Jewish PR 101 – How to NOT lose readers attention when posting on social media

Here’s a great blog post from http://www.businesswordsmiths.com talking about readers new attention span.

Studies say that you’ve got 10 seconds to capture readers attention. Getting even shorter in time, they say you have 8 seconds to make a good impression. So how can you best deal with a readers short attention span?

The Jewish Impact : Within the Jewish market, there are numerous community listservs with thousands of email recipients (such as TeaneckShuls, BrooklynShuls, FiveTownsShuls, etc). If the recipients inbox are anything like mine, then it’s being inundated with various emails with a hug assortment of subject lines and posts for, about, and to the community. So if your subject line doesn’t grab them, you can forget about them scrolling down to read your post. Here’s how to best get your email read on these listservs:

The 3 Keys to Handling

Today’s Short Attention Span

* Speak to Emotion First, Intellect Second

A quick look at today’s top business news from Digg, has article as the top item:

Where Jamie Oliver Failed, Carrot Farmers Hope to Change the Way We Snack
Jamie Oliver tried to change the way kids eat with his (futile) attempts at changing the food that school cafeterias serve to kids. If you’re a parent, and you feel strongly about the health of your kids, this headline grabs you at both an emotional and intellectual level.

It creates curiosity by stimulating an already-existing desire to feed your kids healthy stuff.

The article itself isn’t terribly interesting, but about halfway down the page they include the following YouTube video from carrot farmers:

Obviously, this video is intended for the parents. It’s a tongue-in-cheek way to get the attention of parents, and give them a reason to “test” the theory that carrots can achieve the same status as junk food in their kids’ minds.

* Quickly offer a promise

What I like about the new carrot farmer campaign is that they quickly offer a promise, albeit a twisted promise.

They promise that your kids will think of carrots the same way they think of a candy bar, French fries, or some other greasy, sugar-enhanced snack.

They hit an emotional hot-button by bringing up the futility of getting kids to eat healthy food, and then have the audacity to promise a change in the way your kids think about snacking.

Your promise doesn’t have to be blatant, but it’s got to be clear in the mind of your reader. All of this will happen in a few short seconds in your headline and the first couple paragraphs of your copy.

* Deliver on the promise

The best way to keep your website visitors on your site is to deliver on the promises you make, and do so as quickly as possible. I know that I have a tendency as a writer to think that everyone needs several paragraphs of introduction before I get to the meat of the matter.

A lengthy introduction can help when you’re introducing a new product to people who don’t yet know that they need your product. Eugene Schwartz refers to this as your reader’s “level of awareness” about you, your product, and their need for your product.

Carrot farmers are betting that kids will eat whatever comes in a flashy package. The “delivery” of the promise in their case isn’t the product (carrots) itself, but the packaging for the product.

Time will tell if they’re right (I hope they are), and kids realize that healthy food can be just as enjoyable an experience as unhealthy food.

It’s a long shot for the carrot industry, but if it works, expect national brands to quickly follow suit, offering their snacks (healthy or otherwise) in flashier packaging.

Henry Isaacs

www.Henry-Isaacs.com

Jewish Marketing 101 – Kosher Today – Demand for Mashgichim (Kosher Supervisors) Jobs Soar, Kashrus Agencies Say

http://ping.fm/MExbB

Jewish Advertising 101 – Kosher Retailers Target BBQ Season in Long Holiday Wait

http://ping.fm/oLN06

Jewish Marketing 101 – Kosher Today – Demand for Mashgichim (Kosher Supervisors) Jobs Soar, Kashrus Agencies Say

New York…by KT Staff Reporters…Kashrus agencies have had little problem in filling jobs for kosher supervision (mashgichim) despite the double-digit growth of kosher. They have many more applicants than job openings, which some described as a “very surprising development.” To Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the COO of the Kashrus Division of the Orthodox Union, the depressed economy of the last few years has been largely responsible for the sharp increase in applications for mashgichim jobs. For agencies like OK Kosher Certification, the large worldwide network of Chabad emissaries has been an invaluable resource in supervising plants all over the world. In fact, Rabbi Elefant points out that as the largest kashrus agency in the world, his agency also employs large numbers of the ”shluchim” (emissaries). According to Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, the Rabbinic Administrator for the Chicago Rabbinical Council (cRc) and the Executive Director of the Association of Kashrus Organizations (AKO),the demand varies somewhat for the supervision needed. “There are plenty of candidates for plant inspections, less for catering and even less for restaurants,” said Rabbi Fishbane. Despite the growing demand, salary and benefits is an issue for many would be mashgichim. Rabbi Elefant says that the same economy that is responsible for so many more people looking for mashgichim jobs is also the reason for establishments looking for the least expensive way to get the supervision done, an obvious reference to declining sales. Rabbi Fishbane says that economics is also the reason why it is often difficult to get mashgichim for restaurants and catering establishments: “ They make more money by sitting home and collecting unemployment.” The officials also did not expect technology to diminish the demand for the human inspections, despite increased surveillance and other technology to assure the integrity of kashrus. While some kashrus organizations are increasingly using the technology in some very specific settings like small factories, the Orthodox Union says that it would only use the technology to support human inspection rather than replace it. Several well-known kashrus issues in recent years have also forced the agencies to devote more efforts and resources to training, including formal classroom training as well as internships with qualified rabbinic personnel. “In most cases,” said a kashrus official, “we are dealing with people who are already proficient in Jewish law, primarily through their formal yeshiva and post graduate (kollel) training.” More and more young rabbis, the official pointed out, are supplementing their duties as rabbis with a career as a mashgiach. “They simply feel that as a religious functionary, the job of kosher supervision is very much a part of their career choice.”

