The Fear Factor: Public Speaking

Marketing, PR and Communication professionals are often expected not only to create powerful and persuasive Marketing collateral such as sell sheets and PowerPoint presentations, but also to be articulate speakers.

Public speaking is a learned skill, just like playing the piano or the trumpet. It takes time and practice. There are several courses and even orators groups, such as Toastmasters Internationals where you can practice in a friendly, supportive and encouraging environment while receiving the guidance you need.

Here are 10 tips for Public Speaking from the Toastmasters International website:

1. Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.

3. Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.

4. Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.

5. Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. ("One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.). Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.

6. Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence.

7. Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.

8. Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.

9. Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.

10. Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. A Toastmasters club can provide the experience you need in a safe and friendly environment

For additional information on Toastmasters International, click here to visit their website and look for a club close to your work or home.

Global PR: Sell your story, not your products

In terms of Dollars, a good PR campaign may be much more effective than plain advertising or other marketing tactics. When information comes from a reliable source like the press, whatever you sell gains instant credibility.

But how do you get your word out? How do you get the press to comment on your product or service? Do you just pick up the phone and pitch these writers?

Well, that's when a good PR professional is needed. I have worked on both sides of the counter, in a PR agency and leading in-house PR, and I created campaigns for very diverse markets such as numerous European countries, South American regions, segmented demographics here in the US, etc.

There is no list with what is absolutely necessary for you to do in PR, it all depends on a matrix of elements. However, I would suggest avoiding certain things when pitching the press. Yes, your campaign must be innovative and creative, but beware of creating futile and irrelevant buzz. What will draw the attention of the press is neither a full and precise product description nor artificial hooks.

What you need is a good story around your product. Put yourself in the shoes of a journalist. Wouldn’t you be bored to death to copy and paste a product description from a press release into your column? And how would you feel if you had a chance of writing a really juicy story?

If you would like to comment on global PR campaigns, stories, ads, etc, please feel free to. I am eager to hear you opinion.

Guidelines to stand out and create a relevant and sticky message

In this day and age, it is relatively easy to create a viral campaign and generate some buzz around a brand, product or service. With the proliferation of channels where you can convey your message to a global audience, such as web 2.0 based websites and applications (blogs, social networks, widgets, etc.), it is essential to make sure that you are not only creating a buzz, but your message is relevant and sticky. Here’s a 101 on relevance:

1- Research each target audience
2- The language they speak
3- Where they get their information from
4- Their scale of values
5- Probe you brand against these values
6- If budget allows, focus groups
7- Translate what you want to say about your brand into their language and values
8- Be concise
9- Be bold
10- Convey the message on the medium where they get information from
11- Be sure you have a feedback channel and listen to their oppinion
12- Fine tune your message regularly

Nickled and Dimed PR

Interesting article today at the Wall Street Journal. It talks about a “pay-per-placement” trend in PR. That is, instead of hiring a PR firm and paying the regular PR retainer, you pay per article published.

This looks more like a solution for small and medium businesses that are interested solely in getting the word out there.

I am a strong believer that Marketing and PR must be cost effective and although this type of solution may sound fair, before hiring a service like this I suggest taking into account the following:

1- The scope of work: Which publications/ writers will be pitched?

2- If you are paying per article, what is the maximum amount of featured articles that fits your budget?

3- Relevance of the publications. Does the publication where you had a featured article hit your target audience?

4- Size of the publication. Are tier 1, 2 and 3 publications differentiated? However the concept of tier 1, 2 and 3 is still inaccurate. Here’s an example: an industry blog can hit a higher number of potential clients than a mainstream publication.

5- RSS/ feeds/ replicating articles. The same article can be featured in various online publications, and commonly industry blogs use feeds and replicate articles. Is a replicated article being charged as an original article? What about articles translated into other languages?

6- PR and media relations efforts should always start with developing a strategy. Before pitching the press, carefully craft your messages. Also keep in mind that it is better to build strong media relationships than aim to at short term achievements.

Click here to read the article


Click here to read pitching tips.