What I’m talking about is a different kind of NAP– Name, Address and Phone Number– and how these directly relate to driving targeted traffic to your website.

Let me ask you a question… Are your company name, address and phone number all easily visible on your website, social media accounts and local business directories like Google Places, Bing Local, Yelp and Yahoo Local? Better yet, can you access all of these listings, websites and accounts and tell me that your company name, address and phone number are all the exact same?

If not, you’re actually driving traffic away from your website.  Let me explain why.

Essentially, when search engines like Bing, Google and Yahoo create these business listings that you can claim and update for FREE, they use searched information on the web to determine the correct address for your company. If, for some reason, they have an old address from before you moved or a missing suite or building number, you can be missing out on all the traffic that should be pointing to your current address and phone number.

These listing are so simple to claim, access and update and they’re a great starting point to drive targeted, ready-to-take-action traffic to you. So, first things first, make sure the NAP information on your website is accurate and how you want it displayed on all mediums– from social media accounts to your Yelp Local Business Listing.

Next, review your social media accounts, profiles and admin areas and make sure the contact information, business name and address are all the exact same as your website. From there, simply login to your local business listings (if you don’t have one, go to the major sites mentioned above and search for your company name and then claim your business for free) and make sure the same NAP information is accurate and consistent with the other mediums.

This seems so redundant and simple, I know, but you would be surprised with the number of clients we have who are either naive or unaware of the effects that NAPs have on their business. The key is that it’s not too late to claim your listing, update your accounts, profiles and website. By taking a few minutes and checking these areas, you will ensure you’re not making the mistake of continually driving traffic to your competitors.

If you have any questions on how to make these updates or how to claim your listings, please call us today at (316) 942-1111 or comment on this post.

That’s why I put together some time-tested and proven tips and strategies designed to give you a big boost in growing your business.  I think you’ll find a lot of value from the quick-read ideas presented in “Profit-Rich Marketing: Proven Strategies to Help You Grow Your Business,” which are designed for easy implementation.

The practical marketing approach and proven strategies will help you to:

• Create the Marketing Mindset
• Create Explosive Growth in Your Business
• Utilize Marketing Secrets of the Masters
• Measure Marketing Success
• Design Profit-Rich Marketing Materials
• Write Copy Like the Pros
• Build Your Online Money Machine
• Drive Targeted Traffic
• Use Blog Marketing to Build Your Business
• Monetize Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Get more details on my “Profit-Rich Marketing: Proven Strategies to Help You Grow Your Business” and leave us a comment to let us know some of the ways you’d like to improve your business.

In the last post I talked about the phenomenon Pants on the Ground and other successful viral videos. While he’s on minute 14 of his 15 minutes of fame, Larry Platt got so much press that he now has many more business opportunities. While you may not have the platform that launched Larry Platt’s viral video, you certainly have the same potential for your business.

So where do you start?

Start with actually creating videos!

The key is to produce videos on your products & services and on your area of expertise.  Ideas and concepts for viral videos start with your outcome. Your outcome should be to add value,  solve problems, and communicate your ideas and concepts. When you create something of value the marketplace will decide if it’s going to go viral or not.  But it starts with you creating the videos.  So focus less on making them go viral, and more on getting the experience creating videos that add value.

Here are a few more considerations to help you harness the power of viral videos to build and promote your business.

Create how-to videos that showcase your expertise. This will serve as a free teaser to how you can help people.  And, if you do a good job, you will turn prospects who found your video useful into potential customers who are willing to purchase your products or services.

Create a blog post and turn it into a video. Use your blog posting basically as a script to create a short 1-2 minute video. Often, it’s easier for people to watch a short video than spend time reading a blog posting. If it’s on a topic people find relevant, useful, and is something they haven’t heard a million times, they will forward it on to their friends. At the end of the video, mention your website or how people can get more information about you or your services.

Remember, a key component is to tie in a very subtle outro scene to the end of the video that includes your company name and website. This will not only get your name out there, but it will send traffic back to your company website. If  it’s too blatant of a promo then it won’t get forwarded and thus won’t go viral.

