We’re in the market to lease a new mini-van.  After request a quote for the basic model and getting what was supposedlyy a very decent price (compared to two months ago), I did some quick math to find we were still paying a above the amount that Toyota advertises as the starting price on their web site (see picture).

I was then informed by the sales person that the basic model with that starting price on the Web site is without any options, and that kind of car isn’t available – they all arrive with some options already installed that drive the basic price for cars actually available up a few thousand.

In other words, Toyota is advertising a very enticing product and price combination…but they are not actually making it available.  Classic bait and switch.

Does every manufacturer do this?  No.  I did buy a car a few years ago where we wanted the absolute basic model…though the dealer did have to go out of state to get it for us.  But it’s not uncommon either.  And for an industry where so much of the purchase decision is based on buyers trusting the brand, it’s an odd way to use one of the most valuable marketing assets.

Protecting and enhancing your search reputation is still an often overlooked component of reputation management, as the Obama campaign found out.  Using a marketing tactic known as ambush ads, The Wall Street Journal’s recent article on the McCain online strategy outlined how McCain is using Obama related keywords (such as Biden) to direct viewers to McCain controlled content.  The result? For many people looking for more information on Biden and Obama, the first impression will be one formed by the McCain campaign.

Search continues to be dominated by marketing and sales by search reputation is an area that should be considered as basic as media relations, if not more so.  The problem lies not in PR teams realizing the importance of search, but in the understanding of how to manage a brand’s search reputation.  To do that, several basic skill sets and steps must be taken:

1. An understanding of your audience and their use of search.  Like any other medium, the importance of search reputation management will be more less important depending on your audience.  For example, a young professional audience may likely use Google for a first stop for information while a high end business audience may use a high end research service such as Factiva for corporate information.  Understand how and why your audience is using search.
2. Analysis and ongoing tracking of user search habits so that the PR team understands what people are looking for when they happen to or should come across positive and accurate information on your brand.
3. An understanding of organic and paid search engine optimization.  This means learning how to manage Web page optimization and paid search results so that the first search impression of you brand is the right one.

These are just three basic rules to follow.  The reality is more complicated and difficult as it requires PR teams to be as well versed in search as they (hopefully) are in media relations.   As an industry, we’re still at an early stage.  How many PR job descriptions have you seen with search engine optimization skills as part of the requirement?

So when a marketing oriented SEO/PPC expert writes an article on the importance of SEO to PR, I think it’s worth reading.  In the case of one just published in iMediaconnection, it’s worth passing on.  You  can read the full article at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19109.asp .

Here is a brief outline of the key areas where SEO and PPC ads can serve as a core PR tools:

1. Address negative publicity by optimizing and advertising online material.  When people search for more information on negative rumors, they find your company response. 
   Build consumer trust by directing people to both company and third party information (perhaps to a blog of product reviews).
2. Raise your brand’s image in front of new audiences.  If you have a specific audience you are targeting, they may have common search patterns against which you can optimize and advertise (the article does not get this specific but makes some good general points.

This is more of a shift of focus than a switch.  Since the Web exploded, communications professionals – from PR to advertising – have been focused on driving to traffic to destinations.  This was true whether it was for informational purposes (such as in PR or branding programs) or for sales.   This is like focusing marketing on getting people to go to a store just to learn about the product instead of teaching them through the magazines they read and the TV shows they watch.  It can be a lot of effort for relatively little return. 

Now efforts are shifting to distributing branded or messaging carrying content.  The focus is moving to getting information to all the appropriate places where consumers congregate.  Go where the consumers are, put information in the context that they, and the community in which they congregate, naturally appreciate. 

The three main drivers of this shift – social networking, Web video video and personal portals like Netvibes of My Yahoo that are driven by RSS feed – have gained an enormous amount of momentum the last few years.  However, marketers have only experimented with these sites and remained focus on driving traffic to proprietary sites. 

Ad budgets will focus on driving traffic to third part sites.  We already see micro-versions of this with Facebook ads driving users to branded Facebook pages.  Next we might see a Yahoo based ad driving a user to a branded video channel on Heavy.com or section of Dailymotion (disclosure: a client).

But a careful balance will have to be sought.  Advertisers will still want to capture that traffic and not simply invest to build up traffic to someone else site.  I would not be surprised to see some third party sites make it easier for advertisers to register users on those sites.

