Remember the dot-com boom? With all those website commercials filling the airwaves?
They’re history now. So much of the internet craze was pumped up by marketing –massive dollars thrown into advertising, before there was a sound business model – much less any actual business.
They remind me now of a great bonfire on a summer’s night, those ad blitzes. More and more logs tossed on; the sky lighting up, excitement soaring, as the blaze roared.
In the morning nothing was left but a heap of ashes.
Too many dot-commers went all out to build visibility, but they forgot about credibility – with their investors, with their clients, with anyone.
When done right, public relations – in any industry – is almost the opposite. It’s all about credibility. Good PR will blaze away and flare up dramatically now and then, but it’s more of a steady, ongoing burn than a spectacular, short-lived bonfire. It lasts – because it is based on solid fundamentals.
In my last column, I introduced the notion that the secret to good PR lies simply in effectively communicating the very same body of professional knowledge that we use every day on the job. What we know and advise clients on taxes, personal finance, or running a business is 99% of what we need to get good publicity. Now, let’s start looking at how.
Step one involves a bit of attitude adjustment.
As I said before, free publicity is not the same as advertising. With
advertising, you tell the audience why your business is the
answer to their prayers. You pick your words and shape your message exactly as
you wish --
fair enough; you’re paying the freight.
With publicity the media, by implication, tell your clients that you’re worthy of their business.
People assume that if the media cover you, you must be good. This credibility
is invaluable, but it comes with a price: usually the media folks, not you,
pick the words they print, and how your story gets conveyed. Again, fair
enough: after all, that’s the whole reason you get credibility in the
marketplace from publicity -- it’s the media saying you’re good, not you.
So the trick is to shape
messages that get the media to cover you and prospects to call you. That’s where
your professional knowledge comes in.
It turns out, to your
good fortune, that the media want the same thing clients ask you for every day:
information, answers, and solutions. Think about it: clients want you to show them
new ways to save money in their businesses and personal finance… to help them
fund college educations. Well, reporters write about the same exact things all
the time! Whether it’s the business section, your clients’ own industry trade
press, or all the finance and investing media, they’re full of advice and news
articles your audience turns to constantly. And those articles are all built on
the same foundation: information, interviews, and advice from experts. Experts
just like you.
That’s the big secret of
free publicity. Learn how to reach those reporters, speak to them in their own
language, and give them information they need – and you’ll be the one reaping
all that credibility-building publicity. Then you’ll be able (I’ll show how in
future columns) to leverage that publicity into new business.
To win at this game, you
have to be a tad more media-savvy and proactive than your competitor. We’ll
cover that here too. The good news: if you can master a few simple rules, you
can get publicity just as readily as the giants in the field.
You see, good PR in the
end is not just about getting that glowing profile on your firm. Sure you want
that, but say you spend six months – or a year – working the media to land it.
You’ll get some prospect calls. But now what – wait three years until that
publication is ready to feature you again? No way! The key to meaningful publicity is to
create the steady burn – to be in the media all the time, showcasing your
expertise on topics that prospects care most about.
So, rule #1: the media
don’t care about you. Unless you’re Britney Spears or Tom
Cruise, they have zero interest in writing about you or your life. So forget
about trying to convince them that you’re the best, the biggest, the most
successful, or whatever. Instead, learn rule#2: the media do
care about what you know. Share it with them, and you’ll be golden.
The next step isn’t as
hard as it sounds at first. You have to learn to think like a reporter. This
does not require enrolling in journalism school, or changing careers. It just
calls for common sense. You have to remember that reporters are real people like you and
me, with jobs to do and hassles to overcome. You have to approach them with the
mindset that you are a resource to
help them do their jobs more easily.
Everyone –reporters included –likes it when someone helps them get their job
done easier. That’s what you’ll be learning how to do here in the months ahead.
And when the reporters start liking you, guess what happens?
They’ll start featuring
you, again and again.
Ned Steele
works with people in professional services who want to create a business
development initiative and build their business. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he
is the author of “102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or
Practice.” To learn more, visit www.mediaimpact.biz, call
212-243-8383, or e-mail him at: info@mediaimpact.biz.