Cortney Lusignan Joins Tiziani Whitmyre as Public Relations AAE

Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc., a Boston area-based marketing services and public relations agency, announces the appointment of Cortney Lusignan as assistant public relations account executive.

“The strategic importance of public relations services to business continues to grow – as a means to generate sales leads, build brands, and support search engine and other marketing strategies. In short, PR helps businesses succeed,” said Robert Tiziani, Chief Executive Officer, Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc. (http://www.tizinc.com/). “I am pleased to welcome Cortney the latest addition to our PR team.”

As a member of the agency’s PR team, Lusignan will work with editorial contacts and publications to research, develop, and secure relevant public relations opportunities for clients, including press interviews, news and story placements, and product reviews. She will also developsoptimized press release services and traditional PR materials as well as coordinate and report on client program activities and results.

Prior to joining Tiziani Whitmyre, Lusignan was a public relations intern at MetLife, Inc., and at the United Way of Rhode Island. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from the University of Rhode Island.

Tiziani Whitmyre (www.tizinc.com/services/public-relations) offers a complete portfolio of PR plans, strategy and services, including optimized press releases and Web 2.0 support, news media relations, analyst relations, influencer relations, writing and editorial services, newsletter and e-newsletter development, trade show and speaking bureau programs.


About Tiziani Whitmyre
Tiziani Whitmyre (http://www.tizinc.com/) is a Boston area-based marketing services and strategies agency that builds brands, generates sales leads, and delivers an ROI which maximizes payback on any marketing communications budget. Services include Internet marketing online (including search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, website design), public relations (PR), advertising, direct marketing, graphic design, and corporate branding strategy.

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Free white paper shows how "ROI Internet Marketing" drives growth for small business

A new free white paper explains how small and medium sized companies can generate profitable top-line growth in markets that are mature, flat or experiencing severe price pressures. The solution, a strategy called "ROI Internet Marketing," leverages Internet marketing as the key driver of new business growth -- and is detailed in a white paper now available at www.tizinc.com/white-papers/roi-download.html.

ROI Internet Marketing is the application of sophisticated measurement techniques to optimize marketing spending and to drive business growth – a must for organizational success.

As many markets experience commoditization and competitive onslaught, marketers need more than ever to justify marketing spending. Of course, measurable outcomes are now expected for marketing programs. Yet, most companies are still using hollow metrics such as awareness (or worse, relying on gut feel, guesswork and creative wishful thinking), instead of utilizing concrete return on investment (ROI) analytics.

ROI Internet Marketing represents a unique solution that addresses many of the critical requirements faced by today’s marketing executives – ranging from reducing new customer acquisition costs to marketing to customer niches. The process, as we implement it, involves a four-step ROI marketing framework that involves:

1. Promoting a company brand to acquire new leads
2. Engaging and capturing new prospects
3. Measuring the effectiveness of marketing programs
4. Optimizing the marketing mix and resource allocation to reflect the most effective messages and tactics. The communications channels often include email, direct response, and a website or websites.

The end result includes a dramatic improvement in lead qualification, the implementation of powerful lead generation programs that capture prospects and convert them to sales, the establishment of key metrics, the integration of analytics into campaigns, and the calculatation of cost-per-metric ratios.

Details are provided in a new, free white paper titled “ROI Internet Marketing: The New Opportunity for Growing Companies.” The white paper was written specifically to help the sales and marketing managers of small and mid-market companies.

Download a free copy at: www.tizinc.com/white-papers/roi-download.html or call 781-793-9380.

About Tiziani Whitmyre Inc.
Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc. a marketing services agency offering Internet marketing services, public relations, search engine marketing services, online marketing services, integrated marketing communications, brand strategy, corporate reputation, advertisting, graphic design, Website design, and other business marketing services. The firm's integrated solutions approach supports both the broader and finer points of brand positioning -- as well as the on-going generation of sales leads. The agency’s ROI analytical and marketing expertise ensures the maximum payback on a marketing communications budget. The firm is headquartered near Boston in Sharon, Massachusetts, and can be contacted at http://www.tizinc.com/ or 781-793-9380.

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B2B Marketing Deadly Sin #5 - Misunderstanding Public Relations

by Rick Whitmyre,
president and a principal,
Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc.

In our continuing series, the "Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing," let's look at Deadly Sin #5, which is: "Misunderstanding Public Relations."

Public Relations (PR) is about generating coverage in the media that reaches your target audience. And yet most B2B PR programs spend their budgets papering the walls of editors’ office with news releases. And that paper is intense. Most publications receive thousands of news releases each day – and publish just a few. Sure, the basic element in the PR food chain is the news release. But it only represents an opener that starts the editorial dialogue.

Successful PR placement requires continuous contact and relationship building with editors – over the phone and in-person. Most are overworked and underpaid. Like the rest of us, they appreciate people that make their jobs easier. Editors naturally gravitate toward companies that answer questions fully, provide executives and technical experts quickly, and furnish photos and illustrations that breathe life into complicated stories. Frequent editorial contact and relationship building forges the trust and awareness that pries open story opportunities and secures expanded news coverage in your target publications.

And another thing. Some mistakenly call public relations “free advertising.” First, it’s not free.

You’ll need a PR budget to hire the experienced PR professionals who can generate great editorial coverage. And it’s not advertising. It’s better. Editorial coverage comes with third-party credibility that carries significant weight with readers. Effective public relations can be a great brand building vehicle that takes the pressure off your advertising program (and cuts the cost).

Put most of your PR dollars into media contact, placement, and fulfillment. An appropriate budget ratio would be 30% for news releases and 70% for placement, case studies, and white papers. This approach will produce dramatically more effective news coverage. And can mean the difference between a mention in the “New Products” section, and a cover story.

