This is a BizEngine guest post from Kim Ring, president at Ring Communications. Her advice is invaluable for small businesses.
In an ideal world, all businesses, regardless of size or budget, would have a public relations consultant on the payroll. Unfortunately, as the economy struggles to pull itself from a double dip recession, more and more small businesses are running lean marketing departments and cutting public relations costs.
There?s no real replacement for a skilled publicist, but here are are some things you can do to get your brand in front of the media?s attention:
- Build a media list: Before there was expensive pr software, there was good ol? list building. Spend a few hours seeing what publications, both online and off, are out there that could be a good fit for your brand. Focus less on the mass media stations and papers in your city and mine around for the trade journals and blogs that cover your industry. Build a list of the journalists that write for those publications that includes the journalist?s name, contact info, and topics they cover. When you think you have a story, pick a few of the people in your list that would be likely to cover it and send them a personalized pitch. Don?t mass email. Journalists hate that.
- Learn how to write a press release: Some people will tell you that the formal press release is dead. It isn?t. The basic concept behind it is what is most important. It?s also what most people overlook: get the writer?s attention and get to the point?fast. Always make sure your headline is catchy while being informative, and that the ?who, what, where, why and how? of your story is right there in the first paragraph. Avoid long poetic descriptions. Remember that wordiness doesn?t mean news worthy. There are plenty of resources out there on how to write a press release, including this one from Inc. Magazine: http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/09/how-to-write-a-press-release.html.
- Get on Twitter: If you don?t dabble in social media, now is the time to start. Think of Twitter as a 24 hour news ticker giving you the information you ask to receive, right as it?s being released. Twitter not only gives you the opportunity to get your story in front of the media, it gives you the opportunity to get your story in front of anyone who is interested, often allowing you to bypass the media all together. With Twitter, people customize, for the most part, who they get their news from and they ?follow? the people that cover the topics they want news about. If used correctly, Twitter can reach your target audience even better than traditional media can.
Marketing your brand is a full-time job that should integrate public relations with direct, digital and social media marketing. In order to sustain growth, promotion of your brand is critical. Lack of budget should never result in lack of marketing.
Many thanks to Kim for her advice! Be sure to check her out in this upcoming Social Media 202 panel.
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Source: http://www.bizengine.com/smallbiz-pr-advice/
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