Over the years this has been one of the most valuable assets to my business . . . that is, my ability to generate free publicity. I've never actually calculated it, but I'm certain I've gotten well over a million dollars worth of coverage. (I'm just pulling that figure out of a hat based on the cost of the airtime or space I've received on radio, TV and in print.) 

Mentioning your website address AND giving an incentive to visit could send tens or even hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site. These visitors will be highly targeted because they have seen, heard or read about you in the media. No one would bother to visit your site if they weren't interested in what you have to offer.

This article is meant to get you moving on this and to give you some resources both to get covered by the media and to be great when you do get covered. Below I'll give you a link to a free chapter and Table of Contents of a really fantastic ebook Joan Stewart and I wrote on the topic.

Now let's talk about two main types of media publicity:

PRINT -- Newspapers, magazines, trade journals, newsletters, websites, ezines

BROADCAST --Radio, TV, Webcast

PRINT
One of the biggest mistakes people make when shooting for print publicity is to shoot too high and ignore all the other slam dunk easy-to-get print mentions or features. In most cases the easy-to-get publicity is more valuable to your business. Let me explain:

It is relatively easy to get mentions or coverage in trade journals and newsletters that directly impact your industry or expertise. The people that read these newsletters or trade journals or websites are infinitely more likely to have a need for your product or service than a general audience from "Time" magazine. In many cases these more targeted publications are really hungry for good content, news and commentary. They also have limited budgets and editorial staff so if you make it easy for them to use your story or comment, you will be likely to get the nod.

I'm not saying don't shoot for the big time. I'm saying don't ignore the small time. Getting mentioned or a feature about you in the "Wall Street Journal" can mean tremendous things for your business either in direct business, more publicity or bragging rights. The problem is that many people only shoot for the big time which is much harder and more costly to tap. You could be losing lots of money in your target industry by only trying for big time stuff.

BROADCAST
I love radio better than anything. If you know what to do, you can be doing radio all day long seven days a week if you want to. The best thing is that you do virtually all of it right from a telephone no matter where you happen to be. I did one interview from my cell phone, on an airplane before they closed the doors of the plane. I've done them from my car, from hotel rooms in foreign countries and tons of them right from my home office.

I've only done a few of them in a studio. The reason is that they don't really want you in the studio because A.) It's a hassle for them unless you are a celebrity, B.) They want to be able to dump you quickly if you are a lousy guest. and C.) It's a hassle and much too time consuming for me.

I've done plenty of TV too, but I quit looking for TV stuff a long time ago. Not that I don't like it and not that it's not a good thing, but it's just too time consuming. You have to dress up, go to the studio, wait around for your segment, and then come home. A few minute segment could eat up a whole day.

Again, if someone big calls, I try to accommodate them. I recently did MSNBC commenting on President Bush's presentation skills. That was worth it simply for the bragging rights that help me close deals when someone wants training or if they need a shot of credibility before they buy my "Wake 'em Up Video Professional Speaking System" http://www.antion.com/speakervideo.htm 

Webcasting
I haven't wasted much time with this or with Internet Radio. An article in the Los Angeles Times convinced me that not enough people are listening to make it worth my time. Maybe sometime in the future, but certainly not right now.

Traffic:
If I have time to look at my statistics after a major media appearance I can usually identify a spike in traffic. Sometimes it's a massive spike and sometimes it's a little spike. There are lots of factors. . . . Time of day, demographic and number of listeners, which website I'm talking about, etc. On some of my high traffic sites I wouldn't see a spike as prominently as I would on a relatively new site.

If you do a good job on your interview, though, you will get traffic.

HOW TO GET PUBLICITY
You've got to install some mechanism to keep yourself in front of the media. You could hire a publicist, but that can be enormously expensive with no guarantees of success.....there are never any real guarantees of success when it comes to getting publicity, so I feel that in all but the most specialized cases you should keep the expenses to a minimum.

Databases
For radio appearances I can recommend only two databases. You can purchase them from 

Joe Sabah http://www.joesabah.com/  Joe has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of books simply by doing radio interviews. He has kept meticulous track of all the radio talk shows, their hosts, producers, etc. He also tells you his method on getting the stations to call you for interviews. I've used his methods and they work.

Alex Carroll. http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=16978 Alex is a really cool young guy who wrote a book on how to beat speeding tickets. He's sold over a million dollars of these books on the radio. His database specializes in stations that have over 100,000 listeners.

Print
There is only one service I can possibly recommend now for large scale print publications. It makes my publicity efforts extremely easy. It's Dan Janal's http://www.prleads.com For a yearly (dirt cheap) fee Dan sends me current and targeted publicity leads nearly every day. It's the easiest publicity I've ever gotten. The first day I used the service I was interviewed by the "Wall Street Journal." On some of the leads you have to be creative to send them an interesting angle, but that's what publicity is all about.

You can of course contact any print publication directly. In fact, most of your industry publications would never show up on the service above.

How to be great on your interview
I recommend this guy no matter what kind of broadcast interview you do. He happens to specialize in Radio, but the techniques apply to TV also. I don't get on too many bandwagons, but I believe this guy is a genius. I was already pretty good at doing interviews and in about 30 seconds he taught me how to triple the size of my potential listening audience.

This article
So this articles wasn't so much of a how to do it, but more of a "What to do" to get great publicity." I can't impress upon you enough the importance of increasing your skills in this area.

Let me recap:

• Attack print media on the national level by signing up for http://www.prleads.com 

• Attack a targeted industry by locating an approaching that industry's trade journals, newsletters and websites.

• Attack broadcast media by concentrating on radio which is much more time efficient. Purchase a database to work from and contact stations with a good angle (you must learn to do this)

• Get good training. I highly recommend Joel Robert's two-day "Excellence in Media" program. This program will literally make you great on the radio. Email him at jdrob36@aol.com 
  Phone 310-286-0631

Get your free chapter and Table of Contents for "How to Be a Kick Butt Publicity Hound" 
http://www.antion.com/publicityhoundTOC.htm 

This is a must read for anyone serious about getting publicity. Joan is fantastic and I threw in all the tips that I've learned over hundreds of media interviews.

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