Staying on message is one of the most fundamental rules of any type of external and internal communications. IBM repeated the word “excellence” in its advertising during the 1980s until the lines became part of pop culture.

Martin Luther King Jr. repeated “I have a dream” in his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
Business legends Jack Welch of General Electric and Lee Iacocca of Chrysler were also masters at picking a few messages to communicate to employees and repeating and reinforcing them for optimal effect.

Obama fails to stay on message

President Barack Obama’s failure to stay on message during the seven-week BP oil spill crisis is responsible for mounting public discontent with his handling of this terrible incident.

In a recent USA Today/Gallup survey, 53 percent of respondents rate Obama’s response to the oil spill as “poor” or “very poor.” In fact, many pundits are now predicting that his comments on Tuesday that he wanted to “know whose ass to kick” and that he would have fired BP CEO Tony Hayward may heighten the criticism being aimed at him. Can anyone say “Katrina?”

A crisis of communication

Obama’s message has been mixed from the start of this crisis, and now he will pay the consequences. From a crisis communications perspective, Obama’s reaction was too slow – he didn’t visit the Gulf until 18 days after the spill – and his message has been inconsistent. At first, Obama declared BP solely responsible for the spill and said the company was “acting at our direction.” Three weeks later, he talks about firing Hayward and beating up someone. Pardon me, but this isn’t a clear and consistent message.

Consider the case of Ashland Inc. In 1988, a storage tank collapsed at the company’s facility near Pittsburgh and dumped four million gallons of diesel fuel, including 700,000 gallons into the Monongahela River that threatened the drinking water of many nearby communities.
Ashland’s ensuing response is now considered textbook procedure for handling major crises. Here are the key elements of Ashland’s recipe for crisis management that was developed after the 1988 incident:
* Go to the site immediately.
* Get firsthand information.
* Marshal your resources and equipment to clean up the mess.
* Communicate consistently with the media.
* Stay on the job until the danger is gone.

I think Obama failed on every one of these points.

With Hurricane Katrina so fresh in the minds of the American public, it is rather surprising that the Obama administration has lost control of this crisis.
The BP spill has become the worst environmental accident in U.S. history and may continue for several more months. As the crisis grows, Americans will look to point a finger at someone. At this point, BP and Obama are in their crosshairs.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com.

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now considered the nation’s worst environmental disaster in decades and will have devastating consequences for years to come.

Ever since the April 20th fire on an oil rig that killed 11 people, an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude oil a day have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. BP is spending $7 million a day to try to stop the leak, clean up the spill and mitigate economic impact. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into the accident and the day-to-day developments are on the front page of newspapers worwldwide.

BP, which leased the oil rig from the Swiss company Transocean, now faces a crisis that threatens its long-term viability. Since the accident, the company’s falling stock price has cut more than $30 billion from its market value and protests against the company are intensifying. Earlier this month, BP was targeted by both “60 Minutes” and “Saturday Night Live” in the same weekend.

In a fight for its life, BP’s ongoing response provides valuable lessons as a snapshot of how major corporations mobilize to solve serious problems.

First, BP took full responsibility for the cleanup and focused all of its resources on the crisis. To date, BP has sent 19,000 workers and 650 vessels to the scene. It has deployed 1.7 million feet of floating barriers that are designed to hold back oil that floats to the surface. BP has publicly committed to paying legitimate claims for loss and damage caused by the spill that could include property damage and the loss of earnings and profits. To date, it has received 15,000 claims and has paid 2,600 of them.

Next, BP retained one of the world’s leading public relations agencies, Brunswick Group, to help communicate the company’s actions to the public. The company is providing information through a wide array of channels, including its website, traditional media, Twitter and www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com, a site built specifically for the crisis. The company has opened a 24-hour phone line for volunteers and for claims related to the spill.

The use of electronic tools has allowed BP to respond faster and more precisely to new developments. For example, when media reports alleged that BP was attempting to convince fishermen to sign waivers holding BP harmless from certain claims, BP responded on Twitter: “We’ve assured fishermen’s association that fishermen offering services are not required to sign a waiver.”

The use of video on its website has also helped convey the depth of BP’s response. In one video, BP CEO Tony Hayward explains the cleanup while a room full of busy-looking employees buzz behind him, giving viewers a glimpse into the hectic cleanup process that they don’t get from a typical media interview. Hayward has also served as the firm’s primary spokesperson, an effective public relations tactic used often by Fortune 500 firms to help emphasize the importance of the issue.

The cause of this spill may be debated for years, but BP’s public relations response has been bold, comprehensive and proactive.

