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Good public relations gives you
free exposure to the world

Develop your public relations skills and you'll get free coverage in the press much more easily than you think. Editors are always on the lookout for articles to interest their readers. That’s the key. No blatant sales messages. No personal soap-box for the author. Go for reader interest only. If you can angle it that way, you’ve got a chance.

  • Use press releases to announce new products, services, people, locations. Press releases are great for this. You should create another mailing list of all the publications, local and national, where some coverage would do you good. Whenever you have something interesting to tell them, send it to all of them. If you’re lucky, one or more will run a summary with your contact details. If you’re very lucky they’ll contact you for more information and print that too.

  • You may need to vary the press release to suit different publications. For example, if you’re a photographer specialising in building work, you might send a different version to Architecture Today than you would to the local evening paper. Make it specific to the readership.

  • A news article will get you more coverage than a press release. As we’ve seen, you should only send an article to one editor at a time. You need to know the look and feel of the articles they normally run. Make yours look the same. Vary it to suit the publication. Do not make it a sales pitch. If you’re lucky they’ll agree to run it. If you’re very lucky they’ll even pay you!

American public relations legend Aaron Cushman says: “Don’t create news releases, create news!” .

Amongst many other public relations successes Aaron’s company was responsible for Marriott’s worldwide new hotel launch strategy. He didn’t just create news releases, he created events for the press to cover. His 24-hour “triple ground-breaking” for three new Marriott hotels from Kansas City to Newport Beach, California involved flying journalists over each location. When Bill Marriott pressed a dummy plunger on the plane, fireworks erupted simultaneously on the ground below. The press loved it and duly gave Marriott maximum coverage in their publications!

Think about how you could create a press frenzy for your next important news piece.

Aaron’s book, “A Passion for Winning” is available from all good booksellers, including Amazon.com and others.


A Low-cost Action Plan for Public Relations

1. List all the publications where coverage could be beneficial to you. In the UK look in the PiMS UK Media Directory or Willings Press Guide, both available at main libraries. PiMS lists them by subject area, which is very useful. Both publications have full contact details for editorial staff. Tip: Use your newsletter feedback form to find out what your customers really read.

2. Create a mailing list for your press releases and other public relations activities.

3. If you have nothing newsworthy right now, think ahead. When might you have? Office move, new people, new product, new service, major new customer. Write an outline of the press release now. You can adapt it later.

4. Make your press release a single A4 page, double spacing between lines. Date at the top. Insert “For Immediate Release” in bold in the top left hand corner. Your public relations contact details at the bottom. A bold headline to grab their attention. Keep your paragraphs short. The first paragraph should summarise the whole story. Who, what, when, where, how and why.

5. Send the press release to your mailing list at the appropriate time.

6. Using some of the ideas from the previous page, plan a news article. The main subject. A problem the readers may face. How they can solve the problem. Hints, tips, ideas to help them.

7. Prioritise your list of publications. Call them in turn and speak to the editor or features editor. Run your idea past them. Ask if you could adapt the idea in any way to suit them better. Ask how many words they want. Offer to include photographs, where appropriate.

8. When you find one that’s interested, write the article. Put it on your PC, or have it typed by a bureau. Make sure the bureau can give it to you on diskette when you’re ready for the final version.

9. Send the editor a printed version for review. Double line spacing. If you have the time, you can send a second copy, formatted like their printed pages.

10. If they accept it, make any revisions they request. Send the final version on diskette in ASCII ‘text only’ format. This is a neutral text format which they can then pull into their own publishing software. Most word processing software can save a file as ASCII or ‘text only’.

11. Keep trying until someone bites! If all this sounds too hard, look at my first public relations experience. I spent ten minutes speaking to two editors. The second one agreed to look at my feature. I took an article I’d already planned for a newsletter. Sent it. Added a paragraph that he wanted. He published it the next month. About an hour’s work on my part. You can do it, too.

12. Hey presto ... you're a public relations guru already!


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