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Editor's Note
Hello Readers:
To be a good marketer, you have to be skilled at generating interest
about a product or service. Of course, there are many ways of generating
interest. Most of them require you to create a brilliant advertising
campaign that costs nearly as much as a third world country's GNP.
But if you're really good at what you do, you can get people talking
without spending a dime on advertising. The trick is to generate
free publicity to promote your business.
Stephanie Mitchell
The PromoteNewz Team
Publicity is making something known to the public, spreading information
to the general-local or national-market. It is information with
a news value used to attract public attention or support. Everybody
use publicity. Politicians, manufacturers, celebrities even the
Detroit car makers use publicity to further their causes and gain
attention.
And publicity isn't limited to large organizations. Small committees
and enterprises use the local newspapers to publicize events and
endeavors.
Publicity differs from advertising because it is free. Although
some groups or individuals do trade tickets or services for free
mention in publications, generally publicity is newsworthy copy
that a publication produces.
Publicity is a form of promotion, although promoting a product or
service may require other efforts that cost the company money. Good
publicity is one of the best ways to let people know you have a
worthwhile business.
KNOW YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE
In order to gain publicity, you have to be totally familiar with
the product, service or business that you are promoting. If it is
your own product, you are the best one to describe the benefits
and features. If you want to publicize something else, talk to everyone
involved to get the facts and details.
 Consider
the radius of your market. If you have a local business such as
a retail store or service shop, most of your customers are from
the surrounding five miles. If you are located in a large city,
you may have a larger radius, but at the same time, there may be
stiffer competition.
Your enterprise might be regional or statewide and your clients
may come from hundreds of miles, either in person or by telephone,
to use your services. And, if you are a large manufacturer, your
clients and customers may come from the entire United States or
you may have a worldwide audience.
Before you seek publicity or even advertise, KNOW YOUR PRODUCT.
Be familiar with the people who buy your product or service, and
have a full understanding of the general competition and the full
scope of marketability.
About the Author:
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Profile your customers. Who are they and what do they do? If you have
a service, how often is this service used? If you have a product, is
it something that is bought again and again, or is it a lifetime
purchase?
How much do your customers pay for your products and are you
competitive with the other manufacturers of the same products?
If you have an unusual product, are you reaching the widest
audience you can?
SURVEY THE MARKET
What do the customers want? Sometimes, the least expensive price
is not the most important element. With today's packaging, many
customers expect and will pay for things elaborately packaged.
Where do these people go to buy your products? Are they sold at
retail outlets or through trade publications or magazines? Or,
are they special items available from mail order or from certain
regions of the nation or the world?
Finally, why do your customers buy this particular service or
product, or use the particular business you have? An architectural
design studio produces blueprints for architects to construct
buildings for homeowners and industry. But your product may be aimed
at a less precise group of people, somewhat hard to define.
You can discover what consumers want from surveys. You can get copies
of surveys from special companies that conduct surveys, or you can do
your own. The best place to conduct a survey is at a trade show for
your product. You might run a drawing and ask people to fill in
information. You can have cards printed with boxes to check easily so
people will spend the time to answer your questions.
Manufacturers use surveys with warranties. Appliance makers often
include a few questions along with the warranty that the consumer
sends back.
Most major manufacturers have their own teams of product testing.
Toymakers bring in children and watch their reactions. Book publishers
have people look at covers and decide which they'd buy. Even the
car manufacturers run surveys and opinion testing on style and pricing.
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