Thou Shall Become a Celebrity

In the sec­ond com­mand­ment, you learned that you should be the leader in your cat­e­gory or in your unique area of exper­tise. Now you need to be known as such. And one of the most effec­tive ways to do this is through publicity.

I met a fel­low once while work­ing in New York City who ran his own show on cable tele­vi­sion — his very own cable show! Cable and com­mu­nity tele­vi­sion sta­tions are won­der­ful medi­ums to get the word out effec­tively. This is an area in which you can get a lot of pub­lic­ity at lit­tle or no cost.

My friend, a pro­gram­mer, hosts a show called “Solu­tion Sen­tral” on which he is either being inter­viewed or play­ing the role of inter­viewer. His guests ranged from employ­ers look­ing for spe­cial­ized tech­ni­cal staff to other con­sul­tants in sim­i­lar areas. The show nat­u­rally appealed to the high tech sector.

He also takes calls on the show and has an real-​​time, live email for­mat where peo­ple can ask ques­tions online, to which he’ll answer directly on the air. But keep in mind that the show is not meant to adver­tise him directly — if so, the sta­tion would charge him for it — but as a pub­lic service.

Pub­lic­ity is dif­fer­ent than adver­tis­ing. But the idea behind pub­lic­ity is not to mar­ket your busi­ness or prod­uct (or at least not directly). Your goal is to get your­self known and known as an expert in your field. There are many ways to get pub­lic­ity out there let alone free pub­lic­ity. But why is it so important?

Pub­lic­ity is far more cred­i­ble than adver­tis­ing, since it comes from an “objec­tive” third party. If you have nar­rowed your focus to a very spe­cific, highly spe­cial­ized field, pub­lic­ity will come easy to you. The media loves to receive infor­ma­tion from peo­ple who are uniquely qual­i­fied in their specialty.

Do you write arti­cles for your local news­pa­per or in the very least in the op-​​ed sec­tion? Do you send news releases to all the TV, news­pa­per, and radio sta­tions in at least your area? Do you offer free sem­i­nars dur­ing fundrais­ers for non-​​profit or not-​​for-​​profit orga­ni­za­tions? Do you offer to speak at lun­cheons, clubs, and orga­ni­za­tions such as the Rotary? Do you offer free ser­vices to char­i­ties or spon­sor com­mu­nity projects? The list goes on.

A hair trans­plant doc­tor sent out press releases to all the TV sta­tions and offered to per­form surgery live on the air as part of a med­ical doc­u­men­tary. With the patient’s con­sent, cam­era­men filmed the doc­tor per­form­ing the pro­ce­dure and the news reporter occa­sion­ally asked ques­tions, such as: “What exactly are you doing now, doc­tor?” Or, “What’s this for?”

But he didn’t stop there. Not only did the news report cause his prac­tice to get flooded with calls the next day, but the doc­tor also obtained the right to mass-​​copy the news report on video­tapes, and mailed them as part of his infor­ma­tion pack­age to poten­tial patients and referral-​​sources.

The show cre­ated a lot of “buzz” and the surgery was the talk of the town. I don’t know if he actu­ally did this, but if I were in his shoes I would have the tape dig­i­tized and avail­able to be played on the web. Peo­ple access­ing his web site can view the clip right in their own homes.

Some peo­ple I know have their inter­views, speeches or voices dig­i­tized and plug it on the ‘Net as well. Of course, every­body can do that. But if you’re not on the web, yet have a copy of a TV or radio inter­view on video or audio cas­sette, get the rights to copy it and send it to every­body who wants one, includ­ing poten­tial referral-​​sources and strate­gic alliances.

A tem­po­rary help agency spe­cial­iz­ing in gov­ern­ment sup­port per­son­nel had a neat idea. Their clients are mostly pur­chas­ing agents and, one year, a golf tour­na­ment was being held for (believe or not) gov­ern­ment pur­chas­ing agents! (It was to raise money for a char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion.) The tour­na­ment was held in the mid­dle of sum­mer and it hap­pened to be a hot day.

