Increase your Influence with Positive Speech

It seems that negative words weigh five times as much as positive words. Negativity is memorable.

Using positive language will simplify your life by eliminating the following eight problems of negative language:

• Negative language is non-communication
• Negative language is destructive
• Negative language causes defensiveness
• Negative language drives communication out of control
• Negative language causes intellectual deafness
• Negative language never brings closure
• Negative language never achieves victory
• Negative language weighs more than positive language

The major benefits associated with using positive language include:

• You are in control. Using positive language helps people know what to do, what the limits are, what their assignments are and what remains to be done.
• Conversations are shorter when positive language is used. Negative language brings confusion and causes conversations, meetings, discussions and disagreements to go on and on.
• Relationships are improved through positive language. This is because the confusion caused by negative language is eliminated.

Using People-First Language

Respectfully use people-first language when referring to an individual with an illness or disability. By putting the person first (proper name, or child, man, woman, etc.) and the disability next, you focus on who the person is and then note what the person has: "child with Down syndrome" NOT "Down syndrome child."

What is Viral Marketing?

What does a virus have to do with public relations and marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a PR/Marketing-oriented message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as ‘word-of-mouth,’ “creating a buzz,” “leveraging the media,” “network marketing” and “permission marketing.” But on the Internet, for better or worse, it’s called “viral marketing.” While others have attempted to rename it, to somehow domesticate and tame it, the term “viral marketing” has stuck.

*The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free web-based email services.

Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely fast.

Email Marketing FAST FIVE

It’s Inexpensive.
Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget – and whose isn’t these days? Unlike direct mail, email carries virtually no production, materials or postage expenses. Email marketing is 20 times more cost effective than direct mail, and can cost as little as fractions of a penny per email.

It’s Effective.
Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your web site. It is a highly effective way to increase sales, drive site or store traffic and develop loyalty.

It’s Immediate.
Email marketing generates an immediate response. The call to action is clear: “Click here to take advantage of this offer,” or to learn more about this service.” Surveys can now be conveniently incorporated into almost all formats. Initial campaign response generally occurs within 72 hours of the time the email campaign is sent.

It’s Targeted.
Businesses can easily segment their lists using a variety of criteria or interest groups to ensure that promotions go to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer.

It’s Easy.
Nowadays there are web-based email marketing products available for small and medium businesses that include professional HTML templates or semi- custom designs, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as automatic tracking and reporting capabilities.

PROFIT's eMarketing Communications Program FAQ's

Q. Why consider using an eMarketing Communications program?
A. To communicate with a pre-exiting database on a regular basis where an initial relationship already exists to build awareness and business…bottom line.

Q. What makes PROFIT’s eMarketing Communications Program unique compared to traditional stock-based mailings?
A. Affordability, flexibility, frequency and the ability to specifically identify and reach the designated recipient.

Q. What key components ensure the success of PROFIT’s eMarketing Communications program?
A. The success and results derived from using this email marketing program have everything to do with an accurate and maintained database, message and timing.

Q. What kind of results can be anticipated when using this targeted eMarketing Communications Program?
A. PROFIT Communications began using this email marketing program in January ’06 to build awareness of the PR firm and to drive traffic to PROFIT’s web site, resulting in a blended 78% increase in all monitored web site categories to-date.

Q. How helpful are the reporting & tracking aspects of PROFIT’s eMarketing Communications Program?
A. Very important, in that you can identify who is opening the mailing, how often and who is driven to the web site to obtain additional information and resources. Further, this is an excellent way to identify new prospects/donors/volunteers, and to cross-sell new products and services.

Why Strategic Q-and-As Ought to Accompany Press Releases

The Q-and-A is a very fundamental part of any important announcement your company or organization is about to make. The press release is intended to focus on the few most key and critical points of your announcement. However, we’ve found that it’s also advisable to provide the media and other audiences with additional details to ensure your story is understood and accurately reported in the form of a Q-and-A. The Q-and-A goes a step further in anticipating and providing the answers to additional questions that specific audiences might ask, placing any spokesperson in a pro-active position versus suddenly finding themselves stumbling over their words.

PROFIT’s ‘Fast Five’ Steps to Developing an Effective Q-and-A…

• Brainstorm anticipated stakeholder questions. Consider gathering a group of people from your company or organization [i.e., HR, Sales & Marketing, Investor & Community Relations] to review the press release announcement and to help generate the questions each audience is likely to ask.
• Tailor your answers. Essentially, know your audiences up front and be prepared to craft answers tailored to meet their specific information needs.
• Repetition is good. Repeating the same concepts in different answers isn’t redundant; in fact, it can help increase key message retention.
• Keep it concise. Each answer should be concise enough that the person using the Q-and-A can read through it a few times and pick up the essence of the key issues.
• Tackle the tough ones. It’s tempting to remove the difficult and sensitive question…don’t. Make an effort to answer every single tough question on your list as honestly and openly as possible and if all else fails, know that the spokesperson can say, “We don’t have all of the information now, but we’ll get back to you as soon as we do.”