Publicity is a great way to reach a lot of people with a limited budget.
The key is to have a message that is newsworthy, which obviously changes all the time.
Years ago it was enough to launch a new website.
Nowadays that's too common.
As I'm writing this, there's a 12-year old girl making news because of an experiment she conducted for her school's science fair: she had fast-food ice samples tested for bacteria and compared those test results with samples of toilet water from those same fast-food restaurants (about 30% of the ice samples had more bacteria in it than the toilet water).
Besides ordering your next soft drinks sans ice, this illustrates something profoundly important: news sells.
You need something fresh.
Something the public would want to know about.
So, that being said, let's explore some ways to get your free publicity.
Write a Regular Column - Whether in a newspaper, magazine, ezine, or offline newsletter, a regular column is a great way to establish you as an expert in your field.
You can also send reprints to your clients and prospects to add proof to your sales letters and promotional materials.
Write an Article - Articles can be anything from a short essay on a topic to a feature article in a magazine, newspaper, ezine, newsletter, you name it.
Again, article reprints help the selling job in adding proof to your persuasion.
Align With a Charity or Other Non-profit Organization - This is a great way to get free publicity.
Let's say you've created a course on starting a mail-order business on a shoestring budget.
You can hold a free seminar with local low-income families and youths, give a presentation, and then give them all free copies of the course.
Be sure to issue press releases with your local newspaper, radio and television stations, and community publications.
Stories like these make great humanitarian interest pieces for these media outlets.
Who knows? You could be the next guest on Oprah or the Today Show! to be continued..
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