So, you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get your publicity machine cranking. What avenues are out there to tell your story without sinking a load of dough into your efforts? Here’s a list of possibilities, in no particular order:

On and offline news release distribution
Writing articles for trade publication
A blog
Print or e-newsletters
Writing articles for web site content
Creating a press kit
Writing white papers and reports
Tip sheets
Generating interviews for on and offline publications
Online forums and discussion groups
Speaking engagements
Workshops / Seminars
Your website
Writing a book

Setting Up Your Plan
You’re not going to get too far without a well-thought out plan of action. Some of the best sage advise I know is “Plan your work and work your plan.” Without a written plan, you’ll find yourself floundering faster than molasses going up a hill in January.

A publicity or public relations plan is typically a subset of a marketing plan. The marketing plan is a subset of an overall business plan. But, that’s a topic for another post.

Here’s what’s typically included:

Executive Summary
This is a one or two page summary of what you’re planning to do, how you plan to do it, what result(s) you’re striving to reach, how much it’s going to cost and when key things will happen.

Current Situation
This section of your plan is an honest assessment of where you’re at now and usually some information about how you landed yourself in this situation.

Include any public relations and publicity efforts you have in place, or have done in the past. and how well they’re working (or worked).

Goals
This where you’ll list what you’re trying to accomplish. Goals should be realistic, attainable and measurable. For instance, setting a goal to get on the cover of Business Week’s next edition isn’t likely to happen. Submitting a news release to them just might.

Budget
List all anticipated costs for your publicity activities. It’s a good idea to tack on an additional 20%. Most things tend to take longer and cost more than you think they will. It’s also a good idea to create a spreadsheet where you can track what you did, when, how much it cost and what the return was for each effort. The bean counters like to call this tracking ROI, or Return On Investment. If you don’t do something like this, you’ll have a hard time really knowing what’s working for your hard earned dough and what’s not.

Schedule
It’s a good idea to transpose your action plans to a calendar. Ideally, this is a software calendar that includes alerts. Set alerts to remind you of what needs to be done with enough advance warning so you’re not scrambling to meet your deadlines.

I use a contact manager application for everything - my marketing and promotional tasks, client contacts, daily project tasks, personal appointments and tasks and even when I need to take any prescriptions. My computer is set up to talk, so I have audible alerts. As a matter of fact, one just went off to remind me to go to the bank and do the grocery thing. I love my contact manager. [humorous side note] A while back, I was taking a prescription for some work done on my teeth. I had my son over one night when my alert went off. “Neil, it’s time to take your medicine.” My kid lost it. He cracked up to the point of rolling off the couch while saying, “Oh my gosh! You’ve got a wife!”

The point here is to leave nothing to chance. Putting a system in place will help to keep you on track. If not, I can guarantee you’ll get busy with this or that and put things off … tasks which never seem to get done.

With your goals, action plans and calendar in hand, you’ll be able to effective schedule your time.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt