Recently I was able to get free marketing exposure for my business to 100,000 people. It was something that took an hour or two of my time and payoff was huge. And you can do it for your business, too.

It's called Public Relations

And it's simpler than you might think. If you follow a few basic rules, you can get great exposure for your business, product or service without having to pay for it. Here's all I did. See if this might apply to your business.

I sent out a press release announcing launch of my 10stepmarketing System to two local business publications. While it did not take a lot of time to write and send release, there were a few key steps I took that you also must take to be successful with your PR efforts.

A few key steps

First, I found several publications that were targeted to same type of people I am targeting with 10stepmarketing: small business owners. Once I had identified these publications, I did some research to find out names of staff writers who cover marketing.

I identified a "hook" to make story relevant to publications and I made sure content of my release provided clear benefits to their readers.

I emailed release with a note saying I would follow up in a day or two to answer any questions. I followed up with a phone call, speaking directly to one writer and leaving a voice message for other.

The first thing you need to do is answer following question: What is your objective for ad? You need to know what result you expect ad to accomplish in order to determine what needs to go into ad.