Get More Out of Our Marketing/PR to Drive Sale

Global Chamber® featured three extraordinary growth experts discussing how to get more from your marketing and public relations to drive sales in 2021. Watch and listen to the globinar and conversation HERE on the Global Chamber® youtube channel.

Charles Barnard, Founder and CEO at Criteria for Success, Inc. kicked off the globinar with a series of questions for the attendees which included:

• How do you keep buyers engaged?
• How do we make sure the organizations are focused on business growth?

His sales approach is centered on asking questions about the sales process, listening and responding appropriately to enable his participants to discover value. Charles pointed out that in the current business environment, there is some confusion about the role of marketing vs. PR.

Susan Assadi, Founder of GAPR and the Director of the Global Chamber NYC chapter, next provided background on PR, campaign activities for the new world and how to assess PR needs. She provided tips on the approach options for 2021 campaigns, guidance on how to evaluate a company’s brand proposition to stand out from its competition, and ways to align PR with marketing to drive sales. Susan provided advice on how to maximize opportunities for coverage in the media.

Dian Oved, Founder and CEO, Marketing and PR Strategist at Empower Digital. nextdiscussed how, in this new COVID-19 era, to build the perfect marketing and media platform to optimize an organization’s image and drive sales. She elaborated on specific examples of how social media & PR can be used to develop an entirely new level of awareness, success, and power.

The presentations were followed by a Q&A session with questions such as...

How do Sales, PR, and Marketing align most effectively? Many businesses take a top down, hierarchical approach. Marketing creates messaging and content, PR finds channels for promotion of the organization, person or concepts, and sales runs with this information. For instance, sales posts links to content in their social media feeds, such as LinkedIn. The problem here is that too often these three groups are not collaborating on developing the most relevant information to the buyer or to the market. A better approach is to involve all three entities (Sales, PR, and Marketing) during the development of editorial calendars, content posts, messaging, and branding. This is particularly effective when Sales provides its input because the salespeople on the ground can reference what their buyers care about the most at any given time.

What do we think about AI’s role in Marketing and Sales? AI is evolving at a rapid pace and becoming very influential in how leads are targeted, scored, and contacted. AI is playing a role in reaching out directly to people and working through the buyer’s journey and thus fulfilling the role of generating, ranking, and maintaining conversations with companies’ key constituents. Charles Bernard pointed out “it’s a matter of time before AI plays a much larger role in selling directly to buyers, which includes diagnosing problems, matching solutions, and providing presentations without necessarily involving a human salesperson.”

Charles, Dian and Susan shared what qualities make a good client relationship so Marketing/PR can be successful and those that can derail campaigns. They also provided a basis for Small and Midsize Businesses and large corporations to build effective Marketing/PR campaigns to propel companies to drive maximum sales in 2021.

Speaker Biographies

Charles Bernard - Founder and CEO of Criteria for Success, Inc. Charles is an accomplished speaker that has trained thousands of CEOs, Sales Managers, and Salespeople on the art of business relationships, growing revenue, and overcoming challenges.

With over 20 years of experience in direct sales, sales management, recruiting, and training, Charles is a subject-matter expert with a knack for troubleshooting.

He was born in Madrid, Spain and was educated in Surrey, England. Currently, Charles resides in New York City where he is authoring his debut book, “Enabling Buying in a World of Selling".

Susan Assadi - Co-founder GAPR and Director at Global Chamber NYC. Susan co-founded GAPR in 1992, a PR firm with an emphasis on expert and thought leadership campaigns. She is a highly respected national media strategist who helps her clients to be promoted to the national media, weaving in compelling stories that resonate with top media outlets. Her campaigns catalyze her clients into leaders of their respective fields. Susan also has over four decades representing non-profits, leading public companies and subject matter experts. Her firm’s campaigns are fresh, creative, tech savvy, and innovative, a cocktail that engenders powerful results. She co-founded Safed House, a non-profit, that provides a welcoming place for refugees and recent immigrants to share their stories.

Dian Oved - Founder and CEO, Marketing and PR Strategist at Empower Digital. Dian develops and executes digital integration and social media strategies for her clients. She consults for individuals and brands on how to build and maintain a following through digital and social media. Having experience working with high-profile projects and as a handler for well-known individuals, Dian has developed unique and effective strategies that she applies to her clients in order to successfully promote and market their products.

Dian has over ten years of deep experience in Digital Strategy and Social Media, beginning with her career in the music industry. She began her career in Corporate Finance in 2004 at companies such as EMI Music and The Weinstein Company. She then spent time at MySpace in Business Development, working on strategic partnerships with the major record labels to create an entirely new music portal for the social network. After launching the new music site for MySpace, Dian returned to EMI Music as the Director of Digital, where she managed digital operations for the record label’s artists. Dian received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School and B.A. in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, Dian guest lectures at UCLA Extension about social media, digital marketing, and branding. Empower Digital has offices in Phoenix and Los Angeles.