Author Archives: zer0_admin

For many of us, presenting in front of large groups can be a daunting task. Just think back to your school days – you dreaded getting up in front of the class to present your book report or science project. All you could think about at that time was “I can’t wait until I’m an adult and I don’t have to give presentations again!”

However, little did we know that for many of us presentation skills could make or break you in business.

Just ask Peter Coughter, the president of Coughter & Company, which consults with leading advertising agencies around the world. Coughter is also the author of the well-known book, The Art of The Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills That Win Business, which offers advertising and marketing professionals the tools and tips to develop and give great presentations that deliver business and grow as a professional.

In his book, Coughter asserts that simply having the best work or the best ideas is not enough to win business. You must show the audience, or potential client, that you want their business and are willing to do what it takes to win it. In order to do that, Coughter offers a few tips on the art of pitching and developing a great presentation:

1. Know Your Audience: It is easy to talk to people you know, right? So, get to know your audience before the pitch. In the time before you presentation, spend as much time as you can understanding your audience both as a whole and as individuals. What kind of people are they? What are their demographics and cultures? Where are they on the issue or topic you’ll be discussing? What are their expectations? You should even go as far as finding out about their personal lives. What are their hobbies? Where did they go to school? Are the sports fans?
2. Have a Conversation: The mortal sin of presenting is talking at your audience and boring them. You must make your presentation conversational and get the audience involved. When you do this, your audience will feel less like they are being lectured and be more likely to remember what you said.
3. Make It Personal: Great presenters are not afraid to introduce a level of intimacy as most people make decisions emotionally. If you share a personal story, the audience is able to relate to you on a higher level and it helps you build credibility and make lasting connections.
4. Work as a Team: Teamwork really does make the dream work. When a team doesn’t like one another or get along, a client or potential client will sense it immediately. Even if the team’s presentation is perfect and they offer great ideas, the only thing the audience will take away from it is, “If the team can’t get along, how will they successfully work on our business?” And, you won’t win the business.
5. Rehearse: It is paramount that you rehearse your entire presentation out loud and that you know your material – not just your part, but also everyone’s. If you do so, the presentation will feel natural and even give the appearance of spontaneity to the audience. In addition, the chances of surprises arising on the day of the presentation will decrease significantly.
6. Be Yourself: The most important thing to remember is to be yourself, be human and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. In fact, Coughter asserts that the most amazing presenters acknowledge their mistakes and attract the audience by being so honest, vulnerable and authentic. If you’re not, the audience will immediately recognize it and they won’t believe that your ideas or advice are genuine. Ultimately, you’ll end up losing the business because of it.

From winning business and bringing in revenue, to creating great relationships, a great presentation can open many doors for you as a professional or firm in public relations, marketing and advertising. A bad one can also close many doors. So make sure your next presentation is perfect by remembering the art of a pitch.

By Maggie Markert, Senior Strategist

“Because you can’t eat brand equity, and can’t pay a team with it” – Laura Hanly, Digital Marketing Expert and Author, “Content That Converts: How to Create a Profitable and Predictable B2B Content Marketing Strategy”

When done correctly, content marketing can serve as a powerful arm to your overall marketing strategy – it establishes you as an authority and has the potential to increase your revenue and profit. That’s why CMOs at the largest technology companies report that building out content marketing as an organizational competency is the second most important initiative, only behind measuring ROI.

For those still wrapping their head around the concept, according to Forrester:

“Content marketing is a strategy where brands create interest, relevance, and relationships with customers by producing, curating, and sharing content that addresses specific customer needs and delivers visible value.”

The challenge is figuring out how to do it right. As author Laura Hanly explains in her book, “Content That Converts: How to Create a Profitable and Predictable B2B Content Marketing Strategy,” content is not a magic bullet.

Content marketing will not:

• Turn you into an internet celebrity (at least not overnight)
• Make you rich beyond your wildest dreams

And when done poorly, can:

• Harm your brand
• Put off potential customers
• Never pay off (resulting in wasted time and resources)

Hanly stresses the importance of having a consistent strategy for the content that you’re producing, so that your audience is engaged, comes to know and respect you as an authority, and will buy from you when the time is right (because the ultimate goal is sales, isn’t it?) Every single piece of content needs to end with a call to action that can lead to a sale.

