A More Efficient Way To Get Publicity
How would you like to get free publicity for your business? Maybe promote your business on national television like I did recently on First Business?
Publicity is a powerful tool that can help any business get an enormous boost in exposure and credibility. You can leverage the incredible power that comes from a single, solid media placement forever. It's a major marketing asset for your business.
Not to mention, publicity is normally free. That's a very cool thing. Of course there are associated costs with getting the publicity (like sending press releases, mailing media kits, etc)...but those can be minimized with the proper strategy and the right relationships.
Since I did that First Business segment, we've been getting asked by many entrepreneurs how they can copy our results, leverage publicity for their businesses and get national media attention.
Here's what we did:
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First I wrote a press release that I thought was "Da Bomb" (I've been doing a lot of studying, researching and practicing PR writing recently.) Then I took a look at some resources about writing a good release and the structure of a good release, as well as some examples of good releases that had been provided to me by PR Newswire (the leading press releases distribution service).
Despite all the previous research I had done into press releases, I found the information from PR Newswire to be the most "real world" and practical I'd seen.
After studying their material, something just clicked in my head and I took the release I already thought was good and tore it to shreds. I rewrote the whole thing and the new press release was better than any I had ever written. Travis and I tweaked the release one more time together and then we were ready to roll.
The headline of the release was "Stimulus Checks Could Mean Fewer Choices, Higher Prices and Poorer Service For Shoppers" See the timing?
Right when stimulus checks are going out, hitting the mail box, being spent and all over the news, we honed in on the topic with a fresh, controversial angle.
We used that very release to land this First Business show as well as several radio segments.
That's not all. I am about to use PR Newswire's service to blast this press release out online and see what kind of traction I can get with it there.
Some Press Releases Shortcuts:
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- Make it relevant
- Create a broad appeal (unless you are targeting industry specific trade press)
- Make it timely (tap into what's going on and what's on the minds' of people)
- Make it newsworthy (your company's new product doesn't count unless you're Mac)
- Make it controversial or benefit oriented
