Creating Newsworthy Public Relations Pieces
by Ken Bidgood
http://www.advertisingxp.com

To effectively market your product or service, you need to reach out to the public (your target market) with exciting compelling news about your company. Larger corporations have a bigger handle on this area of PR than small business owners. Often there is a whole department dedicated to "getting the news out". The small business owner is left with his own devises to generate news and that could become a tedious task.

Larger corporations are better suited for this task as some of them have entire departments dedicated solely to the production and release of news stories to help sell their products. A small business owner must accomplish this same task with significantly fewer resources or the expertise to do so.

It's not always that easy to generate real news. In the course of a week, month, or even a year there are only a few hot new ideas that hit the plate. Breaking achievements and hot new products are seldom a daily thing in business.

Generating genuine news is a lot harder than it sounds. Most companies do not have product launches every other week or make significant advancements in how they conduct business.

The 'Hall of Fame' is a classic publicity stunt. Creating a public relations Hall of Fame is the first step towards generating newsworthy stories. Find some people within your field that are experts and send out a press release.

Web sites like http://www.publicityinsider.com/HallOfFame .
asp is where you begin to learn more about using the Public Relations Hall of Fame for public communication.

Initiate a Petition Drive

The Internet offers some wonderful resources for businesses to create and start their own petition. If you have a hot topic in your industry or something people would like to see take place, a petition may be the source of "getting the news out" for your business.

PetitionOnline.com (http://www.petitiononline.com/petition.html). You can begin the petition process free. Yes, a free petition! Surf through the web site and learn from what others have placed on the petition site. There are petitions from all types of industries.

This is a real PR coup because there are so few businesses using petitions as a tool for getting information out about their products or services. It really is a great tool for this very reason.

Make a List.

A list can be more potent that you might realize and part of that is because media use them a lot. Year in and year out they get tons of press so start drafting up one today of your very own. The 10 Most Useful Car Accessories might be a good idea for a list if you just happen to sell, well, car accessories!

Hints to Keep In Mind

While you may loathe the expense, you may be best served by hiring a professional to tackle your marketing issues. Perhaps press releases are not your thing so letting an outside source handle them may very well be the best idea because they will be more likely to be able to get results and increase business. Time constraints are another possible motivator for letting others tackle tasks you are not ideally suited for.

If you are intent on drafting your own press release, try to keep these things in mind when doing so.

Simple is Better: A journalist always is looking for some kind of angle to anything you might be asking them to print for you. They all pretty much know why you want the piece published, but they need to justify their printing it to their bosses, too. Do not attempt to pull one over on the journalist and pretend to have a startling revelation that the world cannot live without knowing.

Stay positive. There is plenty of gossip out there so don't turn your news into trash. Positive comments will lead to better results. Don't concentrate on criticizing the ideas of others and instead remain positive because it will look better for your business.

Remain relevant. The story must be related to your business or else you are wasting your time. When crafting your list, try to think of things that will tie back into your business. Your story must always be in line with your marketing strategy.

The ideas mentioned here are a minute part of the overall process involved in creating a story that will help fuel interest in your company. You will want to tell an honest story about your business so utilize the resources on the web and any of those mentioned in this article to help you create the most accurate picture of your company possible.


About the author: Ken Bidgood is the chief writer at Advertising XP, visit there today for the latest Business advice, and their free newsletter is well worth signing up for too. Want to read more Business articles?, just go to: http://www.advertisingxp.com/articles There's also a free mini-course available that will teach you how to get loads of free targeted traffic.