A study by Simmons found that consumers are 47% more engaged by online TV viewing than by watching on a TV set.  You can read the article to learn more about the study itself but I think the article needs some context as it is comparing apples to oranges – in other words, you can’t compare television to online video…at least just yet.  When I watch an ad on Hulu it’s one ad per show, one break, and often has high relevance to the content I’m watching.    When I watch an ad on Heavy, Break.com or Dailymotion (disclosure: Dailymotion is a client), fewer ads are often directly relevant to the content, increasing engagement.  In other words, TV has lousy engagement but broad reach.  Video can have terrific engagement, but lousy reach.  

However, this is all likely to change.  Online video can afford the experimentation at this early growth stage.  Television, being a more mature and far broader audience medium (as of today) has to be more conservative – mistakes due to experimentation made on TV will be of a far larger scale than mistakes online.

At some point, the lessons learned online make their way to television due to innovation in technology and advertising formats.  Until then, it’s worth keeping in mind the differences both in their capabilities and uses while also looking at how we may see online lessons make their way to television.

All this is about the future, not the present.  While a lot of people watch online video, it’s only a fraction of those watching TV (essentially, everyone).  So if you’re looking to reach those demographics watching online video the above points are critical.  Otherwise, it’s going to be a bit longer before online video marketing has the same reach as television based marketing.  Of course, at that point we may be watching all that content on our television.

Go online and search for baby safety products and what will you see?  A lot of ads for the sale of baby good products and a few for information on those products.  According to the data, people are more likely to 1) search when they are about to purchase products; and 2) click on the information links as opposed to the sales oriented links.

Marketing and public relations teams interested in leveraging this behavior should be conducting a few checks on their search engine strategy:

1. Is information oriented content being optimized in a way that complements the sales oriented information (good)? Or is the sales oriented information taking the priority (bad)?
2. Are keyword advertisements being placed for both information as well as sales oriented literature?  The Comscore information indicates people may be more likely to click on the information ad over the sales ad.
3. Is the information content being looked at from purely a marketing point of view (usually meaning mostly company literature)?  Or is it being looked at from a public relations point of view (third party testimony, links to other third party blogs, discussion groups etc)?
4. Are media results being leveraged in terms of reprints and links appearing on the site?  This can raise the value of media results exponentially over the value of the initial placement (as more people can view it through your site than might have seen it on the publication date).

This is just a few starting points but asking these questions should highlight if and how a company is either capturing or missing those many eyeballs (and lucrative ones, according to Comscore) looking for pre-purchase product information.

I’ve already been testing Facebook Flyers, and found it a great way to target specific groups by sending a specific message to a specific type or community of people at a specific time.  This is a valuable companion to keyword search advertising which allows me to send specific messages to specific people, based on their search criteria, but only when they come looking for that message.

My only complaint, or hope, for this beta service was that the targeting could be even more specific.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook and Myspace (through a new HyperTargeting ad program) are about to launch tools to provide more specific targeting.    Public relations, corporate communications and public affairs executives should all take note and follow this development closely.  These advertising tools have the potential to be the center piece of direct to consumer public relations.  I’ll be testing them over the next several months and reporting results.

I’ve been testing out flyers and here’s what I found:

1. They have the potential of targeting very specific interest groups.  Right now, you can either target everyone or university campuses.  If they take the university targeting capability and expand it to any Facegroup group, it would allow professionals to identify groups of individuals with appropriate interest, and post flyers (communicate messages) to those groups.
2. General flyers or flyers targeted to other groups can be used to build membership in new groups.  Direct to audience communications programs, such as ambassador programs, can form groups in Facebook then use Flyers to recruit (right now you can just invite people in).  Here is a group for mobile gadget users that I’m testing now: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5852073717
3. If Facebook’s approach takes off, then maybe other social networks will implement similar tools, making it easier for communications professionals to identify specific audiences and deliver messages only to those audiences.

Take a test drive at http://www.facebook.com/flyers.php.  This is the basic version.  There is also a new pay-per-click version.

And please feel free to contact me with any questions at cohen AT fortexgroup.com

The many different types of audiences, forms of social media and various online outreach programs are commonly grouped into three categories: formal influentials, activisit consumers, the general audience.

