully utilize the above, you are missing or losing business and hurting your bottom-line revenue.

Make a point to expand the attention you get week after week and watch your sales and revenue grow

http://richter10point2.com

As a company, we recently gathered and combined all of the frequently asked questions about new media PR and social media we are commonly asked and composed the answers.

We have found there is a lot of confusion among companies on the use of social media, what the ROI is and how a company can effectively leverage these tools as a strategy to improve their bottom-line.

Here are the answers to the questions -

What is Social Media?
Social Media is a coined term describing the websites, content and user experience involved with sites like myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube, wordpress, linkedin and other online platforms that revolve around interaction between users. Whereas information used to be a one way flow online (the “web surfer” reading page content or watching videos and looking at photos), Social Media thrives on users interacting with each other and with the author of the page or site’s content.

How can Social Media help my business?
Never in history has there been such a massive treasure trove of millions of people’s personal preferences, interests, hobbies and demographic information captured and organized and easy to browse. The “shotgun” approach of sending your message out far and wide and hoping it sticks with the right people is now being replaced with the laser targeted method of reaching out only to those individuals who are most likely to need and want your company’s products and services. Even while traditional media is shrinking and people are finding ways to aggressively and successfully avoid traditional marketing methods, social media is expanding exponentially, and if you work with professionals to position your company and your offerings properly, there is an opportunity to connect with your target demographic in ways never seen before.

Ok, I’ll bite…What services do you provide?
A complete list of our products and services in easy to watch, short video format can be found at http://richter10point2.com/buildyourown. By filling out the form at the bottom of the page letting us know the particular services you’re interested in, we can customize our proposal to meet your specific needs.

What will a Social Media Press Kit do for me?
A Social Media Press Kit, or SMPK, is a fast, inexpensive and simple way to get your feet wet in the Social Media universe. It acts as a virtual business card, a sales and information platform, and a launching pad for your comprehensive presence on the web. Not only does our design team brand and build your SMPK around your company, but we do the same thing on five of the world’s largest social media sites, giving you everything you need to start taking advantage of all social media has to offer.

Isn’t Social Media just for kids with too much time?
This may have been the case a few years ago, but there has been a sea change in the way people communicate. For a quick and entertaining look at this phenomenon, feel free to watch the short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

I do web marketing. How is this different?
Marketing is, by definition, a one way direction of promotional activity, getting information about your products and services into the hands of prospective clients. Web PR encompasses every aspect of how you look and are perceived online. Think of a large cocktail party. “Marketing” in this context would be a good looking business card handed out to anyone interested in your services. “Web PR”, to follow our analogy, would be choosing the tuxedo, getting a great haircut, showing up on time, remembering your hosts’ names and engaging in witty conversation to the point where offering up your business card is a natural progression rather than something abrupt and unprofessional. Most businesspeople operating in the Social Media universe are not making the effort of PR before they clumsily attempt to hand over that business card, with less than stellar results. Your virtual identity is fast becoming your most important identity. We help ensure, in every way, that your online presence is in lock step with your corporate image, your latest products and services, and your vision for your company as a whole.

What’s the difference between being on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and what Richter10.2 delivers?
The defining difference with Richter is that we go well beyond creating social media pages, adding content and adding fans. We dive into creating a comprehensive strategy that coordinates the various tools as a platform to communicate with a given audience with the intention of creating reaches from that audience that help our clients develop business and revenue.

We use social media as a platform to communicate and engage our clients’ target audience effectively. There are many, many ways to use these tools as a platform to communicate and open up business avenues if used effectively.

Social media is simply a platform to communicate, while PR is how that platform is used to build relationships, start conversations and cultivate reaches. A Ferrari stuck in a garage isn’t doing anyone much good. We not only build you a world class platform by hand but we actively use it to a professional standard on your behalf.

What exactly do you mean by “Web PR”?
Web PR is using the internet to make your company and your products, your services, and your good works well known using every available online medium. This can include your website (redesigned or built from the ground up), a comprehensive social media presence including text, video, photos, blogs, etc, optimized online press releases and any other medium currently employable by our creative team. For a video overview of our various offerings, simply go here: http://richter10point2.com/buildyourown

So what makes Richter’s strategy effective?
We develop a program that defines our clients’ goals and objectives, their target public audience and what the strategy will be. We come up with creative ideas to use social and new media as a platform to communicate with that audience and make it the most effective to attain the clients’ goals.

