Who Stepped In It

Damage Control Techniques:  When the United Food and Commercial Workers Union failed twice in the last decade to unionize Smithfield Foods’ meat-processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., they should have recognized the brick wall ahead.  But, they didn’t.

Instead, according to a damage control article by Mary Worrell of Inside Business, the union took its public relations battle to the Washington, D.C., area and flooded buses, billboards, and local television and radio airwaves with a negative ad campaign aimed at Smithfield products — a roundabout way of influencing North Carolina families to unionize. 

This public relations campaign is a waste of the union’s effort and money, which brings into question their leadership and vision.  People the union could have persuaded may now feel alienated by a big media campaign out of D.C., which does not resemble the grassroots audience the union claims to represent.

If your company or organization comes under attack, here are some helpful damage control PR tips:

- Write, distribute and post on your website a news release or news releases that dissect the misinformation and present the facts.

-  Cite incorrect statements.  The union is saying a Smithfield worker sliced “thousands of hams a minute” which translates to a few dozen hams a second.  That’s impossible, and it calls into question the credibility of the complaints. No one likes unfounded attacks.

- Present the information on a well-designed, well-written website.  Every business that has the potential to end up on page one should have an off-line website that covers a variety of crisis scenarios and can be tweaked and on-line quickly.  Speed is the name of the game in our Internet-driven society.  If you are not proud of your website, you need to be before a crisis hits.

- Inform employees quickly of high-level anti-company public relations campaigns so they hear it from you first.  Let them be your ambassadors who knock down the attacks through their social networks and lend public relations help.

- Coordinate interviews with reporters covering the issue.  If the issue is important, reporters should talk with senior organizational leaders — not only the PR team.  The public relations team should prepare the battlefield, but leadership should be the on-the-record voices.

- Communicate openly with reporters, meet deadlines and always be accessible to address follow-up questions.

- Talk positives as often as possible, but address rumors, innuendo and misinformation.  Take the high ground as often as possible and focus on your organization’s strengths.

- Understand every element of the story.  Try to know all the people who will be sourced in the reporter’s coverage of the story.  Make sure you understand what each source is likely to contribute to the story.

- Invite reporters to your company to give them a firsthand look. 

- Have a strategy to engage in new media like blogs and YouTube.  Be prepared to provide responses in multiple venues. Communication opportunities are abundant and more people can enter the conversation. Protect your brand and use the situation to strengthen it.

- Realize when you need public relations help.

What you should not do when attacked
- Do not ignore the attack.  If you’ve been targeted by smear specialists you’ll need to take them on to either hold your ground or grain ground at their cost.

- Do not assume people will automatically dismiss the attacker.  Just because you’ve successfully developed a brand for years or decades, doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels.

- Do not repeat the negative.  If they accuse you of “employee abuse” do not say, “We do not abuse our employees,” which repeats the charge you haven’t committed.  Better to say, “The relationship between our company and employees is strong and our record shows it.” 

If your company’s 15 minutes of fame turns out to be damage control against absurd charges, are you prepared to successfully handle it and turn it to your advantage? 

Who Stepped Up

Strong Internal Relationships Create Great External PR: The results can be amazing when an organization’s public relations team embraces the important role of supporting other organizational functions and operational units by taking the time to understand their responsibilites and build relationships.

The public relations team at Tidewater Builders Association is a great example of doing it right and creating an explosion of positive public relations.

PR professional Mary Prier says one of the goals of the TBA’s public relations program is to support the Member Services and Builders Services divisions in creating a sense of community and making members feel they are part of the family.

Key to this approach is frequent communication to the association’s 1,200 members. 

“Frequent communication and the recognition it inherently generates for our members creates its own energy,” Prier says.  “People want to take on new projects or get involved because they know that besides doing something good, they’ll also be recognized for it.  Everybody loves recognition.”

