Both these sites are free to use and send out messages every day about media opportunities.
In other words they have journalists and other people in the media inviting people to participate in a specific media opportunity.
This might be an interview on radio or TV, an article in a newspaper or magazine and so on.
If you then respond in the right way to the media opportunities that are a good fit for your type of business you can often get some excellent media publicity at no cost.
Key 2: Make your business media friendly
Dean Salakas is the Chief Party Dude at The Party People.
The business is now Australia's market leader for party supplies online and also operates the largest party store in Australia.
Dean has appeared on many high profile TV and in dozens of newspapers and magazines as well.
Dean said that one of the most important things you want to do to get positive media publicity is to make your business media friendly.
What this means is add a lot of detail that will be of interest to the media on your website about us page.
If you go the about us page for The Party People you will see it covers a lot of information about the business.
Including a detailed listing of all the times they have appeared in varios media outlets.
By having a detailed about us page you make it easier for a journalist or someone else in the media to potentially feature your busieness in a story they are doing.
Key 3: Respond fast to media opportunities
Maryanne Parker is an international business, social and youth etiquette consultant, situated in San Diego, CA.
Maryanne uses HARO all the time and as a result has been featured in dozens of publications such as:Martha Stewart Weddings, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, The Daily Meal, Southern Living, Reader Digest, and many others.
Maranne is registered on HARO and receive HARO notifications of media opportunities.
As soon as she gets a HARO e-mail and recognises something regarding her industry,she replies to the media request immediately. (If you are not first you are last is her motto.)
Key 4: Have an interesting story to tell the media
Cristian Rennella is the CEO & CoFounder of travel comparison site oMelhorTrato.com.
Cristian found that the best way to get free media publicity for his business was sharing the successes and mistakes that they were making as they created and grew their company.
His company currently has over 134 employees and over 21 million users in South America.
For example, in FastCompany Magazine he shared How our company stopped using emails internally to be more efficient.
Banning internal email was a really interesting story which made it easy to get media coverage.
And many businesses can do something similar by figuring out an interesting story about what they have learned in their own business.
Key 5: Use a proven system to get media publicity
Jason Hanson is a former CIA Officer and has a survival training business and a marketing business.
He has enjoyed massive amounts of free media publicity and one of his specialities is getting featured on TV shows.
He wrote an excellent book called The Celebrity Method which goes into great detail on how to do this.
One of his proven systems to get featured on dozens of TV shows is his duct tape escape trick.
In around 2 seconds he shows a TV audience how they can escape if their hands are tied in front of them using duct tape. This duct tape escape is highly entertaining and because TV is a visual medium it goes down well for any TV audience.
The good news is that any business can create a highly entertaining and visual hook (like Jason's Duct Tape Escape) that will look good on TV.
Jess Todtfeld is a former television producer, bestselling author, and runs a media training company helping people all over the world get noticed in a big way.
When Jess wrote a new book recently he used his media strategies to do 112 radio station interviews in 24 hours and set a Guinness World record in the process.
Jess has a proven system to get his press releases noticed by journalists and other media people.
He addresses the person by their first name then writes one to two sentences steering the media person to his press release.
Here's an example:
Mary,
Thought you could use this end-of-year story. Would the story below work for your show? — Jess
Jess Todtfeld
Success In Media, Inc
www.SuccessInMedia.com ======================================================
ATTENTION GRABBING PRESS RELEASE HERE –
This will have an ENTICING HEADLINE along with…
* Point of View
* Opinions
* Highlight the best of what you have
* Highlight what they'd likely use
This proven press release system works very well for Jess.
After reading the tips that 53 businesses sent me about getting free media publicity I can see that it is a lot easier when you know what to do.
However you do have to work at making it happen.
(In this column I only have space to mention a handful of keys to enjoying free media publicity. If you would like more detailed information on dozens of different ways to create free media publicity for your own business just send me an email.)
"The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you." - Robert De Niro.
Action step:
What are you going to do this month to increase your chances of enjoying some positive media publicity for your business?
- Graham McGregor is The Added Value Marketing Expert™. Register at his website www.addedvaluemarketing.com and Graham will give you a free copy of his brand new free guide 'Easy Sales with Added Value Marketing'. (This guide contains ten time tested strategies that any business can use right now to create easy sales and delighted clients and is with Graham's compliments.)
