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To Your Success!
Phil
This week, we’re focusing on one of the most powerful ways to market your small business: publicity.
As Phil explained in his recent post, there are several benefits of publicity, including:
1. You’ll generate more leads, as people learn about you in the media.
2. You’ll convert more leads into customers, because you’ll have more credibility.
3. You can also leverage this credibility to land partnerships and attract investors.
So how can you get started?
Here’s my advice…
Start by positioning yourself as an expert.
Reporters love to interview experts, so it’s a good idea to start positioning yourself as an expert in your industry beginning today.
And one of the best ways to establish yourself as an expert is to create “thought leadership” content.
In case you’re thinking, “But I’m not an expert…” – let me stop you right there. Yes, you are! If you’re a small business owner, you’re absolutely an expert because you know more than 99% of the population about your field of business. You just need to organize and clarify your expertise, so that it’s accessible to the general public.
For example, if you’re a chiropractor, you’re undoubtedly an expert on the topic of natural pain relief, including headaches, back pain, neck pain, and so on. Without a doubt, you know a ton about pain relief.
Chances are, you know enough that you could easily write a book about your field of business. But I don’t recommend you start with a book (although you may want to consider that at some point). Writing a book is too big of a commitment.
Instead, start small.
I recommend you start by publishing articles on a blog.
One of your first questions might be, “Where should I host my blog?”
If you’re ready to commit to posting regularly on a blog, then I recommend you install a WordPress blog on a sub-directory of your website such (domain.com/blog) because this has nice SEO benefits for your website. If you don’t want to commit to that quite yet, then just grab a free blog on Blogger (owned by Google).
Next, create a list of topics you want to write about. I recommend you generate at least 10 topics for articles. Here are some ideas to get you started:
In terms of the articles themselves, I recommend you write articles that are 500-800 words in length. Create a good, catchy title for each one. Aim to communicate one big idea and a few supporting points. And try to make your articles actionable, so that people feel like they got something useful out of reading your article.
(If you don’t like to write, then you can record yourself talking about these topics, and then get that recording transcribed, and then edit the transcription into articles.)
I recommend you post at least 10 articles on your blog, for two reasons. For one, you’ll get a sense for whether you actually like producing content. By that time, you’ll also start to clarify your knowledge… and chances are, you’ll get excited about how much you really do know about your topic.
And here’s where all this blogging transitions into getting free publicity…
After you’ve gotten into a rhythm of posting content onto your blog, the next step is to contact relevant media outlets and ask if you can contribute an article to their publication. You might contact your local newspaper, a relevant magazine, or perhaps an industry trade journal. You can also start by contacting other blogs, and offering to provide a guest blog post.
Essentially, you’re offering free content in exchange for publicity. When reaching out to these organizations, you can point to the articles on your blog as examples of your writing. I recommend you contact at least 10 organizations. And if you don’t hear back after a week, you might want to send a friendly follow-up email.
Once you get published in one of these venues, you’ll generate valuable exposure for your business. You’ll likely generate some leads and website traffic from that exposure. In addition, you can leverage the credibility by putting the logos of those media outlets on your website.
Plus, be sure to leverage any guest articles into more contributor opportunities… Once you’ve been featured on a publication or website, be sure to reference that when reaching out to other organizations.
Here are your action items…
1. Setup a blog
2. Create your list of topics
3. Publish content on your blog
Then, start contributing content to other organizations.
And if you want more publicity tips, watch this video.
Does your business have a public relations (PR) strategy to get ongoing publicity month after month?
If not, then by the end of this article you’ll understand why it’s so important for your long term success. When done properly, PR can be one of the fastest and cheapest ways to grow your business.
If you’re not leveraging PR, then you’re missing out on the following 4 key benefits:
I can’t think of any business that wouldn’t want more leads, traffic, conversions, and strategic partners. Yet few businesses take advantage of this FREE opportunity.
So how does PR generate more leads?
When you (the business owner) or your business is featured on TV, radio, magazines, or even online, then your prospects take notice and naturally want to learn more. Immediately following the publicity, you’ll receive more phone calls and more visits to your website. As long as you have a good system for collecting lead information via phone and online, then you will quickly generate leads from your PR.
As I just mentioned above, prospects will visit a business’s website to learn more after hearing about them in the media. But that’s just a short burst of traffic that doesn’t last too long.
The long term affects of the PR will come from the search engine optimization (SEO) benefits. For example, virtually every time you get publicity the media source will publish a link on their website (i.e. CNN.com or Inc.com) to your website. As you may know, these link are HUGE to increase your search engine rankings because they are from authoritative websites that Google loves.
So by getting ongoing publicity, you’ll naturally improve your rankings in the search engines, which in turn will drive even more traffic to your website every month.
Now you know PR will generate more leads and more ongoing traffic, but it gets even better. The more publicity you can leverage, the higher your sales conversion rates will be. So not only will you generate more traffic, but you’ll be converting a higher percentage of visitors into paying customers!
The reason your conversion rates improve is because publicity is incredibly powerful social proof that instantly gives your business credibility.
Think about it. If I had the choice to do business with company X or company Y and the only difference was that I saw company Y featured in Inc. Magazine, then guess who I’m giving my money to? That’s right, company Y wins my business because I trust Inc. Magazine and by featuring company Y they provided a 3rd party endorsement.
Don’t underestimate the power of publicity to improve your sales conversions. This benefit alone usually justifies the work involved.
The fourth benefit of publicity is to generate strategic partners. If you’re not sure how or why you should form partnerships, then check out this article: “How to Attract New Customers By Partnering With Other Local Businesses.”
Prospects are not the only people who will see you in the media. As mentioned above, publicity gives you instant social proof and credibility, which you can leverage to form partnerships.
If you want more tips about how to get free publicity for your business, then click here to watch a free video presentation. In this video, you’ll learn how to:
