You’re ripping me off.

How? You may be thinking, “We just met. How could I possibly have stolen from you?”

But you did! The fact is that you have valuable information inside you. You have golden nuggets that can make other lives better. Maybe you have already developed them into products, services, seminars, newsletters or email lists. But if you do not market your gold, how will anyone know? You must then persuade people to buy and use them because people are overwhelmed with all options they have. But if you don’t make your wisdom available, you are hurting me and others.

I don’t care if it’s a security alarm, a beauty product, financial services, a business opportunity, or anything else. Your knowledge, product, or service could be helping people solve their problems. And if you think your stuff can’t help people, why are you doing it in first place?

So many times I see people out there and they have best product in market. But it’s sitting on their shelf in storage or it’s still in their heads and they’re not telling anyone about it. And at very same time, their competitors (with less to offer and inferior products) are selling to people and hurting them.

One of most misunderstood and most underutilized promotional tools available to small businesses is FREE PUBLICITY.

Every business, no matter how large or small, can effectively use free publicity to enhance its image, increase sales and profits, generate sales leads, expand distribution, and promote customer goodwill. All of these benefits can be gained for nothing more than a small investment ot time, paper, envelopes, and postage. And...with addition of new e-mail based media release services...even paper, envelopes and postage can be eliminated.

Most new businesses start out on proverbial shoestring budget. There never seems to be enough money available to do needed advertising.

Professional marketing assistance seems like an unaffordable dream, and there is always "one more piece of equipment" that needs to be purchased.

Add in other concerns, and it's no surprise that marketing and promotion end up last on long list of perceived needs. They should be among first!

A well-executed and on-going publicity program can dramatically improve your chances of success in marketplace. Whatever you want to achieve promotionally...you'll accomplish it faster and less expensively with a knowledge of publicity game. You can generate high volumes of traffic to your web site, increase direct sales, generate qualified sales leads, shorten your selling cycle, enhance your image, and boost your cash flow, with free publicity!

Free publicty is perfect promotional tool for start-up companies. Why? Because it's cheap...and it's available.

While I can't make an expert publicist out of you in one short article, I will give you basic tools you need to get started with your own publicity program and a resource list to enable you to expand your success and build your knowledge base. Let's get started...

WHAT IS PUBLICITY?

Publicity is NEWS. News about your company, its products or services, its personnel, etc. Anything that has a legitimate news angle will probably find a number of editors eager to publish it for you...free.

Why are editors willing to do this? It's their job! Editors are charged with responsibility of filling up page after page of space (or, in case of radio or television, minutes of time) with information that is timely and useful to their readers or listening/viewing audience. Theirs is a formidable task, performed under constant pressure of deadlines. Your news release helps editors do their job.

It's important, however, to differentiate a legitimate news story from what should be paid advertising.

To acomplish this, editors typically ask themselves two questions when reading your press release:

• Who cares?

• Who already knows?

If answer to first question is "a large number of my readers or listeners", and answer to second question is "very few", then your release stands an excellent chance of publication.

Remembering old axiom of "Nothing is older than yesterdays news", it also becomes obvious that your news release must be timely. In other words, news must be new.

THE TOOLS OF PUBLICITY...

The principle tools of publicity are:

• News Release

• Press Kit

• Press Conference

• Feature Story

• Letters to Editor

• Media Lists/Selection

The news release is most useful (and most used) form of communicating news to media. When coupled with a well-selected media list, simple news release is a very powerful tool that you can start using today.

THE NEWS RELEASE...

Your release (news story) should typed, double-spaced, with wide margins on one side of 81/2" x 11" plain white paper (or letterhead). Never hand-write a news release.

Keep it simple. Follow standard news story format of Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How, and you can't go wrong. Use simple sentences (seven words or less). Use short paragraphs (seven sentences or less).

Use as many simple single-syllable words as possible. Remember, you're trying to convey news...not impress William F. Buckley. Omit superlatives. Words such as best, greatest, finest, unique, one-of-a-kind, and highest quality don't belong in news releases.