Several Arketians snuck out of the office for the May PRSA Georgia luncheon and returned with great insights on the “State of Public Relations Industry” from Rosanna Fiske, chair & CEO, Public Relations Society of America. Fiske covered a number of topics from PR trends to ethics to diversity and how our industry has changed.

In surveying PR pros in December 2010, the top PR trends for 2011 centered around 3 main ideas that, as we too have seen in the first quarter, here they are:

1. Reputation management- Aside from the reactive approach of crisis communication, PR departments are proactively managing the reputation of both their brand and their clients.
2. Data deluge- Through the increasing consumption of the Web and social media, our clients and their customers are being inundated with information while continuously demanding fresh content daily.
3. Rise of mobile PR- As technology advances, mobile devices are decreasing in size and increasing in capabilities.  PR must keep up, if not stay ahead, of the industry understanding the wealth of opportunities in this space.

In examining ethics and trust in the industry, Fiske shared some interesting statistics.

PR is estimated to be a $4 billion industry with predictions of an $8 billion industry in 2012. This is expected to lead to more than 2,000 additional jobs in the near future.

If you’re still in the 80’s mind set that PR pros are just a bunch of “flacks,” check this out: The average consumer is exposed to the equivalence of 174 newspapers of data a day.  According to Fiske, PR professionals produce about six newspapers worth of work a week.

Aside from the “who owns social media – PR or Marketing?” question, PR tech is an emerging player as there has been an increase of 14 percent in annual budgets for digital PR activities. Not surprising, more than 50 percent of clients are looking to PR for social media projects over ad agencies.

Whether you’re an entry-level professional or seasoned veteran, we hope you’ve found these interesting statistics encouraging. And from the words of Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

How often has your Marketing or PR team cultivated a lead that failed to produce a sale? And, how does your company address that lead? We have found that a large number of companies allow unfulfilled leads to fall into a great abyss, never to be contacted again.

At Arketi, we recommend applying the principals of nurture marketing to recapture unfulfilled sales through strategic communications and continual outreach.

Understanding the basics

Before lead nurturing can occur for an unfulfilled lead, you must identify why it was “lost” in the first place. Did the lead buy from a competitor? Did it simply stop taking action on Marketing outreach? Was it prematurely sent to Sales but not ready for a live conversation?

Recognizing when and why a lead moved on from your company is critical to knowing how to best reach out to them in the future.

Knowing where they belong

Begin by returning the prospect to Marketing and placing them in the nurture pool. Since the majority of companies use a marketing automation and/or CRM solution to manage their leads, it should be easy to determine where in the nurture pool your unfulfilled lead belongs. We consider three phases – Awareness, Discovery and Validation – to describe the mindset of leads.

• Awareness: Prospects are interested in knowing the benefits of technologies but not actually shopping. Relevant material for this phase includes webinars, podcasts and generic industry white papers.
• Discovery: Prospects are starting to shop and are looking to determine their buying criteria. Relevant material for this phase includes case studies and more detailed industry white papers.
• Validation: Prospects are ready to buy and want to know your differentiators. Relevant material for this phase includes product and company brochures, comparison sheets and product quicktours.

Based on a lead’s past history, you can place them in the appropriate phase and take the appropriate actions.

For instance, take a lead that came from a tradeshow and was immediately handed to Sales but was not ready to purchase. There is a strong probability that this lead should be in the Awareness phase and wants to receive invitations to industry webinars to learn the benefits of solutions that are on the market.

Another example is a lead that already made it through all three phases, was handed to Sales and then bought from a competitor. Rather than sending them an Awareness-level podcast a month later; try sending them a Discovery-level industry white paper that discusses the how leveraging technology provides real ROI. This provides the lead with educational information to use in future purchases and also pushes them to expect those results from their new provider.

Simple can be strategic

This strategic placement of leads back into the nurture pool ensures you are staying in front of former prospects with information relevant to where they are in the purchasing cycle. And rather than pushing prospects to make decisions before they are ready, recapturing unfulfilled sales promotes continual nurturing until the prospect identifies themselves as a hot lead. This new way of thinking will make Marketing a hero for reconnecting with unfulfilled leads to help secure future sales.

Traditionally, marketers have used printed collateral to communicate key messages and build a consistent brand image among customers and prospects. Now that email and the web are our primary means of information exchange, there are new considerations for what we used to call “collateral.”

In the first part of our series on tips to consider when developing effective collateral pieces, we discussed quality and convenience. Check out our first few tips here (http://arketi.com/blog/archives/1122) and continue reading for more helpful hints.

3. One page at a time
This one can really hurt but makes perfect sense. When a potential customer prints a collateral piece, they will likely view it one page at a time. Few if any will read it in “facing pages” like a traditional printed piece.

This is causing marketing professionals to rethink spreads. It’s not that you cannot use them, but the challenge is to consider how the information could be presented. By not taking into account the single-page format, you could be hurting both your design and your message.

PDFs can be arranged to be viewed in spreads, rather than a page at a time. The user can make this choice, but a best practice is to assign the PDF’s properties to the layout you want it to be viewed in. Setting the “Fit to page” property is a good idea while you’re at it.

4. Remember content is still king
No matter how good your design, if your content is weak, your collateral will perform poorly. Ultimately, content is what the business reader is looking for. Structuring the content to be accessible and easily digestible is essential.

Today’s business reader is really more of a “scanner,” looking for items of interest that will cause them to stop and then actually read. Knowing this, here are some tips for content:

• Break the content up with headings and subheads
• Embrace short paragraphs (even one-sentence paragraphs)
• Put key information into bulleted lists (but try to limit yourself to 5 or 6 bullets per list)
• Highlight important words or phrases in bold and/or color

Simply applying these four tips when developing digital collateral will increase the readability of the resulting piece.