Jewish Advertising 101 – Kosher Retailers Target BBQ Season in Long Holiday Wait

Kosher Retailers Target BBQ Season in Long Holiday Wait
New York…It will be three months before kosher shoppers prepare for the Jewish New Year at the end of September, which is prompting retailers to create “mini-holidays,” as one distributor put it, in between the just concluded Shavuos holiday and Rosh Hashanah. Many retail ads in the New York area are focused on marketing meats, with some using the opportunity to tout their better quality meats or even to “educate” customers about better cuts. This is in preparation for the upcoming summer BBQ season. In late July and early August, the marketing will shift to dairy menus for the Nine Days, marking the mourning period for the destruction of the First and Second Temples. One retailer told Kosher Today that he is actually “thrilled about the late date of the High Holy Days this year because it gives me two shots at major shopping periods.” He explained that he intended to market the late August – early September period as the restocking period for returning vacationer and back to school shoppers and then immediately (by mid-September) segue into Rosh Hashanah sales. But this summer period is also used by chains like Price Chopper to attract travelers enroute to Upstate New York and Canadian destinations, by independent kosher supermarkets like Pomegranate to promote orders that “summer bachelors” take with them over the weekend to their vacationing Catskill families, by Catskill retailers to lure vacationers and by on-line grocers to ship kosher foods to the various destinations that are frequented by kosher vacationers. The objective for all categories of retail grocers is not to lose the summer months.

Jewish Marketing 101 – A Brief Jewish SWOT Analysis

What is SWOT?

SWOT analysis is a tool that helps your business understand your corporate presence, impact, strengths, and weaknesses. SWOT stands for Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats; two factors, strengths and weaknesses, are fundamental internal factors within the core of your businss while opportunities and threats are influences that arise from the environment all around you and the business landscape you’re in.

Since we’re dealing with the Jewish market in this blog, we’ll paint some broad strokes about the Jewish market and their SWOT analysis overall. Here’s some examples and brief SWOT analysis about the Jewish market:

STRENGTHS

• Family-oriented close knit culture
• Strong word-of mouth potential
• Generally perceived as affluent and educated
• Tendency for loyal buyer behavior
• Rich holiday seasons with increased purchasing habits
• Concentrated in affluent metropolitan areas (ie NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago, etc), allowing for targeted marketing to the majority of the Jewish market.
• Small yet vocal/seen minority within pop culture, politics, and business (certain Jewish figureheads include Michael Bloomberg, Adam Sandler, Steven Spielberg, Amare Stoudemire, etc.)

WEAKNESSES

• Small demographic when compared to other minorities.
• Different holidays and celebrations than the average US family.
• Tough to make inroads into a loyal community.
• Many different psychographic and religious differences requiring different marketing tactics.

Here are the opportunities and threats that are externally impacting the Jewish demographic.

OPPORTUNITIES

• A growing demographic with greater family size than the average US family.
• Strong influencing power by concentrated Jewish communities over distant Jewish communities.
• Developed international home country of Israel with growing consumer base.
• Religious customs are becoming trendy in mainstream culture (ie Kosher, Matchmaking, Israeli Green industry, etc.)

THREATS 

• Middle Eastern conflicts could deter companies from pursuing Israeli consumers.
• Jewish assimilation is considered on the rise, downplaying unique Jewish identities.
• Rising costs of “being Jewish” (such as Jewish education, kosher food, cost of living in major metropolitan areas, etc.) could cut into purchasing power.

As with many SWOT analysis, this list could be perceived as subjective. And that’s probably because these are broad strokes overall about the community. As we continue updating this blog, we’ll develop informative topics on the Jewish market and see which strengths and weaknesses will genuinely affect your business.

Henry Isaacs

www.Henry-Isaacs.com