Regardless of what kind of business you are in, you should want, and strive for, as much publicity for your business and your products or services, as possible.  After all, it’s “free advertising” that is essential to the growth of your business and with things tight right now, the more you can get for free the better off your bottom line will be, right?  It’s important that your publicity efforts should be well thought out, and pre-planned for maximum results.

An effective way to plan your media attention is to have a PR calendar made up for the coming year. The first thing is locate all the holidays you can use as a hook for a story. Don’t forget all those non legal ones that happen everyday.

Here’s a sample website for such events,  http://www.sldirectory.com/cal.html

Get a pad of paper and a pen and start brain storming, how your business or service can fit into these daily events.

- Rick Allen, “The Publicity Expert”

http://ThePRexpert.com

Inter copyright 2009 Rick Allen

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The number one problem in getting into the media is getting the media that you’ve sent these publicity stories to, is to get them to use them, publish them or get them to put you on television or radio in the case of broadcast media.

So, the biggest thing I see in having people send me their PR materials is that it is not being done correctly.

This leads us back to the “right way ” of writing a media release, and then submitting it to the right people, in the right place. Timing is also important and I’ll get into that in the future… now is not the right time.

A systematic approach to the format is the only way to be seriously considered when writing a media release. The media will only accept materials that fit their standardized format. Any thing else given to them will almost always result in it not being used by them, unless it is the slowest news day of the year.

OK, so a media release is formatted for ease of reading. It must have vital information in the right place, simply because the media is always on a  deadline, they will not and do not have the time to go looking for the basic information to consider using your release.

If the information is not where they expect to be, they will spend little time looking for it. A typical editor or news director gets anywhere from a couple dozen, in the smallest of media outlets, to hundreds on a daily basis.

Another huge problem that I see over and over, even from large corporations is that the media release is printed on letterhead. A media release should always be on just plain white paper in standard business letter size (for the USA it is 8.5 x 11) the paper needs to be plain white. Other then the formatted information for a standard media release the paper should contain nothing else.

In some cases, you can send a short cover letter addressed to the person you want your material to be considered by… This means that you send your story to the city editor (by name) of the newspapers;  the news directors of the radio and TV stations;  and the managing editors of the various trade publications. However this is something I seldom do. This is the only time you should use a letterhead or anything other then the plain white paper.

For a handy white paper that you will want to keep by your computer, on the   correct systematic formatting of a media release go to: http://ThePRexpert.com/white_paper/request.htm

Inter copyright MMVIII Rick Allen

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Business Blogging 101 Part 3
Driving traffic to your business blog
- Rick Allen, “The Publicity Expert”

How does SEO play a part in your business blog and bottom line profits?

Your blog is only valuable as a marketing tool if people see it and respond to it.

SEO, or search engine optimization is vital for the… click here to continue:
Business Blogging 101 Part 3

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This will be an exciting site. In the near future it will become filled with tips, hints, tools and cutting edge publicity, public relations, social networking and frankly unabashed ways to create self-promotion and position yourself as the “go to expert” in your field.  – Rick, “The Publicity Expert”

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In just one click, your business blog becomes an incredible marketing tool that first off saves you money but also opens up untold opportunities and networking in your business.

Few marketing opportunities in business are as user friendly, flexible and useful in quickly giving your customers and clients up-to-date information as your blog..

Add in that your blog is about as… to read the rest please go to: hubpages.com/hub/Boosting-Business-By-Blogging

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