So the sales­per­son, wear­ing a T-​​shirt bear­ing their 1–800 phone num­ber, rented a golf cart and loaded it up with cool­ers con­tain­ing soft drinks. He drove his cart from hole to hole and offered free drinks to all the golfers in the tour­na­ment! In addi­tion to the expo­sure this gave him, he was also given a chance to speak at the awards cer­e­mony and min­gle with the crowd.

If you’re an expert (and by spe­cial­iz­ing, you are), get out-​​and-​​about and make your­self known as one. For exam­ple, I know of an insur­ance agent who decided to spe­cial­ize in life insur­ance for new­ly­weds and new families.

His com­pany didn’t require it from him but he decided on his own to develop an exper­tise in this area. You’ll often find him at bridal fairs, bridal shows, home-​​buyers sem­i­nars, home fur­nish­ing stores, banks, mort­gage insti­tu­tions, toy stores, baby cloth­ing stores, car deal­er­ships and so on.

Now, for a typ­i­cal insur­ance agent to do this kind of stuff may or may not be a waste of time. (It likely is.) But how much more effec­tive will he be if he pro­motes him­self at those events or loca­tions as an insur­ance agent strictly cater­ing to new cou­ples and new fam­i­lies? Yup. Much more.

Do you have your free report writ­ten by now? If so, then write a query let­ter to mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers for an arti­cle you wish to con­tribute. If you don’t know, a query let­ter is one in which you address the edi­tor and pro­pose a topic, on which you have an exper­tise, for an inter­est­ing article.

Ensure that the head­line of your query grabs their atten­tion and makes them want to read it. Make your arti­cle some­how related to your free report, too. Explain how your arti­cle will ben­e­fit their read­ers. Give them a brief out­line of your arti­cle along with a sum­mary of your free report as “tickler.”

Don’t for­get to include in your query that you’re not seek­ing any type of com­pen­sa­tion (at least not now), but ask if you can add a byline. A byline is a small note at the end of your arti­cle describ­ing the author and how he can be reached. Send the same let­ter to as many news­pa­pers as you can, espe­cially spe­cial­ized pub­li­ca­tions read by your tar­get market.

By the way, always ask for pub­lish­ing rights so that the paper doesn’t pre­vent you from hav­ing your arti­cle pub­lished else­where. Above all, make sure that your query addresses how your arti­cles will ben­e­fit THEIR read­ers. Keep in mind that the read­ers of a spe­cial­ized pub­li­ca­tion are poten­tial clients!

Now, write! While your arti­cle should be edu­ca­tional and not pro­mo­tional, it may con­tain some high­lights of your free report as a way to fur­ther edu­cate the reader. Your byline can and should invite peo­ple to order it. It can say:

“The author, Michel Fortin is the ‘Suc­cess Doc­tor’, a direct response copy­writer, speaker and mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant, who spe­cial­izes in web copy­writ­ing. If you wish to learn more about the ideas writ­ten in this arti­cle, you can obtain a free copy of the com­plete report, ‘The 10 Com­mand­ments of Power Posi­tion­ing’, by call­ing him at (613) 482‑4828, or by vis­it­ing his web­site at Suc​cess​Doc​tor​.com. You can also email him at…”

Since your arti­cles do not appear bla­tantly pro­mo­tional, they help mar­ket your exper­tise sub­tly yet far more effec­tively, and as a result carry far more weight than any self-​​serving adver­tise­ment. They grant you almost instant and a much greater cred­i­bil­ity because, like pub­lic­ity, which comes from an objec­tive third party, they imply your supe­ri­or­ity rather than state it outright.

And since impli­ca­tion is more pow­er­ful than spec­i­fi­ca­tion, pub­lic­ity will help to solid­ify your lead­er­ship in the mind, and do so faster, more effec­tively and for a longer period of time than any other form of promotion.

There’s an old say­ing, in the insur­ance indus­try, that goes: “Talk good about me or talk bad about me. But either way, please talk about me!” So, get out and about! Get oth­ers to know you and talk about you.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
• Changes, Relaunches, and Extreme Makeovers
• Superior Value Equals Superior Sales

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