The difference between simply having a presence and executing a comprehensive, coordinated strategy is that a new media PR strategy works most effectively when all of the tools and platforms are used in coordination with one another.

The first keys are to identify a target public you are trying to attract, then specifically build a following and follow that given target public in return. From there you can start communicating with that target public audience to activate them, start buzz, gain interest and reach.

Here is an analogy between a traditional newspaper and new media:

Twitter is like a newspaper headline. A newspaper headline has always been the key element that grabs attention and causes someone to read more or buy the paper. So if one were to write the Twitter copy like a newspaper headline, to grab the attention of the target public and include a link to an article, press release or blog that discusses that topic further, this would be part of an effective strategy to attract interest.

A blog could be considered the newspaper article itself which provides interesting information and content that communicates to the reader (target public). From the blog our goal might be to get the reader to subscribe to the blog or to get them to reach further to go to the website. The blog might also have videos from YouTube or photos from Flickr to keep the reader’s interest and help to generate reach.

If the reader goes to the website, it should be new media like, which means engaging, simple and communicative. The website should have photos, crisp videos that communicate the company’s products or services and cause conceptual understanding and interest from the viewer. Ultimately the goal of the website is to cause an email reach or a telephone reach or instant message via Skype.

All of these new media tools would be coordinated with a comprehensive strategy to be in sync with one another…

If we were highlighting a product launch….

The blogs would be talking about it….
Twitter would have news headlines with links…
Flickr would have a photo storyboard demoing the product…
YouTube would have a trailer or teaser that is crisp and clear to explain the product…
A digital press release would be launched about it on Reuters, Google News, Yahoo News, etc, and distributed to the target public…
The Social Media Press Kits and Social Media Press Room would be updated with all news and information about the product…
The website would have the blogs, press release, videos, photos, etc, with the latest information about the product launch…
All of the status messages on all of the various sites would be a buzz about it causing comments, replies and interest….
All content, blogs, videos, status messages, news, photos, etc, would be coordinated with the Facebook fan page….

What the heck is Twitter?
Twitter is a “micro blog”, allowing you to post short messages frequently to your subscribers. The uses for this are as limitless as your imagination. Many businesses use it to broadcast short term specials, to make major announcements, or as a sort of “newspaper headline” with links to more detailed information on another site.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper if I got some kid to come and do this stuff for me?
Undoubtedly. You can also hand over your entire PR and marketing strategy to your niece or nephew and save a bundle. For obvious reasons, that’s not the approach we’d recommend. Given that social media is fast becoming an integral part of any major company’s PR and marketing strategy, hiring professionals to handle your presence is one of the smartest investments you can make in this incredible, emerging technology.

So why doesn’t it make sense to handle this “in-house” or with our marketing or traditional PR person?

We have found the 2 biggest problems our clients face are:

• While our clients want to use new media as a strategy and know it’s a vital space to be in, they typically don’t have the time to commit to what is required to pull off a successful strategy because they are BUSY with their regular day to day tasks.

• Secondly, because this medium is so new and changes so incredibly rapidly, they simply don’t have the know-how for what is needed to pull off an effective strategy, and neither do their in-house marketing or PR people.

Richter works based on a team strategy, which means we don’t have ONE person creating ideas, executing strategy and attaining your goals, we have our ENTIRE team comprised of press release people, bloggers and micro-bloggers, video people, photographers, social media developers and strategists, client liaisons, email managers, graphic designers, web developers, consultants… you get the idea….

One person cannot possibly handle and have talent and expertise in all areas…. which is why we have a team strategy.

With that said, if our clients tried to build an in-house team, the costs would out-weigh the benefits, amounting to around 3-10 times what it costs to be a client of ours.

What if I want to SEE what will be done before moving ahead?

While this may sound like a logical step before leaping in and becoming a Richter client, the facts are that Richter sells ideas and creativity as well as New Media PR know-how which is not a tangible item.

As an analogy, one wouldn’t approach an ad agency to have them do work for their company and ask to see the ad first before signing on with them. Obviously, the ad agency would not begin work without a client commitment.

We are happy to share case studies, examples of our work, our client list, etc. Investing in this emerging technology is a leap of faith on the part of any business. Our top priority is giving you the most thorough, professional presence possible online. It’s our passion, our creativity, and our ability to capture the spirit of each client’s products and services in a way that strikes a chord with their audience that sets the standard for what we consider to be a successful campaign.

