If you’ve ever stood in an empty store and wondered why no one was coming in to shop, you will understand the value of publicity. Publicity is about making the buying public aware of your business, without paying for advertising. This article explores the nature of publicity, why it’s important, and how to get it.
A good definition of publicity is “activities that build public awareness of a brand without the need for paid advertising.” This can mean a lot of different things, depending on the brand in question and the methods you use to generate publicity. For instance, if you’re an author, then giving a talk at a bookstore is a great way to get publicity for your book. A non-profit organization might hold an event, like a 5K run to raise awareness of its cause. This results in publicity because people talk about the event and expand the circle of those who might support the non-profit.
In many, but not all cases, publicity involves engaging with the media to spread the word about your business or project through news outlets. Examples of brand publicity include:
Publicity is not the same as public relations. The terms are often used interchangeably, but they are distinct spheres of activity. Publicity is about awareness, whether a public relations firm is involved or not. For instance, a company might sponsor a sports tournament for the publicity value, but the process doesn’t necessarily include public relations.
While much of public relations is about getting clients publicity, public relations is also about shaping public opinion and trying to land brand-specific messages in target media outlets. Furthermore, public relations may include tasks that preserve the client’s reputation, protecting the client from negative publicity. As an old saying in the PR industry goes, “There are two kinds of PR firms: those that get your name in the papers, and those that keep your name out of the papers.”
Publicity and advertising, while quite distinct, also overlap in intent and outcomes. Both are about increasing awareness of a brand, product, or person. However, in advertising, the client pays directly for the messages that aim to increase awareness. The publicity process, in contrast, intends to garner public awareness for the client without paying for media exposure.
There are pros and cons to each approach, as summarized by the following chart:
| Factor | Publicity | Advertising |
| Cost | Not free, but typically less expensive than advertising | The client pays to access an audience, e.g., at a price per thousand (M Rate) |
| Precision of audience targeting | Low, with the potential for niche exposure | High, with the ability to target audiences selectively, e.g., women 25-39 in a single metro area |
| Credibility of the message | High, given the organic, implicit third-party validation from the media | Low, based on the perception that the message is paid for, and therefore biased toward the advertiser’s point of view |
| Efficiency of reaching audiences | Inefficient and unpredictable | Efficient, because the advertiser pays to reach a specific audience of a specific size |
| Measurement of success | Relatively subjective, e.g., you get featured on a blog with 100,000 followers, but you may not know how many read the story featuring you | More precise, e.g., you know how many clicks you received, and perhaps even how those translated into revenue |
As the chart suggests, publicity and advertising each have their advantages and challenges. Neither is ideal. Advertising gives you more control over delivering the message, but audiences may not treat an advertised message as credible, versus a message learned through the news media, which is theoretically impartial.
While publicity is usually free, getting publicity still represents a transaction between two parties. Even if not stated explicitly, a media outlet is providing something of value to the brand seeking publicity: It’s giving away expensive airtime or column space that the brand would normally have to pay for through advertising. Why does the media outlet give something so valuable away?
The answer is that they are getting something valuable in return. The media outlet is getting free content, e.g., a fascinating story to keep its audience engaged. For example, the author of an exciting book gives a radio interview that audiences love, which increases the station’s ratings so they can earn more from advertisers. The author gets free advertising for his book, in effect.
Should you seek publicity for your brand? The easy answer is yes. Publicity is valuable. Done right, it confers credibility on your brand. It brings interest in the form of web traffic, subscribers, paying customers, and so forth. And, these benefits usually come at a relatively low cost, or even for free. That said, it’s smart to understand that publicity can be negative. You have to be careful about engaging with the media. They are not always interested in telling your story the way you want it told. Nor do they want to promote your business. If they can boost their ratings by making you look bad, they will. This is where a good PR firm can help, thinking through potential difficulties and avoiding trouble.
Getting publicity for your brand is a process that needs to start with defining your goals. This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs and business owners want to jump into public relations without thinking about what they want to accomplish and how publicity will align with their business goals. Public relations should support a business goal, such as increasing the number of prospects in the pipeline.
Who is your audience? It’s essential to define your audience and work backward from there to determine which types of media will be optimal for publicity efforts.
For example, if you sell pet products, your audience will be pet owners. Which media will be best for connecting you with pet owners? It may be a dedicated pet podcast or a local news show that has a pet segment.
