Paradise Advertisement

1. E-mail: It was first but it is still around and still used. It is, however, getting a little harder to use as more and more government restrictions are placed on it. Still… it does work.

2. Newsletters: This is an extension of e-mail but it a very effective tool. If you include enough timely and valuable information, a good newsletter can drive up the number of visits to your website.

3. Blogging: Providing the tools on your website to enable bloggers to interact with one another is a terrific way to get the message about your product of service out there and being talked about. Bloggers have their ears to the ground for new products and services.

4. Chat Rooms: A chat room on your website can and does encourage interaction among your customers and that can’t be a bad thing. Also, you can use the chat room to schedule special events like having an expert available to answer questions on a given day at a given time.

5. Tell-a-friend Script: If you add this with a statement saying that e-mail addresses supplied will never be shared with third parties, you can increase your potential customer list greatly. Read the rest of this entry »

This is assuming of course that the publicity is positive. You can easily create any amount of publicity for no out of pocket cost. You must of course pay for advertising. This is why learning to think like a publicist, rather than trying to advertise your product or service, will pay off in ways and amounts you simply cannot perhaps imagine. You must understand something and understand it fully – People are TIRED of advertising messages. People, as a rule, find them intrusive. I read a study the other day that illustrated that more and more people spend time on the Internet now, rather than watching television, because they can get what they WANT, rather than what is being literally forced upon them.

People have begun to rebel against these messages. They skip over them or fast forward through them or hurl them in the trash or simply ignore them. The old days (and the old ways) simply do not work anymore. At the very least, they do not work as well as they once did. However, people still love a great story. They love to read about others. And they are heads over heels in love with free information. This is bad news for advertising professionals, but great news for publicists.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

However, free publicity, COMBINED with creative advertising, will blast you, your company and your product into the stratosphere of marketing success. If you are advertising exclusively, you are concentrating only upon the smaller side of the equation. I am now going to say two words:

Britney Spears

You saw a picture in your head when I said those words, did you not?

Britney would have to pay 100 million dollars a DAY to buy the same publicity she gets every day for free. Granted it is negative publicity. But I would venture to say that 90% of people on the planet recognize her name. This is why famous people hire publicists. To get famous. (Of course I would not want to be Britney’s publicist). Now I will say two more words:

Ella Stipowicz

See. No picture. You have no idea what Ella might look like. Or even if Ella really exists. Ella has no publicist.

Before becoming a publicity consultant, way back when I was very young and fresh out of high school, I joined a rock and roll band. We drew huge crowds, but were not really that good. We drew the crowds because of the band’s name. When we played a gig, the club owner was forced to publicize our name on the sign outside the club. The sign looked like this Read the rest of this entry »