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Priming
Yourself for Publicity
Todd
F. Brabender – Spread
The News PR, Inc.
When
it comes to putting together your initial business plan or
making out your annual marketing budget, the amount of money you
allocate toward “marketing supports” can make a big
difference in the success of your business’ impending
PR/publicity campaign. Although
it sounds obvious, many new entrepreneurs don’t realize that
typical sales marketing materials you budget for can certainly
be used for your “media marketing” as well. What I consider
“marketing supports” that are effective for PR are things
like: product photos; media samples; sales fulfillment options,
etc.. The more supports in place -- the more media coverage
you might expect.
Case
in point, I recently launched a consumer product publicity
campaign for a client who had many strong supports: great
product photos (hard copy & digital); product samples for
the media; an online ordering vehicle on his website. We got
tremendous media response in magazines and newspapers and even a
number of TV shows & newscasts. Because the product was very
visual, the coverage on the TV medium would have increased
tenfold had the client had a VNR (Video News Release) with
product footage. When
many shows requested the VNR and found out the client didn’t
have one, they simply could not give us coverage because they
didn’t have the time to shoot the video themselves to meet the
show’s deadline.
(The same principle holds true for product photos.)
This
is not to say that your PR campaign will fail if you don’t
have EVERY marketing supportive available. (VNR’s for example
can be very expensive to produce, duplicate and distribute. Many
new entrepreneurs decide against them for that reason.) I have
launched PR campaigns for very small start-up businesses that
didn’t even have simple product photos. (Although I strongly
recommend having as many supports as possible.) Because the
client’s product had strong, widespread consumer interest
value, media outlets picked it up because of the newsworthiness
of the pitch/product. Again, if the client had more money in his
limited budget to afford a FEW supports – at least photos
or media samples – our media coverage would have been even
more extensive.
Bottom
line -- from a publicity standpoint -- your marketing supports should help the media cover your product with as
little effort as possible. The less effort the editor/producer
has to put forth to place your product in an article or news
story, the better your chances for good media coverage.
If
you are planning/budgeting for a PR campaign and you have strong
marketing supports in place you stand to gain much more from
your campaign. Conversely, maybe you hadn’t thought about a
publicity campaign for your business. But if your marketing
budget has, in fact, allowed for a few of the supports listed
below, you are more primed than you realized for a campaign that
should lead to some great media exposure.
But
does your business/product have what it takes to initiate a
successful publicity campaign? How do you know if you are ready
to initiate a publicity campaign? Although PR campaigns can be
implemented for any type of business/product, there are a number
of factors that can help make a campaign more successful. In my
professional experience, the most effective publicity campaigns
are generated from:
- New
Product Launches (Consumer or Industry/Trade-Specific)
- Start-Up
Businesses with Innovative Product Lines
- Successful
Case-Study Information (Stats/Stories of Product’s
Effectiveness)
Businesses/products
with the following “supportives” tend to generate better
publicity:
- Professionally
Manufactured/Packaged Products
- Professionally-Produced
Photo/Art (Color or B/W Prints, Slides, Digital Files)
- Promotional
Samples Available for Media Reviews
- Reliable
Sales Fulfillment Vehicles (retail placement, online
ordering capabilities)
- Video
News Release (B-roll - video of product and its
applications)
The
items listed above are simply suggestions to help you get the
most out of your prospective publicity campaign. Each PR
campaign should be evaluated on an individual case-by-case basis
before determining which “supports” would be most
effective.
Spread
The News PR
Todd Brabender
info@SpreadTheNewsPR
www.SpreadTheNewsPR.com
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