5. Have you or your staff recently completed any specialist training?

6. Do you do charitable work or do you sponsor a club?

7. Could you host special events like free demonstrations, free lessons, free seminars?

These are all media opportunities that have potential to make you and your business famous... well, for a short time anyway.

I'll give you a couple of examples from my own experience.

When I first started in business I had a craft store and regularly had various experts give demonstrations on glass blowing, pottery making and china painting etc. I also held art exhibitions for well-known artists. The amount of free publicity my business got would have run into many tens of thousands of dollars. The publicity cost me nothing, apart from a little time and organization. It resulted in hundreds of new customers and thousands of extra dollars in cash register.

Also, back in my days in toy trade, media were always interested in what children wanted for Christmas. They had a fixation to know "what's hot and what's not!" So, every Christmas I would tell media what kids wanted Santa to give them for Christmas. Or, to put it another way... "what parents should buy their kids for Christmas." I knew, because demand was driven by television advertising and by what I had on my shelves. Every year without fail I got thousands of dollars worth of free publicity. It was that easy.

The really good part of all this, is that a news story is worth far more in terms of credibility than advertising. There are opportunities for any and every business to get free media coverage. You just have to hunt them out.

© Noel Peebles. Market Leaders Limited. http://www.instantsellbusiness.com http://www.instantsellhome.com