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Sometimes to get the PR ball rolling you’ve just got to get a little press. It doesn’t matter if that ends up being a mention in the neighborhood business association’s newsletter. Work every angle when you are just getting started and eventually you will start build up some steam.
Think about alumni newsletters (.edu links to your website are gold), business associations, community newspapers, industry newsletters, company publications. All of these places probably have some of your target market as readers and they also have other journalists as readers.
I have found that sometimes a little mention can lead to bigger things. Here’s a rather bizarre example. I was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article. While I love that kind of coverage I noticed that they spelled my last name wrong. As is their policy, they printed this correction the next day. That day I get a call from prospective business partner who happened to see the correction. You just never know with PR.
Get in the habit of creating a press release every month with some newsy item or announcement and send it to a highly targeted list of journalists as well as your best clients and prospects. Do this for a while you will find some interesting PR avenues may start opening up.
Don’t forget the online distribution services like PRWeb.com - they can drive some traffic and help build links back to your web site.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at Aug 18, 07 | 9:32 am and is filed under Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great post. I own Chicago based offshore software development company. Since outsourcing is so huge we have a lot of competition. We realized that most companies that work with offshore vendors hate the work because the vendors are little more than “software sweatshops”. I created a blog http://www.software-sweatshop.com and have branded myself as helping companies avoid an offshore nightmare. It has helped my marketing immensely and conveyed to people what I’m all about.
Now I’m trying to use my catchy blog name to attract media attention like you mentioned.
Great tip.
Small coverage tends to lead to bigger coverage, so it’s important not to blow off the publications that you think are not really going to lead to your target market, or doesn’t have a big enough circulation, or isn’t a publication that you have heard of.
I helped an Associated Press wire reporter put together a story he was working on by giving him several manufacturer contacts and direct phone numbers of industry people that would help him. I ended up with a minor quote in the story, and my suppliers also got coverage and were very thankful to me.
But soon afterwards, I started getting phone calls from TV stations and magazines who saw the AP story in one of the dozens of places it ran and wanted to run something similar (it was a “trend” style of story). Our local tv station did a whole segment on the trend, using my company as the expert on the subject.
Here’s another huge secret that most people evidently aren’t aware of or don’t care about, which can give you a big advantage.
People in the media are always working on a deadline, and just like all of us, they are usually doing things at the very last minute.
So when you get a message that a reporter called, drop everything and call them back, or answer their email IMMEDIATELY, and chances are, you’ll be included in the story simply by being there and answering questions and being helpful.
I get a ton of coverage by always going out of my way to help people on a deadline.
So what kind of monthly press release updates would you suggest for an author (I’m fiction)?
New releases is an obvious. Events like booksignings, I suppose. Hhhmmm… this would be a great incentive to push other promo activities, to ensure the author/business owner had something to write about.
[...] Every Media Mention Counts When you’re trying to get the ball rolling, you can’t afford to be picky. [...]
John - I can remember my first bit of press years ago. Now it gets much easier as media come to ME in fact. My blog has helped as it has projected me as an expert in…small business technology!
Small media surely leads to bigger media!
Ramon Ray, Editor and Analyst, http://www.smallbiztechnology.com
Good tips - I’ll see if I can get in my old business school’s newsletter for my new business.
You’re 100% right. I try to tell our authors this all the time, it doesn’t matter how small EVERY LINK COUNTS. The web only has a small fraction of its eventual audience right now so consider this the wild west land grab. Set up a foundation or a network of links now that will be able to catch the big rush when it comes.
[...] John Jantsch advises to send a monthly press release. “Get in the habit of creating a press release every month with some newsy item or announcement and send it to a highly targeted list of journalists as well as your best clients and prospects. Do this for a while you will find some interesting PR avenues may start opening up.” [...]
[...] Every Media Mention Counts [...]
One of my biggest paying clients thus far came because I was conducting a FREE workshop at a local library. FREE! And the local library, who gets to put their “Monthly Activities at the Library” news into the local papers for FREE, listed me on their agenda. Actually all it said was my name, business name, and workshop title. It had no website listed (although I had given one). But this client decided to do their own Google search of me (other people do that, too??!!) and she found out all about what we do. So whether it’s your name in the WSJ or in your local papers, it’s great press.
Now that aside, I always appreciate, John, your renaming the idea of “free press” to EARNED PRESS. An active and systematic public relations and marketing strategy is nothing but hard work - so if you get a mention from some third-party because of the blood sweat and tears, then it is most definitely compensation!