The Internet has certainly opened new doors, but the basics of good PR haven’t changed – to create relevant, engaging and effectively targeted content, whether it’s online or offline. In business-to-business, it’s important to reach customers directly; there are just more ways of doing it nowadays.

Despite falling paid-circulations, editorial coverage in mainstream trade magazines still carries weight, especially when a magazine occupies a niche in which it excels.  Besides, many of the same magazines tend to have digital editions, and the websites with most traffic are often run by mainstream media.

The growth of online PR with optimised content – applied to news sites, blogs, forums and social media – has undoubtedly boosted the capacity to engage with wider audiences, develop search rankings and measure visitor traffic.  What’s more,  it enables journalists to research their own stories by checking blogs, media rooms and RSS feeds, which include articles from magazines.

It seems to me that the issue isn’t about traditional or digital channels; both are important components of any media relations programme, so use whatever mix works best to reach your customers.

The challenge today is how to combat information and work overload in an age of media proliferation, which can lead to people switching off.  What do your customers really read, watch and listen to? Do they want to receive absolutely everything online? Use your customer database to reveal this valuable information by running an incentivised survey, and target your PR programmes accordingly.

The time is ripe to exploit wind energy to improve the sustainability of timber production. On a recent visit to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, I noticed a painting of a sawmill-studied landscape, powered by windmills.  Painted by Claude Monet in 1871, Mills in the Westzijderveld near Zaandam pictures the polder landscape with its many characteristic sawmills and their adjacent sheds.

There were once more than 200 wind-driven sawmills in the Zandaam area near Amsterdam, turning it into one of the world’s earliest industrial zones:  the sawmills enabled large-scale shipbuilding, making a crucial contribution to Dutch colonial trading.

Although water-powered sawmills have been around since Roman times, the wind-powered variety was only invented in 1594 when Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon  applied a crankshaft to a windmill, which converted a turning motion into a back-and-forward motion to power the saw.  Prior to this, commercial sawing was slow and laborious, using a whipsaw operated by two strong men in a saw pit.

Today, wind-powered sawmills have all but disappeared in Europe.  Merely a handful remain in Holland, notably the restored Salamander mill at Leidschendam. The only surviving wind-driven sawmill in the UK is Buckland Windmill in Surrey.  Sawmills powered by renewable energy were eventually displaced by steam power.  In the last century, the introduction of electricity and high technology transformed sawmill operations into the massive and expanded facilities we see today.

With sustainably felled timber deemed carbon neutral – even though it’s mostly imported and converted into usable timber by non-renewable energy – it’s time to make timber production more environmentally sound.

One solution is to convert kinetic energy from wind or water flow into power for sawmills. Modern wind turbines are highly efficient and are a growing source of commercial electric power.  They can be used to propel a wind-powered sawmill renaissance.  In the move towards increasingly sustainable timber production, renewable energy sources can play a significant part by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the overall sustainability of wood.

Other resources: The potential for water-powered sawmills.

Windmills around the world.

1. Carry on Marketing:  Consistent and effective marketing is essential to the success and future survival of any business, no matter how large or small.  But what if you don’t have the time or expertise in-house, or you need to reduce the cost of an in-house marketing function?  How do you maintain the momentum necessary?   Outsourcing all your marketing is a real alternative to the traditional in-house approach, especially in the SME sector, and it’s even more relevant in the present economic climate.

2. Save money:  The cost of hiring full-time marketing staff can be expensive. Marketing outsourcing costs you less than a single, experienced marketing employee without the need for a full-time salary and overheads which can include recruitment, car, pension, training, office space and severance.

3. Flexibility:   You can up-weigh or down-scale your requirements at any point. Marketing on demand, as and when you need it.

4. Experience and expertise:   Get a senior-level marketing professional who knows your industry.  Access up-to-date marketing experts, who can develop the right marketing approach for your business by quickly understanding your vision and objectives, and develop relevant plans and campaigns. This expertise is not always present in-house as your staff may not have developed the skills you need.

5. Unbiased advice: A professional outsourced marketing partner will use whatever means work best for you and can draw upon a variety of different marketing strategies, techniques and tools.  This means unbiased advice and access to the full marketing mix.  You will not be steered to the predictable and sometimes narrow solutions provided by specialist agencies.

6. External perspective:  From time to time, you can get too close to your business and not see what you have to offer from your customers’ perspective. Developing your marketing plans with an outside expert can bring new energy and ideas, opening-up new views on the market and identifying fresh opportunities.  Outsourcing your marketing also helps you and your internal team to focus on the core competencies of your business and maximising revenue.

7. A deeper well of resources:  Get a virtual team of specialist talent: experts in marketing strategy and planning, branding, digital, content production, social media, advertising, events and more.  You can have a complete and professional marketing department, with access to people and know-how as and when you need them.

