Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

How Can I Get the Media Involved?

Since Day Dreamin’ Exotics is a start-up company with limited resources for advertising, we have tried to use creative techniques to generate interest from local media personalities. This can be very difficult, as some of the television and radio personalities view themselves as celebrities rather than media personnel.

We have used our cars to create interest in our product. We were able to take the Aston Martin and Viper to the Utah Jazz Playoff game this week. The Jazz charge several thousand dollars to park a car on the plaza and show them off. Because we do a small amount of advertising with KFAN, the local radio station that broadcasts the games, we were able to put our cars in their space with a KFAN sticker displayed. It made KFAN look great and we got our cars on the plaza for free.

We turned to guerilla marketing and a free Tour give away to increase the hype. Every news team in town was on the plaza broadcasting live. We were the perfect backdrop for several hits. I spoke with a number of the anchors during the evening. One in particular is a car guy and has a huge interest in Day Dreamin’. Not only does he want to do the tour himself, but also his producer called me the next day to arrange a short segment for the news.

Not every new business can boast $600,000 worth of exotic cars, but try to find a way to generate interest for the media. Try to find something newsworthy. If you can get one or two people in the media excited and involved, it can produce thousands of dollars in free publicity.

Posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 am and is filed under Day Dreamin Exotics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.