Word on the street is we’re supposed to start being eco-friendly, and one easy way to do your part is by using less paper. Hard copy newsletters, brochures, and snail mail are serious paper wasters. I think the time has come for marketing to go green.

Environment aside, who reads hard copy brochures and newsletters anymore? How often is the information actually beneficial, and how much are you spending on making these ignored pamphlets? Almost everything people get in the mail that isn’t a Christmas card or a bill gets thrown away. Things need to be short, concise, convenient and useful for people to be willing to take the time to look at them. We are in a fast paced age of multi-tasking frenzy. Don’t hold people back with your wordy glossy handouts.

Email marketing is far more beneficial. People can skim it, keep it, reference it, and send it to their friends. Email marketing allows hyper links, and one click commenting abilities. Plus, if someone doesn’t want the information you’ve sent him or her, there is no paper wasted when the delete button is clicked.

It’s a simple message. There is no point to hard copies anymore, especially brochures. Besides the doctor’s office, nobody is going to take the time to read what you have to say. Stop spending your money and go green.

(Photo Go Green or Go Home by Little Miss Sunshine)

EMarketer put out an article Tuesday about what Americans want from brands. Their results give businesses some great knowledge points to think about when creating marketing campaigns. Stuff to keep in mind.

Two things that Americans want from brands:

1. Constant information and brand updates
2. Discounts!

When it comes to buying, Americans look more positively on word of mouth than any other advertising strategy. The data even showed that Americans will be more likely to buy when they are told face to face about a brand than in an online community, which is fascinating considering the amount of time we all spend on our social networks and online personas.

But, in the same realm, people are also far more likely to trust bloggers and social media contacts who they read or follow regularly about brands, than celebrities or news reps (keep that in mind when looking for people to pitch a product).

So how do you implement new strategies knowing this information? Does this information change who you are going to connect with in the future, and the strategy you will use to implement brand announcements?

Connecting with customers is getting harder. Marketing and sales has been making dramatic shifts in the past few years as traditional ad strategies become more and more obsolete, and those changes are going to have to continue in the months and years to come.

(Photo With a Little Help From My Friends by Herodoto)

It’s hard to make a blog truly great when people are talking about the same thing as you all over the blogosphere. To see success against all the competition, stay focused. Blogs are great for building traffic and providing content. But people need a reason to come read your stuff. Make sure blogs have a subject and stick to it. Blogs without a goal are useless to readers, especially when the content genre being published varies each time it goes up. Make a blogging strategy and follow some simple steps to make the most of your product:

• Brain Storm – Figure out who your customer is? What do they like, and why are they interested in what you do? Then, take that person and create a blog that makes sense for them. Think about what they would want to read about, and write about it.

• Tag and Promote – Always tag your posts. Remember that tagging is the only way that people will navigate to your blog from a different platform like Google or Technorati. Then be sure that while you let search engines do their thing, you simultaneously use your website to promote the blog. Start talking about it with your customers, in your emails and on your newsletters. Get on your companies twitter account (your company does have a twitter account doesn’t it?) and tweet your posts each time a new one goes up.

• Plan – It’s tempting to wait to decide what your post is going to be on until you sit down to write it…but that’s a dangerous game. Plan your blog posts at least a week before they are going up so you have some time to think about them and get the idea brewing.

• Pay attention to Comments – Promote commenting on your blog, and follow up on comments when people leave them. Always thank people for their input, and if necessary respond. Connecting with comment leavers will considerably improve their chances of coming back.

• Be Consistent – Pick days that you will be putting up new posts and stick to that schedule. Decide on a minimum number of posts you are going to put up a week, and stick to that number. Your readers will expect new posts regularly. Don’t let them down.

(Photo Calender by Mike (Inbet_1979))

Catering to your audience is a writing necessity no matter when you sit down to compose written material. Anything from a letter to your grandparents, to inquiring about a job, means you need to step back and make sure you’ve formatted the writing for the receiver.

When pitching to the media we are told to “think like a journalist.” But, as non-journalists, what does that mean? There are several values media/journalists look for in a story. It’s the values that make a story good, worthwhile and intriguing. Here are eight of those values to consider:

1. Prominence – the people/person you discuss in your pitch to media need to be known to make it important. When neighbor Joe discusses Kanye West’s appearance at the Music Awards with impressive verbage nobody writes about it. But when President Obama does it…you get the idea.

2. Timeliness – if the story isn’t recent it isn’t news. TV in particular requires immediate reaction to stories. The media cares about a story that happened last month, or last week even, as much as they care about what you ate.  The only exception to timeliness is with important anniversary, something like September 11th.

3. Proximity – where was the event, and is the audience going to care? Whats the local impact? Not everything is going to be national news, and when pitching to local papers and stations you need to have a local swing to your story to make it interesting to the public.

4. Impact – how is the story going to effect the audience? Your story has to matter, if you wouldn’t walk away with a lasting impression from your story, chances are no one else will either. Think about how you want to effect the audience before writing, then use that angle.

5. Magnitude – sometimes stories have so much of an impact, everyone wants to know about them. Anytime you can have a story that big, you should obviously pitch it.

6. Conflict – nearly all stories are based off of some sort of conflict. Think of your pitch as a story board, define the problem and figure out how it is resolved, then share it. Every conflict makes a boring story more interesting.

7. Oddity – what makes your story unusual? The media gets a huge stack of press releases every day. What makes yours more interesting than the rest? What makes it different?

8. Emotional Impact – we’ve all heard the puppies, children and women antidote for advertising. Pitching stories is the same. Whenever you can swing kids, animals or senior citizens into your story, you’ve found your emotion.

(Photo procupine babies? nope, hedgehogs By Shade McVay)

There is no excuse to not follow current events. Choose the platform of your choice – radio, TV, news sites, blogs – and take a ½ hour everyday to fill yourself in.

Knowing what media is talking about is crucial to your businesses pitches. You should never run the risk of sending out a story that will be pushed under the radar. For example, it’s probably less than wise to pitch something the day of a State of the Union Address, or a few days after.

But it is a good idea to pitch a money saving venture when there is talk about the poor economy. Learning to time your business with what the rest of the country, or world, is talking about is crucial to success. Look for themes in the news; know what’s coming up and plan when the right time for your story is based on when it will be a benefit.

It’s also important to keep track of which journalists are talking about what. When pitching an idea you need to hone in on the right journalist, the one that you already know has an interest in your business and story because they already write about it.

Start logging journalists and following the work of the one you want to write about your pitch. They’ll appreciate you knowing what they’ve been talking about when you contact them. Even better, now that almost all news sources have commenting and sharing abilities, you have the opportunity for journalist to appreciate you before they know you have a great story for them. Start promoting their stories by commenting, posting their articles on Twitter and linking to them in your blog.

Finally, it should go without saying that current events are conversations. You can’t talk to someone in media if you don’t know what they’ve been talking about. Nor can you successfully attend social events without humiliation. So in case you don’t already have your favorite news source in your reader, it’s time to add it.

(Photo Paparazzi by elbelgasturiano)