Publicity is defined as information used to draw public attention to people, products, services, events and so on.
Publicity is an important part of an overall marketing campaign and needs to be managed to ensure that a consistent message or story is told.
Publicity can take many forms, it can include an event that you are running, sponsoring events or organisations, facilitating workshops or speaking, issuing statements related to your expertise, publishing testimonials of your product or service or providing testimonials to other businesses. You can distribute newsletters, media releases or conduct social media or viral campaigns.
Basically publicity is free – because of this you cannot control how your messages are printed or in fact where they are published.
With this in mind it may be worth considering using an experienced professional writer, or marketing consultant to guarantee more success with your publicity campaign.
Visionary recently worked with Clunes Booktown Festival to assist with management of their publicity for the 2012 event, our professional writer (an experienced journalist) was able to provide the correct messaging in language that media would connect with. In addition to telling the story of the fabulous event, great speakers, publishers and entertainment we were fortunate enough to be able to leverage of the announcement of Clunes receiving recognition as an International Book Town.
We managed interviews and messaging across local, state and national media, including radio, television, newspaper and social media –gaining coverage for Clunes as a Book Town and talking about the Festival – across the country!
In order to gain great publicity coverage you need to ensure that the original message is consistent and clear, and that it is integrated with the rest of your marketing. You need to be responsive and react quickly when media require interviews or photos – they are often reactionary given the nature of their business, you need to be organised and ready.
If you thought that mainstream media messaging was hard to control, social media is making it even harder to control messages, but sharing and re-tweeting should be encouraged in addition to tagging and people talking about the product, service or event. The more chatter, the more people will start to notice your messages through the clutter of communication they are bombarded with on a daily basis.
In order to measure the success of your campaign you can create ‘media alert’ portfolios that track mentions of keywords across the internet – you can also employ companies who watch newspapers and magazines looking for results. Measurement is an important aspect of any campaign.
Do you have a new product, new service or running an event? Maybe you are re-launching your brand or celebrating a partnership or joint venture?
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