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3 Ways to Score Free Publicity for Your Small Business

Use these three tips to get free publicity for your small business.


Are you totally stumped when it comes to getting publicity for your business? Relax—you’re not alone. Finding ways to get the word out about your amazing product or service is something that every entrepreneur deals with.

If you’re looking for creative ways to get media coverage for your brand while contributing value to your community, try these three tips to get free publicity for your business.

1. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out.

Help a Reporter Out, more commonly known as HARO, is a service that matches experts with journalists. Potential sources receive emails three times daily from reporters seeking quotes, information, and interviews for articles they are writing.

Their media outlets range from national publications like the Huffington Post and Associated Press to small, niche blogs. Television producers and radio hosts also use the service to find guests for their shows.

When you find a request that you can fill, include the name of your business with your response. The reporter will often incorporate that information into his story—especially if it makes you more credible as a source—thus garnering free publicity for your brand.

2. Offer your expertise to the editor of your local magazine.

Editors of local magazines are always looking for hometown talent to highlight in their publications. It shows that the town has something—or someone—cool to feature in print. The editors may not have a need for your expertise immediately, but once they know that you and your business exist, they will contact you when they need your expert opinion.

Additionally, offering yourself to an editor as a source often opens the door for a featured profile in the magazine.

3. Write an article for a magazine or website that your clients already read.

Are you a pediatrician looking to expand your practice? Try writing an article for your local parenting magazine on ways to combat allergies in children. Are you a handbag designer with a hot new tote in your summer line? Try writing an article for a lifestyle magazine on the top five things you must have in your beach bag.

Whatever your business is, find out what your future clients read, then suggest a related article to the editor of that publication.

Send an email stating who you are, the article that you would like to write, why you’re qualified to write the article, and how to get in touch with you. Your email should also include an introductory paragraph with a fact from a well-known, viable source; it takes the question of your credibility out of the equation so the editor can trust you and your opinion.

For more information on how to email people and get results, watch “How to email influential people (and get results FAST)” with Derek Halpern of Social Triggers.

Seeking free publicity for your business is a long-term strategy with the potential for big-time payout. The more often you’re seen in print or on well-known websites, the more often editors, journalists, and bloggers will contact you for quotes and feature you in their publications.

The reach of those media outlets will increase as well. As social media strategist Amy Porterfield says, “It’s all about social proof.” Use these tactics to take charge of yours.

Lynn Daue is a media strategist and professional freelance journalist. She has been published in Maryland Life, Notre Dame Magazine, and Baltimore’s Child. She has also been featured on the Women Talking Business podcast.

 

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