How To Get Your First Publicity Idea

I know how hard it is to come up with initial ideas. I’ve been struggling for that first idea too, all too often! So, to help you get your first ideas going, I’m suggesting a few questions for you to ask yourself.

Publicity Idea – Your Attributes

You need to make a list of all the characteristics you have, or your organization has, that makes you stand out. Here are a few to get you started:

• What makes you different from the competition?
• Do you specialize in an area that is rare? If so is there a demand for it? Why is it rare?
• Are you offering something that is unique?
• Are you offering something that is new and that no one else has caught up with yet?
• Are you offering something that is exciting?
• Do you hold challenging or controversial views in your field?
• Are you helping any charities, schools, or communities in any unusual way?

These are just a few of the many questions you could ask yourself. Once you have unearthed characteristics that are special to you, you need to decide whether or not these features are newsworthy.

I’ve sorted out some categories to help with this:

• Not Newsworthy – characteristics that most people would regard as routine or boring. Don’t pursue these avenues further. You will be wasting your time.

• Newsworthy only to insiders – it may be newsworthy to trader magazines and niche enthusiasts, in which case hit your niche with your press release or targeted story.

• Maybe newsworthy – it could be a potential runner but you need to polish up on it in some areas to make it special. Do the groundwork and make your story sparkle! You only grow your publicity by taking action!

• Hot stuff – Really newsworthy, unique material that will have information publishers eating out of your hand. Feed this story to them as soon as possible and in as many different ways as you can think of. You cannot afford not to share this with everyone!

Lets show you a process to make things clearer. Say you have a wide selection of products. Now the quantity alone will not be newsworthy. However, if you carry products that no one else does and those products are in demand then you might have something.

The key is to go really narrow until you have an idea that people will want to read about. Ask yourself, if you were browsing The Internet or flicking through a magazine or newspaper, would you want to read about this? You must try to extract a story from your promotional pitch. Keep asking yourself question after question to get your story more and more special.

So let’s get your PR machine rolling and tomorrow I will talk about how to use The Internet to spread your story.

I’m sure that PR will help to bring you success. You deserve success and you will achieve success if you stay true to yourself.