4 Easy Ways to Get Publicity

September 11th 2024

You’ve heard me talk about “publicity” and the positive impact it can have on your business before, but I really want you to spend time now learning more about it. 

Publicity – also known as earned media – is that free media exposure you get when you’re quoted in the press. It could be an interview for a(n):

• Radio talk show
• TV news or talk show
• Magazine 
• Newspaper
• Online media outlet or content site 
• Blog
• Podcast

When you’re quoted by the press, you get an authority boost. That makes publicity more powerful than advertising and other paid-for marketing tactics. 

People are smart enough to know that journalists are selective about who they use as sources. So, if a reporter chose you, you must know what you’re talking about, they presume.

But how do you get that free media attention, whether your market is local or national? 

Here are four easy and effective ways to do that.

Start Locally

Even if your audience isn’t limited to the surrounding area, starting locally with publicity when it’s a new tactic for you is a good idea. You’ll discover what resonates with the press while gaining interview experience in a more forgiving marketplace.

Start by researching your local media outlets

In most areas, these include some or all of these: 

• Daily newspaper
• Weekly community newspapers
• City business journal
• Radio stations
• TV stations
• Community bloggers
• Local women’s magazines
• Regional parenting publications

After you’ve identified your local media outlets, read, watch, and listen to them so you get a sense of what is and isn’t appropriate for them. 

What kinds of articles do the daily and weekly newspapers use? In fact, weekly newspapers are typically very receptive to information they can just copy, paste, and use, and are well-written, too. 

Do the radio stations have talk shows with guests? Do the TV stations have early morning or noon news casts that feature in-studio interviews with community residents? 

Studying how each media outlet handles news and information helps you figure out where you might fit in at each. 

Next, figure out your “news hook” – your angle. Your “hook” is what makes you or your topic newsworthy or interesting. 

You won’t get very far with “local woman starts home-based business,” but winning a grant could get you publicity, particularly with a weekly newspaper or a local women’s magazine. 

Perhaps you’re collaborating with another business to host a community public safety event or nonprofit fundraiser. Maybe you’ve developed breakthrough technology that you can demonstrate. 

Think about what’s happening in your business that might be interesting to the community at large, especially if it’s something visual that would attract TV news cameras. 

Once you’ve figured out your topic, determine who to contact. In most cases with local media outlets, you want:

• Radio talk show: producer or host
• TV talk show: producer
• TV news: assignment editor
• Magazine: editor
• Newspaper: section editor or “beat” reporter (education, food, etc.)
• Community blog: blogger/blog owner

Once you know your news hook or angle, which outlets it’s appropriate for, and who to contact there, you “pitch” the idea to them via email. Explain your idea, why their audience will be interested, and provide relevant information that will help them decide it’s a good fit. That can include providing other sources to interview if you’re pitching a newspaper or magazine feature article.

Subscribe to Services That Help journalists Find Interview Sources

Several free services help journalists find sources to interview and quote in articles and broadcast segments. Some of the most popular include:

• Source of Sources
• Qwoted
• Connectively 

They are one of the easiest – if not the easiest – ways to get national publicity. 

Here’s how they work: For most of them, after creating a free account, you receive an email listing “queries” from journalists, writers, bloggers, etc. Queries outline what they’re working on and the information they need from potential sources like you. 

The queries come from a wide range of media outlets, podcasts, and bloggers. For example, one of the services recently sent an email with requests from MarthaStewart.com, Family Business Magazine, and Business Insider, among others. 

Here are a few tips for responding appropriately to queries: 

• Be selective about those you respond to. If you don’t fit the description in the query, or you “kind of” know about the topic but “not really,” responding will only waste your time. 
• Don’t use AI to write your response. AI responses are shallow, impersonal, often inaccurate, and generally useless. If you can’t respond from your own knowledge and experience, don’t respond at all. 
• Respond to queries quickly. Some journalists will stop reading responses when they believe they have enough sources to proceed. Others will wait and review all of them. You never know which is which, so make an effort to show up in their inbox sooner rather than later.

If you’re the type of business owner who prefers to outsource this type of work, you can pay a service to do it for you. Costs range from $1,380 to be quoted four times to more than $4,000 a month for five. 

If you are budget-conscious and prefer to be more hands on, you can find more affordable DIY resources for mastering the art of the query response.

Write and Distribute a Publicity Tip Sheet

A tip sheet is a type of press release that offers tips or advice in a bulleted or numbered format.

Like a press release, it’s written like a news story so that a media outlet or blogger can run it as is. No additional research or writing is necessary.

Tip sheet elements include: 

• Attention-getting headline that includes the number of tips
• Summary first paragraph
• Your expert quote
• Sentence introducing the tips
• Short tips presented as bulleted or numbered points

Media outlets, especially newspapers and magazines, like tip sheets because they can pull out just one or two tips to fill space. They also run them as short articles or use them as a starting point for longer feature stories.

Radio stations share the advice in snippets or, like TV talk shows, build author interviews around the tip sheet topic. 

Bloggers run them as new posts because tip sheets give them useful information they don’t have to write themselves.

Blog Regularly

Many reporters, writers, and podcasters use Google to find sources to interview. 

Search results often include blog posts on the topic referenced in the search terms. That means the more you blog on your business’s area of expertise or product line, the more likely your content is to turn up in their search results. 

Here’s how you can leverage your blog’s content to get publicity:

• Make sure your email address and telephone number are on your website and easy to find. More and more business owners don’t have this information on their sites, but nothing says, “I’m not interested in talking to you about what I know” quicker than no contact page, or, almost as bad, just “Follow me on Instagram!” on the contact page.
• Respond to media inquiries quickly. Keep media folks from moving on to someone else by prioritizing responding to these calls and emails. 

Publicity begets publicity

When you’ve been quoted a couple of times, something interesting often happens:

• Journalists who see you’ve been quoted before are more likely to contact you for an interview. That’s partly because another reporter has vetted you, but also because it’s clear that you’re willing and able to talk about your topic.
• You and your business show up higher in search engine results when journalists are looking for people like you to interview.
• You earn the right to share media outlet, podcast, etc., logos on your website in an “as seen on” banner. That’s impressive social proof that you’re credible and authoritative. 

Don’t wait to pursue publicity. Let it help you reach more of the right customers so your business grows.