Gifted Public Relations bio picture

  • Public Relations with Integrity

    GiftedPR offers specialist services in event management, marketing, communications and fundraising.

    With 15 years experience, spanning the government, private and not-for-profit sectors, GiftedPR has the expertise to design and deliver communications, marketing and fundraising strategies to help your organisation achieve its vision.

    GiftedPR also offers the entire spectrum of project management services from planning through implementation, analysis and reporting.

    GiftedPR was born from a passionate commitment to see businesses thrive and reach their potential. I believe that strategic, effective communication with clients and suppliers, and the building of mutually beneficial long-term partnerships, are critical to business success.

    GiftedPR reflects my business philosophy: passionate, practical, professional, personal.

    I look forward to doing business with you.

    Rebecca Park

04-14-2012

Creating ads with impact

 

Think about what draws your attention to an advertisement. It is the colour? The balance of text, image and space? The words? A combination of these? Or something else entirely?

Some simple tips can help small businesses to create advertisements with impact, that stand out among the myriad of other ads in the local newspaper or yellow pages for example. Consider how the following may add impact to your advertisements:

  • Ask a question
  • Make a profound statement
  • Use a bold colour
  • Make people think (or look) twice
  • Let images tell your story – if you are a service organisation, remember that people relate to people
  • Use the space creatively (I recently saw a local real estate advertisement placed sideways along the entire left hand edge of the newspaper – it worked!)

If you want your advertisement to stand out, it is worth spending time to research the publication and try to do something different to other advertisers. Ensure your style and pitch is adequately differentiated from your competitors by becoming familiar with what they are doing.

One of the most effective techniques is the creative use of space. Newspapers tend to be cluttered and most space is filled with text and images. Using space around your key message, name or logo can be powerful. A small word or phrase in a large space can be more effective in drawing attention than a cluttered advertisement that tries to include all your service offerings.

Always include a call to action (call now, come and see us, visit our website, subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on facebook are just a few examples). Your call to action will depend on your overall marketing strategy and where your advertising fits into the mix.

Your call to action can also help you track the effectiveness of your advertising through tools such as Google Analytics, phone responses, Facebook likes and newsletter sign-ups.

Often, the company you are advertising with will include the design in the cost. However, if you are seeking brand awareness and consistency, spend the extra money and have your graphic designer design your advertisements. This gives you more control and flexibility…and you won’t end up with an advertisement that looks like all the others in the publication.

Lastly, be sure your advertising fits your marketing mix and overall marketing plan. There are many alternatives to newspaper advertising available to promote your product or service. It you’re not using social media as part of your strategy, be bold…perhaps now is the time to start!

Until next time…remember to do something every day that scares you…it will challenge you but you’ll learn so much about yourself in the process!

Rebecca

01-09-2012

Making your newspaper advertising dollar work for you

 

The days of thinking that by placing advertisements in a newspaper, clients will come knocking at your door are long gone. Savvy businesses now know there is much more to newspaper advertising if they really want to make their advertising dollar work for them.

Like any advertising, newspaper advertising needs to be considered as part of your overall strategic and marketing plans and not in isolation.

Your strategic and marketing plans will drive your advertising strategy and help you to determine what, if any newspaper advertising can help you achieve your goals.

For example, one of your goals may be to increase awareness of your brand by a particular target audience. This is most likely achieved by implementing a combination of tools, only one of which is newspaper advertising. It is best to consider your newspaper advertising alongside the other tools with each element supporting and enhancing the others.

Where possible try to avoid ad hoc advertising. It is easy to get caught up in an opportunity being presented by a newspaper salesperson (such as a space that has become available in the next edition about which you need to make a decision immediately) when the opportunity may not really fit with your overall plan or strategy. Accepting several of these opportunities that sound “too good to miss” can result in a blow out of your advertising budget without contributing towards your marketing goals.

Try to plan your advertising over a set period of time such as a campaign period, or a year. That way you can carefully tie your advertising to your marketing strategies and your budget as well as ensure you know when content or material needs to be ready.

When considering in which publications to place your advertisements, be sure to obtain information about circulation and audience to know if you have the potential to reach your target market. Some questions you may like to ask include:

• What are the readership demographics (so you can ensure the publication is targeted to the audience most likely to seek your good or service)?

• What are the most recent distribution figures? Is there a CAB audit and how recent is it? (See http://www.auditbureau.org.au/about_cab.php for more information about the Circulations Audit Board)

• For daily newspapers, what are the readership figures for particular days?

• Are there features or regular items on specific days that may be more likely to attract your target clients or customers?

• Is there a corresponding online package that can enhance your exposure? Ask for visitation figures for the publication’s website and for the specific area or page of the site on which your advertisement would be appearing.

• Are there opportunities for adding value to your advertisement? For example, advertorials, contributing to existing columns or being involved in special features.

Over the next week or so, take the time to check out some newspaper advertisements and reflect on the ads that have the most impact on you. Why do they have an impact? Are there common features?

In my next post, I’ll look at creating ads with impact and why your advertisement needs a ‘Call to action’.

10-25-2011

Five fundraising essentials for not-for-profits

GiftedPR Director, Rebecca Park with BayFM Business Show presenter, Phil Daly

From today’s interview with Phil Daly on BayFM, here are my five top fundraising tips:

1. Build relationships with your donors. Relationships are critical to anything we do in business and in fundraising. People give to people. Not-for-profits need to spend time nurturing the relationships they have with their donors and potential donors, taking the time to get to know their supporters, what connects them to the organisation and how they want to interact with the organisation.

2. Use your stories to inspire. Share your successes and those of the organisations and individuals you support. Use stories and images to illustrate what your organisation does and the impact it has on the community – building awareness helps to build relationships and inspire people to give.

3. Invest in your database. An effective customer relationship management system is the most valuable fundraising tool you can have. A good database is ever-evolving, not static. It should hold the most current information you have on your supporters, their contact details, interests areas within the organisation and their giving history. Be particularly careful with spelling, salutations and addressing couples and ensure your system is flexible enough to manage these aspects of communication. If you have an events program, use your database to record invitations, RSVPs and attendances so you start to build a picture of the people who connect with your organisation.

4. Transparency and reporting. This has always been important but is becoming imperative. People want to know and have a right to know how their donations are being spent. Publish your financial statements once a year and make them available to your supporters and the public. Transparency always works in your favour if you are doing the right thing.

5. Say thank you without asking for a gift. Don’t make every piece of communication an ask. An event invitation, posted newsletter or annual report, without a giving request is an important part of stewardship. Say thank you, sincerely, and often – in person, by phone, by email. Nothing beats a handwritten thank you note.