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Cheap Easy PublicityBy Paul Hartunian
There are more than a few ways to entice the media to give you space free of charge.I know. I do it all the time. And so do my students. And this web site will help you understand how you can go about doing it yourself. It all begins with a good concept of how the media works. In general there are two sides to any media outlet. There's the entertaining side, and there's the commercial side. Be it newspapers, radio or television, they are in the business of entertaining us. They are looking to provide information we want to hear. It might be news items or the latest sports numbers. The weather and traffic reports might entice us to turn to a specific station. And the more of us who turn there, the higher the station ranks among its peers. And the higher it's rating, the more it can charge customers for advertising space on its schedule. The problem with most publicity campaigns is that they miss the point. The point of publicity is not to make a sales pitch for you or your business. It's to provide interesting information that reporters can pass along to their audiences.Now you're providing a service the media is dying to buy. They pay reporters to find news stories. Foreign correspondents make decent livings doing nothing but being available every now and then when a news story breaks. Relevance, timeliness and interest all blend into a magic formula that makes an event "news" rather than "advertising". And that's the foundation of my publicity course. Finding ways to make what you have to say into news. It all begins with you taking a good close look at what you do and deciding how you can go about doing it in a way people will find interesting, shocking, amazing or unique. Taking a walk can hardly be considered news, but Arthur Blessitt of North Fort Myers, FL. has managed to captivate news crews around the world. Since his start on December 25, 1969 he last calculated his "walk" at spanning 33,151 miles across 277 nations. His walk is unique not only in that Guinness lists it as the greatest distance ever walked, but also because the entire trip was done while carrying a large wooden cross. Obviously there's a guy with a story to tell. There are so many fascinating unknowns there. Where did he sleep? How did he eat? What happens in bad weather? How about laundry, friends, health? How and where did he meet his wife, Denise, who has joined him to 224 of the countries he's visited? It definitely qualifies as news. And news crews around the world knew it. Do you have to be as extravagant as Arthur to get publicity? No. You may be tied into a job as mundane as phone solicitation for sales of satellite dishes. By itself, it may not offer much of a human-interest story. Explaining the problems installers might have putting dishes in where landlords won't complain might start to get interesting. Discussing the latest technology and how we've gone from large to small dishes might interest the techno-geek crowd. But finding ways to help the community, working packages that sound altruistic and selfless usually translate into serious news.How about setting up a program where a percentage of your income is dedicated to providing free satellites to quadriplegics who might otherwise be destined to countless hours of lying alone in bed. You can even set up a fund where you ask for donations and sponsorships that'll pay for dishes. And the good news is that every penny of your money you spend on these dishes will actually translate into a tax deduction for you at the end of the year. It'll also translate into a solid news story. Telling the press there's a guy out there somewhere willing to give away satellites to those in need is the kind of "breath of fresh air" story the media loves. Why are you doing it? How many have you done? How does a person qualify? What kind of dish? What kind of service? Who pays for the subscription? There most certainly are a few questions that the general public would want to find out about. Another way to make the news is to find a way to become outrageous or to spark the imagination.More than a few people have caught the medias eye with outlandish stunts like making a pool full of Jell-O and selling tickets good for a plunge or having children groups scour parks looking for litter (provided the results are stacked in a single place for a picture of just how much good "troop 28" did for our community). Anytime you break a world record people want to know. That satellite dish salesman could make national news if he were able to sell more satellite dishes over a 24-hour period than anybody else had Sparking media attention is really what my program is all about. Once you know how to get reporters to take notice, you have to somehow tell them you're alive. It all begins with a powerful press release, something I discuss to some detail on www.PressReleasesMadeEasy.com. You then need to have a follow up publicity package to offer once they contact you. You need to be ready to do the talk shows and newspaper interviews and you have to understand the importance of follow up. Watch the news for angles that make your story sound relevant. The satellite dish salesman might jump all over a news story about how Arabs keep track of our plans via satellite television broadcasts of CNN. You could explain how satellite technology works and possible solutions to the broadband broadcasting dilemma. By itself that story probably wouldn't fly. If you faxed or emailed in a press release minutes after the story broke about how terrorists had foiled our attack plans because they caught wind of it in the news, you'd almost certainly find yourself on talk shows around the country. My complete, do-it-yourself publicity kit is designed to offer you all the information space constraints keep me from giving you here. If you're serious about orchestrating a major media campaign, go to www.Hartunian.com/prkit. It contains everything you'll ever need to easily run your exciting, powerful, profitable publicity campaigns. You might also want to consider carefully what it is you really sell. You offer a product or service people are willing to pay for. That, in and of itself, starts hinting at news. If people want or need what you offer enough to give you their money, your job in orchestrating free publicity can be as simple as finding ways to stand out above the crowds, ways to make people sit up and listen to why yours is the best route to getting that service. The media is very willing to make you as famous and wealthy as you'd like if you'll just give them what they want - great stories.Want to find out more about how publicity can help you? Click on the links on the left side of this page. © COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |
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It's been several years now since my complete do-it-yourself publicity kit hit the market. Promoters have bought it looking for ways to supplement their own ad campaigns. Charities have gone to it for help in finding ways to make what they have to offer attractive to a media already committed to offering them free publicity. But of all the many who have purchased it, by far, the largest group were people looking for ways to save money. They were attracted to the concept of getting free publicity in an otherwise extremely commercial industry. And they found it.