Welcome back! So glad you are here! Would love to hear your thoughts on this post! Will you please take a moment and comment? I sure would appreciate it!

Thanks so much!
Shannon Cherry, APR, MA

It’s a fact: you’re competing with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people both online and offline. How to you stand out from everyone providing the same products or services you do?

It’s about uniqueness… Find out more in today’s Monday Media Marketing Minute.

It went something like this… a woman at a conference approached me and said, “Hey you’re Shannon Cherry, the publicity lady. I want you to get me on Oprah.”

“Well, do you want to get on Oprah because you want to get famous, or make money?” I ask.

“If I get on Oprah, I know I’ll sell a lot,” she says.

“So, you want the sales.”

(Frankly, that’s the better answer than just being famous. If you are in business,  your marketing should help boost profits.)

“What’s your product?” I ask.

“I have a product that shows women how to create their own business.”

“How much?”

“$997.”

That woman – and her product – won’t ever make it on Oprah.  Why?

Because she doesn’t know her target market well enough to understand that they don’t watch The Oprah Winfrey Show.

It’s a common mistake and the one that makes any publicity strategy fail right from the start.

Once you know who your target market is (and by the way it’s not everyone and anyone… it’s not even a generic term like Moms or Seniors or Men with hairloss), you need to know what media outlets they use to get their information. Then you target those media outlets with your publicity efforts.

Sounds simple, right? It really is.

I know your next question: how do you find out what media outlets a target market uses?

And that answer is just as simple. You ask them. You can use a survey or simple flat out ask your customers.

One of the excuses I commonly get when I ask people why they don’t incorporate publicity and the media into their marketing is that they feel they cannot answer well of the cuff.

In this episode, I share how you can buy some time with a reporter before any media interview.

It’s the one thing you need for your business no matter what it’s size. It’s marketing.

But what often happens with small businesses is that without a system to effectively automate and manage what you’re doing with your marketing, you end up with lackluster results.

That’s why it’s essential to nail down your marketing plans and systems.

Bob the Teacher said in his report ‘Discover Your Simple Path to Six Figures’ that systems, “… things are just kind of haphazard. I leared the hard way that if you don’t have a system you can really get bogged down in the process of trying to build a business.”

So here are some ideas to help put a marketing system in place:

• Figure out what marketing task to do keep doing over and over.  Perhaps it’s an ezine, or writing press releases, or cold calling. Whatever it is, there is some sort of way YOU like to get it accomplished. Write down each step.
• Discover which steps could have a ’shortcut’. For example, if one of your marketing tasks  is blogging , what widgets are available to make each post have a call to action at the end?
• Implement the shortcut.

Here’s another way to systemize your marketing. I often schedule my tasks. So things like writing a free report is blocked off on my calendar, as well as times for followup calls to the media.

That way I don’t get ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ (distracted) by other ideas and tasks.

Want to hear more about systems and how to build a business? Bob The Teacher has given me permission to share the report I mentioned with you for free.  You don’t even need to opt-in to get it.

Grab your copy to ‘Discover Your Simple Path to Six Figures’ today.

And the more marketing tactics you use to market your business, the more you’ll make.  So dig in, whether you start with the FREE report, the marketing how to

Last time, I talked about how you need to break through your issues to be ready to get publicity. I even alluded that getting publicity wasn’t hard to do.

So how easy is it to get media coverage?

Before I answer the steps it takes, let’s explore some ground rules first:

1. Publicity is like any other form of marketing: You can’t expect immediate results out of the gate. Sure, it can and does happen, but a better approach is to keep it part of a long term marketing plan for the best results.
2. If you or your business isn’t ready for media coverage, you’ll be losing out on opportunities.
3. You can’t just sit on a couch all day and think that publicity will come to you. You need to hustle to be on top of trends and get to know reporters personally.

Here’s the 3 simple steps to getting publicity:

1. Know your target market. Understand what motivates them (the hook) and what media outlets they are using to get their information from.
2. Craft your message. Whether you use a press release or a pitch, make sure you cover all the bases with the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, why) and the H (how). Remember you are answering the question WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) for your target market. And “So what? Who cares?” for journalists.
3. Deliver it to relevant media professionals. This is key, as so often many folks just blank an entire media list whether or not it’s relevant to the journalist or the target market. And this is also where developing those relationships with reporters comes in. The more they know you, the more they are likely to rely on you for great news stories.

Want to learn the step-by-step process for getting publicity the RIGHT way? Therese Skelly and I are hosting a series of classes to help. It’s called Ready, Set, Publicity: How to Become THE Expert in Your Field. You and your business will be primed and ready to go. Plus we’ll show you how to get publicity through press releases and answering requests from reporters using HARO, PitchRate, PR Leads and more. Join us on February 2 by registering at http://www.readysetpublicity.com