Using “Guerrilla Publicity” to Tell the World About Your Company

Every business person wants to tell the world about his company’s fantastic product or service, but few people possess the strategic skills needed to effectively spread the good word.

According to a value-packed new book, “Guerrila Publicity” (Adams Media 2002),“Publicity is the most overlooked marketing tool, but it can be the least expensive, least risky and most effective and easiest to use—when you understand it and how to use it.”

Subtitled, “Hundred of sure-fire tactics to get maximum sales for minimum dollars,” the book, by Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin, provides concrete publicity strategies to owners of small businesses whose dreams are bigger than their budgets. Chapter titles include “Introduce Yourself with a Sound Bite,” “Fifteen Things the Media Hates” (and “Fifteen Things the Media Loves”) and “Online Publicity Strategies.”

AMA’s Editorial Director Florence Stone recently interviewed Rick Frishman, one of the authors of “Guerilla Publicity,” to find out how anyone can become schooled in the art of promotion.

AMA: Your book is entitled “Guerrilla Publicity.” Why “guerrilla?”
Rick Frishman: “Guerrilla” means high impact, low cost publicity ideas that will make you stand out in today’s overcrowded marketplace.

AMA: What role does Guerrilla Publicity play in corporate marketing?
Frishman: In today’s economy with the downsizing of budgets, cuts in personnel and multiple job sharing, companies have to be mean and lean so they use these techniques to get their word out.

AMA: How do you apply Guerrilla Publicity to yourself within an organization?
Frishman: Get noticed for who you are and what your work is. Guerrilla Publicity applies to both external and internal communications.

AMA: You advocate building your marketing plan around publicity. What is that?
Frishman: Publicity is free. You don’t pay to place it. Advertising is costly and not effective on its own. Publicity gives you far more credibility and visibility. It is the much more economical way to go.

AMA: How would you use publicity to support a brand?
Frishman: Publicity encourages brand recognition, creates name visibility and is actually more effective than advertising for creating this recognition.

AMA: Do you have to hire a professional publicist to undertake an effective publicity campaign?
Frishman: It takes a trained publicist to help strategize and create a plan that effectively communicates a message with strong impact. However, I believe that most staff can be trained to create the desired results.

AMA: What are the key steps in the kind of Guerrilla Publicity you recommend?
Frishman:

1. Identify your message
2. Create a one-page press release
3. Identify your target market
4. Create media lists specific to your message
5. Send it out.
6. Follow up, follow up, follow up.

AMA: You advocate that firms and individuals find their uniqueness, then capitalize on it. How do you identify this uniqueness?
Frishman: Look at a part of your story that makes you stand apart from the crowd. Have you overcome an obstacle? Are you juggling career and kids? Are you in a family business? What is it that makes you different from your competition? What are your practical goals? What are you an expert in?

For more information about “Guerilla Publicity” contact Rick Frishman at www.PlannedTVArts.com orAdams Media Corporation www.adamsmedia.com

Author Bio: Rick Frishman, co-author of “Guerrilla Publicity” (Adams Media 2002), is president of Planned Television Arts, a leading book publishing publicity firm, and is executive vice president at Ruder*Finn.