PSA: Publicity Seeking

[Patrysha]

If you've got a product you want to spread the word about, you are quickly running out of time to get into the gift guides that are being put together for the coming holiday season. Many of the national ones went to bed months ago, but there's still opportunities to get free coverage in local and regional publications as well as broadcast media.

Want to get coverage but aren't sure how...ask questions :-) I'll help where I can...

[vangogh]

Thanks Patrysha. I don't have such a product, but I'm sure a few people here do. So hard to believe we're talking holiday gifts already. I know this is the time of year you have to start thinking about it if you plan on selling over the holidays, but it feels like yesterday the AC was on and temps were in the 80s. Come to think of it, it literally was yesterday.

[Patrysha]

Yeah, publicity for a service is different. Very achievable, but just different. And not this time of year. The best times of year for services like ours in the general media tend to be January, March/April and September. I find most solo operators tend to shy away from publicity when they're already doing well enough with standard online marketing and word of mouth...it's mostly companies that have a staff or sub-contractors in place to meet a larger workload that actually pursue publicity...

[vangogh]

That makes sense. You have to be out in front of different events more than others. I can see where many small businesses wouldn't be thinking that far ahead because they think they're doing well as it is or because there are so many other things to think about.

[KristineS]

Good point Patrysha. I always tell the decorators in our industry that gift guides are a great thing to be included in, but they need to do the leg work on how to get included early. The problem is you need to be thinking about the holidays when most people are still thinking about Summer, or even Spring.

[Patrysha]

Spring for sure for the big ones! In some cases, as soon as after this year's issue is published is the time to get into next years! March is when the big gift guide publicity resources get released.

However, most of my clients are way too small to really benefit from that sort of inclusion, so it's not as much of a time differential between thinking about coverage and getting it.

And really as a business owner, you really already need to be thinking a few steps ahead of where the consumers are...most buying is all done ahead for retail stores...if you're thinking promotion when you're buying it can actually roll out into marketing and publicity quite smoothly...

[KristineS]

I think the problem is that a lot of business owners aren't used to thinking that way. They're concentrating on the day to day minutiae and not on what they need to do to be in a gift guide in several months. I think you've given me an idea for a blog post. It's probably time to remind the people in the industry in which I work that they should be thinking about 2014 gift guides and lists.