If you’re wondering what’s the difference between digital marketing, digital PR and social PR, stay tuned.

Ok let’s get some marketing and public relations definitions straight here.

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing refers to the promotion of products and services through digital channels, like search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. These are the channels you’re probably using every day to market your business.

Digital PR

Digital PR is the use of digital media to manage and build your online reputation and image of your brand or personal brand. It’s about creating and sharing content, engaging your community and influencers, and managing online crisis communication. Oooh, better be prepared for that. Don’t give your social media keys to just anyone!

Social PR

Think of it as a subset of digital PR. Social PR focuses on leveraging social media platforms to build your brand reputation and engagement. It involves creating and sharing content, enhancing engagement, and again – the necessary management of online crisis communication — specifically on social media channels.

There’ll be no quiz here, but I just want to make sure you understand the differences between digital marketing, digital PR, and Social PR.

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Smart marketers understand that marketing and PR should be like best friends or sisters. How can you better align your marketing plan with PR?  Listen in.

If you’ve invested the time to create a marketing plan, then PR should be part of it. It’s an important part of outreach with the ultimate goal to create a buzz around your business. PR is a complementary marketing strategy because it helps meet the same business goals, only with different tactics.

Your marketing team is probably busy looking at the results of different campaigns and how to get better results. PR can help those efforts with social PR or getting mention from influencers, or by influencing industry journalists to cover what’s new. Marketing and PR each have their own goals, but you have to learn how to evaluate your marketing plan and your PR plan, too to see that you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck.

Digital PR or social PR tactics can range from media releases, video, social media campaigns, targeted media drips, or answering HARO requests, or getting published on LinkedIn, to name a few. Both marketing and PR let your top prospects, clients, email subscribers and fans – and the media — know what you’re up to. That ultimately separates you from your competitors and makes you more press worthy.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. I‘m a small business marketing consultant in Boston. If you’re wondering what a marketing plan and PR plan, plus training can do for your business, visit me at www.RobinSamora.com then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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What should be included in a marketing plan? Stay tuned.

A marketing plan is a blueprint to connect your ideal target audience with your products or services, and turn potential prospects into buyers. What should be in your marketing plan?

5 Key Elements of a Marketing Plan

1. Market Research

2. Competition

3. Identify your target audience

4. Form a timeline

5. Create a mission statement

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. I‘m a small business marketing expert and specialize in small business strategies to increase sales. Wondering what marketing and PR can do for your business? Visit me at www.RobinSamora.com then schedule a call.

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Your reputation is everything in marketing. Building it takes time and care, so it’s best to be proactive. How do you do that? Stay tuned.

If you’re looking to preserve your brand’s reputation and boost sales, here are 3 small business marketing tips you’ll want to know.

How to Boost Your Online Reputation and Sales 

1. Reviews matter

2. Be responsive

3. Collaborate

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. I‘m a small business marketing expert and brainstorm creative ways to get your business noticed. If you’re wondering what marketing and PR can do for your business, visit me at www.RobinSamora.com then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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Want to know the best ways to maximize media placement? Start with these three marketing strategies.

With so much access to internet media, customers need 28 – 62 touchpoints before they’re ready to buy. And with so much noise in the marketplace, you need to maximize media placement. What are the best ways?

1. Pitch Content Aggregators

Pitch blogs and newsletters with a high domain authority to reach your niche audience. You can also pitch content creators to increase the reach of your published piece and maximize coverage. More exposure in front of your ideal audience means more engagement, which hopefully will lead to more conversions.

2. Capitalize on Earned Media

If you’re covered by a recognizable news outlet, whether it’s the top local station or a national newspaper, mention it in your next media placement. When you’re known as the expert whose quote appeared in the Wall Street Journal, more media may share your quote or even reach out to you as a resource. If you don’t share your news, it’s a wasted marketing and PR opportunity. Don’t let that happen to you!

3. Syndicate Your Content

 Media companies have networks to local and national outlets, so if you get earned media on one, there’s a chance they can republish it across their various channels. The good thing is that once you’re in the door and networks know who you are, you may find syndication easier in the future.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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Want to stay on top of the latest trends in SEO? Listen to these 3 SEO Marketing tips to improve your website’s ranking.

The latest marketing trends in SEO can enhance your content marketing strategy, but not if you aren’t open to finding out what they are or taking action. Let’s dive in to see how to improve your website’s ranking.

1. Become a Lifeline for Prospective Customers

Share content about common questions related to your business. When prospective customers search online, your FAQs and content on your website should tell them everything they need to know. When you become a lifeline for a prospective customer, they’ll return when they’re ready to buy.

2. Update Pronouns to Keywords

Search engines will analyze your content to determine if it’s relevant, but using too many pronouns like “they” or “us” won’t tell search engines what your content is about. Replace excessive pronouns with more descriptive keywords or keyword phrases to appear in more search results.

3. Connect with Industry Leaders

Promote your content, link to high quality websites, and tag industry leaders to attract their attention. Networking doesn’t have to be in person. Connect, like their posts, be helpful, and support them in a genuine way. At some point after engaging, you can ask them to guest blog for your site and the gesture may be reciprocated.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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If you’ve ever been in the midst of a PR scandal, you know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to handle it. Here’s what to do.