Some questions to ask yourself and your team before committing to a content marketing strategy include:

• What is the purpose of our content marketing?
• Who are we trying to reach?
• What types of content should we produce?
• Do we have someone who can produce the content?
• Do we have good ideas about what our content would be focused on?
• Is our market segment interested in consuming that kind of content?
• How will we measure our success?

There are two main types of content you can use: recurring content, which builds a customer base gradually over time, and content assets (such as a whitepaper, a book, a webinar series or a learning workshop) that can be used as near-term client acquisition tools. Before choosing the route that’s best for your business, there are four things to ask yourself (what Hanly calls the Conversion Quadrant):

What’s the intersection between what your customers want and/or need?

Figure out what your customers really care about. What do they look to your company for insight about? How can your expertise intersect with what your customer wants and needs?

What do you want to be known as an industry authority for?

The simplest way to become an authority on something is to say the same things about that topic over and over again. Don’t just chase the latest trend – find the one thing you can focus on becoming known for that will make it easier to develop, market and sell products that your audience will buy again and again.

What is the format in which you produce your best content?

While most people think that its best to tailor your content to audience preferences, Hanly recommends choosing the format that you most enjoy working in – because if you like it, you’ll enjoy creating it, and your audience will like it too.

What’s your quarterly plan?

Mapping out your content helps you to be strategic about your production. This should include:

• A clear statement of your “one thing” your company will be an authority on
• Four themes you want to rotate through
• Three topics per theme, including key points on each
• Headlines for each topic
• Scheduled date of publication for each topic                                      

Whichever path you decide to take with your content, if you don’t have the resources or bandwidth to do it right – if it feels like a chore every time you go to write – STOP. This will only result in an inconsistent content cycle with content that feels forced, uninspiring and unlikely to resonate with your audience.

The powerful thing about content marketing is that your assets increase in value over time. Whether it’s a blog, a book, a podcast or a whitepaper – you can always update later to improve it, modify key messages and share it with new audiences to see greater returns on early investments of your time and resources.

Remember – every piece of content you put out under your brand needs to be the best possible representation of who you are. Most prospects will have their first interaction with your brand through your content and just like in dating, you get one chance to make a good first impression.

By: Colleen Martin

Why are you reading this blog post? That, I’m not really sure about.

Who are you? Why are you reading this blog post? I can take a good guess. You probably have marketing, communications or PR in your profile somewhere. Chances are, you’ve read a post on a similar subject or even read something on the Zer0 to 5ive blog before. If our readership mirrors a site such as MarketingProfs, you are likely a professional at a small or medium-sized business in North America.

How do I know this? Because we’re inside an optimization loop. It’s similar to the social media bubble of our own design that keeps the unpleasant posts of our crazy uncle out of our feed and keeps feeding us posts that we’ll like, comment and share on. The optimization loop is more automated and more invisible. Every Google search (at least 5.5 billion a day), Amazon purchase (600 items a second on Prime Day 2016), or Facebook like (500,000 a minute) is being captured and analyzed to keep us clicking, buying and engaging.

Past performance is generally regarded as a good predictor of future behavior online, so the optimization loop keeps on working to drive more clicks. For those trying to get someone to take a new action online, the loop can be hard to break into. Here are a few ideas on how you can get your message out (or your client’s message, since you’re probably from an agency!):

1) Publish Outside Your Box

When creating content for potential customers to read, it’s important to get it published in the right places and engaged with by the right people so that it leaves your brand’s loop and enters the content loops of your prospects. This can best be accomplished through contributed content to publications or blogs that serve a target audience. When it comes to Google, they will have stronger authority on the content topic, and will be more likely to make your content rise to the top of search results.

There are also ways to leverage social media to try and break into new areas (e.g. hashtags in Twitter, audience targeting in Facebook), but if your account is outside of the loop, it’s less likely to be effective. With systems like Facebook’s algorithms in place that rely on thousands of factors tied to affinity and actions around a company’s page and individual posts, having your content pushed out by a well-regarded third party is a great way to increase impressions on your message. Plus, it allows you to use your brand and personal accounts to spread that message rather than relying on self-published content, which is likely to receive fewer eyeballs.

