The 5 Unbreakable Rules of free publicity
One of the most effective marketing methods to build any UK business is to get free publicity in the media.
Appearing in the newspapers and magazines your potential customers read, or being interviewed on their favourite radio station, is an immensely powerful sales tool.
You see, free publicity gives you credibility. When you advertise, it is you saying the message. But when you get a story written about you, it's someone else saying that message. And often the media that writes about you has a long relationship with its readers, making it a trusted friend delivering that message.
I worked as a journalist and editor in newspapers, radio and digital publishing for more than 13 years. Over that time, I noticed that it was the same businesses that seemed to attract publicity time after time. I spent months analysing what it was they did that attracted journalists' attention so often. And was shocked to find that many of them were doing the same simple things. Over a few months and many beers, I turned these principles into the 5 Unbreakable Rules of Free Publicity:
1. Know your target audience and deliver to it.
2. Find a hook to catch attention
3. Position yourself as an expert
4. Give journalists what they want and need, when they want and need it
5. Be creative
1. Know your target audience and deliver to it.
One of the biggest driving factors for the media is serving the needs of its target audience. By understanding what the audience wants, they can build a bigger audience. By building a bigger audience, they can deliver more customers to their advertisers. And that means they can charge them more.
Never be in any doubt as to why the media wants bigger audiences. It's not for vanity reasons; apart from the BBC, it's because bigger audiences translates into bigger profits. So the media spends a lot of cash understanding its target audience and delivering suitable content to it. You need to do the same to get your free publicity.
Understand what audience the journalist is delivering to, and then give them a story they can pass straight onto that audience. For example, your average local newspaper wants to know about anything interesting and newsworthy happening locally.
Meantime your average local radio station wants to know about what's happening locally - but local radio stations operate to different demographics. The ones that play cool "wicky wicky waa waa" music are probably targeting people up to the age of 25. So, for example, they're not going to be interested in news about pensions. Whereas your older station that plays real music (whoops, a bit of bias there), is more likely to run that news. That's because their audience is people aged 30+, and they have more of an interest in pensions.
You should be able to figure out what the target audience is by reading the newspaper, listening to the radio station etc. If you can't - no problem - contact the media and ask them. Since they target a specific audience to better serve the advertiser, if a potential advertiser asks what market they're in, they'll soon provide evidence.
2. Find a hook to catch attention
Every story needs a hook - or call it an angle or trigger if you like. It's the thing that makes your story newsworthy.
Unfortunately, just because you think a story is news, doesn't mean that it actually is.
Let's say you've just released a new product. It's the most exciting thing in the world for you! But for more journalists or editors, it's just another in a lot of new products. So you've got to find a way to make it newsworthy.
Try adding in one or more of these elements; the more the better:
- Emotion: Let your story make people laugh, get angry, cry.
- A survey: Nearly one in four people regret buying their car from a dealer. Easy to do, you don't need to spend any money on it, just ask 25 of your customers to do an anonymous quick survey, and multiply the results by 4
- Set up a problem then solve it: The average home sale costs £2,000 - but a new website just launched guarantees it'll cost no more than £199. Even if it's an everyday problem, you need to state exactly what it is to give the solution some context
- Demonstrate your claims: You can't just say your product will do something, you've got to be able to demonstrate it. If your company's pillows are the softest in the land, give away a free pillow for every 4 old horrible pillows your customers bring in. If you're the most reliable plumber in your town, give your services for free to a local charity. If your shop is the best place to go for radio controlled models, race every single model you stock in a giant fun race. Let kids control the models for free.
PUBLICITY HEALTH WARNING:
Make sure your claims are true before demonstrating them!
3. Position yourself as an expert
This is such a powerful idea that many of my business Publicity Heaven's products are based around it.
If you can successfully position yourself as the leading expert in your industry, in your area, you will give yourself an almost unfair advantage over your competitors.
Once you're successfully positioned, the media will actually turn to you for comment on your industry. Often, even if it is comment about something your competitors are doing!
It really doesn't matter if someone else is the true leading expert in your industry, in your area. As with all marketing, publicity is a battle of perceptions, so you've just got to make sure you get in there first - and once you've built a reputation, maintain it.
You also shouldn't worry about being an expert - so long as you've been in your industry for a couple of years or more, trust me, you're an expert.
OK, here's how to do it.
Firstly, the positioning. In every press release you send out, describe yourself with a line such as Name, the Industry expert in Area. Back that up with press releases about things happening in your industry - not just to your business. Over a period of time journalists will form an opinion that you are an expert in that industry and you're leading it.
