In B2B marketing, there’s no scarcity of brand messages from vendors to dealers. Increasingly, those messages now tend to market how the vendor’s products and services help dealers create a better customer experience, rather than focus on the products or services themselves. But is that a good thing? Certainly dealers now recognize that customer experience is the battleground of today and will increasingly become more important. But, at the end of the day, the features that ultimately sell dealers aren’t how your solution helps their customers, but rather, how it helps them.

Let me explain:

Dealerships are businesses and the idea that customer experience will be the differentiator is accurate and important. However, what ultimately matters is the bottom line. Some dealers are content to invest in a service knowing that the financial benefits from that service could take some time to materialize – such as customer loyalty and retention. Others, however, simply cannot afford to shell out money on a monthly basis without seeing an immediate return on their investment. Dealers don’t buy leads because they think they’ll sell a car to someone in 3 months. They buy leads because they want to sell those customers cars NOW. They invest in products and services that solve THEIR problems, not necessarily their customer’s problems.

While there are certainly products and services that overlap that area between solving a dealership’s problem as well as a customer’s, typically the products and services aren’t designed to work that way. The typical solution is designed to solve a dealership’s problem and, as a side effect, enhance the customer experience. Yet, many vendors focus solely on how their service will enhance the experience for the customer.

In the past, it was the exact opposite. Marketing focused on ROI and solving problems. The foundation of closing any sale with a dealer was based on the correct answer to the question, “will your service help me sell more cars?” If you could do that satisfactorily, chances are good the dealer would sign up with you.

Nothing in sales today has changed. Dealers still want the answer to that question. Sure, if the sole purpose of your product or service is to enhance the customer experience, then by all means create a compelling message designed to convince a dealer that by doing so they will sell (or service) more cars. Ultimately, however, dealers still care how it will help increase revenue for their dealership. Bombarding dealers with a single message can result in your message being ignored.

It’s OK to brag. There is nothing wrong with telling the world how great you are. Include marketing messages that show dealers how your product or service will sell more cars or increase service business. Customer loyalty and retention are extremely important. But, it is important to be able to first and foremost illustrate to dealers how your service is going to help them NOW, in order to win that business. We all know that the auto industry is a business of immediacy. No dealer in the universe is going to tell a customer to go home and think about it before doing everything in their power to earn that sale at that moment.

Take a page from sales 101 and include messages of solutions for pain points and ROI in addition to your messages of customer experience. You may well find that dealers will be more receptive to your message and, perhaps, easier to close.

The web provides a plethora of content including articles, editorials, infographics, images, videos, and photographs.  While this content creates a great visual experience for web browsing and researching, it’s important to keep in mind copyright and intellectual property right laws if you wish to utilize any content on a website, blog or online channel.

Many people still believe they can just “right click” and copy whatever they want and use it on a blog, website, presentation, or podcast. That is certainly not the case.

If it is not originally produced in-house, images and videos must be licensed from the image owner or a stock photo source. There are numerous providers that offer photos, images and videos. However, be careful, as there are often limitations to how, when, and where these images may be used.

Currently there are two types of licenses available for images:  Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. 

Royalty-Free images are low in price and can, in most cases, be used for digital and print projects without any further expense. Print projects do require a higher resolution image and, depending upon the purchase source, are more expensive than a small lower-resolution image for a website. 

Some popular sites for these images are Bigstock Photo, iStockPhoto, Fotolia, and Shutterstock.  These offer either monthly or annual subscriptions, or a pay-as-you-go model. The images in these collections change based on seasonal themes. Their low price means the image may pop up on a large number of projects, advertisements, eBooks, etc. 

There is also the risk that a competitor will use the same image in their ad campaigns. In 2004 Dell and Gateway used the same image in their back-to-school ad campaigns.  

Rights Managed (RM) images are utilized when companies don’t have a budget for a photographer to shoot photos for their projects, but would prefer something more exclusive than the Royalty-Free option. The license is worded in such a way that it protects the buyer for a set period of time, in select media channels, so as to avoid brand confusion.

For example, if a company were to run a Spring Cleaning event, it could license the image for a 60 day period, during the promotional campaign. After that time period it no longer has use of the image without renewing the license. These licenses can run over $1,000 or more, but can be less expensive than custom photography.

Popular RM sources include Corbis Images, Getty Images, and SuperStock, which all also offer royalty-free images. The quality, selection, and price of images varies widely based on the company utilized and the use of the image.  It is important to read the license agreement to know the terms of usage and what is legally allowed. 

