How to Get Free Publicity

Whiz-kid goes from Rags to Riches and Makes Millions with Bike Rack Idea!… was the headline in The Globe Magazine. That was just one of literally hundreds of articles and stories that were generated from my publicity efforts for my sporting goods company.

Now the GLOBE wasn’t my first choice for my entrepreneurial story when I was working to increase exposure and sales using press releases. It started with me sending press releases about my products to local papers, then trade publications, and went on to include national & international magazines, including USA Today, Entrepreneur, Success, Popular Science and many others.

“Using the Power of Publicity to Increase Sales”

Those media efforts launched and helped the success of my business grow into a multi-million dollar company. Those releases gave my products millions of dollars worth in free advertising, outstanding third-party endorsements, squashed the competition, created a ton of sales leads…. and they positioned my products in the eyes of my prospects & customers.

Since then, I’ve harnessed the power of publicity to promote all kinds of products and services in more industries than I can count. Now I use publicity efforts to promote my Direct & Internet Marketing services, along with efforts to promote my client’s products that lead to millions in sales each year. It’s much easier than most people may think. There are hundreds of magazines starving for content, but it has to be of value or forget it, not to mention the millions of internet sites craving for new content.

When was the last time YOU sent out a press release? What’s YOUR opinion of media releases? Do you have a Media Section of your website? Learning how to craft and use press releases is extremely valuable for your promotional efforts…. and we’re going to look at how YOU can do it better too! The impact, reach and power of publicity have never been greater. You’re ability to get your stories published and read is much easier than ever before. Using publicity strategies with the power of the internet can give you a competitive edge, and increase your sales. Publicity is a valuable component of any company that wants a competitive edge.

For the purposes of today’s show, when I refer to either a press or media release, I’m referring to the same thing. Sure, if you want to get nit-picky a *Press* release is sent to print publications and a media release is sent to TV, Radio, and internet sites, but for today… the outcome is the same… to send a news worthy article or story that is something of value to a group of listeners, viewers or readers… and that includes your prospects searching the internet.

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to benefit from sending out press releases you had to identify media outlets, attempt to entice overworked and underpaid reporters, publishers or editors to pick up your story. It could be a long and arduous process. Even if you hired a PR Firm, you still were stuck with them targeting journalists and media outlets to select your stories. Today, you can benefit from online media sources that post and distribute your releases to millions instantly… We’re going to explore the strategies that you can use to become a publicity powerhouse!

You still want to include a strategy to get printed in traditional publications and viewed through media sources, but now you can use the power of the internet to do it faster and more effectively. Keep in mind, a poorly written, self-promotional press release will be just as useless in any medium… so you need to understand how the process works best to benefit from it.

It’s important to note that not all of the rules have changed for getting free publicity. The benefits remain virtually the same. You’re leveraging the resources of other media sources to reach your target market for much less money than advertising. The main difference from then to now is that before you had little to no control over what stories and how much of the story actually got published, but now thanks to online PR Services, your press release automatically becomes web content, which means it has a much better chance at automatically becoming news, and more importantly helping your prospects find you.

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