Sounds like a plan!

Typically, a communications campaign is only as good as its plan. 


Like any other avenue, a public relations road map should be reviewed not only with overall business goals in mind, but also with an eye toward opportunities and obstacles specific to PR. 


Here’s a checklist based on the most frequently overlooked or underrepresented elements. To fully evaluate your plan, ask yourself—or your PR team—the following questions. 


What is PR’s role? 
The PR program should have a distinct and defined role within the bigger marketing picture. Often, the best use of PR is to add depth or detail to brand messages or to lend credibility to an advertising claim. It’s rarely just “positive visibility.” 


Does it include internal audiences? 
Many plans don’t address employees and stakeholders. These audiences can be very powerful ambassadors for nearly any PR strategy. For a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, they are crucial. If employees and partners aren’t fully informed of a program’s goals and strategies, it can create roadblocks. Failure to do this is simply a lost opportunity. 


Is it coordinated with other marketing elements? 
Maybe full integration isn’t a goal, but simple coordination adds value to every piece. Very often we see newsworthy elements in other parts of the marketing plan, but we find them out too late to offer input or realize the news potential. 


Does it allow for full story development? 
In our haste to generate publicity or social media impact, we sometimes underestimate the time and research required for full story creation and for multiple storylines. Because this is the meat of most PR programs, it should be afforded time for fairly robust research, development, and vetting. The beauty of PR may be that we can shift tactics or change messaging without incurring production costs, but who wants to lose the time? 


Does it include a back up plan?
For the publicity piece of a PR plan, you should always have a backup plan—particularly if the planned coverage hinges on a seasonal opportunity or culminates in a special event.


Is it flexible? 
Similarly, any plan should be adaptable to market conditions, competitive developments, or changes in the news cycle as you go. Most PR programs operate within a very dynamic media environment, so change is the rule and not the exception. Take advantage of it with monthly plan reviews and adjustments. 


Does it include a contingency or crisis plan? 
It always pays to think through potentially damaging scenarios and be prepared with a defensive strategy. 


Is the timing realistic? 
People tend to underestimate the time required for research, tactical planning, and achieving media relations. If you want your publicity to hit in say in July you should be starting at least three months ahead, if not more!


By Sonia Shelcott

New iPad2 available in UK 25 March

I have fallen in love with the new iPad2, I've taken a look at iPad1 and this piece of kit is literally awesome. I have been deliberating on whether it is worth getting, since I have an Apple Mac, iPod and iPhone, but if you use the right apps you can use the iPad as a laptop, camera, book reader, play games and watch iPlayer.
Can't wait until 25 March.
You can also use it as a drawing pad, so the whole thing looks like an "Etcher-Sketcher" but without the rattle when you shake it!
Starting price £430 for 16GB is not an amount you want to spend on an impulse buy, so consideration is important.

When the going gets tough

When the going gets tough, what is the first thing businesses look to do? Yes, cut costs! It’s a normal response to a downturn, indeed some would say crucial to keeping the business lean and mean. Unfortunately some of the first candidates for cutback are marketing, advertising, design and public relations. Considered as a luxury during tough times and something that can be done without – Of course professionals in these fields throw caution to this and advise businesses not to hit the panic button.
Sonia Shelcott from local marketing and PR consultants Millriver Publicity commented: “It is well documented that brands who maintain their marketing presence during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and deliver a return on their investments. Maintaining strong brand awareness even in a downturn can play a crucial role in helping businesses keep its head above water and keeping one step ahead of its competitors. In a downturn businesses need to show strength and stability to its customers, cutting back too much on marketing budgets in the short term can actually cost a business more money in the long term, by having to rebuild your brand when the economy picks up and falling behind your competitors. It is crucial to remain successful, it puts you in a strong position when the market does eventually improve.”
Andrew Fleming is commercial partner of Blocks Solicitors, and realises the benefit of strong brand awareness. Andrew commented: “Although the business environment may be hardening, that’s when good marketing comes into its own. All businesses need to be able to communicate their particular strengths. As a firm, we invest in focused local advertising and have a concerted marketing strategy, which we intend to follow through and even enhance through this economic downturn.”
Cementing a company’s message is also crucial in a downturn, a good PR campaign backs up the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, amplifying its message, and it can help any size company build awareness.
Sonia commented: “Unfortunately many people see PR as a luxury it shouldn’t be if used correctly and integrated with an effective marketing plan. PR enhances reputation, builds a brand, and makes your business stand out from the crowd.” She added: “If you cut PR out in tough times you leave the door open for your competitors to walk in, you are much better off maintaining a presence in the public eye, keeping in peoples minds and communicating with your customers. If you are serious about business, you have to invest in it.”


By Sonia Shelcott

Three new websites go live!

After three months of intensive work, Soo and Sonia have now completed the Fusion Website. It is visible here: http://www.fusion-ipswich.co.uk and is a collaboration between Marketing and PR consultant Sonia Shelcott (Mill River Publicity) and Graphic and Web Designer Soo Smart (Double S Design).

Definitely two heads are better than one, together we can offer a full marketing, PR and design service. We are a PR, marketing and design consultancy that helps your business deliver highly effective PR and marketing campaigns. We share a passion for ethical, clear-sighted and client focused project delivery.

Whether your business is new, growing or established, we can deliver expertise and ideas that will drive your business forward. We work across a range of different sectors and pride ourselves on our many long-term partnerships with our clients. Working to your budgets and deadlines, either for a specific campaign or over a longer period of time, we can help to raise the profile of your business both in the written word and through creative design.
If you are looking for a dedicated consultancy to help you, please give us a call. We would be happy to visit to discuss your plans.
 