Some of the internal PR tactics TBA uses include:

- Blast emails to members

- The Builder, a TBA membership magazine

- Social events, such as the TBA picnic and Oyster Roast

- Charitable projects such as The Charity House to benefit CHKD, and The Scholarship House to benefit the TBA Scholarship Foundation

- Quarterly builder breakfast forums

- Weekly builder briefing e-mails on developments likely to affect them in local municipalities

- Academic scholarship awards and young designer scholarships for vocational technical students

- Cooperation with other organizations like Habitat For Humanity, which in turn leads to membership involvement

The PR folks are the glue connecting all these moving parts.  They also seize the opportunity to communicate great internal stories to their external audiences.  Here’s a glimpse of what the TBA team recently accomplished in just one month:
 
- Blast email sent to TBA members generated $30,000 in donations for Tornado Relief in Suffolk

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate publicity in The Virginian-Pilot’s Home section for $85,000 in TBA scholarships to high school seniors

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate print, broadcast, radio and online publicity for Homearama

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate publicity in The Pilot’s Home section and WVEC TV-13 for the dedication of the Charity House at Homearama in the name of a CHKD patient

- Created a compelling video during Homearama and posted it to YouTube.  The video shows Chuck Miller of Miller Custom Homes demonstrating the strength of the concrete form walls he’s using to build “The Mothership” at this fall’s Homearama.  It features Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf using a Tornado Blaster to propel two-by-fours through wall panels, then at Chuck’s concrete form walls.

The video also shows innovative green features of Chuck’s home while it was still in its pre-drywall phase. In attendance were members of Virginia Beach’s Green Ribbon Task Force, inspectors, and other important TBA target audiences.  You can view the video here.

As you can see, a strong internal effort leads to great external visibility.

How dedicated is your public relations team to learning about and building relationships with other divisions in your company or organization?

Who Stepped In It

Betraying Trust:  In the public relations business, loyalty is a precious commodity coveted by CEO’s and business leaders.  The currency of their conversations is trust.   The CEO counts on his or her public relations professional as a consultant, sounding board and trusted advisor to navigate fickle publics, aggressive media, and instantaneous, worldwide communications.

Last week former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released his book presenting a less than flattering view of his former boss, who is also the President of the United States.  This is a perfect example of what not to do when you have a seat in the boardroom and are trusted. 

Like an attorney-client relationship, good public relations consultants know what happens in the board room stays in the board room.  When the doors are closed and bad ideas are raised, THAT’S the time to address them and resolve them — BEFORE improper actions are taken. 

If any employer insists on doing something inappropriate, deceptive or illegal, it’s easy to find the door without guilt.  Many PR consultants do.  A recent client of mine wanted me to conduct a wide-ranging slur campaign against another company.  That client was dropped immediately.  I was out a fair amount of money - no big deal.  The world is loaded with great clients and business people.

Top-notch public relations consultants owe their clients loyalty in every respect regardless of where they stand in the lifecycle of their employment.

Good PR consultants view their clients as clients for life.  Much like a family member, good friend, or clergyman, when a client confides in you, you have an obligation to maintain that loyalty and trust.  When you’re on the inside, you take it to the grave. 

If you need attention, you’re in the wrong business.  Being a PR consultant is not about you; it’s about the CEO, the organization, and its publics.

If you’re a public relations professional with a desire for writing books, you should change careers now, pick good subjects and enjoy a long career.  Otherwise, you’ll write one tattletale book and be done.

Once you sell out the boss, how long do you think your PR career will last?  PR consultants live and die by reputation.  Would you want Scott McClellan on your team?

Who Stepped Up

The PR Avalanche:  When the PR avalanche starts, it’s a thing of beauty.  But like most avalanches, it takes a lot of building up before it can unleash its power.

That’s how Rourk Public Relations in Virginia ended up on primetime CNN with Wolf Blitzer, May 8.  Many pieces were put in place that prompted the call and turned the three minute piece into a success.

Following is a quick study on how the public relations opportunity unfolded.

CNN political reporter Carol Costello called me about noon asking, “Why would a sense of humor be important for a politician?”  John McCain had appeared on The Daily Show the evening before and that was her angle.  The reporter was on deadline and needed to quickly find her source.  I told her my staff political consultant and political campaign manager, Brian Kirwin, was one of the best in the business and he’d call her ASAP. 

Fortunately, Kirwin knew McCain was the record-setter for appearances on The Daily Show, and was able to quickly stream the video of his appearance on May 7.  He also took a few seconds to compose some communication points.

Within minutes Kirwin called the reporter back armed with three good talking points.  1)  McCain was the champion of The Daily Show  2)  Reagan, facing age questions like McCain is, had the famous debate one-liner that ended the questioning, and 3)  People watching traditional news are usually decided voters, and humor reaches to people less identified with strict party voting.

