Publicity can be the lifeblood of a business. Without it, you take a step backward every time a customer ceases to be a customer for any reason. With it, you advance several positions in the success process. With it, you have much greater input into your business growth and a great deal of satisfaction.

Just What is Publicity?

Publicity differs from “advertising”, which requires dollars to be spent (usually more than we would like to spend). Publicity gets the local media involved, gets you and/or your business covered in stories that appear in newspapers, magazines, newsletters or in the electronic media. The best part about publicity is that it’s usually free and you can obtain it by taking a few basic steps. A very nice byproduct of publicity is that it lends instant credibility to its topic: you and your business.

Many business owners believe publicity has to take a back seat to their crowded schedules. They are sometimes held back by a sense that they lack experience in promotions, or by limited financial resources or little time to seriously consider avenues and media that could make a difference. But the benefits far outweigh the results of doing little or nothing to promote your business.

Every time the name of your business is presented to someone – in print, over the air or the Internet – it reinforces the belief that your business exists as it is portrayed, i.e., as a shop that sells the freshest cut flowers, offers personal attention and fast, efficient service, or is the local “expert” for wedding flowers, holiday flowers, etc.

While your professional and trade organizations work hard to represent their members, your own efforts and publicizing the name of your business on a repetitive basis will put the icing on the industry promotions cake and bring the message home to people in your market area.

Planning for Publicity

Successful publicity doesn’t happen by accident. It requires thinking, planning and taking definite steps. Whether you call that being creative or just using common sense, it requires that you:

1. Brand your business as a certain kind of shop or company. For example, if you operate a flower shop, pick a specialty and brand yourself as your city's premier supplier of wedding flowers, funeral arrangements, or anniversary gifts.
   
2. Let's continue with the flower shop example, which you can modify to you’re your own business. Whether you want people to know you as the personal service flower shop or the shop that excels in flower quality, there’s a “tagline” you can offer in your publicity that will help people remember your company. You could be the “education florist,” offering picture books, booklets and tapes about flowers. How about the “exotic florist,” featuring the most exotic flowers in town? Being known for your great customer service is good, too. Create a tagline that reflects your specialty and use it everywhere.

Identify your audience.

Who would you like to reach? Describe your ideal customer by age range, educational background, geographic area, family, profession, income range, occasions for which they might buy your products, etc. Plan every advertising and publicity message to appeal to that very specific group.

Create a plan, an event and a timeline.

If you perform your own publicity campaign, you should have a strategy, an event and a plan. You can base your strategy on calendar events and seasons or timing for an event you know will occur in the lives of the people you’ve identified as your market. Of course, it should be an event for which flower purchases are a “natural”. After you pinpoint the customer event, plan your own special event to attract media attention and put your company in the public eye in advance of the event.

Your event could be a grand opening or grand re-opening. It could be held to introduce a new consultant; a special appearance by an expert; a one-hour design or demonstration show, workshop or an all day seminar; a fashion show for brides-to-be; a book signing by the author of a book about your industry or an area in which your customers are seeking more information, a start-the-new-year with us party or midsummer picker-upper party (with a luau theme!).

If you are altruistic, you might announce a reception for the presentation of a check to a local charity. While these ideas may seem to take you away from your focus of operating your business, they bring you the attention that is so necessary to being viewed by your potential customers as the “in” company in town, the company where “things are happening,” or just the company they want to do business with.

Heidi Richards, a retail florist and marketing guru in Florida, sets a good example of stepping outside the traditional business owner role by being a little “different” to get more attention. In her booklet, “Is Yours a ‘Frisky’ Business? 71 Marketing Ideas to ‘Grow’ Your Business,” Heidi includes hosting an open house, free demonstrations, contests, an anniversary sale; and all these come with live music, food, entertainment and balloons!

Involve the media

At least two months before your shop event, send a “press” kit to your local media – newspaper, radio, television. Include in your kit an announcement (on your company stationery) of your upcoming event. Include a background sheet about your business and a profile of yourself (or a key person in your business). Think of an unusual angle to include in the personal profile and the business profile. (Most people wouldn’t hesitate to read an article titled “Grandma Starts High Tech Business.” Such a title gets more attention than “New Software Development Company Opens.”)

Where do you obtain a "media list?" Start with your local library, which typically maintains a media list along with its lists of civic organizations and public places. The chamber of commerce or city hall will almost certainly have a media list. Failing those sources, visit the advertising pages of your local telephone directory and assemble your own list of names from the headings of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations. Call for addresses, if none are listed. Zip codes can be obtained at www.usps.gov.

The media kit you send should also include a photo of yourself and your business or you with a sample of your product. (Stories that come with photos are more readily accepted and published than those that do not.) Include your business card and a list of possible story angles or ideas. Journalists love to have the various angles handed to them by the person closest to the story (you). You might even include a few sample questions they could ask you. These pointers help them visualize the story and shortens their planning and research time.

Package all the items together in a folder and send this press kit to every media contact. To be accurate and timely, call the publication or station to obtain (A) the name of the editor most likely to be interested in your story, and (B) the deadline for material. Magazines work as much as six months to a year ahead. Typically, newsletters work two to three months ahead of publication. Daily newspapers vary, so be sure to check with the source. Major newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times, require event information three to four weeks in advance of the event. If possible, address your press kit to a specific person (not just "editor").

Follow-up, prepare and smile in the spotlight.

About a week after sending the press kit, call (only once), as a courtesy to see if the editor or writer needs any more information from you. Then, for your event, prepare a fact sheet and small token gifts or specialty items (fresh individual flowers, if you're a flower shop) to give away to media reps and others who attend. Be prepared to meet with media, be photographed and interviewed and see your story in the public eye because you did your homework well and created and implemented an energetic publicity plan.

Remember: The way to get media attention is to have an unusual angle or an unusual or special event and to play it up big time.

Here's hoping your publicity brings you tons of new business!

Originally published in The Bloomin' News, official publication of the Los Angeles Flower Market of the American Florists Exchange, Ltd. Please do not reprint this article without attribution to Peggi Ridgway, author, and The Bloomin' News and a link to www.bloominnews.com