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Dear Potential Client,
We are happy to provide you with answers to questions you probably have about our services. We appreciate and commend your due diligence. The real proof, however, is in the pudding and we've cooked up and served a lot of pudding for many a happy client over many years. Everything you've probably heard about PR may be true or partially true, but individual outstanding firms like TransMedia are not your average firm that talks much, but delivers little. We do the opposite over and over and we've made a lot of people rich and successful. You are going to be thrilled and delighted with the measurable return on your investment in our firm. And you have my personal assurance that I will see to it that you are well served.
Thomas J. Madden, CEO
TransMedia Group
What you always wanted to know about PR,
but were too nice, too polite or maybe
too much in a hurry to ask
Q: Are your services more of an Imaging campaign or Direct Response campaign?
A: Both! Nothing builds or enhances a brand more effectively than positive exposure in media whose messages are perceived more as news and information presented fairly and objectively and written by credible third parties as opposed to more self-serving communications like advertising. When combined with PR, advertising often is much more effective in generating business. Also, the media exposure we generate and the releases we issue almost always result in direct response from targeted markets. Often we hear from clients that they received a high volume of calls or contacts right after a story appears in a local newspaper or magazine or from an appearance on TV and more and more from exposure on the Internet and from our social media marketing on their behalf.
My company and my marketing is all about accountability and measuring results. Every dollar spent on marketing has to generate cost-effective leads. What kind of cost per lead/retrun on investment can I expect and how is that measured and calculated?
A: This is an age-old question that today the PR industry and our firm in particular has been addressing through a variety of ways of measuring both the impact and cost effectiveness of PR in the form of an ROI usually applied to other investments. First, from a standpoint of cost, PR usually beats other forms of marketing hands down. Clients are amazed when we calculate for them how much it would have cost to buy all the media space and time our efforts generated, which often is many times their monthly retainer fee. For Rexall Sundown, in the course of one year we generated over $50 million worth of editorial exposure for just one of their products, which brought in $54 million in sales from that one product alone. Their cost in PR fees was under $1 million. The company’s founder Carl DeSantis will confirm this as well as the effectiveness of other PR campaigns we’ve conducted for his many businesses, including the beverage Celsius whose stock has risen from 3 cents a share to $3.60, largely as a result of the media exposure we’ve produced. Recently we generated for McCormick and Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant in West Palm Beach approximately $150,000 worth of exposure locally in just two months, compared to the $10,000 they paid us in fees over the same period. Today, after all this exposure, their restaurant at CityPlace is packed and revenue is soaring. Their Director of PR, Tori Harms, will confirm this. So just about any way you evaluate it, PR is a more cost-effective form of marketing that frequently increases the effectiveness of other forms of marketing like advertising, particularly when the two are combined and a productive and resourceful PR firm like TransMedia Group is involved.
Q: How long does a release take to create? How long does a pitch take to execute?
A: An effective news release can take anywhere from an hour or two to a few days to create, depending on the speed of the client-approval process and whether research is required. Pitches are executed even faster as typically they are shorter and more to the point of the story. Simultaneously, we would also be creating a media list that would target exactly what reporters, editors, producers, bloggers, etc. would be most interested in the content or story angle. TransMedia Group never runs out of ideas on new ways to spin stories.
Q: How many releases and story pitches will I get per week or per month?
A: We would recommend not more than one release per month because you don't want to overwhelm media, dilute impact or become a pest. On the other hand, there could easily be 10 or 20 rifle-shot, one-on-one pitches a week depending on topicality, current events, new account acquisitions, awards and recognitions, including some we would generate, human interest stories, charitable giving, hurricane season approaching, health and environmental issues, and many other angles we would develop and pursue continuously and aggressively non-stop!
Q: How soon do you expect for me to see results from our initial campaign? 30, 60, 90 days?
A: In general we prefer to take a more conservative approach by saying it usually takes 30 to 60 days before you would begin seeing meaningful results, but in many cases we're able to spot newsworthy angles right away and arrange significant media exposure in a matter of a few weeks. We can say this for two reasons: 1) as many of us are former journalists, we can see a variety of ways to pitch your story that will make it of interest to the media rather quickly and 2) we have a network of media relationships in this region and nationwide that allow us to cut to the front of the line in terms of offering our media friends pitches we know they’ll like and will want to jump on.
Q: Please provide, in detail, what your first month’s would entail.