8. One-stop shop:  All your needs are handled by one specialist, fully-integrated, source. Outsourcing your marketing eliminates the need for managing multiple specialist agencies and other suppliers.

9. Continuity:  Marketing people change jobs or are laid-off, sometimes in the middle of a project. When they leave, they take the project knowledge with them.  With outsourced marketing, your knowledge assets are protected for the future.

10. Tried and tested:  As companies become more familiar and relaxed with outsourced support functions, whether for accountancy,  IT or HR services, they are prepared  to trust outside suppliers with business functions that, until recently, were not outsourced.

11. The next best thing:  Though common in the US, outsourcing the entire marketing function in the UK has only recently taken off. Yet most companies already outsource part of their marketing, such as web development, advertising, PR and market research.  The outsourcing of marketing beyond these areas is catching on, as more companies come to recognise the benefits of outsourcing most of their marketing activities or their entire marketing function.

12. Partnership:  Outsourced marketing works best when it’s a partnership, unlike a one-off contracting arrangement.  The partnership approach adds real value to your business, not just saving you time and money.  With the right marketing partner, the positive rewards of marketing outsourcing quickly become clear.

On a recent trip to Poland, I came across a truly zero carbon operation:  locally felled trees that are cut into planks at a water-powered sawmill and consumed by the community.

Open on 2 sides, the sawmill serves a rural community in which some buildings are still made of spruce or hardwood and local timber is widely used for roof structures, doors, windows and internal details.

The sawmill is between Bialka and Bukowina Tatrzanska in the foothills of the Tatra mountains. Although the small undershot wheel doesn’t generate a great deal of power, it’s enough to drive a band saw which can plank a whole tree within minutes.

It struck me that it’s not only the Poles who like to save money, energy and the environment.  As we move towards zero carbon housing in the UK, we could build new scaled-up water mills and restore derelict mills to produce sustainable timber for local consumption, using small-scale renewable energy. So the technology already exists to slash emissions in timber production to zero without having to buy carbon credits.

We have used water as a renewable energy source for  thousands of years, mainly for milling corn. Did you know there are a handful of historic water-powered sawmills here in the UK?  Indeed, the restored Gayle Mill in Wensleydale has 3 working water turbines. Some others are at Simonsbath on Exmoor and Gunton Sawmill in Norfolk.  The only water-powered sawmill in Scotland is at Kirkdale near Dumphries.

Generating power from river flow for local sawmills could play its own small part in changing the landscape of timber production.  It helps to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero, saves money and enhances the overall sustainability of wood. I am interested to learn of other examples of sustainable production technology.

1)     Establish the core strengths of your business: what makes you better than your competitors? What are the unique advantages of your products and services? In order to gain the edge over your competitors and improve the power of your brand, take an objective look at your business.

2)    Know your competition: research your competition to find out who you’re up against, what they do well, how much they charge, and what you can do better.  Regularly monitor their moves to keep up to date.

3)    Know your customers: put customers at the heart of what you do and gain a clear understanding of their needs. What drives your customers? What are their behaviours, perceptions and motivations? To ensure success, break your markets into smaller groups, defined by different customer needs, instead of by products or services.

 4)    Find more customers: and retain the loyalty of existing customers. It’s easier to sell to existing customers so build relationships and reward regular business. Find new ways to connect and communicate with your market, especially the new and evolving digital technologies and communications channels.

5)    Set the right price: get your pricing right to maximise your profitability. If you get involved only in price competition, you could be stuck in a race to the bottom. The perceived value for money of your product or service can be just as vital as its financial price.

6)    Explore new products and services: every business needs to find new opportunities as a way to cut through competitive markets and bring in more customers. It may be just improvements to existing products and marketing them in a different way – or it could be something that opens up an entirely untapped market.

 7)    Define your key messages: what customer benefits do you need to put across? Define your marketing proposition, then target the right offer, to the right customer at the right time, using relevant and personalised messages.

 8)    Analyse your current marketing activity: you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Customers won’t buy if they don’t know about you, or if you put across the wrong image.  Don’t lose sight of what really matters or mistake movement for progress. Although today the Internet is critical to business, use whichever mix of traditional and new platforms works best for you.

9)    Set targets: set yourself some measurable, practical targets to improve your bottom line and customer satisfaction – such as better brand recognition, higher revenue, bigger market share, improved margins, increased loyalty. Focus on what’s realistic, practical and achievable, then monitor to see a tangible return on your investment.

10)   Outsource your marketing: hire experienced marketing staff only when you need them and not when you don’t. Gain access to marketing expertise, but without the overheads of employing someone in-house. Get the most relevant and up to date advice and support, together with bright ideas to move your business forward. Outsourced marketing works best when it’s a partnership.