In today’s media-saturated culture, effective PR is a crucial part of any business that is public or private. Image and public opinion mean everything, especially in the increasingly influential realm of social media. The individual or group who wins the media race will win the ultimate goal which is the trust of the people. A good Public Relations strategy, better known as PR, is the art and science of making people, governments and organizations look good. ImageMAXmedia PR professionals work behind the scenes — sending press releases, courting journalists, researching public opinion — to position their clients as positive role models, ethical businessmen, concerned public officials and/or community organizations.

It can be difficult to tell public relations apart from advertising. Advertisers strive to sell a product or service, and a good public relations strategy focuses on shaping an image. PR and marketing are even more related in that marketing uses research and targeted communications to achieve a desired action while public relations professionals strive to gain unpaid publicity from newspaper articles or TV news segments. Strategy and who you chose for your strategy are everything when you embark on any marketing or PR campaign, trust the professionals at ImageMAXmedia to create a targeted thought provoking media campaign sure to capture the results you or your company are striving for.

Price - Getting this right is the first order of business. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they’re living a simpler life, spending less and being more frugal as a result of the recession. It’s essential to meet or beat the competition’s pricing on selected front-line products and services. Then you can provide bundled services or additional products at more profitable price points.
Added Value - Online comparison shopping is the norm these days, and whether you sell online, offline or both, shoppers are looking for that little extra nudge when choosing where to make their final purchase. Free shipping, coupons and buy-one get-one sales are currently among the most popular incentives.
Convenience - Gone are the days of cheap gas and moms with unlimited time to shop. Now customers want and expect convenience. If you have an e-commerce website, streamline the checkout process, particularly for returning customers. Traditional brick-and-mortar store owners should re-evaluate hours of operation, as well as checkout wait times and staffing to ensure a speedy and convenient shopping experience, especially if working mothers are your bread and butter.
Trust - Customers are careful to spend their limited dollars wisely and are scrutinizing each purchase to make sure they’re making a “safe” decision. They want to buy from companies they trust and believe in. So include testimonials, reviews or a message board on your website that helps customers understand why they should believe in your company and trust what you sell.
Conscience - Increasingly, consumers want to know you’re a good corporate citizen. Businesses with a conscience care for their communities, others who are less fortunate and the world around them. Detail your activism on your website, in your company newsletter or through in-store promotions. Get involved at the local level and encourage your customers to participate, such as through food or clothing drives, or by cleaning up the local park. You’ll establish a positive relationship with customers that sets you apart from your competition and motivates like-minded customers to buy from you.

Managing your online reputation and image are important in these 5 decision influences:

Price - Getting this right is the first order of business. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they’re living a simpler life, spending less and being more frugal as a result of the recession. It’s essential to meet or beat the competition’s pricing on selected front-line products and services. Then you can provide bundled services or additional products at more profitable price points.

Added Value - Online comparison shopping is the norm these days, and whether you sell online, offline or both, shoppers are looking for that little extra nudge when choosing where to make their final purchase. Free shipping, coupons and buy-one get-one sales are currently among the most popular incentives.

Convenience - Gone are the days of cheap gas and moms with unlimited time to shop. Now customers want and expect convenience. If you have an e-commerce website, streamline the checkout process, particularly for returning customers. Traditional brick-and-mortar store owners should re-evaluate hours of operation, as well as checkout wait times and staffing to ensure a speedy and convenient shopping experience, especially if working mothers are your bread and butter.

Trust - Customers are careful to spend their limited dollars wisely and are scrutinizing each purchase to make sure they’re making a “safe” decision. They want to buy from companies they trust and believe in. So include testimonials, reviews or a message board on your website that helps customers understand why they should believe in your company and trust what you sell.

Conscience - Increasingly, consumers want to know you’re a good corporate citizen. Businesses with a conscience care for their communities, others who are less fortunate and the world around them. Detail your activism on your website, in your company newsletter or through in-store promotions. Get involved at the local level and encourage your customers to participate, such as through food or clothing drives, or by cleaning up the local park. You’ll establish a positive relationship with customers that sets you apart from your competition and motivates like-minded customers to buy from you.

Innovations have made it easy to precisely measure the value of your marketing online. At the end of the day you can objectively appraise the success and profitability with imageMAXmedia managing all of your PR & Marketing efforts.

The three major tasks of email marketing are:

• Building your opt-in email-subscriber list
• Building trust
• Inciting action

Without a list of opt-in subscribers, your biggest challenge is getting people interested in hearing from you. The basic method of gaining a subscriber is simply asking someone to sign up for your mailing list. If a customer or client is already engaged and trusts you, then there is a good chance that customer will say yes right away.

In most cases, though, you need to offer some benefit. At the very least, you’ll describe what will be in your newsletters that the prospect would want: information, special offers, discounts, etc. The sweeter the deal, the better your chances that your visitor will become a subscriber.

Here are nine more-advanced list-building techniques that imageMAXmedia believes increase subscriber numbers and sometimes improve conversion rates as well:

1. Develop a Detailed Sign-up Page

We usually encourage people to include a sign-up form on every page of their site, above the fold, so that it is prominent and easy to spot. But it can also be beneficial to develop an entire separate sales page, or microsite for the purpose of signing up for the list and wetting their appetite. This is especially important considering that you are going after 4 distinct markets, and the messaging and hook needs to be tailored to each audience.

2. Authority Blogging

Authority blogging can require an immense amount of resources and demands a major commitment of time and energy, however we believe your market is hungry for the information that you can provide. We suggest building up an authoritative information source for your niche. Linking to this content will only add to the power of your email-marketing campaigns and results will increase exponentially as a result.

3. Search-Engine Marketing

Using search-engine optimization (SEO) to draw traffic to your site works hand in hand with your email campaigns. SEO includes two basic elements:

• On-site optimization: consists of what you put on your site. You want to create pages that focus on a particular inquiry that searchers in your industry might have.
• Off-site optimization consists of what you put elsewhere on the Web to promote your site, i.e. industry blogs, industry forums, etc.

4. Pay-per-Click (PPC), or Web Advertising

With the right elements in place, PPC advertisements can be a great way to build your subscriber base. Keeping the PPC very targeted to specific areas will help you to keep the costs down, i.e. retirement areas.

5. Write Guest Posts

If you’re not willing to put in the time and effort to build up your own authority weblog (or even if you are), you can harness the power of other people’s authority blogs by guest-posting. Guest-posting is a win-win: It allows the blog owner to share your specialized knowledge with the audience, and it allows you to make contact with that audience, build some brand recognition, and possibly even directly win email-list subscribers.

6. Contribute to Forums: Make friends, influence people.

If you’re operating in an industry with any level of social support, there are online forums dedicated to the topic. Forums are a great place to develop your reputation as an expert by sharing your knowledge. As you do so, you will build up additional trust and brand visibility among a highly engaged audience:

7. Distribute a Press Release

People forget about press releases for their online-marketing efforts, but press releases offer tremendous benefits. We suggest writing up a press release just to announce your email program, and major topics you can contribute to. Their are many online press rooms that distribute the press nationally. Remember you can of course reference your value-added partnerships.

8. Viral Email Marketing

One of the best ways to gain new subscribers is through your current subscribers. Word-of-mouth has always been the most effective form of advertising because people trust people they know. So when a newsletter comes highly recommended from a trusted friend, people are likely to sign up. Viral email marketing strategies are extremely powerful. You have to produce content that people will want to share.

9. Cross-Promotions With Other Mailing-List Owners

Seek out other email marketers targeting similar market segments, and reach out to them to set up cross-promotions. Each side can provide great content for the other’s mailing list to benefit from.