Marketing Maestro

Trump U's tag line is 'We Teach Success'.  I have been very critical about this line since I started in my role.  To me this is all about TrumpU and not about our clients.  Well, we are doing two things to correct this situation.

First, we are reevaluating this copy.  One idea we are playing around with is: Invest in Your Success. 

If you have other ideas let me know in the comments section.

Second and more importantly we are spending money and using our resources to promote our client's successes.  We are working with our clients and the press to share their stories with the world.  Early results from our clients have been very positive.  They are seeing increased traffic to their sites and inquires into their businesses.  Here are a few of the latest stories:

Recording Studio and Music Store Grows With Knowledge Gained from Donald Trump

Commercial Property Holiday Decorating Service Acquired by Trump University Student

Trump University Helps Aspired Entrepreneur Launch Global Recovery Service

There are three marketing strategies behind this effort.

1. We live up to the promise of helping our clients achieve success by promoting their business using our budget and resources.  Who wouldn't want a little free marketing and PR?
2. It is more effective if the Trump U story is told by a client who has achieved success then by any marketing we could do on our own.  The rest we hope is easy - the news gets picked up, people say I want to do that and they sign up for a class. 
3. Each press release we put out contains text links back to our site which helps build inbound links.  Those links help people searching the internet find us.

We are continuing this strategy going forward and will post the stories on our site as we send them out to the press.

Are your customers or clients telling your story?

What are you doing to help your clients succeed?

Let me know with a comment below.

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Is there really such a thing as unbiased reporting?  This has been on my mind for a while but recently hit a new high after a recent article in a major metro newspaper about one of our programs.  The article was clearly looking to take shots at Donald Trump, the real estate training eduction industry, and people looking to invest in the current foreclosure market.  The writer took a biased point of view against the benefits of our program.  What I found interesting was that he recognized that we basically pay his salary by advertising in their publication.  Now, I know there has to be a separation between editorial and advertising, but why point out we advertised in the paper?  Full disclosure? Doesn't make sense to me.  He could have written the article without mentioning our ad and it would not have changed his point of view on the subject mater. Mentioning the  ad could have only served to allow the reporter to flex his editorial muscles.  TU advertises but that is not going to affect my opinion...

I find this situation interesting.  Editorial writers taking shots at the very people who pay their salaries.  Don't get me wrong --I am not asking for positive reviews or editorials to be written if they are not warranted, but why bite the hand that feeds you?

What happened to the good old days of the five 'W's of reporting and sticking to the facts?

Josef Katz

There is a saying in public relations that all publicity is good publicity.  Today I am going to tell you that every press release no matter how polished or how much pick up it gets is not necessarily a good press release.

I learned this the hard way so I am going to share a little info here that will hopefully save you time and money.  In today's world a press release is not just an announcement of a new product or service.  You always need a hook or something of interest to write about. What makes or breaks a press release is how well it is optimized for the search engines and if your keywords are anchor tagged in the release.

We have worked with a number of companies to create and circulate press releases. This week is the first time I truly feel confident that we got what we paid for in a TrumpU press release.  I gave Franklin-Spirko a shot at improving our PR efforts and they delivered.  They gave us great content, increased traffic to our site, and provided ideas for future releases. 

If you're not using PR to help market your business you are missing out on a powerful communications and web tool.  Just ask Suhail Niazi, President and CEO of ReturnMoi (and former Trump U Entrepreneurship student) if our little press release helped his business this week.

Can you do your own press releases? Sure, but will you generate the same results as a professional?

Looking forward to seeing you in print and online.

Josef Katz

If you have been reading this blog for a month or so you will remember the launch of our new Trump Book Wealth Building 101.  It took a little work and networking but we were able to get a review on entrepreneur.com's blog.  One more achievement for our marketing effort.  Next stop, a place on the best seller list.  OK, it is a bit of a long shot but we are going to keep trying.

Hey, did you buy the new Trump book? Go ahead and help us hit our next goal... Thanks for reading - the blog and the book.

Josef

In my last post about how business can use blogs to market their company I never imagined this case.  TerraCycle produces environmentally friendly fertilizer from worm poop (yes, you read that right) and is now being sued by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company.  You can read all the details on the TerraCycle site (we are not providing legal advice or taking sides).  The reason for pointing this out is that TerraCycle is fighting back by using their blog to address the complaint and is blogging about the details of the lawsuit.  This is a very interesting use of a blog and Web 2.0 technology.  (Note of caution - If you have a similar issue with a competitor you should seek legal advice before taking a similar course of action.)  Their story gets better since a number of national media publications have picked up the story.  All the publicity is helping TerraCycle raise awareness about their David vs Goliath case and is increasing interest in their product.  It is too early to tell who will win this lawsuit but I am sure the folks at Scotts Miracle-Gro didn't expect this sort of a battle.

Who do you think will win in court? In the court of public opinion?