In all the cases below, the public relations and communications professionals reaching these audiences share several critical areas of knowledge and expertise: knowledge of online communications features (e.g., mobile blogging), an understanding of how to communicate with others online, and a belief in transparency and conversation.

Formal Influentials

Formal influentials are the people whose job it is to get  information out to the public, whether it is a business, government or consumer public.  These influentials are commonly traditional reporters now publishing online, professional bloggers, and industry analysts. 

Reaching this audience is primarily a a job of public relations professionals.  It is becoming more common for media relations experts, people whose job it is to know how to work with journalists and analysts, to upgrade their skills in order to communicate with these influentials online.

Acitivist Consumers

Activist consumers are like formal influentials with day jobs.  It is not unusual for activist consumers to have similar expertise and even comparable audiences to the first category.  For example, an activist consumer technology blogger with an engineering expertise and several thousand readers a day.    More commonly, these are those friends and family members that tend to dive deeper into a particular topic – from consumer technology to gardening to politics.  They read or maintain blogs on particular topics, post comments and participate in online forums.

This audience can, and should, be reached by both public relations and marketing executives.  On the public relations side, what I call social media relations experts reach out to this influential audiences.  These experts are professionals that know the rules of social media, understand how to communicate online and are often former or current formal influentials, usually bloggers, themselves.   On the marketing front, this audience is often reached through highly targeted sponsorships, events and viral campaigns. 

Consumers/General Audiences

And then there is everyone else.  Although “social” media has a high profile these days, the average consumer simply digests information online from traditional news sites and the most popular blogs and, when needed, forums.  They communicate via email, social networks and mobile services mainly around social needs.  

While they are influenced both by formal influentials and activist consumers, they are still more broadly reached through formal influencers – mass media.  They are also reachable through online advertising (e.g., pay per click and sponsorships) as well as viral marketing campaigns.  The most comprehensive public relations and communications programs use all techniques – from activist consumers to mass media to viral marketing – to reach this audience.

1) For public relatoins executives, this is a post we should put into program proposals.  Google ads are a great way to deliver public relations messages to targeted audiences (in this case, people interested in health care issues).  However, most of the ads sales are sales focused messages.   Here we have Google’s ad division reminding corporate communications departments that the Google ad network is a terrific online message distribution tool.  I believe it is, but don’t see enough media industry executives backing up that notion.  It’s good to see Google point out that PPC ads are not simply for measuring ad-sales click through rates.  Here’s what Lauren wrote:

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?

We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.

2 Lauren gave us a perfect exmaple of why executives must pay attention to the corporate messages.  In this case, the advertising executive should know that their job is to advocate for Google as a way to deliver messages, not to advocate for the message itself.   The message Lauren posted would have been more effective if it was about the effectiveness of Google’s network for reaching a broad audience concerned with health care issues.  Instead, the message was Google is an effective network for companies interested in maintaining the status quo of the American health system (and possibly that Google has a strong anti-national healthcare stance).  As it seems Lauren found out, she has every right to provide her opinion on Sicko as an individual, but when speaking for the company, as anyone does when writing on a company blog, her job is, in fact, to communicate the corporate message (do no evil…so be careful around any movie that has a central message of providing healthcare for everyone).   It is what any public executive is hired to do. 

3. In general, this blog is a great example of using blogs for B2B marketing.  It’s a running dialogue on how companies in the health industry can most effectively use the Google ad network.  If I’m a health marketing executive, this is one I would watch.  Another good example is Google’s packaged goods blog at http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/) which most recently discusses the advantage of buying radio ads through Google  (I love it as I find Google’s ad buying portal very easy to use and would recommend it for clients needing to make local radio buys).

For those of you interested in reading more about what Lauren wrote, here are some links of interest:

http://searchengineland.com/070701-193852.php

http://www.thebloggingjournalist.com/2007/07/googles-lauren-.html

http://blog.insiderchatter.com/2007/07/02/why-google-health-is-sick-o-2-trillion-medical-target/

http://www.articlesnatch.com/blog/2007/07/02/google-health-ads-blog-backs-off-sicko/ 

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/google-takes-on-michael-moore/

Update:

Google’s marketing executive clarifies Google’s more populist friendly health message.