2) Become an Expert to Your Audience

There used to be ways to fake it online without real content, but the methods employed by Google and Facebook to determine valuable content are largely driven by user behavior. Bounce rate, time on page and post engagement all matter when it comes to rankings and visibility, so time spent creating good content will pay dividends over time. By combining strong content and wider distribution, it’s possible to become an expert source for target audiences.

This emphasis on quality carries over to email marketing as well. Gmail and other services increasingly monitor user engagement to determine if an email will be delivered. They examine behaviors at a macro (sending account) and micro (individual email) level to build reputation scores, so if your emails are ignored for being of little value (let alone marked as spam or unsubscribed), it’s going to keep your content from being seen.

3) Understand the System

It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes being made by the big online platforms. Keeping up with what’s working on Google and updating your content and communications strategy on an ongoing basis to match can pay big dividends. Factors go beyond content too. For example, if web pages are slow loading, not mobile friendly, or not protected with SSL encryption, there can be penalties from Google because your site is not providing a good, secure user experience.

There’s also a degree of “follow the money” that smart users can capitalize on. If Facebook wants to push Facebook Live video to users to increase its popularity, it would be wise for you to use it and break through the walls that the algorithms put up. Being aware of best practices and using them to influence your communications strategy can create a lasting competitive advantage, as the optimization loop only gets stronger in your favor.

By: Bob Minkus, Director

Today, websites have to do more than simply “exist.” With high levels of competition in the digital space, a website must be fully integrated to a company’s business objectives and goals. Investing in a website that integrates your sales and marketing messages into a compelling design can improve user experience and directly impact your business’ sales funnel.

Make a Lasting First Impression

You only have one chance to make a first impression, and in marketing, that first impression is your website. The Internet has become such an integral part of our lives that most people search online and make a judgment call about a business based on their company website before ever interacting with them or using their products. Having a website that looks like it’s from the “dot com era” tells site visitors that your business is outdated. Even if that isn’t the case, it’s difficult to overcome this perception if a customer has no other reference to your company or product.

Keep in mind that over 51 percent of users surf the web on their phone or tablet over a computer, making it vital that your site is also mobile friendly. Not convinced? A whopping 40 percent of people will choose another result if their first choice is not mobile friendly. Google’s search algorithms continue to heavily favor mobile-friendly sites, and a non-optimized site can leave you out of your prospects’ mobile search results.

Hone Your Message

As companies grow, expand and evolve, your message and value proposition needs to keep up. Your website is the best place to share the most important benefits of your company and product with customers and prospects. Your website copy needs reflect where your company and products are today, not what they were previously.

While crafting your message, be careful with the claims you put on your website. Overstating your business’ capabilities can lead to disappointed users who expect certain outcomes based on your site but have received a lesser version of the product they imagined. A proper marketing strategy should hone and focus on the best ways to highlight the strengths of your product without making outlandish or disputable claims.

One way to create an effective message is through Geoffrey Moore’s positioning framework. Moore’s framework helps to clearly define the target market and their main pain point, your product/business and its key value offering that solves your target market’s pain point, and how to best differentiate your product/business from the competition. With each of these points clearly defined, you can ensure your messaging draws in your target market and leaves them with everything they need to know about your product/business and why your solution is the best solution.

Integrate the Sales Pipeline

The best websites map out the user experience that eventually leads to a call to action (CTA) to either learn more, start a trial or buy the product. Proper placement of these CTAs will drive user engagement with your brand and have the potential to drive sales for your business. There are many tools available to track user behaviors on the site, (one such tool is CrazyEgg) so that your business can best optimize its CTAs and find the most user friendly design for them on your website.

Complete omission of CTAs and other sales-driven actions can result in lost revenue. Your website has the ability to drive sales leads from individuals who engage by requesting more info or a free trial of your product. From there, the sales team has a much greater ability to convert this lead, since search-driven leads have a 14.6 percent close rate compared to the 1.7 percent close rate for cold leads.