As Kirwin conversed with the reporter he floated each of these comm points to see if any triggered her story-sense.  She wasn’t so interested in how often McCain has appeared on The Daily Show, although several clips made it into the final CNN piece.  But she was totally intrigued about the theme of “McCain ripping a page out of Reagan’s playbook.”

She asked if Kirwin could be on camera in an hour.  “Yes” was through his lips faster than you can imagine. 

Kirwin arrived early enough to get as many details as possible about the shoot.  When would it air?  How long was the piece?  What would it follow?  All good intel that would determine how much specificity he needed.

The taped interview went well.  When it aired nationwide several hours later, we scored!

The reporter used most of Kirwin’s comm points as the story line, and not the one she had originally called for.  In fact 90% of the reporter’s dialogue was the information Kirwin gave her.  He was a little shocked that it turned out that way and his only on-air appearance was for two sentences.  The rest of the segment involved the reporter using the information Kirwin gave her along with video, which included the 1984 Reagan-Mondale debate.

At first, Kirwin was slightly mad.  I quickly backed him away from those feelings and had him follow up with the reporter with a gracious “thank you for calling, the piece was outstanding, call anytime you need anything else.”  Better to get two sentences 50 times, than two sentences once.  Our job is to help reporters do their job well and become a trusted resource for them.  Accomplish that and the media coverage will follow.

Kirwin’s appearance generated calls from many elected officials and McCain’s Virginia political campaign manager.  They were thrilled with the story and loved how we framed it.

Kirwin was on camera for about eight seconds, but the real value was the ability to help a reporter tell a story with real industry insight, the opportunity to be visual, the skill to link a current candidate with the most popular leader of our generation, and the avalanche that rained gold and further increased Rourk PR’s brand and credibility.

Following is snapshot of how we landed some great publicity.

The Build Up
Web Site Optimization: Rourk PR’s web site is optimized to the max several ways.  When CNN’s Carol Costello needed a political consultant to talk about McCain’s use of humor in the campaign, she Googled “political consultant, image” and Rourk PR was on page one.

Accessibility: I doubt we were CNN’s first call.  But we were immediately available to them (whether we really were or not).  Unless it’s a life and death situation, anytime a reporter calls — JUMP!  That’s the bread and butter of a public relations professional.

Preparation: The Internet makes it possible to quickly research anything, and be prepared in less than 10 minutes.  Learn to find and digest information quickly and pick the golden nuggets.

Comm Points:  You should never go into an interview without comm points that help you stay on track, make it easy for the reporter to follow and understand, and get your message across.  You can usually work these up in less than five minutes.

The Aftermath
Visibility: Calls from elected officials who we’ve worked for or are working for poured in. 

Trusted Resource: Because we were immediately available, and did a prompt and courteous thank you follow-up with the reporter, she may call again.  Kirwin established himself as a trusted resource and top-notch political consultant to this reporter.

Future Business: McCain’s Virginia political campaign manager and Kirwin had a great conversation.  I anticipate if McCain needs help in Virginia, we may be hearing from his campaign manager about this or future political campaigns he may be handling.  Kirwin has one of the brightest political minds in Virginia — that campaign manger now knows it.  The CNN appearance made the connection possible.

Credibility: The CNN piece in some form will be added to the Rourk Public Relations web site because it adds credibility and will appeal to anyone in the market for a PR agency or political consultant.

Are you doing the right things to build a PR avalanche that pours gold?

Who Stepped Up

Great Public Relations Opportunities Are Right Under Your Nose:  Most business owners and public relations professionals have the potential to generate some form of recurring publicity if they look hard enough and ask the right questions.

For instance, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens is a wonderful attraction in Norfolk, Virginia. But for many years, the only way they generated publicity was by adding a new attraction, which wasn’t that often. 

However, a stroke of public relations brilliance changed all that a few years ago. Management placed a web cam in the branches just above an eagle’s nest and instantly the entire world could watch how eagles lived and raised their young.  Reporters took notice!

The Eagle Cam sparked a renewed interest in the Norfolk attraction and has consistently generated positive publicity.  In late April, the local media covered the successful hatching of an eaglet.  The Virginian-Pilot ran a photo and six inch story in their popular “5 cities at a glance” section, and the editorial page did a seven inch piece. 

I believe every business has at least one built-in, golden marketing opportunity, whether that public relations opportunity involves knowledge or entertainment. 

