The On-Line E-Newsletter: You Can’t Live Without It

A respected non-profit recently sent out an RFP for a firm to create a newsletter for the organization. Although we rarely respond to RFPs at New Harbor Group, we strongly believe that having a newsletter is a good thing. Every organization should have some way to tell its story and update its key audience on a regular basis.

But here’s the problem: This particular group asked for proposals for putting together a print newsletter. Bad idea. If you don’t have a newsletter, and you’re thinking about starting one, here’s why an on-line edition is absolutely the only way to go:

• Why pay for printing and postage? Who does that anymore? It’s simply a waste of money.
• Keep it fresh. The on-line version won’t get stale waiting for that “one last story” to be submitted, then getting printed and then sitting around in the bulk mail trays at the post office.
• Get (really valuable) information. An on-line version will give you data about your audiences – who opened the e-mail announcing the latest edition, and who hit “delete”; what stories are popular, and which ones aren’t. With a print newsletter, recipients may read it, or they may toss it – you’ll never know.
• And speaking of data, your advertisers will be thrilled to know how many people visited their website – and perhaps even hired them or bought their product because someone clicked on their ad in your e-newsletter.
• Keep the conversation going with social media. With your on-line newsletter you can actually engage with your audiences, either in the comment section, or even better – with social media. Your on-line e-newsletter is a great way to drive your readers to your social media pages (and your website itself), communicating with your audiences and finding out what they’re really thinking about you.
• Also - it’s “green”.

Amazingly, the main objection to an on-line newsletter is usually this: Somewhere out there exists a mythical, 90-year old person who doesn’t have e-mail or use the Internet. Needless to say, I’m dubious.  After all, we live in a world where 84% of Baby Boomers – who are now well into their 60s – say that the Internet is an essential, like bread and milk in a Rhode Island snowstorm. I’ve never met this person who isn’t on-line, or learned their name, but this person is the reason why people tell me they can’t possibly put their newsletter on-line.

Nevertheless, if you’re in print and thinking about the transition to an on-line e-news, I have a solution for the “90-Year-Old Person Who Doesn’t Use the Internet” problem which works like a charm. I’d be glad to share it.

Our client the Rhode Island Society of CPAs has a very successful on-line newsletter called “What Counts.”  Not only does the Society enjoy all the benefits of an on-line newsletter I described above, they also defray nearly the complete cost of the publication with advertising, which you can see at the bottom of this – and every - page when you click here.

And yes, we are prepared for that “person who is not on-line.”  If that person calls the Society they will print this version, and mail it to him or her. First class.

If you have an existing print newsletter, you need to be thinking about how to transition to an on-line edition as soon as possible. If you don’t already have a newsletter, and are preparing to start one, the only place you should be publishing is on-line.

What Does That Poll Really Mean?

Now’s the season for political “polls,” but what do they really mean – if anything?

There are two reasons to conduct a poll:
1. To find out information that you need to know.
2. To get some degree of validation for information that you want others to know.

Reason #1 is the political equivalent of market research. Some may find this idea unsavory because of worries that it could lead to pandering by candidates. Well, maybe. Certainly poll-driven candidates are out there, but I give voters more credit for seeing through them. In reality, it’s crucial for candidates to have good information about what voters care about in order to stay in touch with the electorate’s top priorities. If a candidate wants to talk about apples, but the electorate wants to know about oranges, the campaign’s in trouble. A poll can help a candidate know what voters want to know about – and address those concerns.

Unfortunately, polls with reliable numbers are hard to find and expensive. What makes it hard – and expensive - to conduct a good poll?
• You need good callers who understand the questions and ask them the right way;
• You need callers who can be trained to pronounce candidate names and place names correctly;
• Informative polls are long, and it’s difficult to get people to stay on the line all the way through to the end;
• It’s harder to find voters in the era of the cell phone, which are off-limits to pollsters by law;
• It takes time and a real expertise to draft a sound, useful questionnaire;
• It takes time and expertise to interpret the data, weighing it properly so it’s reflective of area demographics.

In short, the kind of good data you need for the first kind of poll is expensive and difficult to come by – and becoming even more so.