It has deployed traditional public relations tactics coupled with interactive and social media tools to explain its response and demonstrate compassion for those affected by the spill. In today’s world, this is a terrific case study on how to react to a public relations crisis.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

By Josh Sommers
Published: 05/14/10

Marketing is about presence. Are you the company that the marketplace thinks of for your product or service? Well, that certainly is where you want to be. Part of creating that top-of-mind awareness is event marketing. A great place to do that is at trade shows and consumer expos.

Expos come in many varieties, such as business-to-business and general consumer events like home shows. For many companies, they’re part of the regular marketing program. Bob Mickelson, a client of my firm and owner of Grey’s Woodworks of Grahamsville, has been promoting his custom garage- and shed-building business at home shows for 19 years.

“Expos put us in front of customers that are more likely looking for what we have to offer — right now. It is terrific targeted marketing to an engaged audience,” said Mickelson.

Mickelson added that home shows also plug Grey’s into the other show presenters who can turn into valuable referral sources. As a show presenter, networking with other businesses can turn into a pipeline of new work.

Make your message simple

If you make the commitment to market at shows, you want to give reasons for people to notice you — and remember you. You don’t want to just show up with some business cards and sit at your table hoping that you get some traffic.

First, make sure that your message is simple. If someone walks by your booth, will they “get” what you do? You’ll be fighting for the attention of show visitors, so make your message simple.

When getting your show presentation ready, make your booth compelling. Well-designed signs that are a quick read along with graphics that showcase what you do are critical elements. If your type of business allows you to bring tangible samples of your product or service, that will help people connect the dots from your company name to what your deliver. For example, if you have the best bakery, hand out some cookies. You’ll be a hit!

Make sure you get noticed

Try to give people reasons to stop by your booth. Businesses-to-business show presenters often ask passers-by to leave their business cards in a bowl for a drawing of prizes. A $50 gift card or iPod giveaway can take your traffic to greater heights for relatively little money.

And don’t forget to give people a reason to remember you. A free promotional item such as a pen or mouse pad with your logo, as well as a company brochure, are key parts of a good presentation at a trade show.

Just like all of your marketing, you’ve got to be out there. Trade shows and expos may very well be a good fit for your company. Just make sure you get noticed.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

By Josh Sommers

Published 05/07/10

When marketing your business, you have to think big. Part of thinking big is investing marketing resources to create “buzz.” While traditional advertising always remains important, many companies enlist event marketing to generate that all-important buzz in the market.

Do you now have a new product or service you are offering? Are you celebrating a significant anniversary? Is your company opening a new location? Does your type of business fit into a more seasonal classification, and you want people to think of you during the high season? Or, do you have a more direct, relationship-driven business model where building stronger ties to your clients can increase retention and new opportunities?

Strengthening relationships

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, promoting yourself with strategic events is a terrific marketing tactic to explore.

Take, for instance, those providing professional services, such as accounting and engineering companies. If these types of businesses want to create buzz, placing advertisements in the newspaper or business publication may make sense. But an event could very well be an even greater use of resources to procure future references or work, while helping strengthen relationships with current clients.

Events can range from cocktail receptions to group outings at baseball games. What better way to promote yourself with the right people than to buy the drinks and food at an event where the right people are talking about you? While this may seem like a large and expensive promotional element, strong relationships make the world go around in many industries — as long as your work meets standards.

Reaching out to new customers

In the retail industry, an effective marketing technique may include hosting a special event that promotes a particular sale or new product through a multimedia advertising campaign. Having a unique event creates a sense of urgency that motivates consumers. Leading up to the event, companies such as car dealerships, mobile phone companies and clothing stores often leverage live radio broadcasts to drive traffic to their venue, while creating lots of buzz.

With these types of promotions, it’s not just the actual events that the companies can make a sale on — the promotions leading up to the event create the real talk about the company that will result in enhanced marketing awareness over time.

So, create some buzz in the market with well-thought-out event marketing. It can be the best marketing dollar you spend.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

By Josh Sommers
Published:  04/30/10
Marketing and positively positioning your firm in the market starts at home.
You can have the best business-development program, but if your team isn’t equipped to serve the new clients you earn, you’ll go around in circles. A good marketing plan includes equipping your service team to succeed. That’s why I urge small and medium-size businesses to create their own formal training programs for all levels of staff. In large firms, employee training and development programs are top priorities because of their importance in retaining top talent, while advancing staff technical knowledge and enhancing customer service.
Bottom line: If you intend to keep your best employees and better serve clients, you need to invest in long-term professional staff development.
Perhaps the global leader in this area is accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has earned the No. 1 rating in each of the last three years in Training Magazine’s rankings of firms’ employee training programs. PWC’s CEO, Bob Moritz, told the magazine, “By providing our people with the right balance of education, learning experiences and tools, we’re not only investing in their professional development, but ultimately in our ability to deliver the best talent and highest value to our clients.”

