Are you aware of how beneficial press releases are to your marketing efforts?

Anytime something newsworthy happens in your business, you should write a press release about it. Whether it’s a new service offering, a new office location, a promotion, an award, anything people didn’t know about yesterday could make for a good press release. You can go ahead and submit your release to local media outlets, but more importantly, spread it on the Internet.

Whenever you write a press release, it should be submitted online. Why? Well, each time you have a press release that links back to your site, that helps your SEO. Not every press release that gets submitted online will be picked up by anyone, in fact, it’s kind of rare. The biggest benefit is the boost to your SEO.

When writing a press release, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, you need a great headline. I often spend more time coming up with a headline than I do writing the content of a piece. If the headline stinks, it doesn’t matter what’s in the rest of the press release, it won’t get read.

It’s important to include a link to your site near the top of the press release, and that’s also where the main newsiness (nice word, eh?) of the piece should be, in case it gets chopped up. You should have a quote in there somewhere, so if it does get picked up by someone, they don’t necessarily have to call you for a comment. At the end of the press release, it’s good to have some ‘About’ information about your company or yourself, but it’s not totally necessary.

After reading ‘Publicity Hound’, Joan Stewart’s newsletter yesterday, I discovered a mega cool tool for press release analysis: Press Release Grader. You can copy and paste your PR in there and it will tell you how well you’ve scored for marketing purposes. The last one I wrote got a 90% which is cool. It also gives feedback on how to improve it. What a great tool!

If you suck at writing aren’t great at writing,  outsource the task. I write a lot of press releases, and can pump them out pretty efficiently. Another option is to give it your best shot, then send it to an editor to polish it up. I heart Angela Smith of Accu-Asisst for this task.

So, what’s happened in your business lately that merits a press release? It’s GREAT free marketing for the bootstrapping entrepreneur.

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So, you might be wondering why my logo is adorned with balloons, presents  and a birthday cake. Just so happens, June is a big month for Mann Made Time. We’re celebrating two years in business and it’s my birthday month - one more year in my twenties…reason to celebrate, right?

After two years in business, I have really been able to find out which services I love the most and the ones I prefer to outsource to my team members. My biggest love is writing, and I’ve been lucky enough to be doing more and more of it for my awesome clients. I’m toning up my marketing message to attract more copywriting projects and that excites me.

When you first start your business, nailing down a target market and niche can seem very overwhelming and a lot of people don’t believe they should focus their marketing on any one place. In a sense, that’s a good idea. Offer a bunch of services (ONLY ones you’re great at) and then decide where your biggest strengths lay and which things you enjoy doing the most. Then carve out your niche and decide on a target market. If you started your business with a target market that you don’t feel the love for after some time has passed, change things up. There’s no rule saying that you have to target the same bunch forever. There’s no rule saying you can’t upgrade your skills and find yourself a niche you really love.

Your business is your business. You’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you’re doing work you love for people you truly enjoy working with you’ll be more motivated and success will come easier. You’re the boss. Do you look forward to the work you have on your plate when you wake up each morning? For a time, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. Now, it’s like Dr. Phil says. If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I feel privileged to provide the services people pay me well to do. It really doesn’t feel like work and what could be better than that?!

Oh. And happy birthday to me!!!

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I’m all about efficiency, and yesterday I got to thinking…

Why isn’t there a breed of grass that stops growing at an inch tall to prevent the need to cut it?

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Are there any two words more important to a consumer than “customer service”? Well…. “free” and “stuff” when put together have their appeal, I suppose. Anyway…I’m a big customer service person.

Three weeks ago, before traveling to Toronto for the virtual assistance conference I spoke at, I scheduled an appointment for a hair cut. I just wanted to have myself looking all sleek and shiny - nothing dramatic.

“Just a trim,” is what I told the hair dresser. Because I had a very specific time frame to get my do do-ed, I wasn’t able to get an appointment with my regular stylist. Not a big deal, since I only wanted a trim.