A: First, we would cover your company like reporters ferreting out the best stories to tell, the best personnel to tell them and the most effective case histories and testimonials from customers. Then we would segment these stories and begin matching stories with local media that would be most interested in them and begin creating the respective news release drafts for client approval and pitches that we know will work with our media friends. During the first week, we would write and distribute a client-approved news release via PR Newswire at no charge announcing your company retaining TransMedia Group for public relations. In that release we would cite all the cutting-edge areas of your expertise, products and services that we intend to publicize. We also would position and register you as a news source in your field for who knows more about your niche than you. Then, besides going after the general market, we plan to reach out to the fastest growing minority group in the country, the Hispanic community of South Florida with different angles that are of interest to this particular market. Everything we do in English will be translated into Spanish giving the release/pitch the Hispanic angle it needs. This will open up powerful new business pathways for your business in the markets you serve.
Q: What is your hourly charge? Will I see a breakdown of time spent on my account each month by specific job or task?
A: We are results driven, not clock driven and as such we assign several of our top publicists to your account who have experience in your space. They will spend all the time necessary to produce valuable, impactful and measurable results in the form of a flow of media exposure designed to drive customers to your business, traffic to your website, etc. This team will be led by one of our ace publicists, assisted by Carla Pardo, who heads our Hispanic Media Department and Ashley DiVeronica, Director of Social Media Marketing This team will be supervised by TransMedia Group President Glen Calder as well as the firm’s CEO Tom Madden.
NOTE: We urge you to measure the performance of this team not by time sheets, but by clippings and recordings of the media exposure they will generate month after month.
Q: How many active clients do you have?
A: Thirty, including some of the largest employers in Florida, such as GL Homes, The Continental Group, CDS International Holdings, etc.
Q: Does the monthly fee include production of a media kit? What would be the components of a media kit?
A: Yes. Business Facts, History, Products/Services, Bios, Current News/Pitch. Design and printing of press kit folders is not included, and would be billed at cost. We have produced media kits for clients at costs ranging from approximately $1,000 to $3,000. In most instances, a one-page pitch is just as effective.
Q: How much experience does your firm have in my industry? Are there any existing or potential conflicts of interest? Can you provide case studies that demonstrate success with similar companies? Here’s how we answered this for Stanley Steemer before they became a TransMedia client. We could do the same for many sectors.
A: We’re an eclectic, enterprising firm that is constantly covering new areas in which we quickly develop sufficient knowledge and resources to be effective messengers about our client’s products, services and business achievements. One of our first clients was Coit Carpet and Drapery Cleaning for whom we arranged Kathryn Crosby to be their celebrity spokesperson, booking her on television stations and arranging newspaper and magazine interviews for her to talk about Coit across the country and in Canada. We have a lot experience also working with weather and storm-related stories as well as with products that improve air quality, including Ozone-lite, for whom we generated over 500 media placements nationwide. A thick scrapbook full of these and other placements on behalf of clients in other sectors is available in our offices. As for conflicts of interest, we scrupulously avoid them and our policy is never to represent competing clients.
Q: Can you provide client references that will attest to the quality of your work?
A: Upon request . . . absolutely!
Q: Who will be my day to day contact? And what relevant experience does he/she have?
A: We would assign one of our highly-experienced publicists who would be most appropriate to serve as your point person and day-to-day contact. His bio as well as the bios of others assigned to your publicity team are available on our website at www.transmediagroup.com.
Q: Does my primary contact have the authority to offer advice and make decisions when I need them quickly?
A: Yes indeed. And no one will know the media and the PR business as well your point person who has vast experience and has done exemplary work not only at our firm, but at some of the top media outlets in the country.
Q: Are your online news releases search engine optimized? Do your social media and SEO efforts work together? How do you optimize my campaign once it is launched?
A: Most assuredly. We are experts in SEO and our releases are fully optimized and contain key words and hyperlinks reaching additional information sources and our social media marketing efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc. complement, reinforce and extend our messages throughout the Internet. We’re also fully capable of setting up and managing effective pay-per-click programs on Google as well as producing effective blogs for our clients.
Q: Can you provide some examples of successful PR campaigns?
A: Here a couple:
Case Study #1: PRC (formerly Precision Response Corporation). www.prcnet.com
PRC is one of the nation’s top call centers and at its height had over 14,000 employees in various call centers across the nation. It was our job to not only get the Barry Diller owned company national exposure (NY Times, Dateline NBC, Nightly Business Report), trade coverage (CRM Magazine, Call Center Magazine), but to get them positive exposure in their local markets. Because of the high attrition rates in their business, good publicity can get their employees to stay longer and help recruit better qualified employees.
