Your business is only as good as
number of people who knows about it. For your venture to grow, you need to start spreading word about your business. You may have best products your field, but you cannot expect your business to breach million-dollar mark in sales if only people in your street know about it. Some entrepreneurs start doing promotions only when their businesses are up and running, while some market their business even before products or services are fully launched.There are two ways to get your business noticed: through paid advertising and through public relations. In advertising, you pay to have your message placed in a newspaper, radio or television spot, or your banners displayed in a Web site. In public relations, on other hand, article or show that features your story or business is not paid for. Rather, writer may have come across your story or business through research or references. The writer or media person deems it worthy to mention you or your business to bolster his or her arguments.
Hence, publicity can oftentimes be more effective than advertising. Not only is it cost-effective (oftentimes you are paying for nothing), but also people are apt to remember an article about your business rather than advertising. People find a write-up or special feature about a business more credible and objective than a paid advertising. Publicity also reaches a wider audience: if you are lucky, national media might even pick up your story.
Even in online world, free exposure in traditional media - television, radio or print - can be far more effective than other online marketing strategies. Nina Munk of urbanhound.com wrote in Fuse Magazine that her site saw a dramatic increase in traffic when NBC's Today show mentioned her site - much more than links from other web sites or postings from message boards. As she wrote in article, "Forget power of Internet: it's television that counts."
Since media has a "herd mentality," once a program features your business or your story, expect other publications and shows to pick it up and use you for their own stories. The mention of urbanhound.com at Today show led to mentions in Newsday, Forbes and Ladies' Home Journal. Without paying a single cent, Munk's site was able to reach a wider audience that his business needs.
How do you attract journalists to use your story? Here are five ways you can do to succeed in generating free publicity for your business.
1. Carefully target journalists. Since you are courting them to use your story, don't put them off by sending bulk emails to practically all journalists you know, no matter how totally unrelated your story is to their beat. Identify kinds of publication that may be interested in your story, and know who in publication does your kind of stories. Make a list of newspapers, TV and radio programs that would be appropriate outlets. Then identify specific reporter or producer interested in your kind of story. If you want publicity for your bonsai business, for example, send your story pitch to a gardening publication or home living editor of your local newspaper. Find journalists (whether print, television or radio) who are most likely to be interested in your story. Send them personal emails or letters.
