December 2009
Want to realize the market value of your invention? Create an image of your invention that attracts the market (people willing to buy and invest in your invention, products and services that embody your invention, and a small business that connects your invention to the market). Rachel Jackson (of Peacock Publicity & Marketing Services) offered us practical advice on how to develop and manage relationships with credible reporters (bloggers, broadcasters, and journalists) who can help us to create forceful meaningful images of our inventions and to relate those images to the public.
Start with a business that gives meaning to your image.
Stock enough service capacity and products for expected sales, provide a convenient ordering system based on current technology, and use a robust customer service plan. Predict risks and plan solutions for them. Most importantly, communicate! Tell your customers what to expect from you (and tell them if you are temporarily overwhelmed), ask them how they heard about you and what their thoughts are about your business. Treat every link to a new customer as if it were gold.
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much." - Yogi Berra
There are advantages in hiring a public relations professional to design and build your image. A professional knows what images attract the market, has credibility with reporters, and knows how to get things done - like how to start and maintain an interesting conversation with the market.
With patience and hard work, you can create your own image.
Help yourself by collecting and organizing all of your public relations information in a binder divided into 8 sections:
Start with a business that gives meaning to your image.
Stock enough service capacity and products for expected sales, provide a convenient ordering system based on current technology, and use a robust customer service plan. Predict risks and plan solutions for them. Most importantly, communicate! Tell your customers what to expect from you (and tell them if you are temporarily overwhelmed), ask them how they heard about you and what their thoughts are about your business. Treat every link to a new customer as if it were gold.
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much." - Yogi Berra
There are advantages in hiring a public relations professional to design and build your image. A professional knows what images attract the market, has credibility with reporters, and knows how to get things done - like how to start and maintain an interesting conversation with the market.
With patience and hard work, you can create your own image.
Help yourself by collecting and organizing all of your public relations information in a binder divided into 8 sections:
- Goals Relevant, newsworthy, timely. Tie them to economic or demographic trends.
- The industry and its potential press outlets
- Who is your market and where are they?
- Small business sourcebook. Indianapolis library call number 658.022 SMA.
- Industry newsletters, podcasts, and blogs
- Tradeshows
- Who can help you communicate with your market?
- Bacon's radio directory: directory of radio stations programming contacts. Indianapolis library call number 384.54025 BAC.
- Bacon's business media directory: directory of print and broadcast business media. Indianapolis library call number 659.2025 BAC.
- Gale directory of publications and broadcast media. Indianapolis library call number 071.3025 GAL.
- http://www.helpareporter.com/
- Magazine mastheads that identify editors and circulation size
- Angles Give them a reason to care. Reporters are credible because they care about their audience, not about you. Tell a story that will interest a particular reporter’s audience. Is your business new, selling a new product, helping to solve an important problem, the focus of a large group’s attention, or part of a popular trend? Find out what interests audiences by searching a library subscription database (such as EBSCOhost), http://blogsearch.google.com/, or http://technorati.com/ for terms related to your product or service.
- Press materials Just the facts. A reporter, not you, decides whether your business is interesting. Fit your facts to each reporter and audience. Describe an interesting problem that the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your business solves. Back up your claims with case studies and testimonials. Consider giving reporters easy access to this information by putting it on your website.
- Calendars
- General
- Chase's annual events. Indianapolis library call number 394.26.
- Trade show dates, holidays, and events that help or hurt promotion of your business.
- Strategic
- Time your press releases to help reporters. Maybe John Doe publishes an article about noteworthy inventors on the third Monday of each month.
- Contacts Create a directory of reporters and record your communications with them - who, what, when, where, why, and how.
- Tracked clips and media Know where you have been. Record all of your publicity.
- Plans for enhancing a placement Maximize return on your investment in public relations.
- Quantify queries and sales from your website, and figure out why people visit your website but don’t buy.
- Help your customers, investors, vendors, media, website viewers, and Twitter followers believe in your business by telling them about any publicity you receive. Others like your business; they should too.
- Give your publicity momentum.
- For example, at a Food Marketing Institute event, Ms. Jackson contacted reporters about her client’s (Honeywafer Baking Company) new product. That led to coverage by Hungry Girl which led sequentially to coverage by New York Review, Supermarket Guru, local Chicago newspapers, and the national magazine First for Women.