Creating Publicity That Sells

Before I begin I would like to offer my apologies. Much like the 'how-to' books I write, this 'how-to' blog will be short, sweet and very much to the point. My goal here is to give you as much as possible, using as few words as possible. I am not here to sell you anything. I am here to give you the facts.

There is an entire economy and culture that has sprung up built upon 'those who know' selling 'information' and 'informational products' to 'those who don't know'. This is sad. For it takes but a moment of reading through the first few pages of this information to come to the conclusion that a great many of these people have never once actually done what they profess to know so much about. This is a terrible way to begin this blog and I did agonize over it, but I felt it necessary to say. I am saddened by the fact that this is sold as the 'truth' and is bought by those who innocently believe it.

And so I intend to simply give the facts away here. I will start at the most basic of levels and build as we go along. Some of this may be perceived as being a bit simplistic. However a firm foundation will be necessary to your ultimate success. This first post is an attempt to lay that foundation.

Once we have built this foundation, I will attempt to offer you some of the most creative, relatively unknown techniques out there regarding how to use these concepts in ways used by some extremely successful, 'out of the box' thinkers. In every case these will be people who actually DO this every day.

I would like to start by defining the word 'publicity'.

Publicity creates awareness about you and or your company. Publicity is not necessarily ALWAYS purposely created (look at Britney Spears), though this is what we are going to attempt to learn here. It goes without saying that publicity can be positive or negative. Publicity, as a general rule, is therefore not completely controllable. However from this point onward, we will define publicity as:

Your attempt to create, through various means, a positive impression in the minds of your prospective clients or customers.

Publicity is, in a word, awareness. Publicity is not marketing. Publicity is not advertising, Publicity and advertising are but two legs of the beast known as marketing.

As mentioned, publicity is not completely controllable. However, unlike publicity, advertising IS controllable. You create an advertising message and then place the message in the proper media. All aspects of an advertisement are completely controllable by you. However you control only the message, not the response TO the message.

The First 'Rule' Of Marketing

I have stated over and over again that you must completely and thoroughly understand the first rule of marketing. That rule is this:

People Only Do Business With People They Trust.

Ultimately, in every message you send to your potential client, whether publicity or advertising, your first and foremost goal must be to create that all important trust.

You can take classes in publicity. You can take classes in advertising. You cannot take classes in trust building.

Wnen I am asked to offer an opinion on a client's press release or ad or letter, my first reading of the piece is to look for the number of trust building statements. I then analyze the overall feel and positioning of the piece from the trust building perspective.

Now the other side of this coin is that you must not SUBTRACT FROM any trust those clients might already hold in you. Therefore, the third step in this process is to look for those trust destroyers. Only then do I look at the actual mechanics being used.

This is so vital, so basic that it should not need to be verbalized. However, I am somewhat appalled at the messages being put forth by well meaning people in both their publicity and advertising campaigns.

Take a moment today to look at what you are using in your campaigns from this perspective. Are you creating trust? Or are you potentially destroying trust?

Trust can be built or destroyed consciously or unconsciously. Though this goes to the very heart of the matter, I simply do not have the space to cover this completely here, so I will simply recommend you read my recent article 'Creating Trust - Using Words That Sell' located here

http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/articlecreatingtrust.html

Anyone can buy an ad and control the content. This does not create mistrust, but Joe Public knows anyone can do this. Very few can create positive publicity. If Joe Public sees someone on the front page of his local newspaper, he believes that person has EARNED the right to be there.

Therefore, publicity creates trust far more effectively than advertising.

All that being said, we shall start at the very beginning by asking the most basic of questions:

How does one create publicity that creates trust?

This is accomplished quite simply by creating a trust building message - a brand - and using that brand consistently. This brand, this message, is the core of the message you wish to present to the world. This is at the very center of everything else you will produce in your marketing and publicity campaigns, from press releases to advertisements, from radio interviews to brochures and everything in between. Each and every single sentence or paragraph you produce, from sell sheet to website must contain, contribute to or relate to this branding message in some way.

Please do not go off half-cocked without accomplishing this most basic of steps. Learning to do this can mean the difference between your success or your failure. Any person, from interviewer to web site visitor should be able to perceive this message in the first three seconds of exposure to you and your material. This is precisely how long you have to get that message across. About three seconds.

This is often a subconscious process. In that three seconds you must catch the eye or ear and create enough curiousity to keep that person interested enough to continue listening to your message. How do you know if you have accomplished this? By your response rate. Response rates can be difficult to track in some cases, easy in others.

A good example of an easy method is Google Analytics. This is a free tool anyone can use to get great information on the response rate of a particular page or pages on a website. On my sites for example, it will tell me how many people hit the index page - how long they stayed there - and whether they moved to another page on my site or simply clicked away. How can this information be used? Is this important?

You bet it is. Initially I had a rather high 'bounce' rate i.e. people who hit the page, stayed for a few seconds, and then clicked away. This told me my message was not giving them what they wanted. What they wanted was trust. And so I then rewrote, rewrote and again rewrote that page until I now have a situation where X% of people hit the page, X% stay for X minutes, then click through to read an article or two, then move to the purchase page, tell their friends about the site or leave the site.

Eventually we began to test by changing just specific WORDS only. In one case, we changed a single word and increased our ongoing click thru rate by 9%. I use this same theory with press release headings and ad taglines. Sometimes one word has the power to increase your trust factor dramatically. This past week has been spent developing a branding statement for a good friend and life coach. A full week of phone conversations and emails, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to find those all important 4 or 5 words that will say it all in just a few seconds.

Always remember: Marketing your product, be it a business, a book or a practice is not about you. It is about your response. What you believe may be creating trust may actually be destroying that trust in the minds of your BUYERS. Response rates will tell you how you are faring in the minds of those clients, regardless of your own personal preferences.

Response ratios allow you to fine tune your message for the greatest response. Other forms of publicity and advertising are somewhat harder to track, but it can be done to a degree.

Over the next three weeks I will tear apart the press release creation process and will demonstrate using the branding statement and the words that will get that editors attention in the header of your release. I am starting with press releases in that nowhere is the 'lack of trust factor' more clearly illustrated than in the fine art of getting a press release printed. In the meantime, here is your 'homework'. . .

Develop a statement that you will use the next time someone asks you:

'What is your (business, book, practice) all about?"

This statement must be less than 3 seconds long.

For instance, in my case, my answer is 'I show people how to build massive marketing campaigns for little or no money'.

Yours should be much the same.