Branding
10 Secrets for Free Media Placement
Why pay a high priced PR agent when you can get free media placement to promote your product, service, or book?
Follow these top ten tips for 2005 and it will be your most profitable year yet!
1. Write an attention grabbing headline.
Realize that your headline must immediately "hook" a busy producer or editor at first glance. If your headline doesn't hook them, they won't read further.
2. Be certain that your book is appropriate for the target audience.
Do not send a media release about your romance novel to a radio show that interviews only nonfiction authors. Wishful thinking is well and good, but realize that shows KNOW their target market.
3. Realize that there is a difference in format when sending a release by email and by fax.
A faxed release and release sent by mail can be identical. However, an email release requires careful crafting to get right and is an art onto itself. The key concept to remember is twofold. First, the subject line spells the difference between the release being opened or deleted. Second, you must target delivery of the email release carefully, or you risk being banned forever to the recipient's "bozo" file.
4. Be certain to include key information in a book release such as your ISBN number, publication date, page count and binding, and if you like a small .jpeg of the cover.
5. You can increase your chances of being booked on a radio station if you offer to give away books on the show in your release.
6. For media releases aimed at reviewers, include information on how they can get a book to review by email or fax.
7. Do not follow up to see if the recipient received the release. If this is a show or publication you are keenly interested in, call them with "new information" designed to create more excitement in featuring you.
8. Keep a notebook with you and jot down names of appropriate media contacts as you read publications and hear radio interviews.
9. Journalists and producers need you and your news, but will lose respect if you hammer them with releases that don't apply to their market or beat. Discriminate.
10. Keep a "swipe file" of clever advertisements or headlines you can refer to when you need a creative boost.
---
Publishing Guidelines: You can publish this article in your print or electronic ezine as long as you include the resource box/signature line below. If you are using this for your web based ezine, please hyperlink to http://www.BuildingBuzz.com and send a courtesy link to mailto:mdvari@deg.com
Marisa D?Vari is author of the new book Building Buzz: How to Reach and Impress Your Target Audience (Career Press, 2005 . Access a complimentary 76 page reports on free media placement, as well as additional articles, at http://www.BuildingBuzz.com and can be reached at mdvari@deg.com
Marisa D'Vari
Tags: PR, promotion, marketing, self-promotion, promote your book, Similar articles
3-Steps to Creating Brand WOW on the Internet
The information superhighway - how I love to travel it?s winding roads on the way towards my next shoe purchase!Truth is, today the Internet is the #1 resource turned to worldwide for information. Read more →9 Keys to an Effective Logo
The right logo, with the right characteristics, will boost your visibility, credibility and memorablity ? which means more business for you!These characteristics include:Consistency in use of your logo, tagline, materials. Read more →Accentuating Your Business Building
If you own or lease a business building and you want to get more traffic and attract people to see your signage it is important to accentuate your business building if at all possible. Read more →American Inventors Could Use Some Branding Help!
If you are one of the mesmerized millions who have tuned into the hit reality show American Inventor, you probably witnessed the importance of first impressions and the power of branding. Read more →Aphorism
In investing, rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.
John Bogle