Make yourself available to journalists. On every press release, put your mobile number. Say you're available for interview any time, on any subject relating to your industry. Put your personal email address as well. Make sure you return calls and emails promptly - more on this in rule number 4.
Maintain your expert position. Send regular factfiles out, whether they're about your business or the industry as a whole.
As your expert status builds, you should find it'll have a positive effect on your business. Your customers will also see you as the leading expert in your industry. It's a powerful position to occupy, and one that should be used across your entire marketing.
P.S. it's more powerful to position a person as an expert, rather than a company. This is why this approach is particularly suited to owner-operators. The public are more likely to be sceptical of a company claiming to be an expert. Whereas they will accept an individual.
4. Give journalists what they want and need, when they want and need it
Journalists want good, creative stories, with a strong hook, aimed at their target audience. Simple as that. Get that right, and you're 90% of the way there.
Hence the importance of the 5 Unbreakable Rules of Free Publicity, which aim to deliver this. It's worth spending a few minutes asking journalists these questions:
Can I check these contact details are correct? Make sure you are sending your news through to the right people. Ask who to send press releases to and what their contact details are.
How do they prefer receiving news? By email, post or fax? For most email will be the preference as it's quick and cheap. TIP - when you have a really special story you want to stand out, send it by post. It's harder to ignore a piece of paper sat in front of you than an email.
Target audience: Have a look at their website, that's normally a giveaway. But don't be scared to ask too.
Deadline: Find out what their deadlines are. This is the point at which all work must stop and the product must be finished. For weekly newspapers, this can be a few days before printing. For dailies, deadline is often a few hours before publication. For radio stations, it's probably about 5 minutes before a news bulletin, or an hour or two before a programme starts. Close to deadline, most journalists are unlikely to be working on stories from press releases. So don't leave it till the last minute, give plenty of time where you can
5. Be creative
My favourite bit of the publicity process - coming up with killer ideas.
Journalists are constantly looking for new ideas. Filling a newspaper or radio station with fresh content all the time is quite hard work. So if you can stand out by being different, you're onto a winner.
Don't worry if you think you're not a creative type of person. You don't have to have a world shattering idea to get publicity, it's just got to be a bit different.
Here are some ideas to spark your creativity:
Tie it into a current news event: When there's a big running story, journalists are always looking for new angles to keep it fresh. So give them an easy one. When there's a new Bond film coming out, a garage should offer free sports cars for the weekend to anyone who comes in dressed up in a tux. If there's a general election, a pizza delivery business should say it's trying to get youngsters to vote by offering a free pizza to every 18 year old who proves they've voted. Incidentally, it doesn't matter if only one 18 year old takes up this offer - as long as you've got publicity for it, that's the goal.
PUBLICITY HEALTH WARNING: Be wary of trying to tie your business into an inappropriate news event, i.e. a tragedy. It's very tricky judging the public's mood and getting your timing right. In our opinion you should steer well clear
Tie it into something seasonal: Some journalists dread annual events like Christmas and the summer holidays, because the pressure's on to come up with even more new material... just as it was last year. Sounds like an opportunity for you. A sweets company can produce a set of five trick or treat safety guidelines for Halloween. A local newsagent should offer an emergency delivery service by someone dressed as cupid, for men who've forgotten to get anything for their partner. You get the idea
Do an exchange or reward: Restaurants could let kids who've got their exam results this week eat for free. Sports shops could get bored kids in the summer holidays to swap chocolate bars for new trainers and a football. Promote the virtues of reading (and your bookshop) by swapping old DVDs for new books.
Do something that makes you laugh, or seem a bit cheeky: Promote your new healthy fast food shop by giving away free meals to anyone who pledges never to eat at a national burger chain again. Get people signing up outside the local branch of that burger chain, and that's funny! If it makes you or the public laugh, it'll probably make the media laugh - and be interested in your story.
Do a survey: These are so simple to do, yet generate great news stories day after day. All you need to do is think of a good angle that's related to your business - for example, if you're a pizza restaurant, what are people's favourite topping? If you sell books, how much does the average person spend on books? How much does the average car cost to run each year? How many blue cars crash compare to red cars? Pick something, then survey your customers to get the results.
About Publicity Heaven
Publicity Heaven works with small UK businesses that have a problem getting into the media. The business is owned and run by media insiders, who know exactly what editors and journalists want.