Earlier this year an associate built a website and just “grabbed a photo” off the Internet and posted it on their website.  A few months later they were contacted by the legal department of Getty Images. Getty is very proactive in protecting their image library and the client was sent an invoice for un-authorized use of the image.  The penalty was $1,200, as the image was from a Rights Managed photo collection. Pleading ignorance, or that “someone else did it,” is not a legal excuse for copyright violations.

Looking for totally free images?   Yes there are a few sources offering unrestricted use. However, as you can imagine, they are somewhat limited in selection and might come with strings attached.

• Free images are available through WikiMedia Commons but the selection is limited and a credit line is required. 
• Unsplash.com posts 10 new photos every 10 days, but most are landscapes or other topics and may not be appropriate for business topics.  
• Gratisogrpahy.com also offers images of an eclectic nature with no strings attached.  The photographer, Ryan McGuire does invite users to “buy him a coffee” via Paypal 
• Free techy photos are available from Startup Stock Photos, and again selection is geared to startups, bloggers and other web developers.  

When creating websites, print projects and trade show materials, be sure to check that your images are legally obtained.  Ask the designer to provide validation of licenses. Or, have a contract in place that holds the agency, designer, or developer responsible for any copyright violations. 
 
Great images add power to great content and there are many images out there. Just be sure to play by the rules to avoid problems down the road.

At the recent Content Marketing World 2015 event, many of the speakers highlighted the evolution of content marketing and how new interactive technologies create new engagement opportunities.

As more content is posted online, in emails, and presented in webinars to clients every day, it is becoming quite a challenge to reach and create an impact on any target audience.  Companies need to work closely with their communications teams and agencies to make sure the solutions they implement are right for their particular needs. 

We would like to share with our readers some of the new functionalities that are emerging in the market.

In this issue we highlight five interactive content components:

* Surveys

* Interactive White Papers

* Configurators

* Quizzes

* Lookbooks 

Surveys

Surveys are showing up more on websites, Facebook, and in webinars. Market changes, media reports and a customer’s past experiences can all influence your audience’s perception of the industry. There may be an opinion that is widely held that could either prevent or drive involvement with retail automotive industry brands. Knowing these views can be vital to your marketing strategy when creating new content for your site.

Through surveys, you can gain insight into the choices people make when using services such as yours and what they may like/dislike concerning how the industry functions. Or gather information as to how they view different vendors or brands.  Responses gained from surveys can influence website copy, help determine blog post content and flesh out your FAQ page. Making simple content changes to important pages on your website could help increase sales and leads.  We have also had great success pulling trends from surveys and using them for press releases that help to create a lot of attention and further drive traffic to the company’s website. Surveys do not have to be expensive. A service like SurveyMonkey makes the process quite simple, at very little cost.

Interactive White Papers

White papers are a great way to convey detailed information. However, the standard format is a static PDF file.  An interactive white paper can be web based using tab navigation, animated graphics, infographics, and possibly a quiz or two.  This makes the experience both informative and enjoyable.  Offering a PDF version that incorporates some of the visual graphics of the online version is a good idea. This allows engaged readers to share or save the information presented.

Configurators

Configurators are popular as consumers enter the buying funnel.  Think about the “Build Your Vehicle” configurators on every vehicle manufacturer’s website.  They help an auto shopper view a virtual vehicle in a selected color and with all their preferred options.  Then the shopper can search to see if the “configured vehicle” is available in a local auto dealer’s inventory.  If a product or service can be customized, consider using a configurator.

Quizzes

An organization can take a small set of stats or facts and turn them into an online quiz to test the knowledge of their visitors.  These quizzes can utilize multimedia content and be embedded on most websites and blogs. Qzzr offers both a free and paid solutions for developing interactive quizzes.

Lookbooks

While Lookbooks originated in the fashion industry to highlight new collections, the concept has morphed into and been adopted in other verticals. Think of a Lookbook as a PDF on steroids that incorporates visual elements not unlike Pinterest. A company presentation or product demonstration created in a PDF file can be uploaded to a Lookbook publisher. This then converts it into a page-turning version that can be embedded on a website or newsletter.  It can be a powerful tool for a company launching a new product or service as it allows text and visual elements to be multi-device friendly.  Publitas.com is one provider which offers a free branded solution or a version without branding at a nominal price.  

