By Denise Michaels, Author, “Testosterone-Free Marketing”

Ever wondered how small business owners seem to get headlines in the media while you’ve sent in media releases in the past – but nothing’s ever happened? Today’s post is about how to use the news in a positive way to promote and market your business more successfully. This strategy is testosterone-free, can be done on a shoestring budget and will help women discover one of the secrets to media coverage that works.

Yesterday my post was about how to get a more balanced view of the news. How to see it in a more clear way, stay on top of things and spend less time doing it. Today is about promoting your business – plain and simple. Marketing you – the woman who owns a business. And, understanding news really CAN make a positive difference for a change.

This strategy is known as the “hook” or the “angle.”

If you recall in yesterday’s post one of the ways the media uses to fill up their hours and hours of endless news coverage time is to spin off new “angles” or “tangents” on the same story. Guess what? You may be able to help them to do just that. *wink*

When a story is really big and there is a tremendous amount of interest in it – reporters, editors and producers are desperately looking for new “angles” or “hooks” to keep up the already heightened interest. When they say a story has “legs” it means there are a lot of ways that story can keep going and going.

The biggest news story of the decade was the event that took place September 11, 2001. Look at all the groups impacted:

• People in New York
• People who got out of the World Trade Center buildings
• Families of the people who didn’t get out
• The fire department that helped and lost 300+ firefighters
• Employees and families of Canton Fitzgerald on the 96th floor most of whom perished
• The travel industry New York
• The airline industry nationwide
• Hawaiin tourism – their primary industry – took a huge hit
• Rudy Giuliani (the mayor of NYC at the time) surged in popularity
• The insurance company in Switzerland who insured the buildings that fell
• A manufacturer of American flags in New Jersey had skyrocketing sales
• A suburb in New Jersey lost 50+ residents
• The funeral industry was impacted and there was a shortage of caskets
• Broadway and the theatres on the Great White Way
• 143 people who perished were from Great Britain
• People around the US who had relatives in 9/11
• Our US military
• … and many, many more

Every one of the bullets above created stories in newspapers, on TV, radio and online – sometimes numerous stories. I could go on writing bullets like what you see above for another hour – but hopefully you get the idea how two planes flying into the World Trade Center impacted not just those buildings and the people in them but much, much more.

Your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to watch for big news stories and create an angle or a hook where you can respond as an expert or authority within your business. It doesn’t have to be nearly as big a story as 9/11 was. But it must be big enough to have legs. And when it happens you need to respond quickly.

Let me give you three examples:

Several years ago there was a guy in Atlanta who was in the courtroom being sentenced – I think it was for attempted rape. Somehow he managed to steal the gun from the bailiff. Then, he shot and killed the judge and bailiff. Next he got out of the courthouse and stole a car. He killed two more people on his spree and ended up at the apartment of Ashley Smith at 2:00 am. She’d just arrived home from buying cigarettes at the drug store across the street. In an ordeal that lasted all night she successfully talked this killing machine into taking her out of bondage and turning himself into police. Media called her a hero.

I wrote a media release and sent it out nationally saying she used “testosterone-free” marketing skills without even knowing it to bring the guy to justice. That release got me a 20 minute spot on a local TV interview show AND an article in a national business publication.

Here’s a second example:

Last July, the President was in a tele-town hall sponsored by AARP. He was asked about his health care plans. Particularly about one teensy part that allows doctors to get paid to talk with patients about their choices regarding end-of-life care. Obama replied he thought this was good because it encourages people to have a living will and we all should have a living will. And he said he and the First Lady both have a living will.

Well, I have a client who is an Elder Law attorney. I called her about this and suggested she check it out on CNN.com. Then I told her to write a media release positioning her as an authority in this regard. She did and got news coverage in her city – she still has a waiting list of clients who want her to draw up their living wills.

One last example:

I saw a story on CNN that said in a recent study it’s been determined that tanning beds are horribly carcinogenic and are a sure way to get skin cancer if you keep tanning that way on a regular basis. This story came out the beginning of August and Ernie and I had just returned from a glamorous one week cruise down to the Mexican Riviera. The day before we left I went to a woman who owns a business doing spray tans.

When I heard the story I called her on the phone and told her. I said she should write a media release reinforcing that spray tans are a safer way to go. She didn’t write the release but she put a box on her website with the story’s headline and a link to the video on CNN.com. Also, whenever she went to networking events she included that headline in her “elevator speech.” She told me just being aware of that news story helped her business tremendously the last couple months.

The moral is – don’t be afraid of the news or the media. Look at it not as a regular Joe or Joanne six-pack news consumer. Instead look for opportunities and ways that it can help your own business to grow and succeed.

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