Monday, August 12, 2013

Content Marketing - making of a newsletter

In today’s competitive scenario, every big enterprise wants to prove themselves as a thought leader in their respective segment. Newsletters play an important role in brand-building strategy to target a specific audience which might convert into your potential customer. It is an effective way to build a relationship with a prospect, nurturing them along until they become a customer. Great content can always be helpful in getting their attention and keeping their attention. Newsletters often play the role of a strong medium for external and internal communication. Making of a newsletter involves specific skill sets and goes through the following process:

  • Decide on the theme and periodicity of the newsletter.
  • Based on the theme, co-ordinate with the writer, copy-editor and the designer to decide on the requirements to accomplish the assignment.
  • Come up with a project schedule and scope of the work document.
  • Based on the theme, the writer will come-up with a table of content (TOC) and will take approval from the competent authority.
  • The writer starts working on creating the content.
  • The content is sent to the copy-editor for proof-reading, grammatical and linguistic changes.
  • The copy-editor sends back the copy-edited versions to the writer for final approval.
  • The second copy-edited version is sent for final approval. This step may repeat multiple times based on the complexity of the project.
  • During the quality check process for the content, the design team comes up with a design template for the newsletter.
  • The design template gets approved and the final content is sent to the designer for creation of the final print-ready pdf version.
  • The print ready pdf version is again checked by the copy-editor to ensure the quality of the content.
  • Create the final draft of the print-ready pdf.
  • The pdf version is made available online and downloadable from the required website and html pages are made online for the website visitors.
  • Send an E-mailer to the client database to inform the subscribers about publishing the newsletter.
  • Share it through your social media portals. Your readers will love to re-share it as long as it carries great and knowledgeable content.
  • Request for email responses to the newsletter content.
  • Think about using a moderated blog with audience posting as a source of newsletter content as it might be useful not only to get directly involved with your target audience but also to generate curiosity and interest about the content. 
By following these simple steps, you can easily design your newsletter. But, involvement of quality contributors in every step to accomplish the task is more important and crucial. At any cost, you have to provide quality content maintaining the periodicity of the newsletter.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Impact of a case-study in building brand credibility

A case-study may be defined as an analysis of a given scenario or a situation that often regarded as a challenge for an establishment. A case-study gives a solution to a problem which might be technical or non-technical. It is often seen that case-studies play an important role in establishing a strong opinion about finding the ways to solve a business challenge. Manufacturing giants and business service providers are mostly benefited by the facts they share about their products/services through these studies.

In current business scenario, case studies are not just limited to any management curriculum. They are widely used for brand-building activities. These studies often help the business giants to establish themselves as the thought leaders in their respective segment. The main challenge in designing a case study could be inspiring the reader to make a favorable decision. Even tiny little things like the design and layout could impact readers' decision making process. The content has to provide potential customers, investors and/or partners the information they require to make buying or investment decisions. It should also showcase the first-hand experience with a company, product or service and hence build credibility. The case evaluates the effectiveness of a product or service. Hence, the writer should be careful in delivering message through this new form of journalism that complements traditional mediums of advertising.

A case study can also help introducing a new product or service with impact extending the value of advertising message with in-depth and content-rich coverage. An effective message will surely generate the desired impact. Designing an influential case-study involves lots of research on how others have defined the situation. If the situation is common then the challenge is more as you will also have to deal with a competitive scenario and you have to establish the facts in favor of your product/service. Interviewing the key resources in developing the case helps you establish the facts. These skilled resources can be quoted directly to present it in more convincing way.

Detailed analysis of all the information collected plays a significant role in ascertaining your overall statement that you are well-versed with the situation. Finally, conclude the study in such a way that it gives a fruitful solution to the situation described. The whole purpose of designing a case can not be successful without a clear and crisp message. A message that directly influences your potential customers, investors and/or partners to make a investment decision.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/branding-articles/impact-of-a-case-study-in-building-brand-credibility-6426124.html

Monday, January 7, 2013

Evolution of media monitoring as an integral part of PR strategy

It has always been difficult for large enterprises to track the exact picture of the effectiveness of their public relation and marketing campaigns. This requires specific skill sets to monitor and gather relevant information of the media coverage related to these campaigns.

Evolution of online media in different forms has made it more difficult as online media is more viral than traditional print media. Broadcast media also plays an important role in successful implementation of PR and marketing strategies designed by these big enterprises, which involve a big chunk of their investments. So, monitoring media coverage is more important than ever before. Enterprises must be confident that their PR campaigns are creating significant impact in the media. They need comprehensive information how they are being talked about by different forms of media and media influencers.

Media monitoring provides an easy to view and analyze dashboard that clearly shows the effectiveness of these PR campaigns. Media monitoring service providers research and aggregate the media coverage for a particular company, product, brand, event, industry, etc. and synthesize & analyze the relevant coverage. Then, they present the synopsis of the coverage to their clients in an easy, reader friendly format. Enterprises get educated about what's being said about their company, products, brands, etc, in the media. They learn about media perception of their competitors. They learn about the latest industry developments as portrayed by the media. They get an idea of the share of voice that they have in the media and this serves as a backdrop for them to fine tune their communications strategy.

It is always advisable to take a consolidated approach in handling different forms of media. Emergence of social media has made it more obvious for the enterprises to get the information real-time. Consolidated media measurement approach involves media monitoring, media audit, user-generated media monitoring, user-generated media audit, key-influencer analysis, industry trend analysis, company analysis, competitive analysis, audience analysis, etc. Service providers handle the huge volume of information by utilizing several media monitoring tools, online sources and some alert services. Involvement of skilled professionals in mining the relevant information, analyzing, presenting and summarizing it in an easy-to-understand report is very crucial. "Dashboard" view of media performance helps marketing and PR professionals to sharpen competitive edge and demonstrate return on their corporate communication investment. So, media monitoring and measurement has evolved as an integral part of enterprises' public relations campaign management process.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/public-relations-articles/evolution-of-media-monitoring-as-an-integral-part-of-pr-strategy-6391557.html