Publicity Vs Advertising
Many people in business don’t know the difference between advertising and publicity. The two have the same ultimate goal, which is to increase sales. But they are very different.
Advertising is when you pay for space or time to promote your product or service. You can do this in newspapers and magazines, on television, radio, and billboards, on the side of a bus, in a cinema, on the side of a building — the possibilities are just about endless (and people are coming up with new ways to advertise all the time). You create your own advertising message, and you pay to have the ad created. You then pay for the advertising space. Even a basic advertising campaign can cost thousands of dollars, and larger corporations spend millions of dollars on this each year.
Publicity, on the other hand, is when you send out a media release, stage an event or do anything that attracts the attention of the media. The aim is to have the media attract attention to your business for you. The biggest difference compared to advertising? Cost! Generating publicity can be done for next to nothing.
As an example, let’s compare receiving the same amount of space in a newspaper through advertising and publicity. A reasonably large ad in a major daily newspaper could cost you thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars. Or you can receive the same amount of space — in the form of an article about you or your business — for the cost of sending a fax. You don’t have to pay for space, or to have an ad designed. Just write a press release, surf the net to find out who to send it to, and that’s it. Think about that in terms of percentage return on dollars invested. It doesn’t get much better for attracting attention and generating sales.
And what about if you happened to get on television? You could end up as one of those feel-good stories at the end of the news, or maybe you will be featured on Today Tonight because of the revolutionary new product you have invented. How much would that air time have cost you in the form of advertising? More than most small businesses can afford.
Publicity can give you massive exposure for just a few dollars, it generates sales, and it creates awareness about your product or service. Publicity is the cheapest form of marketing that exists, and it produces the biggest gains. Used properly, publicity can make you rich.
For more info on getting publicity for your business visit www.RenegadePublicist.com
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April 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Bit prentious that Pete; Australias Richard Branson. Which pub is that in? The Baldchemist.