FREE ADVERTISING (OR IS IT?)

• postage, printing, supplies, labor, and low response rates. With paid advertising, you mail one envelope and check and camera-ready ad and you WILL get your ad printed the way YOU want it to look. With "free" advertising, you mail several press releases, offers to give away free review samples, free samples, cover letters (and pay the postage) for every one that gets you a review, interview, or whatever. And let's not forget those pesky phone calls you had to make
• they weren't "free" either. And the biggest letdown is that free publicity doesn't come close to bringing in the flood of orders that we'd all like to get. That's a myth except in rare cases. And what about the cases where someone reports that they had their press release in Parade magazine and it brought in 181,000 orders for $19.95? Well, my friend, you can think what you want, but I think it's bull----.

WORD OF MOUTH

Although the best word of mouth is a result of your prospects' unbridled enthusiasm for your products, there are a couple of ways to encourage others to talk about you. First of all, you could enclose several business cards when filling orders. Ask the person to be so kind as to send these cards to other people if he or she is pleased with the product. There's another method which is becoming popular, which is to enclose such things as business cards which say "If you are not satisfied with our products, tell us! If you are satisfied with our products, tell someone else!". For inexpensive promotional items like this, write to Ralph J Calabrese, Calagraphics, 247 Old Bergen Road, Jersey City, NJ 07305. Call 1-800-836-8266. And be sure to buy his book, Amazing Mailing Techniques. Word of mouth publicity is very, very valuable. Don't be too shy to ask existing customers to tell potential customers that you're always looking for new customers.

DIRECTORIES

TRADES

COMMISSION SALES AGENTS

PRESS RELEASES

You do not have to follow an absolutely strict form when writing a press release. Announcements concerning your offer will in most cases be put in a "Publisher's Notes" or "New Products" section, and will not attract as much business as you might hope. Since it's free advertising, this should not concern you - one customer generated from a FREE announcement is better than none. It is your duty to your business to take advantage of all free publicity opportunities.

Your press release must have substantial news value. The editor of the publication you wish the release to appear in, will only be interested in giving you a free mention if it is of some useful benefit to his readers.

Start with the words "News Release" in large print at the top of the page, under which you put your company name, address and phone number. Then print your name as the person to be contacted. The date comes next: type "for immediate release", or if you are not ready to release the news until some time in the future, print the release date. Then comes your headline, then the body copy (which is double spaced).

SAMPLE HEADLINE AND BODY COPY for a press release

So after a few dismal months in business I realized that you can't just carry on like a Canadian when you want to make money from America. So I tackled the problem head on and came up with several solutions to the various problems - finding a bank to deal in American currency, setting up a United States address, making arrangements with some American dealers, coming up with solutions to deal with high foreign postage costs, and so on". Other sections of the book discuss the products you sell, how to get free publicity for them, how to increase sales by understanding your customer, and the new techniques that mail order dealers are using in the 2010's to stay alive. You can order it from ...".

This release would, of course, be sent to publishers whose readers will be largely non-American. For each page that leads into another page, type " - more - " on the bottom of the page. On the final page, type " - 30 - ".

Don't take chances if you're going to send press releases to large circulation magazines and newspapers. Buy a free publicity how-to book with a large section devoted to press releases and study it carefully before going ahead. Not only will you need such a resource for technical advice, but you will also need to find a list of appropriate publications to send your press releases to. I am currently evaluating the effectiveness of the 2000+ sources given in Lee Howard's book Free Book Publicity Sources. The problem with such books is that they have a short lifespan before the addresses they contain become so grossly outdated that they're useless. It's better to go to a mailing list company like Para Publishing (POBox 4232-150, Santa Barbara, CA 93140-4232; 1-805-968-7277) to rent a current list of free publicity sources from.

THE "SEND FOR YOUR SAMPLE" TECHNIQUE

1. people who've gone out of business
2. people who don't care
3. people who do appreciate what you've sent but feel no obligation to give it a free mention in their publication since they didn't ask for it.

ARTICLES

Publishing articles is one of the easiest ways to fill up a lot of space for the newcomer that does not have enough paid advertisers yet. There are some pretty useless articles in print these days, so I want you to do these publishers (and their poor readers) a big favour: write some USEFUL articles. They WILL be published. Here's how to write an article that will increase your income:

• a headline which states a major benefit. For example "Get An Avalanche Of Response To Your Advertising", "7 Ways To Read A Customer's Personality And Get More Money From Him", "Money Saving Tips For Overseas Dealers", "5 Ways To Organize Your Office And Cut Your Workload In Half". You get the idea.
• your name
• the opening paragraph speaks directly to the prospect and tells him what his problem is, for example "If you're like most dealers, the money you're spending on advertising is being wasted". Then have 2 or 3 more sentences fully elaborating on the problem. If the reader does not have the problem you are talking about, he will pass your article by, which is exactly what you want. You do not want to waste your time trying to sell somebody a solution to a problem they do not have. You should write a wide variety of articles, both to get continued coverage and to catch the attention of different sorts of people
• the next few paragraphs tell the prospect what he must do about it. Be careful here that you don't give away the farm.