I have very thick hair, and hair dressers are always having to thin it out. When this particular stylist asked me if I wanted it thinned, I told her that’s what Teresa always does (my regular gal) so she started to cut. However, apparently, thinning to this person meant layering. Before I knew what was happening, the hair I was planning to grow out a bit was being chopped into short layers right on the top of my head. I hate layers in my hair. I have some curl in my hair, and when it’s layered, because I have two young children and zero free time, I can’t do anything with it myself and it just ends up looking disheveled all the time.

When she was all finished, I grimaced at my reflection. I’ve never had a situation in a hair dresser’s chair where I wanted to cry, until that day. I told her I just didn’t like it, and asked if she could do something to fix it. It made me feel like I looked ten years older, and here I was just wanting to feel and look good for my conference. She looked at me, kind of puzzled, like she didn’t really know what to do, and then started cutting again.

I decided I would try it out, see if a few days would make any difference about the way I felt about it.

It didn’t work. Two and a half weeks later, I couldn’t look in the mirror. It was just awful. I made a call to the hair salon and explained that I had a hair cut a couple weeks prior and needed to get it fixed. My appointment was scheduled for Saturday morning (yesterday).

I was so happy to see Teresa. When I sat in her chair, the owner of the shop came over and apologized for the mis-communication and told me there would be no charge for my new do. I was shocked, really. I mean…was it the hair dresser’s fault that I didn’t like the haircut? Maybe it would have been great for someone else. Hair is such a personal, individual thing. The shop owner didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t even have to come over to chat with Teresa about the situation. But she did. She made me feel important. Told me she was just glad I came back, and that with two small children at home it’s important that I feel “hot”.  (At that point, I would have been happy with “not ugly”.)

Anyway, Teresa somehow cut my hair until it looked like I had more than when I started. She did a great job, and I left her a huge tip because it felt wrong to leave without paying.

THAT’s customer service. That experience will have me telling everyone I know (with hair) to check out Picasso’s in Charlottetown. The gal that cut my hair originally was a great hair dresser, it was partially my fault that I didn’t communicate properly what I was wanting. I don’t know. All I know, is that the shop owner went out of her way to ensure I was happy.

What do you do when someone’s not satisfied with the service or product you provide? Do you guarantee your work? Do you go out of your way to make sure that a customer never walks away unhappy? I hope so, because unhappy customers have huge mouths.

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As an entrepreneur, you presumably put a lot of thought into naming your business. I sure did. It’s a very big decision. You have to try the name on for awhile and see how it feels. You have to write it out and see how painful it will be to write down a million times in the future. You have to see if it will continue to suit you as you grow. Will it make sense when you tell someone your domain name over the phone? (With my name, I always have to say “Mann with two ‘n’s and no, it’s m-a-d-e, not m-a-i-d.”)

Twenty years ago (yes, it has been two decades) the New Kids on the Block appeared on the scene, weakening young girls knees everywhere. They were five young guys who have been credited with starting off the boy band craze in the 90s. (They seem to disagree, saying there were lots of boy bands around before them and perhaps they were the first “white” boy band. ) Whatever they were, they were a phenomenon. I was absolutely nuts over them. I spent every dollar I had on their tapes, ‘Teen Beat’ magazines with posters of them, earrings, t-shirts, even socks and sunglasses. I had a club and we had t-shirts and binders…spending lunch hours swooning over our favorite ‘Kid’. It’s really a good thing that twelve year old girls can’t get tattooed, cause you can bet I’d have the NKOTB logo somewhere on my person.

I don’t recall what happened to NKOTB, but they have reunited and are going on a reunion tour this summer. How exciting! And how brilliant. Their concerts are selling out, and why wouldn’t they be? They already have a huge fan base, made up of 25-35 year old women who have been loyal to them for 20 years. We have more money now to sink into their music and concert tickets and we still love them…even if our husbands think we’re dorks.

My point here is that perhaps the name “New Kids on the Block” wasn’t brilliant. It seems odd to choose a name that will not make sense after a couple of top ten hits. How ‘new’ can you be when you’ve been on the charts for a few years? And now with the guys ranging in age from 35-40 something, they sure aren’t kids anymore. I wonder if they’re sorry they chose that name. It doesn’t seem to be hurting them much, but it seems kind of silly to see a bunch of 40 year old men called the New Kids.

Anyway, think about your name before you brand yourself

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