It’s important to remember that using interactive content is not a gimmick. It must be part of the content that is shared with the reader. Keep it relevant, informative and compelling.

Today’s consumers look to social media as a prime way to reach out to businesses for customer service needs. From requesting help with a problem, to simple answers to product questions, many consumers take to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, Facebook upped the ante for businesses with a new way to communicate with customers that post to their Facebook wall. It comes with public accountability ratings to motivate businesses to pay attention to those customers and respond quickly.

In the past, when a business encountered a complaint on its Facebook page, it had to reply publicly and ask the customer to message the business to take the conversation into a more private setting. Of course, it was always the customer’s choice whether to comply, or continue to air their frustrations publicly on the company’s Facebook page.  The company could not initiate the private conversation – only the consumer could.

On August 5, Facebook began rolling out a new, more business-friendly way for companies to reply to customers. Now, when a consumer posts to a company’s Facebook page, the company can chose to either message the customer privately, or respond publicly. Presumably, this new feature is an effort by Facebook to allow businesses to communicate with unhappy customers without having to do so in a public setting. The trade-off is that Facebook will also hold businesses accountable for their non-responsiveness and make the results public.

Consumers visiting business Facebook pages will now know immediately if the company is paying attention and how responsive it is. Perhaps the page visitor is simply visiting to decide if they wish to do business with the company. It certainly won’t impress them if the business is labeled as unresponsive. To qualify for the “very responsive to messages” label, companies must respond to “90 percent of messages and have a median response time of less than five minutes.” That’s a pretty tall order for most companies. But, through the various notification tools and apps, isn’t impossible.

If a company chooses to message privately, rather than reply publicly, the customer’s post indicates to other visitors that “the business responded privately.”  In this way, other Page visitors can know that the business handled the request. There are certainly occasions when a company may find it more appropriate to respond privately, such as customer complaints, grievances or concerns. Facebook seems to recognize that some situations are more delicate than others and does not differentiate between public versus private replies when calculating a company’s responsiveness rating.

It is imperative to be responsive to your customer’s concerns. Not just because it’s one of the most basic good business practices, but also because it is one of the first steps in building brand loyalty. If customers see that a business is responsive to their (or others) needs, they can then gain the impression that the business cares about its customers. Being labeled as unresponsive to customers could make a potential customer think twice about doing business with you. It could also show your current customers that you aren’t paying attention and leave the impression that you don’t care.

If your company hasn’t been paying attention to customers who post on your Facebook page, now would be a good time to start.

As far as content marketing goes, the most popular types of content educate and help your audience make informed decisions. It’s not enough, however, to simply write a blog article and slap it on your company’s website. All content (great or otherwise) needs syndication of some sort. This could be through newsletters, via social media, or other avenues.

What some people miss, however, is the power inherent in publishing content written by company executives traveling to conferences educating attendees. There is a huge additional audience that may be unable to attend these conferences. In fact, some within the automotive industry estimate that just 5 percent of auto dealers have conference expenses in their budgets. If 95 percent of your audience isn’t attending the conference you are presenting at, how then are you planning on reaching them?

As social media reach continues to decrease and becomes more of a pay-to-play model, there is still one platform that is free - and actually increasing in popularity - LinkedIn. In the B2B world, there has never been a better platform for exposure and connections. Since LinkedIn has adopted a Facebook-style newsfeed and opened up its publishing platform to everyone, rather than just its top members, it has exploded for content marketers.

Daniel Roth, the Executive Editor at LinkedIn, shared in a recent article that LinkedIn now has over 1 million unique writers publishing more than 130,000 posts a week. In addition, he stated that about 45% of readers are in the upper ranks of their industries and the average post now reaches professionals in 21 industries and 9 countries.

Many companies have LinkedIn company pages. These pages are great for sharing relevant product announcements, press releases and other general news. The problem is that the reach is limited to how many followers your company has. Many start-ups, and even larger companies, don’t have significant follower bases. And, even when they do, not many are paying attention.

However, what DOES get attention is articles published under a company executive’s personal LinkedIn account. These aren’t filtered. These are shared. All of that executive’s contacts are notified that they published an article. I’d be willing to bet that most company executives have quite a few personal (or business) connections on LinkedIn. While that post on your company page may go unseen, the articles published by a company executive has a much better chance of being viewed - and not only by their connections. LinkedIn offers the ability to “tag” articles with up to three relevant categories. Think of this as LinkedIn’s version of a hashtag. This allows people to search out content relevant to their industries and provides increased reach. In addition, the way the articles are set up invites readers to comment and can be a catalyst for great discussions and interactions.

