Publicity
Anyone who depends on the public in any way needs publicity. Obviously this means celebrities, athletes, and politicians. But the life of a business or a firm depends on publicity. It's easy to see how electronics companies, sporting goods companies, or any other company that releases products need publicity. But everyone who depends on customers needs publicity. This includes medical firms, accountants, hospitals, universities, you name it, they need publicity.
Publicity is a tricky game to play. You're in control, to some extent, of your own publicity. You can play the public relations and news media game by sending out press releases in order to get attention for a particular product or development, even a new member joining your law firm. You can hold a news conference in order to even more publicly make an announcement, refute any allegations, or correct any misinformation. Doing things like sending out press releases and holding news conferences will go far in helping you get good publicity, as long as you do them correctly.
When sending out a press release, make sure that it's written well and contains all of the elements of a press release: headline, dateline, introduction, body, boilerplate, and contact information. Make sure also when writing your press release that you don't reveal all of your information. Play your hand wisely. You want to tantalize the news media, but you don't want to give away all of your information or else they won't call you for an interview, for clarification, or for more information. A press release can lead to an article, even a feature article. Just make sure that the journalists and news media to whom you send your press release need more than the information contained in the press release.
News conferences are another great way of getting publicity. When you hold your news conference, make sure that you have press kits on hand so that members of the news media, whether broadcast, print, or Internet-based, can have immediate access to information about your company. Make sure that your news conference is necessary. It'd better be some pretty good news to make all of those reporters and journalists take time out of their busy schedule to come and hear what you have to say!
Now you can use different publicity techniques for different news media. For example, if you're gearing your publicity towards print media, like magazines, journals, and newspapers, you're going to want to start writing articles on different subjects so that people know that you're an authority on that subject. Write to editors explaining who you are and why they'd want to run articles about you.
If you're gearing your publicity towards television, you can, of course, start running tons and tons of expensive ads. But if you want free publicity on the TV, then do the same kind of thing that you would do with print media. Establish yourself as an authority. Convince the editors and producers of news shows that they want to use you as an authority to comment on a story, or that they want to run a story on you.
The Internet is a great publicity resource and outlet that far too businesses and corporations forget to use. First of all, almost everybody uses the Internet. That's your entire customer base, basically. So you want people writing about you. This means bloggers, online magazines (ezines), and other specialty sites. You can also generate your own publicity by blogging on your own. Create a blog about your company and about your products. Link to other sites on your blog and convince the owners of those sites to link to your own site. This will create a great network of potential customers and clients.
Here are some resources to help you develop a publicity strategy that will work best for your company.
Blogging and Business
http://101publicrelations.com/bloggingforbusiness.html
Email Marketing
http://101publicrelations.com/responsible-email-marketing.html
Using Amazon.com
http://101publicrelations.com/amazongold.html
Electronic Media Kits
http://101publicrelations.com/electronic-media-kits.html
Television Public Relations Tips
http://101publicrelations.com/tv.html
Print Public Relations Tips
http://101publicrelations.com/printmedia.html
Media Public Relations Tips
http://101publicrelations.com/media.html
General Publicity Tips
http://101publicrelations.com/publicity.html
