Small Business Radio: Free Publicity for Your Business

As advertising budgets for many businesses shrink, the lure of getting visibility for a business through free publicity grows more attractive. Many companies are turning to “earned media”—the free press they generate to promote their products or services through various media channels—to give them the visibility they are hesitant to pay for through advertising channels.

Earned media is attained when a company is mentioned in a journalist’s story, a respected blogger’s entry, or virally through social networks. If this is an avenue you are exploring for your company there are a few tips to keep in mind.

CARYN STARR-GATES

Caryn Starr-Gates is a freelance copywriter and owner of StarrGates Business Communications (www.starrgates.com), which she launched in 2009.

In a career that spans three decades, her experience includes writing retail fashion copy for regional and national department stores; promoting the launch of CNN, the world’s first 24-hour cable news network; ads and TV and radio spots for Anheuser-Busch, Ralston-Purina and ABC Television; ad campaigns and new product concepts for a diverse array of packaged goods products including children’s cereals, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, and dog food, as well as banks, schools, airlines, and theme parks. In recent years Caryn has written extensively for lifestyle, education, life safety, food service, financial, retail, and professional services clients. She creates promotional sales copy for marketing materials, newsletter columns, articles, press releases, print and online ads, and website and social media content for her private clients and for those of the advertising, internet marketing, and public relations agencies with whom she works.