Another example is Spectrum Printing in Virginia Beach.  New customers frequently told owner Dick Olenych that they would have used his print shop sooner if they had known he was right across from CopyMax on Virginia Beach Blvd., where they were paying the high rates and not receiving the personal service.  Dick, whose business is known as “The Happy Printers,” will soon station a yellow paint can mascot named Sonny in front of his building, ala, Liberty Tax.  It fits well and was right under his nose to discover.  The adventures of Sonny may be legendary, as I understand he’s a bit wily.

Tom Davidson of Davidson Leadership runs an email marketing campaign titled Leaderslips & Tips: The Good, The Bad & The Bungled.  He could easily draw from this product on a yearly basis and present his, or a panel’s, top three good and bad leadership moves.  That could easily turn into a recurring stream of publicity.

Keep your eyes open for businesses and organizations that consistently receive positive media coverage.  What built-in or one-off item from your product, service, issue or cause can you exploit to generate media coverage and brand awareness?

Who Stepped In It

News Releases Should Be Bright and Brief:  That crackling and clicking sound you hear in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and across the nation is the sound of paper being crumpled and the delete button being hit by busy reporters and editors quickly clearing their enormous workloads of long, unclear news releases.

Every business or public relations agency that writes a press release longer than one page will soon find they’ve stepped in it.  How will they know? Their competition keeps getting the media coverage, and they keep making the excuses.

There are many formats to press releases — TV, radio, blog, web site, consumer, and more — but this PR tip will cover press releases to newspapers.

The most important thing to understand about your news release has nothing to do with your news release.  It has to do with understanding who you’re sending it to — the reporter or editor. 

A busy, overworked reporter on a daily deadline has no time to sift through your two-page news release, especially when your main point is buried on page two.

Your boss may really like the press release because it talks about all the wonderful things the company is doing or is about to do.  Your client may really like it because you’ve included every detail under the sun that they think is important.  But the person in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or Chesapeake who decides what’s a story and what isn’t, does not have the time or inclination to read your brag sheet.

Understand a reporter’s world and you’ll understand how to write your press releases.

Good news releases:

- Respect a reporter’s time.  You exert the effort so they don’t have to.

- Have a headline that quickly and clearly tells your story.

- Get to the point in a single page or less.  Take the rest of the information and create a background or tip sheet.  When the reporter asks for more information, it’s already prepared.

- Pique a reporter’s interest; don’t tell the entire story.  The reporter will write the story.  They don’t need a public relations agency doing it for them.

- Shouldn’t be about turning 25 years old, holding a fundraiser, launching a new product, or opening a new location.  If you want to announce that, buy an ad.  Reporters will not find this newsworthy.  Do some digging, ask some questions and find something unique in that 25-year history, or about your upcoming yearly event.  Your angle could be about a huge obstacle overcome, the evolution of a product, a twist of fate — something emotive, amazing, interesting.  There’s always an intriguing story behind the story if you take the time to dig for it and craft it into a pitch.  It should take the reporter less than 15 seconds to say, yes, my readers will find that interesting, important, or entertaining.

- Are written from the reporter’s shoes, not the boss’. 

- Contain contact information at the beginning and the ending so a reporter can quickly make a phone call or send an email to the public relations professional who sent it.

- Never have a company logo on it.  Reporters are not in business to promote your business.  They report newsworthy items.  Making your news release look like an advertisement is a quick way to miss out on some outstanding media coverage.

How long were your last five news releases?  Did each generate media coverage in Virginia Beach, Norfolk or Chesapeake?

Who Stepped Up

Public Relations Campaigns Must Be Inclusive:  Public relations campaigns have changed faster than most CEOs and leaders would like to admit, but the quicker they get onboard the more success they’ll have.  The day of mass communications tools being owned or controlled by the government or corporations are long gone.  The fast rise of easy-to-use Web sites, blogs, podcasts, social networks, chat rooms, email campaigns and more have taken control from the elite and given it to the masses, and changed public relations communications forever. 

Public relations professionals can learn a valuable lesson from the U.S Navy’s challenges in this area. Every effort to secure a location for an outlying landing field for Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach has been met with well organized protesters, which generates media coverage.  But most importantly, key politicians are being pressured by these large citizen alliances that are Internet-driven.  And once politicians sense a group can cause harm, the group gets its way.

