Liz Morgan, my Jazzercise instructor, has been beaming all week because the local weekly newspaper printed a photo of her new Junior Jazzercise class for little girls.
So which do you think has more credibility? That photograph? Or a quarter page ad that Liz could have bought if she had the budget to advertise?
When I was on guest on Michael Hart’s “Success Radio” show yesterday, I used that example when explaining to listeners why free publicity is so powerful. If a TV newscast features you, if only for a three-second sound bite, or a story about you appears in the local business journal, or, like me, you were a guest on someone’s radio show, that has far more credibility than a paid ad—almost as though the media is giving you its stamp of approval.
And 99 percent of the time, you don’t have to buy an ad to get a story. In my new ebook “How to Use Photos & Graphics in Your Publicity Campaign,” I urge Publicity Hounds to call the photo desk at their local weekly and daily newspapers, magazines and business journals, and pitch ideas for “stand alone photos.” These photos do not accompany stories and can “stand alone.”
Editors always need photos to anchor a page, but don’t always have enough good photos to fill a newspaper or magazine. What ideas for stand-alone photos can you pitch this week? Think: autumn, Halloween, trends, the weather, events, etc.