A GREAT new online tool - Help A Reporter Out Online from Peter Shankman

This is simply the breakout product of 2008 for Marketers.

Help a Reporter Out Online or HARO as it is becoming know, is a free subscription service developed by the very creative Peter Shankman.

If you sign up online, Shankman will email you approximately 30 requests from journalists three times each business day. That's it, great PR leads, no catch!

Here are a few sample media leads from the last few days:

- Love and Relationship Anecdotes (Glamour)
- Bare-bones Insurance (National News Outlet)
- eCommerce Experts (WSRadio)
- Small Business Owners and Managing Stress (Nat. Biz. Mag)
- Charitable Giving for Less than $20 (ABC Affiliate)
- Luxury Hotels with Dog Policies (Los Angeles Times)
- Health Dangers of a Hard Economy (LifeScript.com)

How to use it:

1. Forward leads to friends and business associates. A true friend gets a friend a National Media appearance.
2. Look for opportunities for yourself and your business.
3. Pitch professionally, don't spam the journalists with other messages
4. Tell a friend about HARO :)

PS - I interviewed Peter Shankman on Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast #30

PPS - Check out what superstar social media experts the Marketing Ninja Christopher S. Penn and national wine celebrity Gary Vaynerchuk said about HARO at a recent conference

The 10 Truths Every CMO Should Know About Search Marketing

Last week I was lucky enough to attend Search Engine Land’s SMX East show in New York City. My first day there I attended a couple of seminars, one session in particular that really stood out to me was The 10 Truths Every CMO Must Know About Search Marketing.....

What amazed me about this track was how trivial it was...if you are a CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, I would think you should already know what those 10 truths are.

1 - SEO is an ongoing process – as an executive in a company please don’t ask for miracles, you cannot just optimize your meta tags and think everything is “A OK,” now where are our rankings!!!???
2- The #1 position is not always everything and sometimes not even possible--- NO KIDDING!!! Multiple positions can and should be a blessing...
3 - The long tail is your friend --- if you are a CMO and do not know what the long tail is and that it can bring in extremely qualified traffic then maybe you should not be a CMO! Sorry just my opinion.
4 - Both paid and natural search are equally important. Ask yourself, do you want to increase brand awareness??? Well being seen more often will allow that and then some....
5 - Customers -- hear “their" language not "yours" -- yes by golly darn you betcha -- you should be speaking to your customers telling them what you they WANT to hear not what YOU want to say!!

**SIGH** half way through what a CMO should already know!!

6 - Web pages are not the ONLY assets you need to optimize -- come on folks there are Press Releases, blogs, articles so much MORE than just the web pages which should be optimized and even bidded on at times in paid search arenas.
7 - Integration is a must! -- if you are NOT sending the same message in print, that you are on the web there is a serious issue, get it together!
8 - Tools simplify everything -- well I was hoping to get some golden nugget from this statement, and well I didn't, yes tools simplify everything and yes you should be using them to make your life easier, but is there a new one, a better one????? I didn't get anything from this one other than if you are able to utilize tools to make your life easier and it does not have a negative affect on your consumer then good for you ... I already knew that – **SIGH**
9 - Bid on brand terms - if you are not doing this you are completely missing the boat ....enough said..

FINALLY – Number 10!!!

10 - Set goals -- ya think??? All CMO’s should know that goals need to be set, but you need to understand what you are trying to accomplish before you set those goals, be clear, and don’t be unrealistic, please!

Someone told me there were 11 things a CMO should know but I didn't buy it, this pretty much covers it unless someone else can think of something I might have missed. If so, please do chime in!!!

Melissa Cartagena-Ulrich
Marketing is Essential

SFIMA Email Marketing Event

If you missed this months event, you missed a great panel of email marketers answering some very tough questions. The panel consisted of: Stephen Guerra - Email Communications Strategist from Silverpop, Jonathon Lagasse - Client Partner, Experian CheetahMail, Karen Talavera - President, Synchronicity Marketing and Frank Rivera - Director of Interactive Marketing from ADT Fire & Security. Warren Corpus, who was asking the questions provided by the SFIMA board, did an incredible job of keeping the questions flowing.


Here is a brief recap of the event:

• If you want correct tracking for your email marketing you should definitely hire an agency.


• To get past mobile emails you need clean html and more copy in the upper left hand block of the email.


• It's always best to ask your customers how they preview their email - on a computer or PDA.


• While you are working on your emails being compatible for your PDA, you should do the same for your website as more and more people are checking their emails and searching the Internet from their mobile devices.
  
• With email marketing: quality trumps quantity.


• Be relevant to the user for email marketing.
  
• Batch and blast days are over.

If you have been enjoying the events so far then the next event is one you definitely don't want to miss! Let's not forget SFIMA's next event, the Nautical Network Event. It's time to Rock the Boat, Rock the Boat Baby!!