So for their centers in Austin, Denver, Colorado Springs, West Mifflin, Tampa, Palatka, Durant, Jacksonville, Carrolton, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Huntington, etc., we created a locally based media plan. We would set up our point of contact, educate them on the process of gathering potential news items, study the local media marketplace and then have bi-weekly meetings to chart the progress. It worked and we created grassroots media relationships that are still thriving today. Each market has different needs and separate media plans are required.
Case Study #2: GL Homes www.glhomes.com
GL is Florida’s largest homebuilder. Three years ago they came to us as a media recluse. They had major problems with the Palm Beach Post and were tired of being slammed by the media as a big bad developer.
By working with the media, providing value and finding great stories, we’ve been able to form a great relationship with the Post and GL Homes. But beyond that we’ve opened up the floodgates with positive local, regional and national media. For what was once a media shy company, they now bask in the media spotlight and count on it to help their business.
Take a look at some of their recent clips including a Fox Business placement on Friday, plus they will be in Forbes magazine this Thursday. (www.youtube.com/user/GLHomesofFlorida)
Q: Do you handle public clients as well as privately-held companies?
A: Yes, we serve both public and private companies. Our first client when we started our firm in New York City was one of the largest public companies in America, AT&T, most of our clients these days happen to be private. They include, however, some of the largest employers in Florida, such as The Continental Group, the state's largest property manager; GL Homes, the #1 home builder, and Stanley Steemer, rated #1 in carpet cleaning by Consumer Reports. All with strong revenues, balance sheets, market shares and growing businesses helped substantially by our publicity. Also we represent many celebrities involved in various companies.
Q: What public companies have you served?
A: Currently we represent Celsius Holdings (Nasdaq: CELH)whose stock price soared from 3 cents to 70 cents in 2009, largely from our publicity. Also, we've been hired over and over again by McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants, Inc. (Nasdaq: MSSR), to handle grand openings and publicity for their stores in Florida, which are among the most successful and profitable of their 97 restaurants nationwide. We also brought media attention to Seisint and Naviant, two public companies which resulted in them both being acquired, one by Lexus Nexus; also we've done PR for Krispy Kreme, major banks and law firms. Take a look at our client list on our site at www.transmediagroup.com. And over the years we've done PR for some small OTC companies, as well as two public companies, Seisint and Naviant, for whom we generated mega publicity which resulted in them both being acquired, one by Lexus Nexus; also we've done PR for Krispy Kreme, major banks, financial service companies and law firms.
Q: What’s your biggest success story?
A: One of our biggest successes was promoting Rexall Sundown Inc., whose revenues rose from $100 million to $900 million during the years we were their PR firm of record until founder Carl DeSantis sold the company in 2000 for $1.8 billion. Carl says our publicity, which made many of their products like Osteo-BiFlex and Cellasine the top-selling products in the years they were introduced, also made him a billionaire. Today Carl has invested about $20 million in Celsius and you know who he has once again as his PR firm.
Q: Is there a difference in the way you promote a public company compared to a client that’s private?
A: No, there's really little difference in how we do publicity for a public vs. a private company, since the focus still must ultimately be on the company's products and services. In our opinion, that's the best way to promote a stock and we have proven that over and over. Prior to starting TransMedia Group, TransMedia’s founder, Tom Madden, worked in high executive positions for many large public companies, including NBC and American Broadcasting Companies. And before that he did publicity for Kellogg's Company, so he and his organization are very familiar with both the benefits and constraints of representing public companies.
Q: Should I hire a small, medium or large PR firm? Does it make a difference?
A: Size really doesn't matter for it all depends on who will be the publicist assigned to work on your account. There is one important benefit of hiring at least a medium-size firm, however, as opposed to a one with just a few employees. Usually those one or two-person firms can't afford the media research and other resources that help monitor and survey the media landscape for opportunities. TransMedia Group spends thousands of dollars each year on services that alert us to stories in the works into which we often can insert our clients. This is a huge plus, so it behooves you to take it into consideration.
Q: Do you create, follow and stick to a plan of action when undertaking a PR program?
A: We start usually with a proposal that includes background, objectives, methods, media targets to be hit and what we expect to happen afterward. Just like in war, however, the battle plan often is the first casualty as new opportunities or challenges emerge that might require a shift in strategy to take advantage of them or deal with them. So what you really need is an agile and experienced group of publicity veterans who know how to advance to the PR high ground for maximum exposure and branding.
TM
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