World Marketing Research Blog

Well, that time of the year is upon us once again. People from all walks of life start to band together in pursuit of one common goal, to get their favorite candidate elected come November. Yes, election season is just about to arrive, meaning that we can now start flooding our candidates with enough wads of money to ensure that their campaign will stay afloat all the way up to the day we vote in these midterm elections. One of the most important aspects of any respectable campaign is the need to raise enough money to pay for advertisements, mudslinging jabs at an opponent, and all of the supplies and wages that are ultimately necessary to keep any campaign running at full steam. A lack of funding can easily mean that a candidate who should have otherwise easily swept the votes at the poles could end up simply treading water in a feeble attempt to save his political life. No campaign can run without the need for fundraising. The act of raising funds for your favorite ...

The winter season is upon us. Instead of dreaming of a thaw, you should be already working on warmer publicity. Most magazines are already thinking of stories with a spring/summer angle. So you should be thinking that way, too -- if you want to beat the competition and get some coveted coverage. That means start focusing on Mother's Day, Father's Day and graduations. Why so early? Because of many media outlets' production schedules -- most notably magazines --reporters often start working on seasonal stories 4-6 months in advance. One way to find out when the media is working on spring stories is to contact the advertising department of the outlet and request a media kit. This kit tells advertisers what stories or topics will be highlighted in each issue so that advertisers can submit their ads by the proper date. It's called an editorial calendar .

The Marketing Power of Mat Features (P-O-P-S) While most small business marketers are aware that press releases are the standard bill of fare for passing along information to the media, they are unaware of other ways that larger organizations using public relations firms make their information more usable. One idea that small businesses can afford is to hire a mat feature service to convert your information into a newsworthy soft feature on a topic that the public is interested in reading about. Large corporations have been using this type of service for years and pay PR firms big bucks to include these columns in their corporate PR programs. Intended to reach consumers in the wealthy suburbs, these features are distributed to the more than 10,000 newspapers nationwide and receive regular pickup. Further, these columns are often printed exactly as written. While these feature services used to handle only corporations, now there ...