Managing Director Paul Green is one of the UK’s leading experts in getting free publicity, and using it to grow your business.
www.publicityheaven.com
08452 303049
Insider knowledge about journalists (and how to use it to get more free publicity)
Just as you would research a potential client before a sales call, so you should know a little about journalists before you try to get valuable free publicity for your business.
Journalists are sometimes forced to take the easy way out. They don't choose to, but often have little choice.
See, many local newsrooms are run on incredibly small budgets with tiny teams. That forces a lot of content to be generated in a short amount of time.
Your typical local newspaper in a small town may have just two journalists; yet they still have to write a whole newspaper between them. That's a lot of work. And these guys don't earn a fortune either... starting salaries can sometimes be as low as £8,000.
I'm not playing a sympathy card on their behalf. But if you understand the conditions some journalists have to work in, you can use that knowledge to get yourself free publicity really easily.
Journalists are forced to be lazy when their workload is high. If someone gives them a nice easy story on a plate, that is local, relevant to their target audience, and written in the newspaper's style... the chances of the story getting in the newspaper are way way higher.
You can do exactly the same with local radio stations and TV stations (the budgets might be bigger, but their resources are often limited too).
In fact, this is such an important point, it forms rule number 4 of the 5 Unbreakable Rules of Publicity (see separate article).
About local newspapers
Successful local newspapers reflect their area in a super-local way no other media can match. Even big city dailies which splash "council corruption" on the front page, still devote pages to really minor parish council news from small villages, or the latest fishing results. They do this because the closer a newspaper is to its community, the more successful it is.
Yes yes yes, big exciting front page stories and free gifts sell newspapers, but it's by putting the community at its heart that it maintains its readership base. If the community loves fishing, it's fishing they get.
Understand this to use it to your advantage. Your local paper will not publish your story, no matter how good it is, unless there's a genuine local slant to it.
About local radio
There are two types of local radio station - commercial, and BBC.
The commercial stations are mostly music stations. There are two ways to get publicity on them - in the news, and by catching the presenters' attention (most radio people prefer being called presenters than DJs - DJs are thought of as people who play records in clubs).
The news team have to fill a couple of minutes each hour, and will want much of that to be local news. These stations tend to be very good at knowing their target audience, so will be looking for very specific types of local news.
When the presenters talk inbetween songs, that's called a link. And again, they will be looking for local content to fill those links. Unlike the news team they probably won't present a straight story or do interviews, but often they will comment on something happening locally. It's a good idea to get all of your local radio station's presenters on your email distribution list... you never know when you'll catch their attention.
At BBC local stations, the speech content is often much higher than their commercial rivals. Much of this is often news orientated, and every single piece of it must be local. Again, make sure you send your press releases to the presenters and their producers, as well as the news team.
Don't trust the news team to email anything onto presenters, it doesn't always work like that!
About local TV
It can be pretty tricky getting your story onto local TV, whether it's ITV or BBC.
They are looking for all the things the rest of the media want - great story, something different, local angle - but they are also looking for great pictures.
Of course, you can make your story more attractive by deliberately including elements for the cameras. A kebab shop should make the world's biggest kebab, and get all the local Scout troops to come and sell bits of it for charity. A clothes store should put on a fashion show for pensioners. A florist should do flower displays in celebrities' images - then sell them for charity.
Think visual and you might just attract the TV stations' attention. Plus there's a real trend at the moment for bites of ultra local coverage within regional programmes, so your chance of getting coverage - even if it's just a few seconds - is higher than it used to be.
About the nationals
I wouldn't say it's easy to get publicity with national newspapers, radio or TV - but it's certainly achievable.
They're all looking for the best stories from around the UK. And most will be looking for its own spin on each story.
One of the easiest ways to get national coverage is get a really good story in the local media. Many national stories are sourced from local media. It's a really cool snowball effect to watch when it happens.
Another good trick is to try and come up with a tie-in to a running national story.
About Publicity Heaven
Publicity Heaven works with small UK businesses that have a problem getting into the media. The business is owned and run by media insiders, who know exactly what editors and journalists want.
Managing Director Paul Green is one of the UK’s leading experts in getting free publicity, and using it to grow your business.
www.publicityheaven.com
08452 303049
21 killer ideas for free publicity
Free publicity is the number one way to promote your business in 2007.
Being featured regularly in the newspapers and magazines your potential custommers read is invaluable. Editorial like that gives you a huge amount of credibility. It’s an independent trusted person talking about your business – the total opposite of an advert, where you’re delivering your message.
