I have not participated in the forums for quite some time and visited today and began offering advice/suggestions to some of the posters requesting marketing assistance. I observed that I was mentioning PR as a traffic generation activity quite a bit, so I thought that many others might find a short primer on PR to be useful. Public Relations (PR) is an excellent way to generate high quality leads for your business as long as you target those media that your highest probability prospects actually read, watch or listen to. For example, it does no good to get a mention in Sports Illustrated if your target market are female cooking enthusiasts. Likewise, a local newspaper is only good if at least some of your potential customers will read it. If that is the case, you have taken the first step in your successful PR campaign: you understand why at least a certain group of the target publication's readers will be interested in your 'news'. The next step is to find out which editor or reporter in the online or offline publication, covers your area. For example, if you sell automobile tires, you will want to work with the editor or reporter responsible for the Automotive or Business section of the publication (responsibility will vary greatly based upon the particular publication.) And you can be sure that if you start off with the Society Pages editor, you will go nowhere (unless there is a particular 'high society' spin to your news about tires, of course. Once you have done your homework and are targeting the correct media and the correct editor/reporter, you now need to understand one thing: Editors/reporters are only interested in reporting one thing: news that is of interest to their readers. And let me highlight the operative words: NEWS of INTEREST to their READERS. While the opening or continued operation of your business is BIG NEWS to you, it may not be to the newspaper's readers, especially if they have just run a few stories on other local businesses opening or offering a new product, etc. I cannot stress that the most important thing that you can do to be successful with a PR campaign is to figure out some relevant, important news that will make your story attractive to the readers. Perhaps there is an angle that you can take, if you really do not have dramatic news about your business. For example, if you have a tie-in to another hot news story, it could rub off on you. Perhaps there is a burning political or social issue that your locality is interested in. Maybe your business is contributing in some way to the resolution of the issue. Controversy is always a good thing, unless, of course, it is something that might alienate some of your customers. Once you have a good news story, you should give a call to the editor/reporter, introduce yourself and quickly tell him/her what news you are calling about. See if they are interested or not. If so, the reporter may offer advice as to how to spin the news to maximize your chances for publication. Once you have some interest from someone, you should write a press release. The press release will have this information: 1. Your contact information 2. The date that the press release can be published (usually, you should say that it is "For Immediate Release." 3. It should have a headline that tells the story in fifteen words or less. 4. It should have a dateline (October 10, 2003, Chattanooga, TN) 5. The first paragraph should sum up everything important in your news story. 6. The next paragraph should be a quote from you or someone else in the business. The quote should be talking about the 'news' and making an important point about the news. 7. The next few paragraphs should offer more details and specifics about the news. 8. The last paragraph or two should be a brief history and background of your company. Usually these paragrpahs have a heading that says "About XYZ Company" (of course, insert the name of your own company. Your entire goal in writing the press release is to convey your message simply and logically and make the reporter's job easier by having 'copy' that he can lift directly from your press release. What I am saying, is that to be successful, you must do some of the reporter's job for him. A day or two after you have sent the press release, follow up with the reporter/editor and see what s/he thinks. Take any criticism to heart and revise your press release accordingly. Be sure to also offer your services to the editor/reporter for future articles, background, etc., as an expert in your business. I regularly have editors/reporters call me for background information, quotes, etc., because they ahve come to regard me as an expert in my industry. I may not know that much more than the next guy, but I am always available and willing to spend time with them. They also know that they can trust me to never lie to them or mislead them. So, my company is often mentioned in articles and all that I had to do was answer the phone and offer my opinion on a certain topic. Now, it takes time to build relationships like that, but I have just outlined above the first steps that you can take to start an effective PR campaign.