6 Points to Winning Fans for Economic Development

I recently completed a public relations and marketing plan for a North Texas community interested in growing its tax base. Economic development has its fans, but not everyone in the community is a cheerleader for growth. Some homeowners want things to stay the same. Others are frustrated that new restaurants and stores aren't coming in fast enough. Six days before the big game seemed like the prime time to list tips for scoring points with the public.

The one thing every PR/Markeitng Plan must have

Never has it been easier to create a whiz-bang public relations plan. There are more tools available than ever before. Start with media placements, events, newsletters, brochures, and sales sheets. Then juice it with social media. Link it, hash tag it, post it, make it tweet and tumble. Do these things and your company will see more profits, and be more highly regarded.

Right?

Maybe not.

The critical element in all of this is measurement. Was it the whiz, or the bang that made customers react to your efforts? How does someone know if all the moving parts had an impact? Which caused the biggest reaction? What should you keep doing? What needs to be scrapped, or changed? The hype comes easily, the value is harder to define. 

All of these things are great, but the most critical element is measurement. This can be click through rates on your email blasts, amount of media coverage, increased phone calls, unique URLs created placed in your brochures, and much more. If your campaign is generating likes, follows, phone calls and more – congratulations! But, if all that noise isn’t supporting your long term goals, or increasing your profits – it is time to re-evaluate.

Make a Flyer that Gets You Business

A friend asked me to review her new flyer while we talked on the phone. This wasn’t the scheduled topic of our conversation, but it was a simple request and I really wanted to see what she had developed. She emailed it to me and we sat in awkward silence as we waited for her creation to appear on my screen. Her team spent a lot of time on it she told me. She really thought I would like it.

When I fixed my eyes on the flyer, I saw what I’ve seen so many times before – a great design that was consumed by a copious amount of content. “It’s very comprehensive,” I said. A quick glance told me there were nearly 1,000 words on the page in front of me. This wasn’t a flyer, it was an essay.



This flyer uses bullet points and a fun design to
make for easy reading.

Flyers are a great resource. You can have one written, designed and produced inexpensively in a matter of hours. The problem is a lot of flyers don't get read because the message isn't clear. The business owner wants to tell their customers everything about what they do and answer every possible question. That’s asking a lot of one sheet of paper. A flyer should serve as a written elevator pitch - quickly and easily digested by anyone.

The most successful flyers can be read aloud in about 15 seconds. Here's three tips for making better flyers.

1. Determine the call to action. What do you want people to do? Call for an appointment, come into the store for a special offer. Decide the desired response and lead with that in your text.

2. Make the copy brief and use bullet points. Does it pass the 15 second test?

3. Know your audience. Are you selling to mothers, business professionals, teens? Make sure the design relates to them, and doesn’t detract from your core message.

Bonus tip: Read every flyer that comes your way. How quickly can you determine what the seller wants you to do? Can you find the contact information? Could you explain it to your neighbor after just an initial glance?

An impressive flyer can be found anywhere - even your front porch. My doorbell rang and to my surprise the man standing before me handed me a flyer that was far better than his competition. He used bullet points to describe his landscaping services, included a couple of pictures and made his contact information easy to find. Can you recall the last flyer you received from a landscaper? Before that moment, neither could I.

One might argue that a landscaper has a simple message to deliver, and therefore his flyer was easier to produce. But you should be able to describe your business, no matter how complex, in the same manner to anyone. You may not cut grass, or trim the hedges, but you sell something to a group of people. If you can’t explain what you deliver in quick fashion, nobody else can either.

E-mail Snags 90 Sign-Ups in 90 Minutes

Every professional speaker hopes for a standing room only crowd. There are several ways to increase the odds of meeting this goal – besides removing all the chairs from the room. Knowing your target audience and leveraging good promotional efforts are at the top of the list. For example, a recent email promoting a client’s free educational seminar produced rock star-like results. The communication was basic in nature and contained no super whiz-bang graphic elements, but still managed to generate an overwhelming response.

Kevin Campbell is the president of College Planning Authority and is passionate about saving families money on the cost of college tuition. He works with dozens of clients one-on-one, and as a community service Campbell speaks to civic and professional groups about college planning. We recently began contacting employee wellness groups about his free presentations. Companies who value their employees enough to have a wellness program know the stress related to money management spills over into work productivity. The organization we targeted had never presented this topic before so we had no idea what our results might be. Campbell's typical engagements garner about 40-50 people, so we hoped for at least that many. However, we never imagined to “sell out” the free event. We provided the following email, and managed to get 90 reservations in 90 minutes.

Subject - Wellness Committee Presents - Save Thousands on Your Child's College Tuition

The Wellness Committee presents "How to Pay for College Without Going Broke" - noon, Jan. 20 at (location).

College Planning Authority is Fort Worth's first comprehensive college planning company. Kevin Campbell is a college planning expert who has been interviewed by WFAA and CBS 11 news. As a service to (business name) employees, he will provide all the inside secrets to saving thousands of dollars on your child's college tuition. Parents of high school students are highly encouraged to attend.

Today, a four-year degree at a state school costs approximately $100,000 and the price is expected to increase. Find out what you can do to lower the expense - by thousands of dollars. You'll get inside tips on filling out application forms, financial aid, scholarships, standardized testing and more. You will also see specific examples of how hard working families have missed out on savings. Sign up today so you're in the know!

 

That's it! The registration email was far from revolutionary, but incredibly successful. The key elements to the high response rate include:

• the built-in audience for the employee wellness program

• the source – the email came from the program director program - not the client

• the client’s expertise and results

• we made them care, if they didn’t already, about the topic by providing the facts on the astronomical cost of tuition

• a sense of urgency communicated at the end of the email

Target your audience, have the information sent from a trusted resource, communicate the problem and objective in a concise manner, and you too could be speaking to a packed house.