| Get
a Good Buzz Going:
Quick
and Easy Ways to Generate Holiday PR in a Hurry
Today
is December 10, 2006. We have just 15 days until Christmas
and 21 days until the "New Year's Resolutions" go
into effect. As a business owner you may be wondering, is
it too late to jump on the holiday press bandwagon? What could
my product or service offering possibly have to do with Christmas,
anyway?
I admit,
at this late stage of the game a full-blown holiday marketing
campaign is hardly practical. But PR Web is still publishing
news every single day, and the major networks are still hunting
for holiday human interest stories. So if you can squeeze
out a few drops of exposure this holiday season, why not just
do it?
Some tips
for generating good PR this holiday season (a.k.a. how to
get a news buzz going around your business before Christmas):
Reposition
a key aspect of your business to center around the holidays.
Therapist
and life coach Cynthia McKenna does this particularly well
with her press release, Martha
Stewart Holiday Settings: Lavish Tables, and Too-High Expectations?
As Cynthia artfully illustrates, the secret is to find the
common link between two ideas which at first glance seem to
have nothing in common, i.e. Martha Stewart and psychology,
and then find the common link. Insert your expert advice,
weave into a compelling story focused on your business, and
urge the reader to take a look at your services.
Donate
a portion of December's sales to charity.
Each
summer, Ann Zuccardy of Vermont
Shortbread Company runs a yearly "August
Shortbread Challenge" where she gives away 10% of
her total sales to a worthy cause. This can easily be accomplished
for your own business during the Christmas holiday season.
All it takes is a few quick news blasts in your ezine and
blog, plus a search engine friendly press release that you
can write in a day and send out into circulation on the web
in just 48 hours from the time you hit publish. Great publicity
in less than a week? Say you'll take it!
Run
a limited time only holiday promotion or giveaway.
For
Benjamin Fitts of Custom-Christmas-Card.com,
holiday time is heavy press exposure time, not just during
Christmas but for all the major holidays including Valentine's
Day, Easter, Mother's and Father's Day, and more. For a great
example of a holiday freebie that you can offer your guests,
read Ben's latest press release on taking
the pain out of sending Christmas cards.
Announce
a holiday contest or other fun event that your audience can
participate in.
Over
at Jinglegram.com,
home of the personalized Santa Claus email greeting, they're
running a "naughty
or nice" list that audience members can vote on.
What a terrific reason to write a press release and announce
to the world that Santa is waiting for their input over at
Jinglegram.com (and a great way to drum up extra holiday business
at the Jingle Store, too.)
Partner
up with a complimentary service provider and plug your holiday
marketing services.
Lori
Davis of Davis
Virtual Assistance and I (Dina at Wordfeeder.com
Copywriting and Marketing) are currently running a "soup
to nuts" web press release service that includes both
writing and submission of your news release to 10 press release
sites on the web including the major one, http://PRWeb.com.
Will we be announcing our helpful holiday service offering
on PR Web soon, so look out for us! And while you're thinking
about it, email us today to have your PR running in the next
two weeks.
Focus on the Reason for the Season.
LittleFishBigRiver.com
has a great angle already in place for their holiday press
exposure. They have publicly announced a goal of 50,000,000
acts of kindness done by 10,000,000 people by December 31,
2006 and are building an online community centered around
this objective. While the idea of spreaking kindness is universal
and year-round, it certainly fits into the holiday spirit
of generosity and compassion for fellow man. Expect to see
some great press coming from LittleFishBigRiver.com, coming
soon!
How
long will it take to write a news story about your business
and make it live on the web? It can take as little as 3
days, if you know how to pull your thoughts together
in a hurry.
But what
if you don't get much immediate return on your PR? Not to
worry. It takes repeated exposure to impact your bottom line
over the long term, and regular PR is part of that. Just keep
putting yourself out there. At the very least, you'll have
live links to your website and some fresh material to publish
in a Press Room area of your site. (You don't have a Press
Room? Get one! It's just another way to build search engine
presence by indexing fresh content regularly.)
Contact
dina@wordfeeder.com
to get started on your holiday web press release right away.
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