Most companies don’t take full advantage of their publicity opportunities and, therefore, waste a lot of resources on other elements of the marketing mix.  The key to effective product marketing and new business development today is “integrated marketing”  and product publicity is the catalyst that makes everything else you do much more effective.

1. Test Marketing – If you are a custom manufacturer who receives a custom order from a company in one market niche, you can publicize your special capabilities to a much broader audience and see what other companies are also interested in your special capabilities.

2. Global Marketing – You can publicize your products in various countries around the world and then track the inquiries on your website or match RFQs and purchase orders.  Product publicity is also a great way to attract and support distributors around the world.

3. SBIR Commercialization – Publicity can generate leads that will help you focus your efforts on the needs of potential customers and identify the widest range of applications and markets for your SBIR technology.  This exposure in Phase I can lead to a better, more focused commercialization strategy in a Phase II proposal, showing your sponsor that you are making a strong push towards commercialization.

4. Search Engine Optimization – The most popular search engines base their results not on the characteristics of a particular document, but by the number of websites that are linking to it.  Publicity published in high quality websites yields exceptional SEO results.

5. Target Specific Sales Leads – Publicity can accomplish this for you by creating news releases that address specific needs or markets.

6. Brand Your Business – Publicity lets you brand your business as a problem-solver by creating news releases illustrating the problems your company can solve.  Over time, design engineers and end-users will see your various problem-solving capabilities.

7. Increase Selling Price of Your Business – Publicity is news and news drives business valuation.  I had a small business client increase the selling price of his business (from the first offer he received) by more than $1.3 Million through a strategy involving news releases which cost under $40,000.00 at the time. And this happened in less than a year!

In addition to these 7 things, of course, is the “Advertising Value” of publicity.  It is assumed to be worth 3 to 5 times that of paid advertising because of the “third party endorsement”  provided by editors, according to leading sources such as Advertising Age Magazine.

© 2012-2013  Steven M. Stroum     All Rights Reserved