Among the long list of responsibilities for a business, its website must remain a top priority. While there’s no set rule regarding when a business should perform website updates, businesses should be updating their websites when they fail to incorporate modern user-interface elements and when they hinder a business’ sales funnel. But by making web maintenance more routine, a website becomes less burdensome to maintain, and with the proper messaging strategy and design execution, a business can create a modern, user-friendly site to reap the benefits a great website has to offer.

By: Jaimie Yakaboski

For reasons too many to name, webinars continue to be one of the most popular strategies for leveraging content to drive qualified leads. There has been significant focus on creating great content over the past few years, for good reason, but the fact remains that no matter how good your content is, if people can’t engage with it, it’s all but useless.

1. Have a plan. There is so much that goes into planning a successful webinar, but in order to start you need to ask yourself:
   • Who are you targeting?
   • What amazing content are you going to be presenting that is going to knock everyone’s socks off?
   • What day and time are you going to host it to drive the best attendance?
   • How are you going to reach your audiences?

The answers to all of these questions and more should be answered up-front in a comprehensive strategic plan. To be most effective, promotional activities need to occur pre-event, during the event, and post-event – what tactics will you be employing at each phase? The chosen strategies and tactics should be aligned to your audiences and their behavior – have you built personas that help you identify the best ways to reach your intended audience?

Having a thorough plan ensures that when it is “go-time”, promoting the webinar is strictly about world-class execution.

2. Engage hearts and minds. People are faced with a constant deluge of information. The hard truth is that no matter how interesting you think your webinar topic is no one is going to show up to your webinar unless you engage their interest – emotionally or intelligently. The key here is coming up with ideas that will get your audience excited. Excited enough to register, mention it to a co-worker, and share it on a social media platform. Excited enough that it is memorable.

If you want to be memorable, boring email blasts are not going to cut it.

Giving away valuable content, offering special discounts, creating games or sweepstakes, hosting contests and even the strategic use of humor are all ways to create a more engaging promotional experience.

3. Take an integrated approach. Use every available means to reach your audience: email, social media, direct mail, the homepage of your website, and PPC campaigns can all help drive your audience to register. If you have multiple speakers, leverage them! Have your speakers add a link to the landing page to their email signature. Every speaker, sponsor, and partner should also be communicating within their own professional networks to drive attendance. Write a blog post that teases or supplements the content you will be sharing in the webinar. Invite industry media and analysts so that they promote it to their audiences during and after the webinar. Create a 30 second teaser video.

Sometimes people fall into the trap of thinking that since a webinar is a digital event – only digital strategies can be used to promote it. Nothing is further from the truth! 

In reality, people can and should be reached across multiple mediums. Direct mail and PR can be used to effectively promote a webinar, especially one on a trending topic.

4. Stay in front of your audience. According to HubSpot, only 30% of people who register for a webinar will actually attend. Once someone has registered, don’t forget to send reminders the week and even the day of the event – people get busy and webinars are easy to forget. If someone registers but doesn’t attend, send a follow-up email that drives them to the webinar recording.

When it comes to promoting an event, once is never enough.

5. Keep it simple. Make sure your invitation emails are clean and informative so that it is simple for people to learn what they need to know and take action. Keep it simple to register via obvious CTAs, a clean and well organized landing page, and an easy way to access previously recorded webinars. Use best practices on form fields and placement. Less is more, now is not the time to gather every potential piece of information on a lead you wish you knew!

Webinars are a cost-effective tactic that allow companies to expand their reach, target more people and deliver content in a compelling, fully branded way. Developing a strategy that effectively promotes your webinar will drive attendance and ensure success.

Related Articles:

• Experiential Marketing: The Secret to Building Brand Loyalty
• Tips for Partnering with your PR & Marketing Firm to Maximize Results
• The Importance of the Web Design Process

By: Cole Naldzin, Principal

As a veteran of the U.S. Army, Zer0 to 5ive’s founder and co-CEO, Michelle Pujadas, is a big veteran supporter. Over the course of 15+ years, she served on active duty, in the Army Reserve and in the Individual Ready Reserve, achieving the rank of Captain and commanding a unit during the first Gulf War.

