Imagine you could push a button and articles about your product would appear in 10 publications over the next month. What impact would that have on sales, staff morale and the overall health of your business? Now imagine the effect of hundreds or even thousands of news stories.
Surprisingly, most businesses ignore publicity. Sure, a placement or two may dribble in from time to time, but for the most part, businesses seem blind to the marketing power publicity has to offer.
I’m not sure why businesses skip over this low-hanging fruit. It’s one thing to make mistakes when you are flush, but it’s unforgivable to watch product publicity opportunities rot on the vine when business is down.
Our clients get it, though. While their competition sits on their hands, our publicists are busy calling reporters and arranging publicity that shouts the praises of their products. Sometimes our clients’ competitors call us because they have seen a flurry of coverage and want in on the action. “Sorry,” we tell them. “But we’re already working with someone in that category.” Then I think to myself, “Good luck trying to go to find reporters to do your story after we’ve harvested the field.” I can hear reporters all over the country telling whoever they end up hiring, “Give me a call in a year or two, we just did a story on that.” Sorry, but I laugh a little when I think about it.
Take control of the publicity – the most powerful mass marketing promotional channel. Call us and we’ll begin harvesting publicity for your product. You’ll like the results.
Lonny Kocina is the CEO and Founder of Media Relations Agency which has been in business for nearly 35 years. During that time, Kocina also founded and sold two other businesses: Mid America Events and Expos, and Checkerboard Internet Services. Prior to that, Lonny worked as a marketing director for Investment Rarities Inc., a company with sales over 4 billion dollars. Kocina has also been a long time member of Vistage International which is a CEO peer mentoring organization. He was also a volunteer marketing mentor for Junior Achievement and the Carlson School of Business. For fun he has taught Principles of Marketing at the college level, and his recent book, the “CEO’s Guide to Marketing” is an Axiom Business Book silver medal winner as well as an Amazon bestseller. Lonny likes to kid that his third grade teacher may have summed him up best with a note sent home on his report card. “Lonny is a daydreamer and he’s getting worse each day. He complains of a stomach ache a lot and I don’t think he likes school much either.”