Page 247 - Duct Tape Marketing

Chapter 15

Public Relations and Publicity

In This Chapter

ᮣ Generating publicity
ᮣ Writing, distributing, and following up on news releases
ᮣ Preparing for media interviews
ᮣ Staging news conferences
ᮣ Handling crisis communications

Let’s smash two notions right up front:

First, public relations is not simply whitewashing.

Second, publicity is not free advertising.

Whew! That was quick. With those two misconceptions out of the way, count
on this chapter to confirm what public relations is, what publicity is, and how
you can use each of them to increase your company’s visibility, supplement
and reinforce your advertising, and enhance your reputation in your market
and industry.

If you wait to launch a public relations program until you face an image prob-
lem, you will have waited too long. Use public relations and publicity to
enhance your image, not to right a wrong or fix an image disaster.

The following pages tell you how.

The Relationship between Publicity
and Public Relations

The same people who think marketing is a dressed-up word for sales will tell
you that public relations is a way to get publicity — and that publicity is a