I'm proud to introduce my latest guest blogger, Mums The Boss, otherwise known as Sam Pearce and Helen Woodham. Mums The Boss is THE Bedfordshire networking group for Mums in business and they recently celebrated their first birthday. Here are are their top ten tried-and-tested free (or nearly free) publicity tips.
In our first year in business we have spent the princely sum of £30 + VAT on promotional activity, paying for an insert service which interestingly had a zero return on investment! However we have managed to appear in the local press 3 times, the national press once, and have been interviewed on our local radio station. We have had a double page spread in a local parenting magazine distributed to over 10,000 mums through the school book bags, been featured on numerous websites and been promoted by several business agencies. We have also secured free venue use, free business advice, free business books and had over 20 prizes donated to a recent raffle. And we’ve done all this without ever having to resort to bribery or blackmail. So, how have we done it? We are proud to unveil the Mum’s The Boss Guide to free (or very cheap) publicity!
- Be Friendly – if you are approachable and friendly when you meet people, chances are people will remember you and be more willing to help you out in the future. A warm smile and taking an interest in people costs nothing at all.
- Barter – if you can’t afford to pay the going rate for a service, barter some of your product or a service of your own in return.
- Think Outside The Box – publicity doesn’t have to be paying for advertsing space. Think creatively about what is newsworthy about your business – or make something newsworthy happen – and submit it as editorial to the press. And think about all your contacts, and whether they could promote you to their client base, spreading the word through word of mouth.
- Know your audience – if you know exactly who your audience is it will be much easier to reach them by targetting your promotion accordingly. That way, if you do end up having to pay for advertising, you will save a fortune by reaching the right people first time.
- Use the Internet – take full advantage of the many sites and forums that you can list your business or event on for free. All it will cost you is your time. Make good use of all the social networking sites you belong to, such as Twitter or Facebook – they are perfect for spreading a message ‘virally’ as well as a fantastic way to make invaluable business connections and pick up free business advice.
- Blog! – if you haven’t already done so, start a blog. If you can attract a good level of readership your blog can become a fantastic medium for you to barter with, offering to promote businesses or review products in return for a favour.
- Be Different – the press likes good news stories or things that are quirky or unusual. If there is something unusual about you or your business then capitalise on this. If not, can you engineer a story with added interest, by linking your business to an event, charity or something topical?
- Add Value – if you are asking someone to do you a good turn you must be able to show them what’s in it for them. This may be something tangible like a complimentary product, or it could be as simple as giving them access to your contact network or promoting them on your website or blog.
- Be Cheeky – if you don’t ask you don’t get, and sometimes if you just have the confidence/brass neck to ask for a freebie or a discount people are surprisingly happy to oblige.
- Pay People in Cake! – This one NEVER fails. When bartering for people’s time, expertise or use of a venue always offer to bring homemade cake. Works every time!!
We are by no means PR Gurus and these tips are non industry-standard – they are just things that have worked for us and allowed us to enjoy a certain level of publicity for free! Do you have any creative ideas or tips for getting free publicity? We’d love to hear all about them (mainly so we can try them out ourselves)!
[nohide]photo credit: Steve Snodgrass[/nohide]
Just wanted to say that I could not agree more with your approach. It is easy for a business to spend a fortune on advertising etc and get absolutely 0% ROI because no real thought has gone into it. What you have succeeded at is networking, really thinking about your business and offering what people want and putting in the effort. All the forums and free advertising sites do work if you persevere, many of my clients doubt me initially when I suggest this approach and I have added this blog to my favourites so I can offer future clients proof that others think as I do.
I wish you continued success.
Katherine
I think that bartering is a great idea. Just this last month I started bartering online, and have since been able to cut costs on advertising, and still gained more media presence. There is a great site called http://barterquest.com where I was able to barter my services for free advertising on a local TV Station and in a newspaper.
Thanks Katherine and Mary Jane. When you’re starting out, the obvious thing to do seems to be to advertise, but small business owners say this rarely works. As Mums The Boss say, the most effective ways of getting yourself known cost you very little but your time. And in their case, cake! (I must add that their cakes are very good!)
I haven’t had any experience of bartering, but it sounds like a brilliant way of getting a business started and I know a lot of business mums already do it. Maybe I could cover that in another post?