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There are more Deadly Sins, of course. Want to see the entire series? We've developed a free white paper to help marketing executives avoid these money-wasting, product-killing, and even career-ending mistakes.

Download a free copy of it, “The Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing,” from http://www.tizinc.com/DeadlySins. Or, call us at 781-793-9380.

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B2B Marketing Deadly Sin #4 - Underestimating the Power of Your Web Site

by Rick Whitmyre,
president and a principal,
Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc.

In our continuing series, the "Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing," let's look at Deadly Sin #4, which is: "Underestimating the Power of Your Web Site."

OK, you have a web site. You’ve kept it updated. So what? Is it driving leads and business to your company? Is it reducing the cost of your marketing transactions? Does it project a global image? Almost every B2B web site we see is an underachiever; not fulfilling its huge potential to deliver leads, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. Don’t think of your Web site as an on-line catalog. Think of it as a strategic competitive weapon.

Today, the web site is the primary image maker for your business. It’s the first place a person goes to check out your company. In those precious seconds spent viewing your home page, prospects form the vital first impressions that will forever color their attitudes about your company. What does the site say about your firm? Does it convey the image and depth of a global industry leader? Or look more like the personal web blog of your teenage daughter’s boyfriend. A client once took a particularly candid view of his company’s site. “We look like the guy selling a $5,000 Rolex from the trunk of a ’62 Dodge.”

Your Web site also is a back door into your enterprise. People come in by the thousands, wander around, and search through your offerings in total anonymity. With no pushy salespeople, it’s a shoppers dream. A recent survey shows that 90% of all engineers and technical buyers use the Internet on the job; 42% for as much as 7 hours per week. Over half query search engines to find and specify products. Google and Yahoo now play a critical role in directing cyber-prospects to your web site. When buyers launch Internet searches for your products and services –and they don’t find your site – those are lost business opportunities. This is especially troubling when you consider the resources invested to build and maintain your Web presence. Optimizing your site to appear on the first pages of Google and Yahoo is critical in today’s electron driven economy. And buying paid keyword sponsorships on these search engines attracts even more leads to your company.

But an effective interactive marketing strategy involves more than driving visitors to your Web site. If they come and go incognito, like ghosts in the machine, you’re leaving money and leads on the table. Sending visitors through landing and registration pages for high-value content can generate scores of qualified leads. An automated on-line database can collect and distribute those leads to your sales force, supporting fulfillment and remarketing.

A successful B2B site might log 50,000 to 100,000 visitor sessions a month. That’s quality time a customer spends browsing through your offerings. Compare that to the effectiveness of your other marketing communications. Where else can you engage so many prospects at such low cost?

Have you visited your own Web site lately? Have you searched for your own products or services on Google or Yahoo? Your web site can become a low-cost, global, 24/7, self-service front-end for your company. And your smallest competitor can do it better than you.

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There are more Deadly Sins, of course. Stay tuned...

Or, if you can't wait, we've developed a free white paper to help marketing executives avoid these money-wasting, product-killing, and even career-ending mistakes.

Download a free copy of it, “The Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing,” from http://www.tizinc.com/DeadlySins. Or, call us at 781-793-9380.

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B2B Marketing Deadly Sin #3 - Overestimating the Power of Creative

by Rick Whitmyre,
president and a principal,
Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc.

In our continuing series, the "Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing," let's look at Deadly Sin #3, which is: "Overestimating the Power of Creative."

Don’t assume great creative will produce great B2B results; that reaching your sales and marketing goals are tied directly to the effectiveness of the creative. Sometimes creativity and success are mutually exclusive. Focusing purely on creative is like buying a great looking car without checking the engine. You turn the key, but it doesn’t go anywhere. The engine represents the goals, positioning, and value proposition that power the communication.
The creative is the body that delivers it.

According to our creative director, “The creative is so much better and effective if I understand the goal and the positioning. When I’m told to craft an ad and simply ‘do something creative,’ then I’m only superficially addressing the issue. The result is a highly subjective discussion on the ‘creativity’ of the concept.”

We’ve seen what some might consider creative-free advertising deliver almost unbelievable results. Our firm developed a fractional space ad for a client that simply offered an Insider’s Guide. No big creative hook employed here. In fact, these executions would have been laughed out of the Addy Awards. But the ad produced thousands and thousands of leads. So why does that happen? There must be other reasons that don’t revolve around the creative. In this case, the guide stimulated latent need in the marketplace that had not been addressed. And it was placed in media focused tightly on the target audience.

Here’s another example. In probably the most successful ad campaign we’ve conceived, the marketing strategy was highly creative, not the ads themselves. And the client spent less than $100,000 on the media. Yet the campaign repositioned the competition as yesterday’s technology, turned the marketplace upside down, and put a hundred million dollars on the client’s top line.

An agency colleague once said, “The role of the client is to define the problem, and creativity is problem solving 101. The myth is thinking that the creative is the design and copy, when in reality it’s the entire solution.”

In B2B, it’s the message, not the medium. Sure the creative is important to grab attention. But you’re not selling toothpaste or hotel rooms. I know what a hamburger does. But I’m a little hazy about process optimization software that will lower my catalytic cracking costs by 3 cents a barrel. Spend more time on the positioning and messaging. The creative will take care of itself.

- - -

There are more Deadly Sins, of course. Stay tuned...

Or, if you can't wait, we've developed a free white paper to help marketing executives avoid these money-wasting, product-killing, and even career-ending mistakes.

Download a free copy of it, “The Five Deadly Sins of B2B Marketing,” from http://www.tizinc.com/DeadlySins. Or, call us at 781-793-9380.

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Technorati tags:Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc., marketing, Internet marketing, web marketing, white paper, whitepaper, B2B, public relations, PR, marketing communications, strategic marketing, creative, web development, marketing services, marketing strategies