In This Issue

Welcome Our New Associate

Top Five Challenges in Marketing and PR

Focus Group Research

Press Releases Doing Double Duty

Welcome Our New Associate

We introduce a new associate, Lorna Webster, who joined us from Edelman. She will be expanding our interactive communications capabilities. Her bio reflects both extensive academic studies and very current experience in non-profit and corporate public relations. She will be active on many of our dynamic PR cases. Click to her bio.

Top Five Challenges in Marketing and PR:

1 New competitors are emerging and are increasingly found in new channels online where conversations are difficult to monitor or to join.

2 We're not sure how we are currently perceived nor what our customers really need at this time. 

3 Should we expand our web site to include online interaction, or is the risk too high?

4 We know our site is slipping in the search engines but what can we do about it? 

5 Are news releases still relevant?  

At Susan Carol Associates, we are applying the skills and talents of new media experts to help our clients respond to such communications challenges. At the same time, we address the common need to contain promotional and marketing costs or make budgets stretch to do more.  

There are indeed effective ways to help our clients do more listening, hear what their clients want on an ongoing basis and engage them for deeper relationship building. Our new monitoring services enable us to also track what competitors are doing or saying online. Our latest flyer, Reputation Management, is posted on our home page.

Listening Never Gets Old

Focus Group research and a newsletter tailored to referring physicians has been a great boost to important relationship building for one of our healthcare industry clients, a group of specialty doctors. Listening to patients and doctors in focus groups has been a central part of the strategy.

In another case earlier this year, we provided focus group research that resulted in a whole new area of growth for a local chamber of commerce when the research led to the fast development of a now very active Next Generation of Business Leaders Group.

Listening strategies are also advised strongly in a book we are reading, Groundswell, Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research. Assessing the audience's use of new media and online communities is what they advise doing first and then strategies are suggested for ongoing insight found online and as an essential part of any marketing foundation.

Press Releases Doing Double Duty

We learned in a recent workshop held by Network Solutions in Northern Virginia that organic SEO is extremely valuable and one of the most effective tools is optimized press releases. We've known that for years.

As more and more newspapers take their material online first, the need for content is enormous. Many thousands of online outlets making millions of impressions are picking up our news releases and in turn this activity raises our clients' web sites in search engines. Since our news releases are written well and actually developed around news, they also lead to interviews, speaking and publishing opportunities.

Call us to discuss your challenges, needs and interests. We look forward to hearing from you. Susan Carol: 540-361-1274. Email: sca@scapr.com.  

Establish, promote and protect your valuable corporate reputation and brand with Susan Carol Associates, a full-service team of proven, professional communicators. Expect measurable results from an integrated, cost-effective strategy designed around your organization's goals. Clearly convey your distinct value proposition to distinguish your brand from the competition, build relationships with influencers, increase business opportunities, and help your leaders gain recognition and credibility. www.scapr.com.

Susan Carol Associates specializes in healthcare, technology and equipment finance subject areas as well as others. See our growing healthcare portfolio at www.healthindustrywriters.com.