When Michelle heard the story of Amira Idris, a social entrepreneur who is developing a wearable to address the ‘phantom limb pain’ that many amputees face, including military veterans, she knew she wanted to get involved.

Idris’ startup, TheraV, has developed the ELIX, a wearable that stimulates periphery sensory nerves with vibrations, which in turn activate large sensory nerve fibers. Activation of these large sensory nerve fibers closes the pain gate, thus inhibiting pain signals from reaching the brain.

After meeting in Washington, DC, Michelle, the Zer0 to 5ive team, and Amira created a plan to launch an integrated Veterans Day campaign that combines public relations, social media and crowdfunding in order to raise money to help Amira get 100 ELIX wearables to veterans in need.

On a personal level, Michelle is donating to the campaign, as well as leveraging her personal and professional network to help Amira meet her goal.

The TheraV campaign for Veterans Day will begin November 6. To learn more about the campaign or to make a donation, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/therav-for-veterans

We are proud to announce that Zer0 to 5ive has been awarded three Silver Davey Awards in 2017. The winners include fintech company Savana, Inc. and biotech company Vigilant Biosciences for their corporate websites and the National Museum of Bermuda for its “New View of Bermuda” consumer ad campaign. The Davey Awards focus exclusively on honoring outstanding creative work from the best small agencies worldwide, drawing on nearly 4,000 entries from ad agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic designers, design firms and public relations firms.

We are proud to announce that Zer0 to 5ive has won three Silver W3 Awards in 2017. Our winners include fintech companies Greenphire and Savana, Inc. and healthcare tech company Intellis. Now in its twelfth year, the W³ Awards received over 5,000 entries from advertising agencies, PR firms, interactive agencies, in-house creative professionals, web designers, and graphic designers.

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but how about 1,000 hits? Information graphics, or more commonly known as “infographics” are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge that help to present information quickly and clearly. It is hard to ignore the surge of infographics that you see every day in print, online and social media.

From the USA Today Snapshot to Instagram to research reports, infographics are everywhere.

Source: USA Today

Why have infographics become so popular? For starters – they are fun, visually appealing, and a great way to communicate a lot of information in a succinct way. In addition, consumers are bombarded with a massive amount of information on a daily basis and it has shortened our attention spans. In fact, a recent Nielsen Company audience report revealed that adults in the U.S. spend nearly 11 hours each day consuming media.

Competition for consumer attention is fierce and a strong visual will make people more compelled to reader your content and to share it with others. According to a recent article on HubSpot, when people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of what they heard three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of it three days later. Additionally, infographics are much more likely to be shared via social media than your standard text article. In fact, Infographics are “liked” and shared on social media 3x more than any other type of content, according to HubSpot.

What’s the Story?

Infographics can be used to support a campaign in a variety of ways – to display survey data, illustrate a trend or timeline, make comparisons, raise awareness of an issue, simplify a concept or process or demonstrate results of research. To be effective, infographics must be focused on your core idea and tell a compelling story. Use a compelling headline that grabs the user’s attention and use images and captions to connect the dots. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need original data to leverage infographics. As long as you include the sources of information, you can also use industry data, trends, and other relevant information to support your idea.

Keep it Simple and Sharable

The design of an infographic is as important as the content. Compelling infographics are well designed, visually appealing, and easily digestible. Limit fonts and be consistent with the color palette. Remember to leave white space. The infographic also has to be easy to view and easy to share. Designing it to be a manageable length and size will make it easier to share and view on social media and other mobile platforms.

Share Far and Wide

Once you’ve created an infographic, you need to promote it. There are many ways that you can share it to increase awareness, visibility and engagement for your business: send in a press release as an accompanying visual; share on social media; post on your website and company blog; or send with a pitch to targeted media contacts.

At Zer0 to 5ive, we love to use infographics in our PR campaigns and we have seen the difference that a well-designed, visually appealing, and easily digested infographic can make in media coverage, particularly on social media. We’ve included a few of our favorites below to give you some ideas on using infographics in your next PR or marketing campaign.

