Fast Forward Marketing and public relations specializing in website design, marketing and promotion, surveys and market research, public relations, website design, search engine optimization, and internet marketing.  

Getting Favorable Publicity For Your Business Or Enterprise

"Publicity is the front cover of the magazine and it's free.  Advertising is the back cover and it costs a lot of money."  That's an old saying that has a lot of truth in it.  Of course, no publicity is completely free.  You either spend a lot of time and energy generating it yourself, or pay someone to do it for you.  But it's a heck of a lot cheaper than paid advertising. 

It also has another benefit: it acts as an objective endorsement of you and/or your goods or services. Therefore, it's usually more believable. Many famous brands were launched using mostly publicity -  Starbucks and Amazon.com, to name just two. 

The Press Release
The primary tool for generating favorable publicity is the press release or news release. Typically, there's a division between print media releases and broadcast releases. In press releases aimed at mainstream print media, you often have to be a bit more conservative. Whereas, if you're aiming at radio talks shows, you can be a bit more "out there" in your release.

So, first you have to decide what media you want to utilize. Print, broadcast, internet. If all three, then you may have to tailor press releases to each.

You also have to tailor your releases to your market and the players in your marketing channel.  For instance, you can't put out a boring, conservative news release aimed at the youth market, or gamers (avid video game players).  If your release really contains news of interest to your market, you can get some great coverage.  See this example of media coverage that one of our clients generated through his own releases.

Now, if you don't have a clue as to how to go about this, we recommend you study up on it, or engage the services of someone who does know how to go about it. Because you need to know how to work with newspaper editors, reporters and radio programmers or producers. Otherwise, your releases will just end up in the garbage.

A press release can't be an advertisement in disguise. Nothing turns off media people faster than that. Your release must be informative and of interest to the public that the paper or station caters to.

Part of being able to generate publicity is knowing or having the right contacts in the media to help you get your message out.

A lot of PR is "grunt" work. Perspiration. You need to follow up on your releases, come up with new angles, find new places to place your releases, and so on. That's the back-end grunt work.

And you better have your facts straight. Many editors will not release a story until there has been some due diligence on the part of the reporter.  You have to be able to back up what you are claiming or stating in your news release.

PR is fast-paced work, even a bit stressful at times when things are really popping...  But the payoff can be HUGE. 

Press Room
Your website should contain a Press Room page for posting your news releases and resulting media coverage.  See this example of a press room on one of our client sites.

Need help in generating some favorable publicity?  Do the services or products you offer have a story or interesting angle attached to them that your target market should know about?  Contact us.   727.442.9137

Fast Forward Marketing and public relations specializing in website design, marketing and promotion, surveys and market research, public relations, website design, search engine optimization, and internet marketing.