Content

Saying thank you

May 9, 2013

in Content, PR

Isn’t it great when someone takes the time to tell you what they think of your work?  I recently compiled an editorial content calendar for Emma Dandy of online British cheese store www.lacremerie.co.uk and she was kind enough to send me the following testimonial:

Club La Cremerie

“Philippa, many thanks for your excellent work creating an editorial calendar for La Cremerie’s PR activity. You really got to grips with my business and have come up with some very helpful ideas for me to use to promote La Cremerie, particularly focusing on the use of social media. I was very impressed with your hands-on approach and specialist knowledge of the food industry. Great value for money! Emma Dandy”

 

 

So how many times have you done some great work but never received a testimonial?  If your suppliers or clients haven’t thought about sending you one, why not send them a testimonial or ask for one?  This approach generally results in some lovely words winging their way to you which you can then use to refresh your website and social media channels as well as your newsletter.  Everyone likes to buy from a company which other people have rated highly and this type of genuine endorsement is worth its weight in gold.

Why not use a quote as part of your email sign off or on your business cards?  Or as the starting point for a blog post or newsletter article?  Including testimonials in your media material, sales pitches and customer correspondence is a simple way to let other people know what purchasers of your products and services think of them.

Of course, you can’t just keep posting testimonials on your website and social media channels and hope to keep a conversation going with your customers.  If you suffer from writer’s block when it comes to thinking of ideas for content, try drafting an editorial content calendar for the next six months or more.  Use an Excel spreadsheet to list key dates such as markets, product launches and events and start fleshing out how you can use these calendar highlights as content.

Think about how you can rework existing material into a tips feature or an infographic or an e-book; post pictures on Pinterest; run a competition on Facebook; blog about an event; tweet on trends in your business area; or send a newsletter with your expert view on a subject.

If you’d like some help with generating effective content, we’d be delighted to help.

Happy St George’s Day!  Today was a big day not only for the patron saint of England but also for Grand Union Training as part of the Teapot Training trio!

The three trainers from Teapot Training

The three trainers from Teapot Training

At lunchtime today the first Teapot Training webinar, took place to an enthusiastic audience of fine food and drink producers and retailers.  I was joined by Debbie Jones of Imaging Essence and Sally Dorling of Marketing Foods and together we covered:

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I love writing so discovering, creating and sharing my clients’ stories is one of my favourite things to do.  While writing is not as scary as speaking in public can be, putting words down on paper can be a challenge. My tip to help you create compelling content is to write down who you are writing for, what you want them to do/think differently when they’ve finished reading and what three messages you’d like them to know. Once you’ve done this, apply the six simple analysis techniques above and you’ll be on the way to writing compelling content. Read more

Promoting your products needs a parcel of tools in order to be successful and one of the two most powerful tools when it comes to getting your product noticed by journalists is great photography.  The other is telling a compelling story and that’ll be the subject of my next post.

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When I meet a new client, the first thing I do is to make sure that I understand what their business is all about so that I can give them the best advice to promote themselves successfully.  I’ve been likened to a hotel inspector as the simple questions I ask often highlight areas which the business owner knows aren’t up to scratch and which are often preventing the business from evolving.

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