PR 101

Like most of you who are heavily involved in social media, I get lots of emails. I divide that mail into three categories: ones I read right away, such as those from clients or friends; ones I put off to later, such as links to white papers I want to read; and finally ones that are obnoxious. While not quite spam, they dance right on the edge of that designation.

Among that last sheaf of messages is a group that is really starting to bother me. It has gotten to the point that I have been flagging them as spam and blocking the senders.

Who are these annoying senders? Are they insurance salesmen, Nigerian widows offering me millions, or schemes telling me how I can make millions while working only 20 minutes a day? Nope, not one from one of those groups.

Where that email is originating is from so-called social media “experts.”

These are people who you would think would know better. After all, they claim to be social media experts. But apparently in their effort to learn about social media, no one explained push vs. pull marketing to them.

In brief, social media’s foundation is pull marketing. What that means is a company provides evidence that it is an expert at what it does or how it makes quality products. It does not send that information out itself. Rather satisfied clients spread the word around the Internet. That builds positive word-of-mouth, which in turn builds engagement and eventually sales.

What that means is one notice sent out. If it is worth reading, or attending, people will. It is more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.

What is not done is acting like a used car salesman and bombarding a potential customer with a dozen or more sales messages.

That’s exactly how I feel when I receive one of these emails telling everything they can do. I don’t care. When I help on something, I go looking for it.

One English-based trainer has sent me seven emails in the last two weeks touting her social media training systems. If an email can be described as breathless, these would fit that description. The subject line on one read: “complete social media course – last remaining places!”

Another group I joined (now that was a mistake) keeps urging me to post on Craigslist. I get one of those about once a week. I tried it once – it didn’t go well.

Then there is my personal favorite. I keep getting emails from people asking me to endorse them. If I do that for them, they tell me they will reciprocate and endorse me. Now mind you, I don’t even know these people, let alone worked with them.

I have a very firm rule about endorsements. I will only do it if I actually know you and worked with you. What value is an endorsement from someone who knows nothing about you? I also never ask for endorsements. If somebody likes my work, they can feel free to endorse me. But that’s up to them.

I am currently taking a sales training course from Westboro, Mass.-based Kurlan & Associates Inc. One of the first lessons we were taught is that people hate sales calls. When you connect with a potential customer start off just saying your name. Then discuss how you can help them. Don’t go on and list all the things you can do. At that point, they don’t care.

So when I get an email or a call from so-called “social media expert,” I immediately know they are not. The step is to hang up or hit the delete button.

That social media is becoming one of the dominant forms of marketing is not debatable, I feel. However, just because that’s happening doesn’t mean companies are willing to by into it. What I am finding that is chief marketing officers and their neighbors in the C-Suite are in a “show-me” mode. They need to be convinced that social media does what we practitioners say it does.

Therein lies the conundrum for many of us. We can write compelling blogs, post interesting tweets, make fascinating videos, add to LinkedIn discussions, and draw people to our Facebook pages. But a lot of us couldn’t sell long underwear to Alaskan oil field workers in the middle of a January blizzard. We have forgotten to acquire that the one key skill that ensures that a business or agency will be successful – sales.

I used to be as bad as sales as anyone. I can do everything I just wrote about and then some. But when it came time to convince someone else that they needed to the same to make their business prosper, well just remember that shivering oil field worker.

Just because we know social media is going to dominate marketing doesn’t mean our prospective clients know or care. They need to shown and convinced why that is so. Too often we social media evangelists make the same mistakes other enthusiasts make: we assume that everyone shares our fervor. Well, that just isn’t true.

I have heard many stories of an internal marketing manager or an agency representative charging into the CMO’s office enthusing all over the place about social media. Done that way the usual result is the CMO tells the interloper to clear out and take the enthusiasm with them. Oh they might be polite about it and all, but they never call back.

You can’t go fishing with a shotgun and you cannot convince someone to buy something based on your attitude. Just like in fishing, you have to be patient. You have to have the right bait and you have to convince the prospect to rise to that bait. That is the only way to do it.

Using pull marketing tactics is how it is done correctly. As a refresher, pull marketing is a method in which you give a potential customer convincing reasons to buy something. You don’t force anything. You let them take their time and make a decision. That goes for both external and internal clients.

Second, you have to make sure you are targeting the right prospects. I have seen too many agencies use the “any company is a good client approach.” I know it is tough in a recession not to go after just about any business. But ultimately you will fail doing that. It is much better to pick out a market niche and target it. Set up criteria for which companies within that niche would be your ideal client and go after that group.

If you are inside a company, you have to make sure you trying to convince the people who actually the decisions. Generally, that would be people in the C-Suite. But be careful to pay attention to internal politics. Don’t bypass someone who has the power to stop you from achieving your goal. Rather get them to buy into your idea.

I once had an editor who would almost automatically turn any idea a reporter had. I don’t know whether he was insecure, busy, or just arrogant. What reporters learned to do was have a general discussion with this editor about the area in which they wanted to do a story. They would then let the editor has the “light bulb” moment and assign them the story.

The same tactic can work with the people you are trying to convince. Not that anyone’s superiors are insecure, busy or arrogant.

The bottom line is before you write that blog post or post that video, you have to convince people that it will work. Only then can you get the camera out and start shooting.

In Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inaugural address in 1933, he uttered that now famous phrase: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What he meant was that what keeping the economy from recovering from the greatest economic disaster in U.S. history was people’s inclination to hunker down.

Unfortunately, I see the same thing happening today, especially with US companies. They are afraid to do anything right now, especially spend money. Their fear is very specific. Publically traded companies only really want to do one thing – please Wall Street. I think that is one of the biggest problems in our country right now. I think it is what is holding us back.

My friends know this is a common rant with me. I think American business pays way too much attention to what some pimply-faced MBA/analyst has to say. How many company’s justify layoffs, or moving a factory by saying Wall Street demands it? Every state in the United States has seen this happen. If some analyst says a company should be make $1 share and it makes 99 cents a share, the stock price is pummeled. The Board of Directors and the CEO both talk about how cuts need to be made to make that $1 a share.

Now the company might be wildly profitable, but that doesn’t matter. It suddenly doesn’t want to spend any money or hire more workers because it has to make that Wall Street imposed goal. In my mind, it is a stupid way to do business.

That’s why three of my favorite companies are S.C. Johnson Wax, Jockey, and Kohler Corp. They are all privately held companies. They can do what needs to be done without having answer to some analyst 800 miles away. I wish more companies were like them.