 |
|
|
Health Check
Wellness Clinic - Provide Budget & comprehensive screening
package
Log in
www.healthcheck.sg for
detail
|
10 Secrets to Free Publicity
Public relations is popular because it is very cost-effective and it works. If you send out one press release, for example, and it gets into print, it could generate more interest in your product or service. Businesses that want a leg up on their competition need to focus on boosting their public relations (PR) efforts. This keeps them from going under when the economy is weak, and gets them ahead of their competitors when sales start picking up. Now is the perfect time to get a fresh start on your publicity strategies. Here are ten tips to help you use free publicity to kick-start a business into high gear: 1.Articles: Articles don't have to be long; they just need to be informative. Writing articles gives you instant credibility, too. Submitting online, as well as offline, provides another good chance to get your name in print at no cost. Be sure to put your contact information in a contact resource box at the end of the article. 2. Press releases: Reporters everywhere are looking for stories, and a press release gives them the information to write that story. Just make sure it's newsworthy, not just an advertisement. 3. Newsletters: Writing a newsletter is another way to keep your name top-of-mind. This can be online or offline. Both contain content valuable to your target market and many times advertise your products and services. The cost of this is nothing, yet the return potential is infinite. 4. Business cards: Think of your business card as a small billboard and start handing them out everywhere. Include them in all your correspondence ? even in your bills! 5. Public speaking: Speaking in front of an audience usually makes you an expert. People like to buy from experts. If they're in your audience, then they'll remember your expertise and come to you when they need your product or service. Speaking is free, and it's just like making a sales call to many people at one time. 6. Free reports: Offering a free report online is a good way to get an e-mail from prospects so you may market to them later. This is the whole basis of permission-based marketing, or opt-in lists. You can do the same thing offline. 7. Radio: Radio is expensive, you say? Not if you are being interviewed or calling in on a talk show. Getting interviewed is free, except for your continual follow-up with producers. Calling in is free, but sometimes it's hard to relay contact information. 8. Online forum participation: There are many online newsgroups or forums for a particular subject area. Participating in these is another way to get your name out. Many online forums will let you put an e-mail signature with a link to your site or message with another site linked. Take full advantage of this; these links get clicked often when of interest to the forum participants. 9. Strategic alliances: Introduce yourself to other businesspeople who don't compete with you but sell products or services to the same target audience. Offer to promote them if they promote you. Make sure they're people you like and trust. 10. Letters to the editor: Many times a letter to the editor has a better chance of getting published than the actual press release. You'd be surprised how many people read this column in publications. This is also another way to become friends with the editor. If they see you enough and match you with a newsworthy press release, then your chances of getting a press release in print increases. Shannon Cherry, APR, MA helps businesses,
entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations to be heard. She's a
marketing communications and public relations expert with more
than 15 years experience and the owner of Cherry Communications.
Subscribe today for Be Heard! a FREE biweekly ezine and get the
FREE special report: "Get Set For Success: Creative, Low-Cost
Marketing Tips to Help You be Heard." Go to:
http://www.cherrycommunications.com/
|
Get Checked Before
Complication Strike Log on to
HealthCheck.sg - All
nationalities welcome to enjoy the privilege and offer corp
price .
|
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Right Hook
Have you fantasized about spreading word of your business on a top-rated TV show like The Today Show or Oprah?
PR Works! 15 Ways To Make Your Press Release Stand Out From the Crowd
Do editors of newspapers, magazines and online news sites really use press releases? Too right they do. In fact, the press release is one of the most effective forms of publicity. But many businesses, both online and off, underestimate the power the press has to promote their business and get their product or service noticed by potential customers.
In PR, You Pay When You Stray
Don't let yourself be diverted by communications tactics
playtime. You know, straying from the main Public relations
game plan by juggling a press release against a radio
interview, or a brochure against an op-ed.
Is This Any Way to Run Your PR?
You bet!
Media Training: When Reporters Bully You
UNDER FIRE
Managers and PR: One Thing Is Clear
As a business, non-profit or association manager, you have a clear choice when you set up your public relations. Arrange your resources to generate a variety of product and service plugs on radio, and in newspapers and in magazines. Or, use a broader, more comprehensive and workable public relations blueprint to alter key external audience perceptions that lead to changed behaviors ? behaviors you will need to reach your managerial objectives.
Why PR Can be Effective Medicine
When properly applied by business, non-profit and
association managers, public relations "medicine"
does something positive about the behaviors of those
important external audiences of theirs that MOST
affect their operations.
PR: Focus on What Matters!
Sure, as a manager, you have a talented member of the PR team assigned to your department, division or subsidiary, or housed at your agency, and s/he is darn good at placing product and service plugs on radio and in the newspaper. Which may be all you want. And that's fine.
Advertising Is Dead. Long Live PR
Although I still believe there is a place for advertising as a brand maintenance or brand affirmation tool, I am convinced that to build a brand today, you need PR. At one time advertising did build brands. But this was in a simpler America. That America, sadly, is no more.
Can Your PR Game Plan be Salvaged?
If, as is often the case, you are preoccupied with comm-
unications tactics instead of working a plan to actively
pursue those outside audience behaviors that stop you
from achieving your objectives, the answer is yes.
Rise of the Creative Class
The fast changing dynamics of the world economy is forcing organizations to fundamentally rethink the manner in which they have been communicating with their constituent communities and decision-makers. It is constantly being proven that conventional communication approaches that are designed to raise public awareness may often have the opposite effects of those intended. This is because they fail to take into account the public's profound resistance to the traditional communication stimuli.
Inoculate Yourself Against Bad PR
What is bad PR?
Its the Little Details that Can Make or Break a News Story
Have you ever heard of the saying, "One person's trash is another person's treasure?" Well, that statement is a true one, but never more so than in the realm of media relations where so many small-business owners find it so difficult to garner media coverage for themselves or their companies. Allow me to illustrate my point below in an actual incident that happened to one of my clients and the lessons we learned from this experience.
The Working Case Study
Next to white papers, case studies are the most popular tool in the technical marketer's toolkit
Tactics Vs. Endgame - Endgame Wins
It took me a while to see just HOW crucial the behaviors
of an organization's key audiences really are to its success,
be it big or small, non-profit, business, association or
even a public sector enterprise.
Media Training: How To Speak During a Media Interview
WHITE NOISE
Publicity: When Calling a Reporter, Keep it Short
When you are planning to call a reporter for the first time, it can help to imagine that you are a phone solicitor (albeit one with terrific, useful ideas).
Publicity: Nailing a Media Interview, Part III (Staying on Topic)
In a media interview, always stick to your main points without rambling or digressing. Practice this when you rehearse.
Attention PR Shoppers!
As a business, non-profit or association manager, what do you want?
Are You Newsworthy?
Non-news professionals often have a hard time understanding why their ENORMOUS news announcement, creates barely a ripple in the media.
|