My Holiday To Do List.

Merry Christmas to our subscribers and friends. Thanks for visiting Traffic on Maine throughout the year and we hope to see you back in '09.

This Christmas between the feasting and the family you might just find time to catch up with what's happening in the PR and marketing world.

A couple of books worth having in your Christmas stocking are:

• Cause Wired by Tom Watson: A great read on how not for profits are using online tools to advocate their causes and raise money. Tom's insights and easy style make this a must read if you are in the not for profit sector.
• Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz. I think this will eventually becoming a marketing classic. It's so easy to read and full of low budget ideas on what will emerge as one of the hottest marketing disciplines in the coming year.

And if Santa delivered a new MP3 player great podcasts to load up are:

• On the Record Online
  
• Marketing Edge
  
• For Immediate Release
• Inside PR
  

In the meantime have a safe and happy time with your loved ones.

PR Tips For Not For Profits in Tough Times #2

Thanks to all of you who contributed ideas to our call for low budget PR ideas for not for profits facing tough times. We got a great response through Facebook, email, in conversations over coffee and of course through this blog.

We have put together a 19 page PDF report which brings together all these great suggestions.

I'll be sending it out to those contributors for whom I have contact details.

Email bobcraw@webone.com.au if you would like a copy and put the word Report in the subject line of your email.

Again thanks for your thoughts and good luck to the marketing efforts of all community groups in the coming year.

Canadian Take on Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of Mouth - A Prescription for a Bad Economy

From: agentwildfire,
1 day ago

Word of Mouth - A Prescription for a Bad Economy

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: future the)

The 12 reasons why word of mouth is the tonic for this marketplace and this economy (from Sean Moffitt, Agent Wildfire - Canada's Word of Mouth Experts)

SlideShare Link

PR Tips For Not For Profits in Tough Times

The financial crisis means the year ahead looks fairly bleak.

So spare a thought for not for profit groups that may struggle financially but still have to communicate with their communities. They will need to market themselves even more to attract volunteers, promote their services and raise funds.

So what are the low cost PR tools and tactics they can use? I'd like to compile at list and circulate it to the groups you and I both know who would welcome practical PR tips for the challenging times ahead.

I'll share a consolidated list with anyone who leaves a comment on this post.

Here's my six ways to stretch a PR budget in tough economic times:

• Freshen up, recycle and reuse communications activities that have worked in the past.
• Skill up your team to do as much of your media and marketing as possible.
• If necessary bring in a mentor to help develop additional skills and build in-house capacity.
• Continually measure your marketing to see where your dollars should be going.
• Build in word of mouth marketing into your communications. It's the oldest, most reliable and least expensive of all the tools and tactics available to you.
  
• People are increasingly online so ealy in 2009 experiment with new digital tools (Facebook, Youtube, blogs etc) to reach them at minimal cost.

Got your own cost saving ideas? Share with others by leaving a comment.

Three Learings From Obama's Online Marketing

It is just over a month since Barack Obama won his historic bid to become President of the United States. And as the dust settles you have to admire how his campaign used new media tools to get out his message of change to Americans and the rest of the world.

US viral marketer Jalali Hartman looks at Obama online, and concludes that by dominating the Internet Obama's message carried further and faster than his rival's John McCain.

Hartman's statistics tell it all. Obama had 5.5 million visitors to his website each month. McCain had 2.5m visitors. There were 442 000 Obama Youtube videos compared to 221 300 items featuring McCain. Obama had over 3 million friends on Facebook while McCain registered just over half a million supporters.

Obama's online campaign used three strategies others could use to promote their own issues and causes.

• Share content Obama campaign managers had a no hassle copyright policy. They willingly shared the candidate's speeches, images, official logos etc with online supporters and encouraged them to re-purpose it for their own needs. Supporters could also download official campaign signs, literature and guidelines and receive up to date news of events.
  

• Connect Facebook and other social networking sites connected supporters . Both Obama and wife Michelle had their own pages and friends created their own affiliated groups. The campaign also used Twitter (the micro blogging application) to keep followers informed about campaign developments such as appearances and speeches.

• Make it easy to create community The official campaign website was structured to allow individuals to organise within their communities by offering tools, contacts and opportunities to share their own stories.
  

Obama's mastery of the online world contrasts sharply with the efforts of Australia's political parties in the 2007 Federal Election. A March 2008 report by the Australian Centre for Public Communication showed use of new media by Australian politicians remains low.