Getting publicity isn’t difficult. All you need to do is decide what you want to achieve (more brand awareness; website visits; maybe more sales leads), think up some story ideas, and then submit them to the media as press releases. And keep submitting idea after idea… publicity is a long-term game.
Here are 21 killer ideas you can use to make publicity a major part of your marketing mix:
1. Be the first, the newest, the oldest, the biggest, the smallest: Different is great. Journalists get sent a constant stream of “average” all day long - so make sure you stand out
2. Introduce something new or improved: Make it clear what’s better and why, and what problem it solves
3. Mark the passage of time: Has it been a year, 5 years, 10 years since something significant happened?
4. Announce a new member of your team: Even junior appointments can sometimes make the business pages. Pick the thing that made them the right person for the job and publicise that
5. Win an award: Don’t just rely on publicity sent by the award organisers, send out your own
6. Win a big contract: Don’t be afraid to boast – big contracts attract other big contracts
7. React to an current story: Give your opinion on something in the news (national or local) that’s relevant to you
8. Announce other publicity you’ve had: If you’ve been featured in your trade magazine, tell your local paper. And vice-versa
9. Re-launch your website: Tell journalists what’s good about your new site, and why
10. Offer free information: Free reports like this one are quick and easy to write, and can be incredibly valuable to readers. The years of experience you have in your industry makes you an expert. Journalists and readers appreciate an expert’s opinion
11. Give something free to readers: If you have actual product, give that away. You can use it to drive traffic from the newspaper to your website. Consider an exclusive deal with one newspaper to get more coverage
12. Offer a series of articles: Share your expertise and help a newspaper fill column inches with interesting new content. Don’t worry too much about your writing skills, newspapers employ sub-editors to worry about that
13. Survey your customers: Find out what people think about specific issues (related to your business). Ask enough of their target audience, and the newspapers won’t be able to resist
14. Get involved with a charity: Don’t just give cash, that’s dull (plus cheque presentation photos are stuck in the 80s). Instead give your time, product, or better still use your staff and resources to do something exciting and different that will also raise cash for an exciting charity
15. Solve a problem: What’s everyone talking about? What can you do to fix it?
16. Create a problem: Can you make things better by rocking the boat?
17. Do something in a different way: Particularly if it has “always been done this way”. That’s what Richard Branson and Stelios do
18. Spot a trend and comment on it: Turn yourself into a commentator on a specific problem or industry
19. Be anti-corporate: Journalists can get a constant stream of boring, predictable corporate press releases. Be anti-corporate. Don’t be afraid to stand out.
20. Be refreshingly honest: If you expose the hidden secrets of your industry, will you get the credit for that? Will you lead the change or follow it?
21. Attempt to set or beat a record: A publicity classic, for a reason. Everyone loves a record attempt. And there are plenty of records to go for. Ensure your record is relevant in some way to your business
22. BONUS IDEA: Read the papers & websites for a month: Cut out / bookmark stories that catch your attention. Re-read all your clippings at the end of the month – what common themes or story ideas jump out at you?
About Publicity Heaven
Publicity Heaven works with small UK businesses that have a problem getting into the media. The business is owned and run by media insiders, who know exactly what editors and journalists want.
Managing Director Paul Green is one of the UK’s leading experts in getting free publicity, and using it to grow your business.
www.publicityheaven.com
08452 303049
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7 ways to improve your website's performance
On the internet, content is King. The more focused your website’s content, the better it will perform in search engines like Google.
Use this guide to give your website's content a boost.
1) Use short, easy to read sentences: People scan rather than read websites. Aim for 10 words or less per sentence
2) Make sure your spelling and grammar is perfect: Use a spellcheck
3) Use lists: They help people understand your message quickly
4) Place keywords that describe your business & location: For example use “public relations ” and “Wellingborough” on every page. This helps boost your search engine results
5) Use original content: Articles offering free advice (just like this one) are appreciated by humans and search engines
6) Add, update and rewrite frequently: Add new pages and refresh others at least once a month
7) Give your content to other websites: This helps increase your visibility and boost your credibility. For example, I will make this content available to a couple of trusted businesses I work with
About Publicity Heaven
Publicity Heaven works with small UK businesses that have a problem getting into the media. The business is owned and run by media insiders, who know exactly what editors and journalists want.
Managing Director Paul Green is one of the UK’s leading experts in getting free publicity, and using it to grow your business.
www.publicityheaven.com
08452 303049