Keep in mind, however, that if the content being published strays too much into promotion, there is always a chance that the author gets tuned out. By maintaining some great strategies of content marketing and writing and publishing content that is industry relevant, educational and topical, LinkedIn has now proven to be a very viable platform on which to reach your audience.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, soon reporters at two of the country’s leading newspapers will have access to the most basic type of digital analytics: They will be able to see web-traffic data for their own stories. That is, they will at least know how many people clicked on them, where they came from, and how long they lingered.
 

The Washington Post—in a concession to its reporters’ union—told journalists they would soon have access to this data, which they had long demanded. It also recently emerged that The New York Times would follow suit.

The crux of the argument was that the inability to view data on pieces they had previously written, prevented journalists from tailoring future content based on empirical data about the types of content their audience wanted. In addition, some suspected that the performance of their pieces could contribute to their compensation, future promotions and other job advancement opportunities.

Knowing your audience is key when making content decisions. Data is available on just about every content publishing platform. Google Analytics will tell you how many people read it. Facebook can tell you how many people interacted with it. LinkedIn can also tell you what content is popular. Each type of content will perform differently on different platforms. Some blog articles may see better performance as a published article on LinkedIn, rather than on your website. Facebook is also opening up its platform to publishers. I suspect that they will follow LinkedIn’s lead and allow content providers to publish directly on Facebook, similar to its recent push to get video content published natively to Facebook, rather than on competing video platforms.

Businesses frequently make the mistake of pushing content to their audience that they want their audience to see -- rather than content that their audience wants to see. The data and performance of your content will provide valuable evidence on the actual content your readership wants. You may not like the answer. However, the alternative is to keep pushing the content you want them to read – you could then end up with nobody reading it. The whole idea behind content marketing is to gain an audience and keep their attention through engaging and educational content. Making mistakes such as blatant self-promotion and egocentric articles will probably hurt you more than it will help.

If you’re a content producer, take time to analyze the performance of your published pieces. Which articles are your readers responding to? Which content are they ignoring? If your goal is to increase your businesses’ exposure and connect with your audience, all of your content questions will be answered with such a content analysis. Don’t discount it, trust it. It’s telling you what types of content you should be writing. And you should be listening to it.

Yes, there’s a place for articles and announcements about your company’s products, services, new features or other company related news… but that place is not on your blog. Separate blog articles from news articles into their own dedicated areas on your website. People that come to your website to see what’s new with your company will naturally gravitate towards that area. If your news is buried amongst a bunch of blog articles, however, they may never read it. The opposite also holds true. Readers who are coming to find tips, topical or educational articles, won’t necessarily want to see news articles.
 

Use analytical data to tailor content to your audience and you will find that it is better received, that it produces better results and that it gets more exposure with your desired audience.

The quick answer to the question is not so much anymore. These days press releases are branding, validation, and credibility tools for companies, not SEO tools.  Quite simply it means PR firms are shifting the focus of how they utilize press releases for their clients.

Companies have been utilizing press releases for over 100 years.  Initially a press release was a way to get information to the news media.  They were rarely seen by the public and were not created to be an advertisement. The point was to get the media’s attention about a story or news worthy event gets them to write about it. To accomplish this, organizations had to write a release that had real news value.

The Internet, along with media channels, blogs and social networks, has changed the press release landscape.  Company branding, pushing content, infographics and press releases became a tool in the SEO arsenal. This shift led to a glut of releases that were no longer “real news,” but promotional content stuffed with keywords and hyperlinks to affiliated sites and networks designed to ‘game the system’ and put the content on page one of the search engines.

Google, the appointed keeper and indexer of web content had enough, and listed press releases as a link scheme, stating that a release is basically an advertisement.

As a PR specialist, it’s my job to keep up with the latest advice and best practices in order to optimize the value I can offer. While I’m certainly no SEO expert myself, I have assembled some best practices from SEO experts that I thought would be useful.