Technology to the rescue
Most professions require practitioners to earn continuing professional education credits every year, another example of equipping employees with the technical expertise necessary to perform their jobs at high levels. Naturally, smaller businesses don’t have the resources to invest heavily in training programs, like sending employees to weeklong conferences in San Francisco, but recent technological advancements have made it easier.

Lots of creative options
Interestingly, training programs were among the first budget items to be slashed in past recessions, but most Fortune 500 firms have maintained their commitments to staff development in 2008 and 2009 by turning to technology-based platforms like virtual classrooms and e-learning programs. Many professional organizations offer webinars and podcasts at very affordable prices.
There are many ways that employers can develop personal continuing professional education programs for employees; it just takes a little creativity. Consider these initiatives:

Magazine and newspaper subscriptions: Subscribe to Business Week and the Wall Street Journal, which are both prime sources of business news and trends. Make the Wall Street Journal available to all employees, and create a routing system for Business Week so everyone gets to read it.
Books: Buy a great book about your industry and pay overtime to an employee to read it. Ask the employee to make a brief report on the book at a staff meeting.
Manhattan conference: We are only an hour or so away from Manhattan, the world capital for conferences and seminars. Research the best one-day seminars and send an employee. Again, ask the employee to prepare a report for the staff so everyone benefits.
Webinars: Find the right topic and host a working lunch for the staff.
Adult-education classes: Local school districts and colleges offer a terrific array of adult-ed classes, which are cost-effective and held at convenient times at night or on the weekend.
Investing in your staff is a proven way to keep the business your marketing program earns. Make this investment one of your 2010 business goals.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

By Josh Sommers
Published 04/23/10
Most often, 80 percent of a company’s business can be attributed to 20 percent of its customers. OK, that’s no big revelation. But when developing strategies to grow your business, it’s vital to market with the 80/20 rule in mind.
Going after new business through advertising is important. But the lowest-lying fruit in growing revenue rests in your database. For most industries, it’s a company’s biggest asset. Are you frequently communicating with your top 20 percent customer group to get them more engaged with your products and services?

Let them know all that you do
Direct mail, e-mail blasts, educational seminars and newsletters are excellent vehicles to strengthen your customers’ awareness of your company and to cross-sell your offerings. As an example, a top customer receiving retirement planning services could also be a lucrative insurance client. A very common mistake made by businesspeople is the assumption that their customers know “they do that, too.”
Wrong. Consumers are unengaged, and without a consistent strategy to up-sell your top clients, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Don’t forget the personal touch
Rewarding your top customers is also a common and effective tactic. Major retail chains, like Best Buy, Staples and Toys R Us, offer rewards programs. There are hierarchies to the programs that naturally incentivize their best customers. The more you spend, the more points you earn that can be redeemed for store dollars and other rewards. Particularly in the retail world, these types of programs build customer loyalty and drive more trips to the store. It’s not just mega-chains offering these rewards programs. You can find variations at many locally owned restaurants and retailers.
The most important strategy in doing more business with your top customers is the personal touch. Big companies like Wal-Mart try to do that with greeters, but for those who own or help run a small business, building strong relationships presents the biggest opportunity for growth. Touch your clients and top customers often. Hold an event for them or do one-on-one meetings to see what else you can do to provide better service. Yankees tickets never hurt (though they’re obviously not practical for all situations).
It’s not rocket science. The top 20 percent of your customers are your bread and butter. Find additional ways you may be able to do more together. There’s money to be made.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

By Josh Sommers
Published: 04/16/10

As a “PR man” and marketing strategist, I’m an optimist and positive thinker. I try to bring that vibe and culture to the companies I work for.

Late last year, I wrote, with some level of prematurity, that the worst was behind us. This was part of my advice that companies should position themselves with strong marketing for the coming economic recovery. While most companies are still hurting, most economists, indeed, say the recession is over.

Evaluate front-line assets

Hopefully, you have adjusted to the post-recession mindset. Yes, you have to be frugal and smart. But it also means aggressively positioning your company in the marketplace. As companies are, unfortunately, quick to cut marketing resources when times get tough, branding and collateral assets often quickly become outdated. So, start your post-recession marketing with an assessment of your front-line assets.

Evaluate your Web site. It’s where potential customers check you out. Is it out-of-date? Does it not reflect who you are today? Your Web site should not only have current and accurate information, but should also match your company’s sophistication.

