MONDAY: Learn how to use RSS news feeds to boost your market intelligence and help you stay up-to-date with what’s going on in the industry, in your customers’ businesses, in the media and in policy-making organisations.
TUESDAY: Ditch email and pick up the phone to your best existing customers. Ask them for testimonials you can use on your website and for permission to feature your upcoming job as a case study of how you’re providing low risk, cost-effective solutions to industry needs. Think pictures too – high resolution photos and lower cost video that you can stream online.
WEDNESDAY: Subscribe to the two most trusted and influential professional or trade publications/websites used by your customers, and read them carefully and regularly to understand the issues that matter most to their businesses.
THURSDAY: Bring in a couple of specialist, creative PR professionals to tell you how they can boost your corporate profile in these media. Ask them for references from relevant journalists, not just clients, and how they can prove their return on investment.
FRIDAY: Find out what your trade association is doing to engage with your target markets, and how you can get involved in lobbying, PR or marketing activity that will give you greater access to influential people, market information and insights outside your normal circles.
SATURDAY: Find a prestigious award to enter, ideally one with loads of publicity and a long lunch at which you and your best people can do some serious networking. Find out what evaluation criteria is used and plan to get the measurement mechanisms in place by next Monday.
SUNDAY: Put aside the day to learn about how you could use Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media to enhance your business contacts and conversations. And there’s loads of help and information on this and other PR tips on my blog: www.lizmale.co.uk/blog
