Shining the light on publicity

Let us get your story into the publicity spotlight, so you can send your message to the masses. Using the media to communicate key messages to the wider public can be very effective. Publicity is an extremely cost effective way of getting your message to a lot of people within a short space of time. It can persuade, inform, educate, delight or shock.

A story that is going to gain publicity needs to have one or more of the following elements:

·         Well known people – politicians, celebrities

·         Timeliness – the news is current and or relates to other news

·         A local angle – relevant to a small regional community, a state or country

·         Public interest – it will be useful for most people to know about it

·         Novelty – it is quirky, cute, unusual, “a first”

·         Achievement – by an individual or organisation

·         Emotion – humour, conflict, tragedy or romance

·         ‘st’ factor – wost, best, biggest, first, least, most

At Positive PR we put a media value on the publicity gained in a report format so you have it on record and can see your return on investment. The media value is what your editorial coverage would cost if it were advertising space. We find out how much it would cost you to place an ad the same size, colour and page position. One client who is in the arts industry recently invested $1250 in publicity and got a return on investment of $26,659. This means the editorial coverage received would have cost them $26,659 in advertising, but instead all they spent was $1250!

Publicity is free and has credibility in that it is written by someone else who thinks your story has value. We have solid relationships with all media outlets in Townsville and North Queensland and have a 90 per cent hit rate with articles being published.  

It is very important not to confuse publicity with advertising. Journalists will often remove any content they see as advertising, and if they don’t the sub editors will. Things that may get removed include prices, times, phone numbers, email addresses. You have no control over how your information is used by media outlets, if you want complete control you will need to take out an advertisement (But let’s save the difference between advertising and publicity for another column!).

Here is a recent article from the NQ Confidential in the Townsville Bulletin (Saturday, November 13 2010). The article puts the Watermark in the spotlight for their brand new cooking classes, it also promotes Positive PR supporting their clients. We pitched this story to NQ Confidential because it is known as the local gossip column. We believed the Watermark was one of the only restaurants in Townsville selling the most famous ‘macaroon’ and we wanted to let the cat out of the bag – so they say. The key to media picking up your story is knowing where it should be placed within news.

There are many different sections of news. In a newspaper you can have: News, Business, Columns, Sport, Entertainment, Travel, Food, Property and the list goes on.

On television there are also various styles of reporting from News Bulletins to Current Affairs, Lifestyle, Travel, Game and Children's.

And for radio it is much the same: Current Affairs, Talkback, Rural Programs, Community Service Programs, Gardening, and Entertainment.

Do you think your business could use publicity? Book in a 20 minute consultation with Katrina and let see if we can make some news!