Publicity Tools, Upselling, Barcodes & good PR initiative

Publicity Tools to help you deliver your Message

This article was written to help authors publicise their books but a good chunk of it would be beneficial to any small business.  It was written by US communications advisor, Joel Kessel. He mentions expressions we’ve all heard before – elevator pitch, value proposition, brand promise etc but gives practical questions you can ask yourself to help develop a Message Map.  These include:

What category/industry are you in?  What opportunities, problems, issues or challenges exist among the people you are trying to serve/help?  What solutions do you provide?  What are the benefits to those who you help or serve?

When you’ve answered those, you can then complete these:

I am _____________________________________________________

I help ____________________________________________________

Do/understand ____________________________________________

So that __

He also provides a list of questions to help authors as they prepare to publicise their book.  Read more here……

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/14858466-book-publicity-tools-that-will-make-you-more-confident-when-delivering

Upselling, Barcodes & Window Cleaning

Feargal Quinn gives great practical advice to SMEs in his regular piece for the Irish Independent. The 3 topics covered here include upselling, barcodes and promoting a new window cleaning business.  I think we all get annoyed when going in to buy one item and staff really push additional purchases at you.  However, if it’s relevant, people don’t mind and will often accept it – an example he gives is if you go in to buy a coffee and you’re advised that a pastry is just €1 extra – tempting!  

There’s really good and useful info in this article if your business needs barcodes.  For the student who has just started a window cleaning business, he suggests referral cards from clients, dropping leaflets into houses either side of one whose windows he’s just cleaned with the wording, “I’ve cleaned your neighbour’s windows”.  Feargal recommends showing the routes he is covering on a Facebook page or website and enable people to book online or via an App.

http://bit.ly/2nsYMAt

Good PR Initiative

I really like this initiative from B&Q which featured on DailyMail.co.uk – it features 7 of the hottest bloggers and their home décor style – and showed how you can get the same look for less at B&Q.  A simple enough idea but it would have taken quite a bit of work and the choice of media is excellent targeting.  You would need a budget for it of course but for a nationwide retail chain, it makes perfect sense.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4286366/The-hottest-7-home-d-cor-bloggers.html

www.grainnebyrnePR.ie

The Alternative Easter Sunday Lunch

                                                 

The Alternative Easter Sunday Lunch

A-fish-ionado, Eimantas Zvirblis, who is the 2017 BIM Young Fishmonger of the Year (Supermarket Seafood Specialist) along with Jean Yves, a chef at Donnybrook Fair, have devised an Alternative Easter Sunday Lunch.

The starter is Ray Cheeks with Dublin Bay Prawns Lemon & Garlic.  “Ray Cheeks is a delicious way to start a meal – they have the texture of scallops but with a more savoury taste and are very tender.  They are very quick to prepare and cook,” Eimantas says. Monkfish Cheeks can also be used.  (See recipe below).  Joseph Drouhin St Veran was the wine chosen by Donnybrook Fair’s Wine Director, Chris Gifford to accompany this starter.

For the all-important main course, they devised Stuffed Lemon Sole fillets with Mussels in a Cider & Bacon Sauce.   Chef Jean Yves says, “This is a quick and easy to prepare main course and showcases the best of Irish seafood. The cider, mussels and bacon compliment the delicate flavour of the sole. The dish is ready in a few minutes meaning you can relax on the day.” (See recipe below).  Chris Gifford recommends serving Oliver Zeter Riesling with this Easter Sunday main course lunch.

A call for entries for the 2018 BIM Young Fishmonger of the Year Award has just been issued by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) – the closing date for entries is 28^th April 2017.  Further details and entry forms are available at www.bim.ie

                                                 

http://bit.ly/2nVp4tl

The Alternative Easter Sunday Lunch

Ray Cheeks with Dublin Bay Prawns, Lemon & Garlic

Serves 4

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

·       400g Ray Cheeks (Monkfish cheeks can also be used)

·       16 Dublin Bay Prawns (shells removed)

·       2 lemons

·       50g butter

·       2 cloves garlic, crushed

·       Splash of rapeseed oil

Method

1.      Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat.  

2.      Add ray cheeks and fry gently for two minutes.  Add garlic and prawns and fry for one minute over a medium heat

3.      Squeeze half a lemon into the pan and mix into the cooking juices

4.      Remove prawns and ray from pan and drizzle with cooking juices

5.      Serve with salad leaves, lemon wedges and crusty bread.

Chef’s Tip:

Mix a little Sweet Chilli sauce with a few tablespoons of mayonnaise to create a delicious dipping sauce for the fish.

Stuffed Lemon Sole fillets with Mussels in a Cider & Bacon Sauce

Serves 4

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

·       8 lemon sole fillets, skinned

·       500g Irish mussels in the shell

·       1 can Irish cider

·       150ml cream

·       2 cloves garlic

·       200g minced salmon (or crab meat)

·       Handful fresh breadcrumbs

·       150g smoked streaky bacon, diced

·       1 bunch chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

1.      Lay out the sole fillets flat on a plate or chopping board. Mix the minced salmon or crab with the breadcrumbs and then place 1 tablespoon of the mix on each fillet and roll into turrets.

2.      Place the fish in an oven proof dish, season well with salt and pepper. Add a dash of cider to the dish, cover with tin foil and cook in a hot oven for approximately 10 minutes.

3.      Whilst the sole is cooking, gently fry the bacon and garlic for one minute in a pot on a medium heat.

4.      Tip the mussels into the pot, add about 200ml of the cider and cover with a lid.

5.      Cook on a medium to high heat for 4 minutes until the mussels have opened.

6.      Add the cream and chopped parsley and toss to coat the mussels.

7.      Remove the fish from the oven, place on a plate and serve surrounded by the mussels and the sauce.

www.bim.ie   www.donnybrookfair.ie

Think b4 u 'Like', Farm(drop) to Fork & online advertising is 'crap'

Think before you ‘Like’

You may want to pause before you next like a Facebook post if you want to see more of that type of content.  Facebook now looks at reaction emojis e.g. love, hate, angry and as you are deemed to feel more strongly about that type of content, you will see more of it in your news feed.  Strangely, Belgian police warned residents of that country not to use the reaction emojis as it delivers more information to advertisers and helps them better target you!  Not sure why the police got involved but I’m sure there’s a back story to it.

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/why-you-should-love-instead-of-like-the-facebook-posts-that-really-matter-to-you-35489836.html

From Farm(drop) to Fork

Would an online farmers’ market take off here in Ireland?  Farmdrop is a UK online platform and app which was launched in 2012 and has around 30,000 regular users. It connects consumers directly with producers, cutting out the supermarket – or middle man.  Producers who sell via Farmdrop get approximately 75% of the retail price of what’s ordered – which Farmdrop says is about double what they would get from delivering to supermarkets.  The reason they’re featuring in the UK Independent now is because of a shortage of certain vegetables caused by bad weather in Southern Europe and a poor sterling exchange rate which makes imported food more costly.  Farmdrop is keen to promote locally grown produce obviously as everyone wins.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/farmdrop-app-supermarket-shoppers-groceries-food-drink-buy-customers-online-a7609686.html

How effective is online advertising?

Nobody knows, according to this article.   At the annual conference of the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) in the UK, Procter & Gamble boss, Marc Pritchard, stated that the really worrying question about online advertising is – how many people are actually seeing the ads?  The article suggests that he may have been thinking about an advertising industry investigation that suggested around a third of online ads may be “seen” not by humans but by bots.

Pritchard also said, “We have seen an exponential increase in, well… crap. Craft or crap? Technology enables both and all too often the outcome has been more crappy advertising accompanied by even crappier viewing experiences… is it any wonder ad blockers are growing 40%?”  Food for thought.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/online-advertising-social-media-facebook-google-youve-been-ad

www.grainnebyrnePR.ie