• before the concluding paragraph try to introduce some emotional content. Unashamedly paint a glowing picture of how wonderful life will be once they've solved their problem. You started the article by almost scaring the reader. Then to his relief, you told him something could be done about his problem. Now you must create a positive feeling within him, because your big finish is about to come:
• your concluding paragraph should be boxed, and read like this: "To [solve your problem], write or call [the article writer] at [address and phone number] and request [product or service] for [price]. [include credit card buying information if applicable]. For further information on our offers, just write or call. [article writer] specializes in [list 2 or 3 most common client problems that you solve]." For example, "To get more information about writing books, call 1-555-555-5678 to speak with Xavier or write to him at the address above. His book "How I Wrote This Book" is available for $25 and you can pay with a credit card if desired. You can also request a free copy of his catalog. Xavier has written 34,183 books and helped aspiring authors get 12,393 books published".

The good news is that specially targetted publications are beginning to realize that this information is desired by their readers. The bad news is that mainstream TV radio and print will probably not realize this fact for at least another thousand years. They would sooner let their readers, listeners, and watchers be frustrated than commit the supposed atrocity of giving away free advertising.

In the outer circle (ie., if you were submitting an article to Popular Science) you will have problems getting articles published, and it becomes a question of how much of a risk you want to take by making demands on a publisher. My advice is give them what they want at first. When you're a beginner, take all the bones that are tossed your way. If you were to have an article published in an outer circle publication you should thank your lucky stars. It is usually necessary to be an experienced doctor, athlete, lawyer, scientist or other recognized authority or celebrity with many years experience in a specific field to get published in the outer circle. By the time you're of a level of expertise sufficient to deserve to be published in the outer circle, you will want to do a more careful job and should purchase a thorough book on the topic.

Once you've got one article in a publication, that publication has no more use for that article. Knowing that that publication is receptive to your articles, you would be lazy not to keep exploiting it for free publicity, since the publisher has already informed you that he needs your informative material to satisfy his readers and fill space. So create a series of articles. Start with one and send it to all publications you can find that print articles. Then immediately get to work writing more articles. If you're anything like me, your initial belief about articles is that they would drastically outpull normal paid advertising. Not so. Paid ads actually generate more leads and more orders than articles. Of course, the smartest way to get a list of article publishers is to write to another article writer, like yours truly, and ASK. If you can prepare your articles camera-ready, that will slightly increase your chances of getting published since it looks more impressive, and the publisher can simply place it directly into his or her publication without re-typesetting it.

NOTES ON FREE PUBLICITY DOCUMENTS

Observe this press-release style snippet: "Scott insists that advertising is useless when it's too small, when it's not repeated, or when it's in a publication that simply doesn't pull responses well. "That's why I created the Breakthrough! advertising plan", he says, "People should be investing their money, not throwing it away"." Now observe how a paid display ad reads "I'LL BET YOUR ADVERTISING ISN'T WORKING.

Judge for yourself: are all of your ads at least 2.5x5"? Do you order a minimum of 3 issues for each publication you put your ads in? Have you gone to the trouble to ask some big name dealers where you should advertise instead of "experimenting" with every two-bit adsheet? If you answered no to any of these questions, I'd like you to consider solving your problems with the Union's Breakthrough! advertising plan. Here's how it works ...".

Of course, you see the difference there. The press release reads like a news item, as if the publisher actually sent someone to interview you (even though you wrote the entire thing yourself!). The paid advertising reads like ... well, like paid advertising. Testimonials can be worked into free publicity documents but only in a completely different fashion than with paid advertising documents. Here is how you might work a testimonial into a press release: "Adam is proud to have earned the respect of some of mail order's top names. Russ Smith says `This advertising program is just what mail order needs to get more people to wake up to the realities of marketing'". In free publicity documents, it's not a good idea to quote unknown people.

Many advertisers buy adspace designed like a free publicity document, under the assumption that people won't be as likely to respond to an obvious display advertisement. In the outer circle, many publications require the word "Advertisement" in small type at the top of such ads. Such ads regularly appear in big city newspapers and are often looking for movie extras, babies for commercials, good radio voices and other talent forms as well as hair loss, singles and diet ads.

QUESTIONNAIRES

Here are some of the sorts of questions you should ask:

• How much money do you spend on advertising per month?
• How many how-to books have you purchased this year?
• When did you first realize you were addicted to chocolate?
• How many dogs do you own?
• Do you have your own publication?
• Are you losing money, making money or breaking even?
• Do you own a computer? What make?
• Is your mailing list computerized?
• What do you think of our products?
• What would you like to see changed in ---- ?
• May we quote any of your answers for the purpose of creating articles and/or testimonials?

4 WAYS TO USE THE QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS CREATING PRODUCTS

IMPROVE SALES MATERIALS

For example, computer owners are told about my shareware offer. Avid book readers are told about my information products. Heavy advertisers are told about the Breakthrough! advertising plan and the National Advertising Co-op. The response is written from scratch (not a form letter) and is very specific and personal. Always thank people for their kind words and deal with criticism head-on.

TESTIMONIALS. This is self-explanatory and is also discussed in chapter 6.

OTHER FORMS OF FREE PUBLICITY

THE SECRET OF GETTING THINGS YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T HAVE

In fact, we can apply this technique to getting anything we want in life that we thought that we couldn't afford or that we were afraid that nobody would GIVE to us.

All you have to understand is ...

THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR!