Marketing Articles
Leverage Your Trade Show Investment
A client was returning from a trade show and while on the airplane, opened his briefcase and read some of the show product reviews in his leading trade media when he noticed the product news release we prepared for him. It had premium placement and jumped right off the page! He said it made him…
Read MoreWhat are the 3 Most Important Factors in B2B Marketing?
In the real estate business it has long been said, “the three most important factors when selling a property are location, location, and location.” In B2B marketing, the three most important factors are: repetition, repetition, and repetition. Why? Because repetition puts your products in front of prospective customers when their need arises and repetition reinforces…
Read MoreGrowth of Small Business & Free Enterprise
Growth of Small Business is Our Core value. Most of our clients, especially those small businesses we’ve been partnering with for nearly four decades have leveraged our work. To understand why we encourage them do that, here’s the reason I started Venmark in November, 1976. The following graphic resulted from a six week exercise with…
Read MorePublicizing Your Website is a Must
If you create a terrific website and don’t employ the best marketing tool in the mix to let your customers and prospective customers know about it, you’re making a huge mistake. Take advantage of this opportunity! Effective website publicity creates exposure in important media outlets, reinforces your brand, generates web traffic and sales leads, enhances…
Read MoreDon’t Let an MBA Get in Your Way
In an interview, Kevin O’Leary from the successful television show “Shark Tank” said that MBAs drove him crazy because they have never built a business, are arrogant, and think they know everything. Well, I work with some very savvy clients who have MBAs and respect their achievements, but understand totally why he feels that way.…
Read MoreEsco Tool’s Products Featured on Two Magazine Covers
Keeping Esco Tool’s products in front of the world has been an honor for me since 1977. During our last monthly meeting, I showed Matt Brennan, their president, the front cover of “Process Cooling” magazine’s 2014 Product Guide Issue which featured Esco’s Battery-Powered End Prep Tool for Welding Pipe. Then he said, “If you think…
Read MoreCommon Small B2B Company Marketing Mistake
S.I. Hiakowa, the semanticist and former United States Senator said, “A cow is not a cow, is not a cow.” In other words, not all cows are the same, even though they are all cows. The same applies to writers. Not all writers are the same, even though they are all writers. The genesis of…
Read More7 Reasons why Product Publicity Fails
1. The copy is filled with superlatives. Many years ago, “The Wall Street Journal” ran an article featuring the 20 words most likely to get a press release rejected. They included terms like unique, revolutionary, and world-class. You get the idea. An advertisement dressed up like a press release is still an advertisement! Lipstick…
Read MoreEffective Product Publicity Requires Limits
You can’t develop a stent or pacemaker without imposing strict size limits on the envelope. What permitted the miniaturization of electronic devices were size limits imposed by product development teams. It is obvious in engineering and it is obvious to me with respect to sales and marketing. Hey, it seems obvious, but if you don’t…
Read MoreWhy PR is Becoming the Future of SEO
A recent article in INC Magazine entitled “Why PR is Becoming the Future of SEO” caught my eye. It was written by Adam Heitzman, the co-founder of a nationally recognized SEO firm. Mr. Heitzman concluded his article with “The moral of the story is this: Now, what Google seems to value most is what public…
Read MoreHow to Grow Your Business without spending a Fortune
I’m reminded of the story about my first writer back in 1977. I delegated a publicity project to him for one of our clients, a company called Custom Fabricators, Inc. of Waltham, MA. My writer drove by their facility twice when he went there for his first meeting. Why? Because his only knowledge of Custom…
Read MoreSome Very Smart People Make Very Stupid Mistakes
While catching up on some business reading Saturday morning with “Fortune Magazine,” an article entitled “A Visionary Tech Founder Returns” caught my eye. It was about Cher Wang. If you’re like me, you never heard of her. She was the co-founder of HTC, a Taiwan-based smartphone maker. Her name was bandied about with Steve Jobs…
Read More7 Content Marketing Facts You Can’t Afford to Ignore
These seven content marketing facts are frequently overlooked and implementing them will help assure that you will get the highest possible return-on-investment from your website and other marketing tactics. 1. Video content is 50 times more likely to rank high in Google search results and has a 41% higher click-through rate than plain-text results. (Source:…
Read MoreThe Secret to Getting Widespread Publicity
Over the years we have received numerous comments from editors and the key ingredient to all of their feedback is that Venmark International gives them press releases [product news and information] about products and product applications in a format that helps them create superior content. This idea of providing “solutions-based content” has been critical to…
Read MorePublicity Reinforces Vendor Relationships
“Hello John, this PR’s great! Very nicely done. You put a smile on a lot of people’s faces around here. As always, thanks for your support for Porex!” Highest Regards, Mike…” That e-mail to John Savikas, president of Interstate Specialty Products, Inc. was received after their vendor Porex saw his product in one of our…
Read MoreProducts Don’t Have to be New to be Newsworthy
Exploding the myth that products have to be new to be newsworthy is the following full page in this June/July 2014 issue of Fabricating & Metalworking magazine. Featured are four different press releases prepared by Venmark International for ESCO Tool who has been publicizing products consistently for over 37 years! This news also appears online…
Read MoreThe Alternative to Growth is Death
I’ve had many small business owners tell me that they like being small and don’t want to grow. Sound familiar? I understand. I own a small business too. But, businesses are organic. Like animals, plants, and people, the alternative to growth is death! It is as simple as that. Several years ago, I had…
Read MoreWhy Work With Small Companies?
I was introduced to a young man who was starting a company. In the process of our initial conversation, he let me know that he graduated Carnegie Melon with an engineering degree. Therefore, I assumed he was smart. That said, he went on to ask me, “If I was so good at what I do,…
Read MoreIgnite Interest in Your Products
The squeaky wheel gets the grease and the internet is getting the most lubrication today for good reasons. Obviously, when people recognize they have a need for a product or service, they search for it online. But, what about those folks who don’t recognize they have a problem? There are lots of them. As Henry…
Read MorePublicity for Commodity Created Tool Kit Sales
It amazes me how many companies are losing out on terrific sales opportunities because they assume there is a linear relationship between what they publicize and what people purchase. A great client, Malcom Company sells a line of plastic welding tool kits and I’ve been preparing innovative news releases about the kits for many…
Read MoreThe 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
In his book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” co-author, Al Ries pointed out “The publicity message has credibility because it comes from a presumably unbiased source. Furthermore, you expect the media to tell you about things you’ve never heard of. That is what news is all about.” When prospective customers read news about…
Read MoreVenmark International Introduces Product Videos
Developed to let companies take advantage of our expertise at communication through images, Venmark International has introduced a new standard product video service. Each product video is approximately 30 seconds and communicates the key attributes of a product very clearly in order to pique viewer interest and generate meaningful sales inquiries. The genesis of…
Read MoreHave You Ever Anointed an Employee?
I had a client who took advantage of technology and bought his assistant, Susan a beautiful Nikon camera. It had every bell and whistle you could imagine. Ironically, she was intimidated by it! My client, an engineer who “didn’t know what he didn’t know” was looking to save money on the cost of product photography. …
Read MoreSEO is Only Part of the Marketing Mix
In marketing today, “Search” gets a lot of attention. And it should. However, there is a huge implicit assumption which is: your prospective customer knows what they need and then search for it. Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” In other words, without a…
Read More“The Profit” on CNBC Validated my Observation
There are clearly two types of owners in small businesses, those with big egos who need to be in control and those who have learned how to delegate and empower the people who work for them. Knowing what you don’t know can be a huge problem for bright entrepreneurs who believe they can learn…
Read MoreA Great Way to Stretch Your Marketing Budget
Even though we specialize in using product publicity for product marketing, branding, and new business development, we encourage our clients to use the content we create for their website, e-mail campaigns, trade show booths, product literature, applications notes, post cards, and more. We want to see them leverage our work and get the best marketing…
Read MoreAre You Fundamentally Unemployable?
I love LinkedIn and appreciate its value. However, I read too many questions about starting businesses that are much too academic. Maybe because of entrepreneurship studies at universities? For many entrepreneurs, starting a business was a visceral need. My wife and I started our business from a spare room and worked eight and a half months without a day…
Read MoreDo You Know the 3 Most Important Factors in B2B Marketing?
It has long been said, “In the real estate business the three most important factors when selling a property are location, location, and location.” For B2B marketers, the three most important factors are: repetition, repetition, and repetition. Why? Because repetition puts your products in front of prospective customers when their need arises and repetition reinforces…
Read MoreProduct Publicity Identified the Right Customers
While driving his expensive motor home during the winter in New England, his windshield wipers kept collecting ice. Aggravated that he had to lean out his window while driving this $250,000.00 vehicle and bang the ice and snow off of the wipers, endangering himself and other drivers, he decided to invent a heated windshield wiper. …
Read MoreNews Releases Drive Prospects into the Sales Process
Regardless of how effective a salesperson you are, you have no control over the events that stimulate a prospect’s buying behavior. If they don’t have or perceive a need for your product or service, you will never “sell” them. Your challenge, therefore, is to get prospects to think about your company when an external event…
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