When a reader asks me where I get ideas for a blog entry, I answer, Google Alerts. If you are not familiar with Google Alerts, please visit www.google.com/alerts and start receiving alerts on the topic of your interest. Since Google Alerts immediately notify you on most current events, you can start a discussion surrounding a popular topic to bring traffic to your blog. So for my blog, the alert is on network marketing or something similar to attract targeted traffic. Google News pick up and Google Alerts send notifications to my email whenever a network marketing distributor writes press releases. But what annoys me is the level of news I receive from these press releases most of them are not newsworthy. I read mostly blatant sales pitches that do not add significant value. This is why I decided to write this topic How to Pre-Sell Your Business Using The Media. So lets talk. How to Pre-Sell Your Business Using The Media The most important principle you must remember when writing a press release is that your article should serve the reader and not your self-interest. While the media is always on the lookout for news, they do not exist to advertise your business. But rather, their job is to deliver newsworthy contents to the public. On the Internet, where 92% of its users come online to look for information, providing the reader with free information becomes the most valuable news you can ever deliver. There are a few things you can avoid when writing a press release about your business. Among the things I personally avoid are, 1. Calling yourself an expert if you are an expert, others already perceive you. You dont have to call yourself an expert author. 2. Calling yourself or your business professional people expect you to be professional and calling it yourself does not demonstrate your competitive edge. You must prove to your prospects why you believe you are professional by articulating what kind of advantages you bring to the market compared to everyone else that your prospects deal with. 3. Giving praise to yourself Thank you for making us the #1 dealership in Nevada! Car dealerships are notorious for doing this. Their focus is on themselves and not the recipient of the message. Your prospects face irrelevant information every day and their minds are automatically set to remove all the unnecessary commercials. People are too busy to care about you or your business. But if there is one reason they want to deal with you is because your prospects see an advantage in dealing with you over all of your competitors. And the important thing to remember here is you must deliver news to your prospects, always thinking whats in it for them. If you just focus your message in terms of whats in it for the prospects, you out promote 90% of your competitors because most of your competitors are performing the same marketing talking only about them. So here is the first step focus your message in the context of whats in it for your prospects. Try crafting editorial content instead of obvious advertisement. Second is whats in it for the media of course, the media needs to know why they should use their space to serve your news instead of all the other possible ones. Third, remember that you can strategically build brand about your business but ultimately, it is others that will identify it for you. Talking about yourself is sometimes the biggest turn off so shift your focus to the reader or the recipient of your message and craft the message in terms of whats in it for them. In conclusion, I am going to end with an article written by Jayme Dill Broudy of Pinnacle Consulting Group. Jaymes article was featured at Get Slightly Famous Online News Letter (Copyright 2006, Steven Van Yoder @ http://getslightlyfamous.typepad.com ) Jayme says, The key to placing articles is to package your ideas as news rather than as sales pieces. It is important to avoid self-serving articles that are thinly veiled advertisements. When written correctly, published articles provide highly credible media exposure that can quickly help your business become known and trusted entity among your best prospects. Two important things I would like to note to end this entry is, 1. Exposing your business to the media is not an alternative for advertisement. 2. Brand building requires that you demonstrate all of your advantages in terms of what you can do for your prospects now, and in the future and everything else you have done in the past. |