Poor marketing hurts image

I recently met with a national wholesale company that was extremely impressive. They are leaders in their industry and sell their products to Fortune 500 companies. But their Web site’s 1990s feel conveyed just the opposite and was likely hurting their business development efforts. Developing a modernized and interactive site became an urgent priority.

I also came across a very prominent professional services company that provided services to more than a dozen specialized industries throughout the Northeast. The organization had a tri-fold brochure for each sector it served.

I cringed when I opened some of the pieces, which were clearly designed by a nonprofessional (likely with a word-processing program) and printed in-house on copy paper. That type of marketing piece, like a poor Web site, actually hurts a company. You’re better off doing without those types of assets if they don’t live up to your organization’s sophistication.

It’s time to roll out smart and thoughtful marketing strategies to grow your business as we climb out of the recession. Start by ensuring your front-line marketing materials position you appropriately and are assets.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.

No business, whatever its size, has unlimited resources for marketing. That’s why every dollar spent on promotion has to count.

If your company was advertising accounting services, you wouldn’t buy ads on MTV. Similarly, promoting auto parts in a magazine focused on early child years also would not be the best use of resources. Placing your advertising in these promotional vehicles may very well help you connect with some new potential customers, but advertising is best leveraged when you find the “sweet spot” — groups of people most likely to buy your product or service. To do so, research is necessary to understand consumer habits and needs, as well as market trends.

First, know your audience

For small companies, it is more evident who their customers are. Usually, a successful business owner doesn’t need to be told who’s most likely to buy his or her product. The common mistake I often see, though, are small businesses forgetting this basic marketing principle when they buy their advertising: Always remind yourself who your target audiences are, and match them up with the media that best reach those groups.

For companies with more resources, deploying professional research is a valuable tool to measure perceptions of products or services and understand market trends. This is especially valuable for larger companies where decision-makers often don’t have the advantage of being on the front lines and interacting with customers.

Use your research well

Strategies such as focus groups and larger sample studies via telephone can also test the effectiveness of advertising messages and product packaging. This is frequently done in politics. After baseline perceptions are measured, pollsters frequently test to see if new information changes the favorability of the candidate or his or her opponent.

While this is classified by many as push polls, it is actually a research tactic to see what messages might sway voters. In addition to learning more about the marketplace, private companies can leverage this type of research to make their advertising even more effective.

In a world where marketing dollars are harder to find, companies can best leverage their resources by accurately understanding who their customers are, what their habits are and what media are the best choices to reach them.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com.

Social networking is sweeping across all industry sectors in the Hudson Valley at a speed I’ve never seen before.

Over the last three weeks, we’ve created six Facebook pages for clients, and coached many others on Twitter and other forms of social media. It’s a fascinating time as businesses rush to this new technology to seek new ways to reach customers and increase revenues.

Social networking is only now catching on in the business world. Since 2008, Facebook, MySpace and similar sites have emerged as exciting and innovative ways for individuals to communicate with each other. Friends and relatives embraced social networking as a way to stay in touch, reach old friends and share their experiences. It has completely transformed the way people communicate across the world.

Naturally, marketing experts have been following this extraordinary trend very closely and have identified a few key events in this fast-moving online revolution. In 1997, the death of Princess Diana was the breakthrough event for online news vehicles, because most people learned of the tragic news from Web sites like cnn.com or usatoday.com instead of traditional news outlets like TV, newspapers and radio. Twelve years later, in 2009, Michael Jackson’s sudden death ushered in the next chapter of the Information Age — the majority of Americans heard about Jackson’s death through Facebook, Twitter and other social-media channels.

Opportunistic businesspeople are scrambling to find ways to capitalize on this movement, and this collective urgency has created a “wild, wild West” market place. Business owners and consultants are racing to determine how they can use this vibrant new medium to influence people to buy their products and services.

There are thousands of success stories about how businesses are leveraging social networking, including hundreds in the Hudson Valley. For example, we’ve provided strategic counsel to a local restaurant on how to deploy and use social media. In less than three weeks, the restaurant’s Facebook page has more than 1,000 followers, allowing it to announce special offers, menu specials and contests easily and at no cost.

This local case study demonstrates the appeal of social networking to businesses of all sizes.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter allow businesses to send sales messages and information directly to the consumer, who can receive them via e-mail, cell phone or Blackberry. In comparison, Web sites have a harder time engaging audiences, as they require site visits.

Social media require an investment of time to learn and to generate regular postings, but the cost is dramatically lower than traditional advertising.

Businesses can build a base of customers, prospective customers and others and reach them with a single keystroke.

The impact of social networking for retail businesses is clear, and it is only a matter of time before sectors like professional services, health care and manufacturing more widely leverage this new world for marketing.

Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com.