1. Determine your company’s strengths and weaknesses.

Before you can tell others who you are and what you do, you need to know about yourself. Gather your employees together and brainstorm a list of your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Write everything down that is said and wait to evaluate it until you have exhausted all of ideas.

Next, review each item on list and decide if this is appropriate to be on list, or if it can be eliminated. It’s likely you will find several that can be combined so that you end up with a relatively short list of strengths and weaknesses. You can also develop a short survey and ask your customers and vendors what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. Their answers may surprise you!

2. Research your target market/customer.

Next, analyze your sales from past three years. What products or services are most profitable for you? Who are your customers? What can you conclude about your customers? What is similar about them? Based on your profitability evaluation, should you be targeting a certain type of customer, or changing your current strategies? How do these customers make their buying decisions? How can you influence those decisions?

Consider such things as: · Location · Size business (either sales dollars or number of employees) · Industries ypes of businesses · Type of ownership (sole proprietor, corporation, etc.) · Who are decision makers, influencers and gatekeepers?

Advertising, as you may know, is sometimes looked upon by consumers with skepticism because they know you are trying to sell them something and suspect companies may not be entirely truthful in their ads.

On other hand, news articles and advertorials that appear in a newspaper or magazine are very often seen as factual, with media's "stamp of approval," and as a recommendation of your product by an impartial third party. In general, larger article, more believable information.

Knowledge Sending releases to media on a regular basis can keep public abreast of what your company is doing, as well as keep you in forefront of your customers' minds. The practice can also cut your advertising budget significantly, while accomplishing same task...making your customers aware of your products, bringing your products to your customers' "top of mind," and spurring them to action.

Interest Often, small business owners think they don't do anything exciting enough to warrant a news release. Well, that's just not true. Every business should have a few things happening that would interest media. Some happenings, of course, would warrant more news coverage than others.

Following are just a few questions to make you think about using public relations to promote your business. The first six are probably worthy of short, one-page releases resulting in small mentions in media. The last six show potential for larger feature articles. A simple release, however, is not generally sufficient to convince editors to run larger pieces. Personal contact is a must. Questions