You want to market your company — now what?

While many people jump straight to advertising, we think we have a better solution. A solution that is not only cheaper, but also packs a bigger bang. Publicity.

Often “advertising” and “publicity” get confused and interchanged. Here are three main differences: paid vs. free, guarantee vs. gamble, self-promoted vs. reporter-promoted.

Advertising

• Paid location in a newspaper, journal or magazine, or on television, radio or online

• Guaranteed placement, including page, location, size, and date

• Readers know this is a paid advertisemen

Publicity

• Free location in a newspaper, journal or magazine, or on television, radio or online

• No guarantees on when or if you will be published or mentioned

• Readers think this has been discovered and shared by an unbiased third-party reporter

You can see that the main perk to advertising is control over when, where and how often your company is printed in the paper or posted online; however, for people who are patient and don’t mind waiting to see if their press releases will be picked up, publicity can save quite a bit of money.

For example, we recently represented a nonprofit wanting to get their name out into the community before the peak of their summer season. We were able to get their story printed in news outlets around the city and region. If they had purchased enough advertising space to match the amount of publicity we helped generate, they would have paid more than $62,000. Instead, they paid less than 1/8 of that cost.

So, publicity can save money, but it is not for the faint of heart.

Publicity requires thick skin in case of rejection. There are no guarantees about what an editor or reporter will find newsworthy or what will catch their attention.

Publicity requires patience because sometimes you have to wait weeks or months before you see results. Sometimes your news gets published within days or even hours, thanks to online news sites and social media.

Publicity requires diligence to check each publication for your news. Editors and reporters don’t always tell you if or when they are running your news, and even if they do give you a target date, it could change depending on what else is happening in the world.

The good news is editors and reporters are always looking for interesting stories. If your story is truly interesting, unique and timely, you can catch their attention if you reach out to them. Just remember, they do not owe you anything — you are not paying them. They’re job is to report the news, but if you have news for them to report, publicity may be your ticket to greater exposure, more clients and increased sales all without breaking the bank.

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