Citizens 1 - Navy 0.  However, the Navy isn’t done trying.  According to a recent article in The Virginian-Pilot, which covers Virginia Beach, Rear Adm David Anderson has convinced Navy leadership that there’s a better way to achieve their outlying landing field goal — with a consensus building campaign.  Hummm, now we’re getting somewhere.

The admiral said, “When you completely disregard and disrupt communities’ and individuals’ lives, with this air of arrogance, they’re going to call their elected officials now in a way they have never done in the past.”  And those elected leaders respond by cutting off federal funding, he said.

The admiral is correct and the Navy is smart for letting him work a customer-based public relations campaign to help the Virginia Beach master jet base.

Some PR tips for this type of public relations campaign include:

- It is easier to build bridges than put out fires. 

- The days of holding your cards close to the vest and hoping a poorly informed public will be duped are over.  The collision between technology and the Internet saw to that.

- Communities have learned how to join forces, pool resources and use political forces to their benefit.  Determine your allies and enemies.

- Develop a PR plan that creates a tailored communications loop with all of them.

- Bring residents, local officials, environmental organizations and others to the table early to start building a relationship and to help mute some of the criticism.

- These challenging cases do not have to be David versus Goliath, with the large government organization being perceived as an enemy.  Explaining why these issues are important for the greater good and making the community part of the process through smart public relations communications is critical to long-term success.

- Identify which reporter covers that beat and keep him or her in the loop too.

- Pinpoint the naysayers reporters like to use for their fiery opposition quotes.  Reach out to them early.

- Don’t be fooled into thinking that your open communication and building goodwill will guarantee your organization’s success. 

- Come to the table with compelling reasons for your requirements and fair compensation for people who will be impacted.  In this case, the Navy would be wise in its public relations communications to put the face of young aviators and their families on the front of this issue.  These brave young people are the ones who will pay the price with their lives if they can’t get the appropriate training before they take on the difficult challenge of landing a 160 mph aircraft on a small landing strip moving through the water.

- Actions of the organization in working with impacted communities are far more important than the words they use.  Public relations professionals will be wise to point out to their leaders the value of open communication and fairness.

What product, service, issue or cause are you about to launch that will meet with resistance from concerned groups and harm your business?

Who Stepped In It

Reputation Management:  When blind fury gets in the way of solid thinking, bad things can happen.  For instance, according to a USA Today story on Monday, independent truckers planned this week to clog highways and call in sick to protest diesel fuel costs and shrinking profits. By mid-week, the story was big news in all the major media.  This public relations strategy is earning truckers the publicity they sought, but unfortunately, it’s negative publicity.  The backfire they hear isn’t their engines, it’s an angry public reacting to their careless public relations plan.

When everyone is in the same boat, it’s not a good idea to raise your head high and claim you’re special.  That’s a quick way to hurt your reputation for a long time.

The trucker’s beef is with their elected officials.  They should let their lobbyists, political contributions, and voting power handle it.  Stomping on hard-working people who are trying to get to work or needing to buy items to take care of their families is a poor public relations strategy.

Here are some PR tips to consider on a campaign like this:

- Identify your target audience.  Who has the ability to help you accomplish your objectives?  Focus your campaign on them.

- Develop and communicate a message that resonates.  Don’t pull a stunt that seems to have no relation to your desired endgame.

- Opportunities for PR exposure are limited; don’t waste your opportunity without a well developed message and concrete objectives.

- Think through your strategy and make sure there are no unintended consequences.

- Discuss it with people outside your industry bubble.

- Use a PR tactic that makes the public take your side, not side against you.

- Just because you can generate a story doesn’t mean you should.

- Don’t give bloggers a reason to make you the meal of the day.  You don’t need the blogoshere on fire with negative comments painting your industry black.  Stories live forever on the Internet. 

- Don’t give your competition an easy “remember when …”

- Don’t blatantly give people who regulate your industry a reason to dislike you.

- Build allies not enemies with your public relations plans.  Allies will come in handy the next time someone tries to move in on your territory or unnecessarily alter your livelihood.

- It takes tons of time, effort and money to rebuild an image damaged by a PR tactic gone awry.  Strive to enhance your organization’s reputation with PR tactics that endear fans and appeal to new audiences.

- Reputation management is a day-by-day, methodical process to continually gain and retain inches.  Businesses that maintain their ground do so because they avoid reckless public relations plans.

