Strategic Business Tips from Kim Beasley

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Marketing with Integrity
By Diana Bridgett, Managing Editor
August 5, 2010

It is not often that we come across a person in the Public Relations arena that has taken the torch to represent the Christian population with tenacity, integrity, and dedication.  Pam Perry is that individual.  She began Ministry Marketing Solutions ten years ago to assist churches, ministries, and Christian authors with building their brand of marketing to empower their target audience.  Her no nonsense approach, coupled with her drive for churches to work in excellence equals a product that has a solid foundation, brand identification, and relays a strong spiritual message.

Hope Today Magazine spoke with this PR Guru to learn what her driving force is behind her company, her passion for ministry, and why she became the vessel of empowerment to the Christian community.

Hope Today Magazine: Can you provide background information with regards to how you became involved in the Public Relations industry?

Pam Perry: I have been involved in Public Relations for the past twenty years.  I believe it to be my career, my calling.  I majored in Public Relations and Journalism in college. When I completed school, I worked for the Detroit Free Press for a number of years in the Advertising and Sales role.  I did this for about a decade and then moved into radio and broadcast sales along with some producing.  I left that, went into not for profit work as the Director of Public Relations.  There after, I decided to strike out on my own with working with two organizations, Joy of Jesus and the Salvation Army.  I combined all of my media, sales, and writing skills to work with those two organizations and that is how I formed the bridge to Ministry Marketing Solutions.

Hope Today Magazine: Can you tell of the services that Ministry Marketing Solutions provides?

Pam Perry: We do PR coaching. We take new authors who are new to the publishing field who do not know how to market their book or self-published authors who are trying to build a brand.  I teach them step by step, everything that they need to do in order to market their book.  We discuss branding, building the platform, social media training, media relations, internet marketing, as well as packaging themselves to gain speaking engagements.

Hope Today Magazine: You assist with building ministries as well?

Pam Perry: Yes, I do this for Pastors as well, typically if they have a book.

Hope Today Magazine: Why did you decide to focus your services towards ministries?

Pam Perry: That was just a love that I had.  I felt there was a huge need.  There was a void that I saw in that particular area. After working with companies who market their products well, I often wondered why the church that has more of a life changing message does not have the technical skills to be able to deliver their products to consumers that would buy into their story as well.  I really learned that from the Salvation Army. People really do not understand that the Salvation Army is a church.  They are a brand.  When people see the red kettles out at Christmas time, that is all branding. It really started there.  I opened Ministry Marketing Solutions because I wanted to offer my skills to churches that just didnt know how to get their products out.  Its good that we know the Word but we need to understand the profession of marketing.  I believe that Jesus is about excellence and when we dont do something in excellence, we are not being a good witness.

Hope Today Magazine: It is not often that we hear of a PR Liason speak so passionately about excellence with regards to marketing with churches.

Pam Perry: You don’t have to be a mega church to do things in excellence. You don’t have to be a T.D Jakes in order to have a really tight brand.  You can do something as simple as sticking to a consistent color.  That is branding.  The typical Christian needs to feel that their church is relevant. I look in the urban areas in which there is a church on every corner.  Why don’t the churches involve the community to rebuild those churches?  The reason why that does not happen is because the community feels that the church is just a little club that they do not understand, that is not relevant and basically recycles Christians every Sunday. We have to become relevant.  We have to engage the community.  This should be a lifestyle not just something that happens on Sunday. It can be the little things, texts messages or having a nice package for the CD of the sermon.  We can do things in excellence.

Hope Today Magazine: What would you say to critics that would say that this is further perpetuating the thought that churches are more concerned about the business than about an individual’s soul?

Pam Perry: I dont think that they are focusing on money rather than they are on branding and bringing people in.  However to get the people in first, you have to spend some money on marketing. You have to have nice post cards, business cards, and signs.  You have to look at companies.  Disney is known for customer service.  Just because we are a church does not mean that we can not take a page form the book of a company that is doing well.  We have to engage people.  We have to look at the culture of what we are up against.  You have to remain relevant. Everything that the world does we can take it, turn the page, and use it to minister to people.

Hope Today Magazine: Who have you worked with in the past?

Pam Perry: T.D Jakes, Teresa Hairston, Valerie Burton, Dr. Myles Munroe, and Pastor Andre Butler to name a few. Within the past ten years, I have worked with about two hundred Christian authors.

Hope Today Magazine: What do you envision for Ministry Marketing Solutions for the next five years?

Pam Perry: We will do more social media marketing for churches and authors.  What I have found is that people are confused about what to do with internet marketing.  I want to take that mystique out of social media.  I will be doing more training and speaking on social media marketing in the next upcoming years.  That internet train is not slowing down.  It is actuall speeding up.  We have to be able to navigate to stay relevant.

Hope Today Magazine: What is the Pam Perry Brand?

Pam Perry: You will see a lot of pink and a lot of books.  I love to give information.  I surround myself with information.  People will see a lot of pink yet when I open my mouth they are quickly made aware that I have knowledge and I am about business.

Editor Notes:
Pam Perry has been one of the more high-powered and visible figures in public relations. Her career serves as a notable example of the potency that personally handled promotion has acquired in the mass media. Perry’s rise in the wrangling world of publicity began when she worked in public relations and advertising. Pam Perry is a contributing writer for Hope Today Magazine. To learn more about Pam Perry, visit www.pamperrypr.com.