What do you want this audience to do when it hears about you? You’re not advertising, so you cannot say “Act now and save!” Rather, you have to state your value proposition in a way that serves the needs of the media outlet. For example, if you sell dog shampoo, you could present an on-air segment about the importance of keeping your dog clean. That meets the outlet’s need to entertain and inform its audience, while positioning your shampoo as a product of interest to the audience.
What does it take to secure media coverage? It’s a vast, complex topic, but its essence is quite simple. It all comes down to your story. Can you craft a compelling story for news coverage? Reporters and editors follow what they think their audiences want, with some exceptions, e.g., breaking stories that are important but not necessarily popular. In general, though, if a media outlet’s audience wants reviews of cool cars, to use one example, then your story had better feature a cool car to review.
To get there, you have to think backward from the audience’s interests and figure out how they intersect with your story. For example, let’s say you sell sustainable cosmetics. Your potential customers are consumers who care about sustainability. That’s your audience. What kind of story will attract their attention? Perhaps they’ll be interested in a story about the lack of sustainability in the conventional cosmetics industry.
To reach this audience, you might develop a media “pitch” that goes like this: Why your makeup is killing the planet, and what you can do about it. A reporter or editor who covers beauty might bite. This is known as landing the pitch.
The specifics of how you reach reporters vary widely from case to case. Today, email is one of the most common modes of media pitching, so choosing the right email template can be important for effective media pitching.
Who will pitch your story to the news media? Increasingly, that might be you. With tools like the Muck Rack media database, you can find reporters who cover your industry and reach out to them directly. A generation ago, this was a big no-no. Today, it’s no big deal. You can be your own publicist. Most people don’t have the time or skills to do their own PR, so they hire a PR firm or freelance public relations experts online.
Each industry has its own distinct path to success in publicity. What works for a car dealer won’t work for a high-tech startup. Over the years, we’ve pitched many different types of clients. Here are a few examples of what we’ve seen work:
What should you pay for public relations? There are two basic ways to buy public relations services. You can get publicity through a traditional retainer-based PR firm. Or, you can pay a freelancer. Both models are based on hourly billing. You will find that there are affordable public relations agencies for small businesses in the USA, if that’s what you need. In the retainer approach, you are paying for a predetermined number of hours each month, e.g., 200 hours of publicist time at $150 per hour, or $30,000 a month. With freelancers, you usually pay for hours of work performed.
There is no right or wrong way to buy publicity services. Retainer-based firms are expensive, but you usually get a high level of expertise, media relationships, e.g., picking up the phone and calling an editor at the New York Times, and crisis PR services. They may be the top media outreach firms for local businesses in your area. Freelance publicists are a good option if you’re on a budget, though their hours can add up, and you have to establish rules up front, such as capping hours per week, and so forth.
We are offering a new, third way to buy publicity services. We work on a gig-by-gig basis. This fixed price approach enables you to get a PR service without concerns about running over budget or being billed for services you didn’t necessarily want.
A professional public relations firm cannot guarantee media exposure. They can do their best to pitch you to the media, but they cannot control what reporters and editors will do. At least, this has long been the case for established media outlets. Things are changing in the new era of blogs and podcasts—as well as an increasing number of “pay to play” media outlets.
For serious PR, however, when clients ask if they can have an article “placed” in a major media outlet, the answer is no. Some press release distribution services are sowing confusion on this issue by claiming they can get you published on leading news sites. This is not accurate. Yes, they can syndicate your press release onto major sites like Yahoo Finance or Business Insider, but the press release distribution process does not guarantee that a reporter is going to write an article about your news. There is at least one exception to this rule, however. Ascend Agency offers guaranteed placement of articles on certain name-brand news sites, though the prices are relatively high for this service.
Publicity can be an effective way of achieving business goals like growth and the enhancement of professional reputations. Public relations is usually the path to achieving publicity, but there are alternatives, such as doing your own publicity. The process can be challenging, so it helps to have a great story to tell. A PR firm is set up to help you with getting publicity. You have choices in how you engage with them. Some work on retainers. Others are by-the-hour. We are piloting a fixed price model. However you approach it, publicity should be an element of your marketing mix.
To learn more about our publicity services, visit our Services page.
To book a free consultation, click here.
Photo by SHAHBAZ ZAMAN: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-studio-set-up-7865064/
Comms Factory is a new kind of public relations firm. We serve the unique publicity needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses, medical practices, non-profits, artists, authors, and musicians. Unlike retainer-based PR firms, we work on a pay-as-you-go basis, with fixed-price gigs for press release writing, distribution, and media outreach.
Copyright © 2021 – 2026 by Comms Factory, All Rights Reserved..