How much are your services?
Everything we offer is 100% customized to the client. You will find us to be the opposite of “high pressure” salespeople. The most enjoyable part of our work is thoroughly getting to know each client and their business and coming up with the most creative, innovative ways to use Social Media and Web PR to improve the statistics of that business across the board. Feel free to contact us for a zero obligation quote: http://www.richter10point2.com/contact_us.asp

What kind of ROI can I expect?
The beauty of social media is that the statistical metrics of the work are built into the platform- you start with 20 contacts on Twitter and we build that up to 5000, etc. Social Media is not a 30 or 60 or 90 day marketing push that has a quick investment and a quick return. This is a paradigm shift in the way you find, reach out to, and interact with your customer base. We create the most comprehensive and professional presence possible using the most cutting edge online tools, and then we grow your networks organically over time. The uses of this platform and these networks of prospective clients are as limitless as your business model will allow, and the implications for improving customer service, launching new products and generally interacting with your clientele cannot be overstated. We have seen over and over again that clients who invest in this area see immediate spikes in web traffic, interest and ultimately reach from prospective clients. This is an investment you literally cannot afford to pass up. Businesses not making the effort in this medium now risk being relegated to the stone age in the next few years. Whether you work with a company like ours or not, for 99% of businesses out there, investing in Social Media is simply not optional.

Currently the marketing, PR and advertising world is experiencing one of the most dramatic evolutions over the past 100 – 200 years in what traditionally was tried and true methods.

I am not sure too many people and professionals fully understand this. I deal with many companies, CEO’s and CMO’s on a daily basis and across the board there seems to be some level of awkwardness and discomfort with the rapid changes.

Over the past 100 to 200 years there have been very workable and fundamental ideas related to how marketing, PR and advertising basically worked and reached a specific audience. There were specific rules and methods to execute strategies that had workable formulas such as positioning, how to write ad copy, how to grab attention via posters, billboards and TV commercials etc. Basic marketing fundamentals like what the typical percent of response will be from a marketing campaign via direct mail etc.

While all these methodologies worked extremely well all the way up to close to now, unbelievably…. they no longer do. These methods and ideas have run their course and have essentially gone through the stages of infancy from the beginning idea to maturity to dated and now obsolete. It’s incredible to even think about and seasoned professionals clearly seem uncomfortable about it. Speaking to an experienced CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who wants to still work off of and hang on to these old ideas can be rather frustrating as they try to apply something that is obsolete to a new way of thinking.

So what is relevant?

With New Media (social media etc) the way to communicate and engage an audience is different. It’s a conversation. It’s on-going and most of how the audience wants to be reached or is receptive to is being decided by the audience – not the marketing, advertising or PR firm. This is a very authentic and transparent approach. We aren’t trying to “spin” a story, we aren’t trying to scream a message and button word at the audience to get a response and we aren’t trying to have the audience see a message 7-9 times so they will “act”. So what are we trying to do?

We are focused on using new media tools (social media) as a platform to communicate with a specific target audience geared toward your company and use PR to build relations (relationships) with that target audience in order to spark conversations, increase word of mouth, generate buzz and result in interest and reach for the companies products or services via acceptance from that target audience.

We are authentically reaching out to get involved with the audience and make a company known to them to build awareness, brand loyalty and stay on the target audiences radar to in turn increase the sales and revenue.

I am sure you would agree that people are more inclined to do business with companies the 1. Know 2. Like 3. Feel Comfortable With 4. Trust 5. Have a Relationship

Think this through for a second, think of a company you do business with or a person you do business with and then think about why? I am betting it’s because you know them or have a relationship with them or you personally like them or trust them. These ideas are the very essence of why new media (social media) is so powerful. It aligns with the basic way people buy and how sales typically occur.

Now I am not at all talking about spamming people on social media sites or being the “salesperson” that annoys everyone on facebook! The idea here is to make it natural and in a PR way that encompasses engagement, conversations, building new connections, making yourself known and ultimately building real relationships from a given target audience that is desirable to your company that will result in interest and reach for the company and therefore sales and revenue.

It’s not easy. It takes time and know how but when done correctly, it’s the most effective strategy you or your company could possibly apply in today’s market – just ask the audience!

1. Social media and new media sites are platforms to build relationships with a specific target public (people) to make yourself or your company known, build interest and help generate reach to assist your sales and revenue.

2. Sales is about people and cultivating relationships with those people

3. Social media is a platform, new media PR consists of how we use that platform effectively to build meaningful relationships geared toward the goals of interest, reach and sales.