Andy Beal Founder of Trackur.com Shares His Knowledge of Reputation Management & Internet Marketing on Your Passionate Business BlogTalk Radio Show

The featured guest for Your Passionate Business show on July 15 at 4 pm CDT/5 pm EDT is internationally-renowned consultant, author, and speaker Andy Beal. Andy specializes in online reputation management and Internet marketing.

Considered one of the world’s most respected reputation management experts, Andy has worked with many brand-leaders including Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, Lowes, and NBC. His advice is trusted by ABC News, BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, and more.

Andy’s current projects include his book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, his blog Marketing Pilgrim, SEM Vendor & Trackur.com’s social media monitoring tools. Follow Andy on Twitter by visiting http://Twitter.com/andybeal.

Your Passionate Business BlogTalk radio show is your source for information to reinvent and compete in 2010. Special guests share their ideas on how to thrive in a changing economy along with how you can collaborate with them to grow your client base in 2010. You will learn from entrepreneurs in the field of business development, PR and marketing, coaching, sales, HR, tech and more. Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kimbeasley to listen to Andy Beal’s interview as well as future interviews with other guests.

SUCCESSFUL INFOPRENEUR SHARES HIS KNOWLEDGE OF CREATING INFO PRODUCTS ON YOUR PASSIONATE BUSINESS BLOGTALK RADIO SHOW

Antonio L. Crawford, CEO, Top Book Sales Inc., Publisher Kaizen Publication LLC and founder Strateginomics™ Wealth Building Seminars will share his knowledge of developing info products to create a new income stream for your business during the BlogTalk radio show “Your Passionate Business” on Friday, July 9, 7pm CDT/8pm EDT.  Aspiring infropreneurs can tune in to learn how to create info products that sell.

The genius of an info product is how easy it is to create. It doesn’t require you to create a physical product. You just need to share your knowledge and experience in the form of eBooks, white papers, videos, podcasts, e-newsletters or other digital information formats.  They can be downloaded from your site without you having to pay for materials to create them.  People are constantly looking for information to improve their personal and business lives.  Smart entrepreneurs who are looking for ways to add more value to their companies jumping on the bandwagon to package their knowledge.

Crawford is the publisher and author of several books including The Quest for Wealth, Henrietta the Hyena, CX Loan Solution and Creating Multiple Streams of Income with Information Products.  Known internationally for his ability to identify solutions using process improvement techniques, he uses his skills to help writers, authors, infopreneurs and business owners increase their overall marketing and sales performance. Crawford teaches seminars and workshops across the nation to show participants how to develop their ideas using performance based production models.

Your Passionate Business BlogTalkRadio show is your source for information to reinvent and compete in 2010. Special guests share their ideas on how to thrive in a changing economy along with how you can collaborate with them to grow your client base in 2010. You will learn from entrepreneurs in the field of business development, PR and marketing, coaching, sales, HR, tech and more. Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kimbeasley to listen to Antonio Crawford’s interview as well as future interviews with other guests.

If you are a newbie to the Internet, then have a simple plan to follow would be a big help. So I decided to provide you with simple and easy steps that you can take to kick-start efforts to get your online presence going.

One of the things that you should keep in mind when building your online presence is that it should tie into your current branding scheme. A branding scheme is a plan that coordinates the efforts to communication your business to your target audience. This would include things like your color scheme or logo or even your communication via social media website.

Below are 5 easy steps to get you started.

Determine who your target market is so that you can build your online presence to attract them.

Develop a social media plan that include being active on websites like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Research your industry to see what the experts are doing to reach their target audience. Then develop a plan that would integrate some of their efforts as you reach out to your target audience.

Monitor your progress by using either Word or Excel so that you can see the progress that you’ve made. It’s important to do this because it can help you determine what’s working and what’s not working.

Identify people who can be part of your support team so that they can help you build your online presence. Make sure that they understand your business purpose along with your online presence plans.

Washington, DC, August 14, 2010 — Registration is in progress for the nation’s #1 Conference for Writers, Authors, and Speakers. The National Christian Writers Conference is scheduled for Washington DC, at Howard University in the Benjamin E. Mays Hall building, on Saturday, August 14, 2010 from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The conference presents a number of renowned experts who provide solutions, innovative strategies and knowledge on how to write, publish and promote books or brand names in the Christian marketplace. Do you have an idea for a terrific story? Do you need help transferring your ideas into book format? Have you written a manuscript but don’t know where to go to publish it? Come to the National Christian Writers Conference and listen to award winning authors, publishers, editors, publicists, speakers, internet marketers and wealth building coaches share their secrets on how to succeed in the literary industry.

Click here for more details

The workshop leaders include: Antonio L. Crawford, Pam Perry, Michelle McKinney Hammond, Stacy Hawkins Adams, Karen Hunter, William R. Patterson, Cassandra Walton, Eugene Williams, Jewel Williams, Pam Osbey, Sean Isaacs and other top selling writers, authors, and infopreneurs. Panelists include Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds, Kim Beasley and leading industry professionals.

The National Christian Writers Conference provides information, training and resources to people who want to publish stories that heal, inspire and speak to the hearts of readers around the world. NCWC is committed to building an academic platform to encourage people who are ready to take charge to accelerate their talent in the marketplace.

Click here for more details

Registration is required to attend the conference. Special two for one price and $127 early registration is extended to August 1st, 2010. General registration ends August 7th. Discounted lodging rates provided by the Kellogg Conference Hotel and Holiday Inn Washington-Central/White House group code: EG4. 877.786.9480. Click here for more details