One portion of your marketing plan that you probably don't think about enough is "free publicity".

Publicity is an extremely important tool and should be given prominence in any marketing plan.

What is publicity?

It's getting anyone else besides yourself to talk about you (preferably in a good way) and tell about the things you do.

If you can get any of the media in your area to give you publicity it will have a tremendous effect in boosting your business.

You see, publicity is far more valuable than paid advertising in the same media.

Why is publicity or public relations better than advertising?

2 Reasons:

1. Credibility ? If you say that your products or services are the best in a paid newspaper advertisement, readers (who know you are advertising to sell your products) will automatically discount what you say.

If, however, a reporter wrote an article about you, the story has built-in credibility because it is seen as the "media" making the statement and is perceived as unbiased. (This is one of the most powerful benefits of publicity)

2. It doesn't cost anything ? One of the biggest expenses for almost any business is advertising. Advertising can eat up much and sometimes all of your hard earned money if your not careful.

Why would any publication want to give you publicity?

They will give you publicity only when they feel it is in their own best interest.

To keep their readers and viewers, publications and broadcasters must give them hot information that they want. This helps them build and keep their audience ? which, helps them create higher profit-margins by selling advertising.

If you give the media something interesting that their audience wants to know about, you're helping them keep their audience and sell more advertising.

Of course, not every editor will see the value of your information but that's ok because you don't have to get all the publicity you go after to create a large increase in your business.

You only need a few free articles or stories to generate a substantial increase in your business.

Shawn Meldrum has spent the last two decades marketing everything from almonds to landscape lighting. He currently specializes in marketing for mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents. For free mortgage marketing articles and more information about getting free publicity visit: Publicity Resources