Can you name a strategy that would have made the independent trucker’s voices heard, and benefited the public?

Who Stepped Up

Media Relations Management: The media loves to be part of an interesting story — especially if they’re invited.  That’s exactly what public relations professional Barbara Morrison did, and landed her client a front page story in The Virginian-Pilot. 

Morrison, a public relations professional for the city of Virginia Beach, is a liaison for the Virginia Beach Police Department, and an expert in media relations management.  As part of the department’s training, lieutenants and new captains attend two-day leadership seminars in Gettysburg where the historic battlefield is used to spark discussions about leadership techniques and dilemmas. 

Morrison knew the program was a great public relations opportunity and arranged for a reporter to join a trip.  The reporter accepted and drove with the group to Gettysburg, allowing him to do interviews along the way and become part of the story.  That earned a positive, image-boosting story for the Virginia Beach police.

Reporter participation should be a tactic in your media relations management.  However, do your homework before inviting a reporter to spend this much time with your people and operation.

PR tips include:

- Pick the right time and the right event.  Don’t make the call just because you can.

- Seek out a reporter who has a personal interest in the topic you want to promote. It makes for a better story, and helps to build a working relationship for future articles.

- A well written story comes from the heart.  What better way to get your story told, then to let the writer experience the adventure first hand.

- Prepare a background sheet for the reporter. The more information you provide, the more time he or she has to devote to the story.

- Conduct media training with each person likely to be interviewed for the story.  Even non-players should be trained, since reporters who feel they’re being lead will seek out “the real story.”

- Take care of your reporter.  You would expect the same if you were the invitee.  Reporters are people too.

- Think of the story in terms of a series or a continuum.  If the reporter can get more than one story out of the visit, it’s a better time investment for him/her.  What other elements of the program can you include?

-  What leader back home needs to be in the story?  Ensure the reporter has access to the boss.

- Provide employees a list of PR tips so they understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how they fit in.

Does your company have any training methods, volunteer work, family events, team building activities, etc., that are unique and worth a reporter’s time?

Who Stepped In It

Old Information Hurts Corporate Image: Many businesses and non-profits think if they put a website on the Internet their work is done and the world has what it needs.  Actually, that kind of thinking makes it easier for the rest of us to excel at public relations and marketing, but I’ll address it anyway. 

If you pull into a gas station that looks like it hasn’t had a customer in two years and is still advertising events that happened three years ago, chances are your instincts will kick in and you’ll take your business to someone you can trust.  Someone who appears to be on the ball. 

That’s the same way your website design works.  If your site is dated because of its content, potential customers will pass through quickly on their way to the next stop — which is only a click away.

For example, if a Memphis citizen was looking to join a service organization, he or she would come across the East Memphis Kiwanis Club’s website.  That’s a good thing.  However, as the reader perused the homepage he’d see the prominently placed “Club Announcements” of June 19, 2006 and April 23, 2006.  If that didn’t scare him off, he’d find other pages highlighting events from 2004 and 2005.  The club is still active, but the site has not been updated for years. That’s a bad thing.

If the person moves to another Kiwanis website and finds the same situation, the entire corporate image comes into question.  All of a sudden having something great (a website), turns into something harmful to the bottom line.  If an organization is this far behind in its public relations, marketing and Web site design, it must be behind in other things too. 

Some PR tools to fix this include:

- Remove all dates and make the site look generic and present.  At least that will soften the impression that your organization is stagnant.

- Run a ticker that scrolls onto your homepage and relates to your product, service, issue or cause, and update it weekly.

- Place a live time stamp on your homepage.

- Have a section on the homepage where you list something by date to give readers a feel of immediacy - - speaking engagements, product launches, key dates, upcoming events, and more.  In a world where information is moving quicker than ever before, if someone feels your site is out of touch, they’re moving on.  “Adios” is a popular term among web users.

- If you redesign your website, make sure you redirect or update old pages that have been referenced by major search engines.  Otherwise, web users will pull up pages from three years ago and you’ll look dated. Old business lives forever on the Internet unless it’s taken care of. 

Websites are important PR tools for successful marketing. They need constant upkeep and attention.  If someone with minimum public relations and marketing experience is in charge of updating your website — have them search the web for some PR tips so your business and organization can stay ahead of the pack.

When a potential customer clicks on your website, does the homepage information create a sense of immediacy and being on the ball?

Other thoughts …

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