Which brings us to the second kind of poll. These tend to be notoriously unscientific and rigged to score points for whoever is releasing it. Your radar should really go up if poll numbers are released by a political party, an organization affiliated with one or a special interest group.

In reality, all public polls should be greeted with healthy skepticism. Media outlets used to do them with the necessary rigor, but few can afford it anymore, with some national exceptions (NY Times, CBS, etc.). Local media outlets are, for the most part, unwilling to spend the money it takes to get really good data. They usually settle for on-line polls or automated telephone polls. (I think my dog Buster responded to one of those the other day.) What you end up with is very cheap data that barely passes the accuracy laugh test – but is reported by the media with a straight face. The best information is usually found in the hands of well-funded candidates, and jealously guarded like the precious commodity that it is.

If you want to know who’s really up and who’s down, the best indicators are not public polls but the activities of the candidates. If they’re spending precious time and resources campaigning in neighborhoods, towns, counties or states they are expected to win, they’re in trouble. If they’re launching a desperate attack on an opponent, they’re in trouble. But if they’ve kept a consistent message, are counter-attacking from the high ground, and campaigning in areas that are considered a toss-up, they’re looking at good numbers.

Sometimes Doing Nothing is the Best Move

There's a sign in my office that says: "Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say." The man at the center of the Penn State scandal, former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, might have benefited from that advice earlier this week when he agreed to be interviewed by Bob Costas this past Monday on NBC.

Sandusky's performance was a disaster on every count. He did nothing to mitigate the damage to his reputation, or begin the work of balancing the scales of public opinion - two things that should be the primary goals of an interview like this. (Hard to see how that could even be achieved here, given the circumstances.) For good measure, Sandusky acknowledged behavior that created legal openings that any prosecutor in America could drive a truck through. Doing the interview was just a bad idea all around.

So why did he even talk to Costas? His communications counsel and attorney certainly advised against it. But Sandusky is not a guy who has heard the word "No" very often in his career, and his status at Penn State created an environment where (tragically) he could get away with anything and talk himself out of everything. The audience in his little world of Happy Valley was always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, believe everything he said and look the other way.

In this regard, Sandusky reminds me of Roger Clemens, who insisted - contrary to a mountain of evidence - that he had not used steroids. Like Clemens, you can almost hear Sandusky overruling his advisors: "I'm Jerry Sandusky. I've been pulling it off for decades. Why should this be any different?" Clemens will stand trial in April for perjury. His first trial ended in a mistrial.

You (and Your Business) Can’t Live Without Twitter

Chris Barrett called me the other day. Chris is a reporter at the Providence Business News, and he is just the latest in a steady stream of reporters over the past few years to ask us about something we posted on Twitter. In this case, Chris was referencing a Tweet with news about our client the Quonset Development Corporation. (We also manage Twitter accounts for many of our clients.)

This is a good thing, since we like to talk to reporters about the great work our clients are doing. Twitter helps us do that, since the New Harbor Twitter account has a large number of reporters following it. Often, it leads to good stories about our clients. And Twitter is an easy way to start the conversation.

Over the past four years, Twitter has become a key tool in our effort to tell stories about our clients to the people who need hear them. For us, that includes reporters like Chris Barrett. Twitter also makes it easy to let people know what you’re up to or what’s on your mind.

It can provide your employees, or board members or fans and supporters with information about you that they can use to tell your story. It can give customers information they need to know about you. And it can establish you as a thoughtful observer in your particular industry or the passing scene.

Sure, some people use Twitter to share earth-shattering news like “I’m standing in line for coffee right now.” But it is also used for far more weighty things as well. There’s a reason why the Egyptian government shut down Twitter, and the entire Internet, in the past week – and before them, the Iranians. It has become a powerful tool – and a dangerous thing for dictators.

A tool like this is too powerful for you to ignore any longer. You, and your company, need to be on Twitter if you’re not already there. To find out how easy it is, sign up here: http://twitter.com/

Once you’re on, here are a couple short blog entries that can quickly help you make the most of Twitter, including a brief, 10 point orientation followed by these 50 key points about using Twitter for your business. Or if you’re ready to make a serious commitment to social media, give us a call to learn how we can help make it happen.