Fusion - Design, Marketing and PR Specialists. We share a passion for ethical, clear-sighted and client focused project delivery.

Social Networking -You Need Back Links

Did you know that it's no good doing social media if you don't link back to your site?



You may be very happy to communicate to your friends and business colleagues on Twitter and Facebook, but 2011 will be the year when Social Media comes into its own. If you are the only one seeing your Tweets, then your message is not getting across. If you never link your Tweets to your website, your are missing out on a vital way of driving traffic to your website. Search Engines look for links between sites, it thinks if there are links happening frequently, then your website is important.


Not only do you need to join Social Networking groups, but you also need to create a Blog and send the news from the Blog to your site via RSS feeds.


Is it all beginning to sound rather tricky and complicated? It's just a steep learning curve, but nothing you or a competent web designer cannot help you with or do for you. If you want to see what I mean, just click on these links here>> Tweets RSS Linked In Twitter News Feeds

Is your email address professional?

If you are serious about your business you need a professional email address. This means registering a domain and buying hosting. If you only need email and don't want a website for the time being, then that's as far as you need to go. It is a small fee to pay to look professional.
 OK, so we all have to start at the beginning and a hotmail or tiscali email address will do the job while you are setting things up. But if you want to look professional and don't know where to start, then simply give us a call on 01473 728617. We can set up your domain and email address without you having a Website.

Eddie the Eagle at Suffolk SportsAid Lunch

Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards is an icon of British sport following his heroic failure at the 1988 Calgary winter Olympics.
SUFFOLK SPORTSAID FOUNDATION LUNCH GUEST SPEAKER - EDDIE ‘THE EAGLE’ EDWARDS

Supported by Ipswich Town Football Club
Wednesday 3rd November 2010 12 noon
Sir Bobby Robson Suite, Ipswich Town Football Club, Portman Road, Ipswich
Price - £30 per person or £250 for a table of ten

To book your place or a Table, click here
Or email: sonia@millriver.co.uk

The so-called birdman of Cheltenham finished last in both the 70m and 90m skijumps at Calgary – his best effort of 73.5m was more than 50m behind the double gold winning Finn, Matt Nyaken. But instead of slinking home in disgrace and resuming his career as a plasterer, he arrived at Heathrow Airport to find a crowd of 10,000 fans, a 25-strong police escort and a whole new life of private jets, personal appearances, £10,000-an-hour fees and a Top 50 single, Fly Eddie Fly.


Eddie was a huge media celebrity – he appeared on Wogan, on the Johnny Carson show and even Ronald Reagan, then US president, held up a White House briefing to catch him on TV. His story is even the subject of a Hollywood Film.


This is an unmissable opportunity to hear a truly unique and compelling story from the legend that is Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards.
Suffolk SportsAid Foundation



The sole purpose of the Suffolk SportsAid Foundation is to raise money to help the next generation of Suffolk’s sporting talent to succeed. It is a joint initiative between SportsAid, the national charity for sports people, Suffolk Sport and ‘Rising to the Challenge Suffolk’ the campaign to maximise the benefits for Suffolk from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.


SportsAid is the only UK charity directly helping talented British sportsmen and women. Their research identifies that on average each athlete spends nearly £5,000 per year on equipment, training, travelling and all the other essentials that are required for competing at the top level. More often than not their only sponsors are Mum and Dad, so every bit of independent recognition and financial help that the young athlete gets at this stage makes a world of difference.


Since the Suffolk SportsAid Foundation was launched in 2007 it has awarded over 60 grants to talented sportsmen and women from across Suffolk, all of whom are competing at either national or international level.

Your Logo - Only One Part of Your Brand

Your Logo alone should not be the finishing point of your brand identity. Your brand is more than simply the logo, it is the personality that identifies your company or product and should encompass the beliefs and attitudes of that business. Thinking further about your brand identity, is it something that needs to be reviewed every couple of years or longer? Is the message you created when you set up the company, still relevant today? Or, in more simple terms, do all your marketing materials look like they have come from the same company?


Your Logo therefore, is only one part of your brand: careful brand managemant employs many visual clues to carry a consistent message to your target audience. A single graphic that acts as the link to your clients, can be joined with other strong design themes, and this will help your brand be recognised as coming from the same source.
By Double S Design

Major upgrade to iPhone

How to organise your apps into folders: If you've now downloaded the new upgrade for iPhone to v4, like me you are probably wondering how to organise your apps into folders. Simply press on one of your apps until they all wriggle, and drag it on top of another app icon. Your iphone will then create a folder for you - simple!

Dynamic Web Design

Great website design is an art. It is the point where functionality and visual impact combine to provide the user with an informative, interesting and useful source where you don't notice its greatness. Does your website fall into this category? Does it function as a tool to promote your business? If you are uncertain, or are looking to upgrade your website with added interactivity, animation or simply need to refresh the design; then take a look at Double S Design's portfolio at http://www.doublesdesign.com/websites.html. Click through to take a thorough look at the sites displayed. Or call for a chat on 01473 728617.We are currently working on a new website with Mill River Publicity, the website involves Flash Animation, Dynamic Accordion menu and other web techniques to make the website easy to navigate and interesting to use. Our work in London on Films and Advertising has given us a great natural feel for the magic of animation using today's digital techniques.