Communication is key especially in a PR crisis. What you have to remember is that you have to react order strategically and soundly, and follow these 4 steps.

1. Assess the situation

Ask all the right questions before you react. Know what you’re dealing with by gathering all pertinent information, not just bits and pieces. It’s also important to separate the emotional drama from facts, and focus on the affected parties and assess the risks before planning a resolution. From team members to legal counsel, everyone must understand the scandal from every angle before reacting.

2. Organize your messaging

If a public statement is necessary, adapt your message to the specific audiences involved and speak to the facts, not speculation. Your team may decide that pulling ads is a good idea to take your company out of the spotlight or, that’s it’s best to apologize and keep a low profile. Trust the experts, not your emotions.

3. Keep an eye on the media

Once you’re organized and launched your response, keep an eye on the reaction from the media – and that includes traditional media to social media. Monitoring tools help with this to see what’s being said about you.

4. Learn from what happened

After surviving the scandal, analyze your response. How effective was it? Was the outcome what you wanted? Learn what worked and use it to your advantage in upcoming campaigns to show a more positive side of your brand.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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 Ready to email a pitch to a busy journalist? Here are 3 marketing tips that can help you stand out before you hit “send.”

If you’ve spent the time writing a PR pitch, you want to make sure it’s perfect. Double check that you’ve included these three key elements:

1. Write Eye-Catching Subject Lines

A solid subject line hooks the reader. If you’re emailing a writer, reference their subject matter to show that you’re interested in their work. Similar to Buzzfeed’s approach to catchy headlines, use numbers in your subject line to simplify your message and make it more tempting to open.

 2. Front Load the Essentials First

OK, so your subject line hooked the reader, now it’s time to reel them in. Start your email with the most important part of your message. This isn’t a place for small talk, that just loses their interest and your opportunity. Save the small talk for face-to-face meetings.

3. Include a Call-to-Action at the End

The best way to end an introductory email is by being confident, positive and assertive — not aggressive. Close strong with a question that will lead to an action. “Can I send you the details about my proposal?” Or, would you be interested in telling your readers about marketing grants that are 100% reimbursable by the government?

And, just to remind you, you aren’t the only person on the planet sending a PR pitch. Be mindful and polite with your follow up.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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Struggling to come up with topics for your next writing piece? Here are some tips to get your creative juices flowing.

If you’re a marketer, sometimes you come up empty handed in the idea department, especially if you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed or just blah. Here are 3 strategies to keep ideas flowing:

1. Write What You Know

To get the creative juices flowing, start with your experiences of what you’re good at, like running a business. Talk about mistakes you’ve made and learned from, or business wins you’d like to share.  Do you continuously answer the same questions to customers? Use those FAQs as individual topics and as upcoming videos. They all achieve the same goal: they give helpful information about your business and point them to you.

2. Keep a List

Even good ideas can be forgotten, so keep a notebook with you. Better yet, keep a running list of ideas on your phone. Use an app like Evernote to log and organize your thoughts. Or send memos to yourself. Some of the best ideas come in the middle of the night, so keep a notebook on your nightstand too. Just make sure you can read your scribble.

3. Find an Outlet that Fits Your Idea

Don’t pigeonhole yourself into writing something you’re not passionate about.  Your best writing comes from your interests, what’s in your heart, and what you believe in. I’m not saying not to research, because that’s important. But start writing, first. You can always tweak your copy to fit a particular blog or publication.

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!

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Want to be a guest expert on radio, TV or a podcast show? Listen to these 4 tips. 

Free publicity can save you tens of thousands of dollars, so it’s in your best interest to learn how to pitch a producer or blogger the right way. 

4 Key Elements of a Publicity Pitch  

1. Use a catchy headline. Drab doesn’t get you free publicity. If you’re not a wordsmith, put your title through an headline analyzer. You might be amazed! Here are a few to test drive; there’s one from CoSchedule, SEOPressor blog title generator, and SUMO Kickass headline generator has one too.  You can also get inspiration from tabloids and trendy magazines (and unfortunately the nightly news). The point is to get attention. 

2.  Find the producer or booker. Radio shows with a huge following have a bunch of producers to book talent. For smaller podcasts with less reach, you’ll most likely contact the producer or the host directly. The important thing is to contact the right person, so do your homework.  

3.  Provide value not blah-blah. A producer wants to be impressed and he or she should be. If you look and sound like an expert, and your online credibility says the same, you’re in the game. Producers and advertisers want their show to be interesting and to provide value. It’s not about you – it’s about the audience. What can you bring to the table? 

5.  Get in touch with the producer. Email works and so does social media. But, before you pitch, listen to on-air segments to see if there’s a fit. And don’t pitch a topic that’s just been covered. You’ll look like an amateur. Your job is to make it easy for a producer to say yes. 

I’m Robin Samora with the Fast Marketing Minute. My passion is low-cost marketing to help you grow your business. Check out my website at RobinSamora.com, then schedule a call. Talk soon!  

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