[zlightbox image=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/vigilant-1.png” thumbnail=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/info-2.jpg” align=”left”]

[zlightbox image=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/Unknown-5.jpeg” thumbnail=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/info-3.jpg” align=”left”]

[zlightbox image=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/cengage-1.png” thumbnail=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/info-1.jpg” align=”left”]

[zlightbox image=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/k4-connect.png” thumbnail=”http://0to5.com/wp-content/uploads/info-4.jpg” align=”left”]

Industry tradeshows are one of the oldest and most popular tools in the marketing toolbox for generating sales leads; they are also one of the most expensive. The industry average for a 20×20 tradeshow display costs between $40-$60K, according to ExhibitUSA – not including employee travel costs, hotel stays, food and beverage, audio and visual, alcohol, or entertainment.

To almost no one’s surprise, tradeshows continue to be one of the most powerful tactics for companies seeking a direct return on investment. Where else can you meet face to face with prospective customers and partners while getting to spy on your competitors?

If you have been using tradeshows solely as a sales tool, you’re missing out on opportunities to expand your PR footprint by building credibility and buzz for your brand, as well as getting to meet key trade media in person.

Whether you’re attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) or EDUCAUSE, there are great ways to build buzz and garner media coverage.

Be a detective

If you are an exhibitor, speaker or sponsor, chances are, you’ll have access to the registered list of media attendees. If not, or if the organizers won’t share the list with you, use Google to find out what media covered the event last year; there’s a strong chance that if they’re still at the same publication and covering the same beat, they’ll be the ones attending again. Reach out to inquire if they’ll be attending again and if they can make time to stop by your booth. If they aren’t assigned to cover the conference this year, ask if they can connect you to the right person at their publication.

The early bird gets the worm 

If you wait until the week before your event to ask reporters for a meeting, you’ll be greatly disappointed. By that time, their calendars are already full. Traveling for tradeshows is a big investment for reporters, and they typically have a number of things they want to see and accomplish. They will have sessions they want to hear and interviews their editor has already assigned. Ideally, reach out 3-4 weeks in advance to ask for a meeting. If a reporter’s schedule won’t allow a face-to-face, schedule a phone interview in advance to brief them on your news so that if they do swing by your booth, the pressure is off for both of you and you can just hit the high points. 

Create a sense of urgency

If your client has big news to share, don’t wait until the day of the show to make a splash! Give your media contacts a heads up at least a week in advance and share the release with them under embargo, so that they are able to gather all of the information and conduct any interviews they need to tell a great story, BEFORE they step foot on the tradeshow floor. This way, your story is more likely to run AT THE START OF or DURING the event, which can create greater buzz and capture greater attention. 

Social media can’t be done in a vacuum

 If your company has been inactive on social media channels up until now, leveraging a conference is a great starting point to build a following. Assign one person to be in charge, but encourage all employees to engage with the Company’s social media channels during the event. Use the event hashtag in your posts so that anyone following the conversation will see them. Use the weeks leading up to the event to leave teasers about what you’ll be showcasing, where your booth will be located, and to start generating conversation and building followers that you want to meet with at the event. Don’t rely on a colleague sitting in an office 3,000 miles away pushing out canned tweets that don’t reflect any real-time interaction from the event. Mix it up with photos, quick video interviews and direct quotes from speakers at the event.

Follow up!

When the show is over, you’re just beginning. You’ll want to follow up with any media and analysts that you met with at the conference to see if there they would like a follow-up call, if they have any questions, or if there are any materials that they would like to see. It’s YOUR responsibility to close the loop and move the tradeshow meeting into media coverage. And, for anyone that you weren’t able to meet with – because there will ALWAYS be cancellations – make sure to follow up to reschedule the meeting by phone. Connect with reporters you met on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter and have your client do so as well – use the tradeshow as a catalyst to get the conversation going.

Tradeshows are a large investment of time and money for companies. By putting the right amount of time, effort and strategy behind them, you can create measurable value beyond sales!

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By Colleen Martin, Principal