Here are a few tips that should help increase the effective reach and value of your press releases:

1. Use reputable press release distribution sites – When Google rolled out Panda, press release sites took a hit -- and none were hit harder than the many free press release sites in existence. The simple fact that they are free lead many companies to distribute press releases as an SEO strategy. The practice was to fill these releases with tons of backlinks to their websites, hoping for increased traffic. In the past this worked, but not anymore. While the new algorithm also hit reputable sites such as PR Newswire, they weren’t hit as hard. These sites also immediately worked with Google and revised site policies to prevent further damage. While free press release sites are tempting, I’d advise not to use them for distribution. Google has labeled many of them as spam. If you have a good news release that is worth getting out, spend the money and distribute it through a reputable site such as BusinessWire, PRNewswire or Marketwire.
    
2. Don’t rely solely on a newswire -- build your contact list – Public relations is by its very nature a relations business. There is so much news out there that if you just send it out on a newswire, unless it is very big news, the chances of it actually appearing in your target publications are really quite small.I was recently at a press conference at NADA with literally no one in attendance. A very green new PR person had spent about $1,200 to send out the press conference announcement on PR Newswire. But she had no one turn up at the press conference – why? At a very hot news time such as NADA, it can be very hard to get eyeballs on a newswire release, especially if it is not from a company that is known to the editors and reporters. It is therefore important to establish contacts with the editors of the key publications in your industry. Talk to them.Stay in regular contact with them so you know the type of news they are looking for. Send them your press releases with a personal note. And, if appropriate, follow up with a phone call. Also, editors can frequently change at publications, so make sure your list is up to date.
    
3. How many links can you put in a press release before triggering the “link police?”  One of the primary reasons that press release sites were penalized was that people were using them inappropriately. The general rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t include more than 2-3 links for every 500 words of text.
   
   Google does not give credit for links created by press release authors. Their algorithm is based on third-party endorsement links, what they call editorial links. Earned media had always been regarded as more valuable than owned or paid, precisely because it is third-party endorsement from a source that has no vested interest.
   
   Google only penalizes links that are there for the express purpose of juicing up the SEO values.  Write press releases with links that lead naturally to other content, making it beneficial to the reader– be it the public or the media.  Work with your IT team and learn what a “no-follow” link is.  Make all links in your releases no-follow to avoid being penalized by Google. PRNewswire already automatically tags all links in press releases with these tags. So, if you’re unclear on how to do this, you might consider using them. These links should be different and relevant. If you’re going to include multiple links, it’s acceptable to include one to your home page. But, if you are going to include more, make sure they are to relevant pages within your site, rather than to your home page. Ensure that any anchor text contains the keywords you are targeting in your release. And that the primary keyword target in your anchor text is the first link, as it carries the most weight.
   
   According to Google, “The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”
    
4. Be newsworthy – Too many press releases are self-promotional and aren’t really newsworthy. Don’t use press releases simply to say “something,” if what you are saying has no value and would be of no interest to your audience. And please, please, please don’t send out your sales and marketing materials as a press release. By avoiding flooding the Internet with irrelevant press releases, chances are your target audience will pay more attention when they see your release. Post too many that are not newsworthy and you may cause a journalist or industry site to ignore future releases under the assumption they are simply self-promotional pieces.
    
5. Format your releases correctly – According to PRNewsOnline, press releases should have catchy headlines that are under 22 characters and should contain 2-3 of your targeted keywords in the headline, subhead and first paragraph. They should be no more than about 750 words long. It is also a good practice to include your company’s logo in every release, as well as rich media such as pictures and video.
    
6. Don’t post them on your website – This one was a surprise to me but it is good to keep in mind and makes sense -- SEO authority Kissmetrics advises that businesses not post their press releases on their own websites. They explain that this action “denigrate(s) your content authenticity and page-score ranking with Google and other search engines.” They do, however, offer a solution and advise that businesses “write a unique teaser paragraph or two, then link out to the release on the host site that distributed it or one of the major media outlets that picked it up.”

Is there such a thing as a well optimized press release? Yes, but proceed with caution. An optimized release needs to be relevant, speak in a natural voice and avoid the keyword stuffing that triggers the Google red flags.   Maintain editorial integrity, keep content newsworthy, craft a headline with your targeted audience in mind, and put key phrases in the first paragraph, so they will be indexed properly. 

Press releases are still a very valuable way for businesses to gain brand exposure and share relevant company information with their target audiences. However, due to the changes in search engine algorithms, you should no longer think of press releases as a form of SEO, but rather as a means of sharing company news. When press releases are picked up by industry news sites and publications, those mentions, re-publications, links and citations do help your website and company through increased exposure.

