by Bill Stoller Founder, PublicityInsider.com

A musician spends years honing his craft. He writes world-class songs and performs them in a manner that moves his listeners to tears. He records a demo tape and sends it to record labels. He gets a contract and becomes rich, famous and adored.

The lesson: demo tapes are secret of becoming a famous musician.

Wait, you say, demo tape was just a tool, just his way of conveying his talent. It's his ability as a musician that got him contract and made him famous.

You're right, of course. He could have become just as famous if a record executive saw him in person, or heard about him from a friend, or as a result of a variety of other events.

Which brings us to press release.

Somehow, press release has taken on a magical reputation as alpha and omega of publicity. Wanna become rich? Send out a press release. Wanna become famous? Press release. Wanna get on cover of Newsweek? Press release.

Publicity "gurus" are springing up all over Internet touting press release as answer to all marketing ills. Just knock out a release, mass e-mail it to journalists, sit back and wait for Oprah to call.

It's a cruel joke.

Here's reality: press release is no more important to your potential of scoring free publicity than demo tape was to our musician friend. If he had no talent, if his songs sounded like garbage, best recorded demo tape in world wouldn't get him signed. Ditto for publicity seeker. If you don't have a story to tell, your press release is utterly worthless.

I'm not knocking press release -- it's an important tool. But it's just that: a tool. It's not first thing you need to think about when it comes time to seek publicity. In fact, it's one of last. And it's not even absolutely necessary (I've gotten plenty of publicity with just a pitch letter, a quick e- mail or a phone call).

Some call them "tag lines"; others refer to them as "catch lines" or "tie-in-slogans." Whatever words used to refer to them, they are perhaps most important part of your promotional writing.

Do you recognize any of these ? :

"Like a rock..." "Fly friendly skies..." "It's real thing !" "Quality is job number one" "The quicker-picker-upper"

Most of those tag lines are recognizable by us without even including name of company or product.

They summarize in a very few words essence of thing they are promoting. They communicate a good, positive feeling or relationship to product. They do it with a simple, memorable phrase that is easily repeated.

The shorter description is, more challenging it is to write. Anyone can write a 500-word description of a product or service. Now try doing it with 5 to 10 words ! Each word you choose is very important to message.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS for writing good taglines for your business offer.

1) Start by noticing ads on billboards as you drive down road. Billboard advertisers have but a couple of seconds to grab your attention and sell their product or service. Usually their copy is going to be a very good tagline with a picture of product or service. These are great examples of how to write effective taglines.