Questions? Shoot me an e-mail and we can talk.


Posted by David Preston

Famous for Being Famous

Somewhere along the way in our cynical universe the phrase, “Any publicity is good publicity” became the mantra in some quarters. In fact, it’s not true, and self-evidently so. Just ask BP, Goldman Sachs or Toyota if they’re pleased with the publicity they’ve received over the past year, and whether that publicity has made the company more profitable. Clearly, the answer is no.

But while “bad” publicity is rarely a good thing, there are a small handful of circus acts out there where Barnum’s old adage, "I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right" still does apply. Primarily, this is reserved for those who are famous for being famous. Then, almost any publicity is a good thing.

For instance, Paris Hilton. Most of my clients (all, in fact – at least so far) would view getting busted for cocaine possession as a bad thing. But for Paris, it’s all in a day’s work. She gets coverage for the arrest; then she gets coverage for tweeting about the arrest; then she gets banned from a Las Vegas casino; then there’s the court appearance; then she gets publicity for the time honored Mick Jagger/Paul McCartney Denied Entry to Japan stratagem. It’s practically endless, but all feeds into her unending quest to be famous and talked-about (er, tweeted about).

For Paris, the “bad” publicity actually pays off, in a diversified, far-flung business empire which includes nightclubs, cosmetics, a clothing line, an energy drink (at least at one time), a best-selling autobiography published when she was 24 and, last, but certainly not least - herself! Paris reportedly gets hundreds of thousands of dollars just to show up at parties.

“If it's in Japan, I get more,” she once said. Great work.

So, yes, there are rare instances where any publicity is good publicity. But not many, and not if you take yourself seriously. Because unless you’re Paris Hilton, a rapper/gang-banger, Mike Tyson or PT Barnum, there are a lot of ways to get publicity that isn’t good, and is actually harmful. I wouldn’t recommend any of them.


Posted by David Preston

Media Training for Generals

Last week I conducted media training with the board of my client, the R.I. Society of CPAs. Based on the events of the last 24 hours, I think it’s fair to say that the CPAs are probably better equipped to successfully manage their media relationships than (now retired) Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff.

Here are four points straight from New Harbor’s media training presentation that Gen. McChrystal might want to ponder in his retirement.

• DON’T say anything you don’t want to see on TV or in print attributed to you.

This is Rule #1. If they quote you and you didn’t say it, you might be able to get it fixed (yes – even then, only “might.”) But if you said it, you own it. And as the years go by, it gets increasingly difficult to ensure that the pieces of your interview a reporter uses are even put in the right context.

When President Obama said the General exhibited “poor judgment,” he wasn’t kidding. This is basic stuff.

• Set limits. Don’t let a reporter go on an indefinite fishing expedition.

Two weeks, practically uninterrupted access?! Big, big mistake. It’s hard enough not to say anything you regret in an hour, never mind two weeks.

• DON’T say anything ironic or sarcastic. Think twice about trying to be funny – it usually doesn’t work, especially in print.

Gen. McChrystal and his team never claimed to be misquoted, or taken out of context – they just came out with their hands up. But if you get too comfortable, the temptation to try your new stand-up routine can become overwhelming. Don’t do it!

• DON’T assume the microphone, camera or tape recorder is off immediately before or after an interview.

As long as the reporter is there, you should assume you are on the record and anything you say is “in play.” (I talked about the dangers of “Off the Record” here.) In fact, my rule is that if there’s an interview taking place or a reporter on the premises, I carefully consider everything I say until that’s no longer the case.

And finally, question the concept of “reporter as friend.” Clearly Gen. McChrystal and his team got awfully comfortable with Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone – way too comfortable. Perhaps after two weeks they saw Hastings as one of their group, or even a “friend”. Very dangerous. There are some reporters I consider to be my friends, and I’m always “friendly” with all of them. But when they’re working, they simply cannot be expected to do what your friends routinely do – overlook all the silly, unwise, injudicious or out-of-character things you may say.

When it comes to interacting with the media, it’s all on the record. Even between friends.