While there are certainly more intricacies involved when it comes to the SEO value of press releases, I hope that abiding by these 6 tips helps you accomplish the main goal of all press releases – namely getting your message out to the people that need to hear it.

If you’re in business, I’m sure you’ve been introduced to the concept of content marketing. Experts have advised businesses to produce content for quite some time now for search engine optimization, branding, lead generation and engagement, to name just a few of the many reasons.

Content marketing can be powerful, if done properly. It is more than simply broadcasting content. You may achieve some SEO benefits without a strategy, but that’s about it. Each piece of content should support your company’s message, but also help drive interest in your product or service. Without a proper strategy in place, you’re probably underachieving.

In a proper content marketing strategy, integration and support are the key ingredients. This strategy requires a meeting of the minds on a regular basis. It should include your marketing department, PR department, any content production team, as well as key management.  I find including key management to be invaluable for drawing out ideas and developments that should perhaps be better known. And having the entire team as part of the meeting tends to produce much better results as far as ideas that really work. Topics of discussion should be centered on the following:

• How the company should be branded
• The launch of any new products or services
• Any product updates that can be announced
• Any messages or content that supports overall marketing positioning
• Any news that should be disseminated – big new clients, company growth, new hires of note, company awards, etc.
• Any customer case studies that could be developed
• Any trade shows coming up that need a content strategy plan to increase booth visits
• Any white papers that can help explain, forward a particular message
• Article and blog topics

Content marketing includes marketing collateral, case studies, white papers, press releases, social media, blog articles and articles for trade magazines. It encompasses any conferences your company will be involved in, as well as product and service offerings now, and in the near future.

This is how a comprehensive content marketing strategy looks:

• Marketing – This content is your sales content. This type of content is your direct call-to-action and awareness, designed to generate interest and gain exposure for your product or service. It includes website content and marketing collateral/sales support materials.
• Press Releases – These are designed to spread the news and generate excitement and interest in a product, service or the company itself. They are tailored to attract media attention and reach industry influencers and your customers. They can also be used to better explain your competitive advantages and what it is that you do. In addition, they serve to keep you top of mind with editors and writers for any stories they may be developing.

• Blog articles – These are designed to be a soft-sell to your audience through education. They also help company executives gain visibility by becoming industry thought leaders and educators. These should not be pitchy but should support your company’s message.  The better ones can also start conversations on topics and engage your audience.

• Social media – Your social media properties should be used to push a variety of content that supports your message. Be sure to tailor your message to what your audience likes and don’t just sit there passively watching -- use your presence and interact with your followers. Social media allows your company to have a virtual personality and gives prospects an opportunity to get to know your company. Social media can also be used to create hyper-targeted ads that can generate awareness, branding or leads.

There are many articles out there on topics such as “Easy Ways to Generate Blog Ideas,” or “How to Get Engagement on Social Media.” While many have some great best practice tips and can be useful, content marketing works best with a fully integrated approach with all of the pieces in place. Develop a strategy. Include everyone. And execute on that strategy. With each piece of the puzzle in place working together, it should leads to more success while expending less effort.

Part of the allure of social media is seeing all of the fun and creative content that your friends have discovered and shared. For brands, it’s a never-ending process concocting that perfect content that engages consumers while delivering a brand message. There are many brands, communities and media pages on Facebook – all vying for your attention. However, the last competitor that you’d expect to join the race would be a police department.

Most police departments have numerous activities they participate in as part of a community outreach effort. Police departments are not, however, typically known for having engaging Facebook pages. That’s not the case in Kentucky.

Due to some particularly cold weather, a police department in Kentucky decided to combine humor and the uber-popular ice queen from the Disney movie, Frozen, to have a little fun. Simply put, they blamed Elsa for the weather and proceeded to issue an arrest warrant for her -- posting the announcement on both their Facebook page and Twitter account:

A brief glance at their Facebook page shows engagement for their other posts to date far below normal – they tend to range in the 1 percent for posts. As you can see, as of 3/24, this post has received 10,500 likes, 1,218 comments and a whopping 17,524 shares. Seems as if a sense of humor combined with a little Disney magic worked well for them.

About a week later, a police department in Hanahan, South Carolina took this to the next level when they actually apprehended and arrested the fugitive ice queen after being spotted freezing a fountain outside their City Hall. Elsa was presented before a judge,  but was released for lack of evidence after the fountain thawed out.

