'There are no dull stories,' she said. 'Just dull approaches to interesting stories.'

It's true. And it's critical to remember if you want to get free publicity from any working journalist in any medium.

All journalists want information that's 'newsworthy.' But just how do you 'make' a story newsworthy?

Here's an example.

One of my customers, James Wilson, recently sent me a draft of a press release he'd written and asked me to critique it for him.

He was hoping to generate some media interest in a report he'd authored about writing copy for newspaper ads.

He said he wanted to strengthen lead sentence in body of copy, which read something like:

'Newspaper ads can be a powerful and productive part of anyone's marketing campaign...'

That's definitely true, I pointed out...but it has ALWAYS been true. An editor would be likely to ask, 'What's new about that?'

Reporters, producers and editors are always looking for 'news value' in a press release. To get a positive response, your release has to say 'I've got news for you!'

So I suggested a slightly different approach.

Here's revision I sent back to him:

(Headline) It all 'Ads' Up--Newspaper Classifieds Are Back

(Subheadline) Whether you're selling jewelry or jalopies, classifieds are a potent promotional vehicle for small business -- but only if they've got 'write stuff.'

They manage by intuition or gut feel. They think that is being a great manager.

The irony is that it takes a little amount of time to quantify what’s going on, but they are reluctant or not convinced enough of value to spend time or money doing this. The benefit of knowing how your business is performing, is astronomically beneficial. Without this knowledge, you are trying to navigate your way through business swamps and mountains to a profit without any map or compass.

All it takes is a few hours clerical work per week. The kids can even do it—it is not high tech stuff! Spend money and do it.

For example, just count up number of sales made, sales leads received per week or month for each product. Plot them in a simple graph with time. Look for trends. Is graph rising or falling?