In some ways, digital collateral may be different from traditional, but the same over-arching principles of good communication apply: ensure your content is relevant and well-written; adapt your design to the user’s environment (whether on-screen or on a desktop printer); and communicate as simply and directly as possible.

I’ve been monitoring a really valuable website recently and wanted to first pass along the url to other B2B marketers.  It’s Ann Holland’s Which Test Won (www.whichtestwon.com). As founder of Marketing Sherpa, Ann’s work is well-known to B2B marketers.  And her team has done a great job with this site providing insight in a simple format. The site is all about A/B testing, each week showcasing a new A/B test, presenting an opportunity for those of us who claim expertise in building killer emails, landing pages, web pages etc., to view the results of which of two versions of an email, web or landing page produced higher results.

In addition to being an ongoing resource for best practices in email and web-marketing (the site maintains its weekly tests and currently has nearly 140 different A/B tests in its database), it can also be a very humbling experience. Since the viewer has to vote on which option tested higher before seeing the actual test results, you get immediate feedback on how well your instincts match other site viewers and the market at large.

One thing regular viewing of this site has made me very aware of is the need for continual email and web testing.  As the test results presented on Which Test Won show, conventional wisdom and traditional best practice advice doesn’t always produce the best results.  And subtle changes can make a huge difference in generating results.  All of which validates the need to test components of our marketing activities before hitting the “go” button on the latest web or email effort.

With the new automation tools available, testing is a relatively simple and inexpensive process – if we have the right list and are willing to spend a little more time to get it right.  It reminds me of what we used to say “Back in the Day” regarding customer and prospect research:  If you want to know what your customers really want to see, just ask them. Interesting how some things don’t seem to change.

Traditionally, marketers have used printed collateral to communicate key messages and build a consistent brand image among customers and prospects. Now that email and the web are our primary means of information exchange, there are new considerations for what we used to call “collateral.”

The printed collateral piece, truthfully, is not often printed – or at least not professionally printed. Today, collateral must translate well to both print and digital output.

How do marketers develop collateral pieces to be effective in our web 2.0 world? Here are four tips to consider:

• Print quality
• File size and email restrictions
• Single-page format
• Content construction

1. Print quality should always be in the front of your mind
Knowing a recipient may print your collateral piece on a home printer or otherwise “less-than-stellar” printer, marketers should be mindful of the colors and design used. A black-and-white printer does not deliver the impact a professional, color laser printer – so choose your color scheme accordingly.

Consider also how images and logos will appear when grainy or in low-resolution. Think twice about small graphics and charts if the piece you are developing will primarily be distributed electronically. Reversed out type (white text on a colored background) can also be hard to read when printed on a low-end printer, so avoid thin fonts, especially those with serifs.

Finally, consider bleeds. All printers have margins outside which they cannot print. If your document includes bleeds, these will be lost. That doesn’t mean bleeds must be banned – but don’t make them critical to your design. It might sound “early 80s” but consider whether the piece will pass the “fax test” – if it does then it’s good for an inkjet printer too.

2. Create files that are easy to send and receive
Spam and email-borne viruses are rampant and as a result spam filters and security software are a must. While these security solutions help to safeguard a company, they may also block the “good” along with the “bad.”

Emails with attachments can be problematic for many. Using standard file formats, like a PDF, can help ensure your attachment gets through. Less common formats such as SWF or PPS files are more likely to be blocked.

File size is another consideration. Most email systems limit the size of file they will allow to pass – 10 or 20 megabytes are common limits – and firewalls too may block large files. In addition, a large file can be inconvenient and time-consuming for the recipient, especially on a wireless connection or mobile device.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your collateral files under 9 Mb. And remember, it’s normally the images in a document that bloat the file size – so consider whether those big background images are really required.

Stay tuned next Thursday for the final tips on how marketers can develop collateral pieces for our web 2.0 world! These are simple tips that, when kept in mind, can both decrease cost while simultaneously increasing effectiveness.

Ok, for those math challenged folks, that is under 7 minutes. No, this is not a dirty joke, it is the underlying thinking behind PechaKucha – a Japanese presentation format design to help story tellers (and those who are not story tellers) get to the point in an impactful and speedy way.

“PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images,” according to www.pecha-kucha.org.

I love this concept. I will be the first to admit that I have built my share of PowerPoint presentations over the years that 1) had too much information on each slide and 2) were just too long. That said, I have noticed that over the past five years, far too many companies seem to have replaced Word documents with PowerPoint presentations as the best way to share information and ideas.

Seriously, I have in my possession client PowerPoints with hundreds, yes hundreds, of words on a SINGLE slide. To protect them I will not share their names, but boy this just does not make sense.

What does make sense is the 20×20 format. I must admit I have not tried it yet, but I plan to give it a good college try.

Recently, a friend of mine was reviewing a presentation I often give and he said I had too many words on my slides. I thought I had done a good job of not having much on the slides. Then he said something brilliant.

“When you are watching ESPN or CNN and the news crawl starts across the bottom of the screen, do you read it or listen to the program?” Well that is an easy one for me to answer.  At least one time every morning, I need to rewind the news to hear what the anchor said because I was too busy reading the news crawl.

He went on to challenge me, “Do you think the audience is listening to what you have to say when you put up a slide with a bunch of words?”

I answered, “No.” I was depressed for a few days, but then I found PechaKucha!

Now I am energized and ready for the challenge. The PechaKucha Challenge:
20 slides,
20 seconds and
one heck of a compelling story.

I’ll let you know how it goes, and if I can convince any of our clients to take the PechaKucha challenge too.