At least one other police department in Kansas has followed the lead of the previous two.

This just goes to show that you don’t have to be a sexy brand with tons of devoted fans to engage with your audience. I’m fairly certain that the success of this content exceeded the wildest expectations of any of the police departments involved. Brands will ultimately find that with a little creativity and thought, they don’t have to have large budgets or big ad agencies creating campaigns. All they need is to have a little fun.

My primary goal as a PR Professional is to assist my clients in achieving the most exposure possible and build top-of-mind brand awareness among their potential customers, namely auto dealers. To help better understand how to best position my clients for success, last year, I did a little research into how dealers perceive vendors and their practices.

I reached out to Bobbie Herron, Digital Sales and Marketing Manager for the Garber Automotive Group. Herron was named to Automotive News’ “Retail 40 under 40” list last year, and she was kind enough to share a few things with me that vendors do to irritate her, causing them to potentially lose her business. She also shared some best practice tips on how vendors can better approach dealers.

The blog generated a lot of attention and received many responses, varying from agreement to complete irritation. In an effort to balance the scales, Bobbie agreed to a second interview in which she shares some of the things that she feels vendors do right -- that help catch her interest and earn and keep her business.

Here is what she had to say on the matter:

1.  “Be personal in your approach: When vendors reach out to me trying to entice me to look at a new product, all too often the initial contact is via an e-mail template. Many times my name is misspelled. Or they assume I’m a male. Some of these templates are horrible and full of grammar and/or spelling errors -- just really sloppy work. I don’t want to be made to feel as if I’m just some random person on some e-mail list that a vendor obtained - actually, quite the opposite. Vendors who take the time to e-mail me personally – not as part of some e-mail blast – will get my attention. If the e-mail impresses upon me that they have done their homework about Garber. If they have identified specific ways in which they feel their product can help my marketing efforts be more successful. And, if they portray a genuine interest in Garber, they will get my attention.
2. "Make me feel like I matter: People do business with people who make them feel important. I want a vendor to make me feel valuable. That I matter. Vendors can accomplish this by showing an interest in helping me use their product to its maximum potential. One way in which vendors can do this is through training. I’m not talking about webinars and conference calls, but rather in-store training with me and my whole team. It’s sad that there are times in which I find out about new features and products for services I already use by walking an exhibit hall at a conference. I purposefully walk an exhibit hall without my badge so that I can get honest demos (or sit in on one) from my existing vendors. Sometimes this is how I discover features I didn’t even know existed in my current services.”
3. “Pay regular visits: I absolutely love vendors who visit my store regularly – at least once a quarter – in order to come and teach me, and any new employees, about their product. Everyone needs refresher courses. And new employees need actual training. Who better to train them on these services than the reps? They know more about their product than I do. Vendors who do this prove to me that they have a genuine interest in the auto group’s success level.  I want a vendor to be my partner. I don’t want to be just be a sale, but want the vendor to care about our success just as much as we do. Instead of just selling us the farm, these vendors start with the meat of their product… the cows. We can plant corn in the next step of the improvement process. In addition, I love vendors who are willing to share information they have learned in the industry that could help us improve. Who knows their industry, products and best practices better than they do?”

4.  “Manage my expectations by providing good data: I want a vendor who sets and manages expectations for results and is clear on what those results are based on. I don’t want some vague reports where I have to attempt to gauge the ROI of their product or service. I want data that will give me a realistic ROI based on the areas that matter to me – not what their bosses tell them to share. I expect my vendors to ask me what data or reports matter to me. If they throw in a few additional reports that they think I should see, that’s fine. This is a collaboration; a partnership. By asking me what’s important, then providing that data, it shows me that they recognize that what I think is important is relevant.”

5. “Dealer Advisory Boards: I love vendors with dealer advisory boards. This shows me that they listen and give us (their dealers) a voice in building and improving their product. It’s not uncommon for vendors to focus on adding features that they think we want, when we’d rather see them tweaking their product for better or easier usability. It’s all about the customer experience. Vendors who listen, know their product, have great training and support, and give me a voice in building and improving their product, will keep my business.”
6. “Friendship: Finally, I love that, through my vendors, I am able to make amazing friends. Not only within their companies, but also within the industry itself. Friends that inspire me, motivate me and make me stronger as a professional, as well as an individual. That’s my absolute favorite part.”

I think Bobbie makes some excellent points and hope this serves in some way as useful information.