In the world of Web 2.0, when there are countless tools you can use to promote your business for virtually no cost, it is imperative that you start exploring new ways to get your name out to targeted prospects. Creating videos is a good start. Don’t think you can’t do this because you don’t have the American Idol exposure. Think about your target market. Viral within your market might only need a few thousand views to have the same impact.

Take action today: Go create videos.

My next post will focus on how to leverage your YouTube channel to get targeted exposure for your videos.  In the meantime… How else have  you seen videos used to successfully promote your business?

Publicity as you know comes in many communication forms, from traditional print, tv, and radio to the power of the internet. My outcome is to re-ignite your passion and purpose for creating FREE and low cost publicity to increase your market share!

Traditional Media Relations is a sophisticated process with its own protocol, etiquette and rules. Savvy marketers know how to navigate those waters to build those relationships and reach their target audience through the power of publicity efforts. You can do it too!

Let’s review the key elements of a publicity plan.

Start by developing a clear understanding of your target audience? Who are they? What do they read, watch or listen to? Define their demographics, lifestyle and life stage? Next, make a list of your core messages and ideas. For example the PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS, and TOPICS related to your products & services. What problems can you help them solve? Keep in mind, that to create an effective press release, it must be of value and not a self-absorbed promotion. Ask yourself, what message you want to give them and why should they care? How can you entertain and inform them at the same time? Finally, dedicate time each week to your publicity efforts. It’s one of the best ways to improve your positioning, and grow your business.

Recently we launched the ProfitRichMarketing.com membership site. It’s a website that’s focused on all things related to marketing to help you grow your business. We wanted to drive traffic, generate leads, gain subscribers and get higher rankings in the search engines so that our prospects could find us. when they are searching for specific keyword terms. The process started by creating the publicity plan and answering the questions we discussed earlier. Our goal was to reach business owners, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, sales people and anyone else who wanted to learn how to promote and use marketing methods effectively. We knew that our prospects weren’t searching to join a content membership site, but that they would be searching for solutions, for tips, tactics, strategies and techniques related to understanding marketing, sales, promotion and publicity.

Then we created press releases and articles in a format that was newsworthy and filled them with keyword rich search terms; included hyperlinks back to us; and a byline about our company. Please understand, simply creating compelling content isn’t enough…it still has to reach interested readers.

The most effective way to publish your media release is to simultaneously place it on your own web site and send it to the press release distribution services. I’m sure you understand the concept of posting it to your site… just get your webmaster to create a section on your site with clear navigation and links with the keywords, titles and topics of your press releases. Warning: this next tip is a bit technical… You can go the extra mile and create an RSS feed on your site using a RSS feed generator script too. That makes it easy for your site visitors to get YOUR content dynamically… automatically to their site, blog or RSS reader… if they subscribe to your RSS Chanel feed. We don’t have enough time to go into the depths of RSS in this episode. For now, just make sure you post your releases on your web site and get your webmaster to research and implement RSS feeds.

Next, you’ll want to utilize Press Release Distribution Services. Keep in mind that they fall into two categories, each with their own benefits. There are distribution services that specialize in getting your releases out to lots of different Internet sites. This helps you reach thousands of people almost instantly because listings get automatically sent to Google News, Yahoo News and others. Your search-engine rankings improve too when you include hyperlinks back to your site from your releases because in-bound links are a weighted component of the search-engine rankings algorithms. And the other type of distribution service focuses on getting your release into the hands of broadcast and print reporters. While some services claim to do both, usually you’ll have to use more than one service and track the results. While I don’t endorse any particular service, you can find them popular services on Google or Yahoo by searching for *News Release Services*

I hope you’re taking great notes and have already compiled a list of publicity action steps you’re going to take. Subscribe to the RSS Feed on follow me, Ford Saeks on Twitter at: www.Twitter.com/Prime_Concepts

Now the GLOBE wasn’t my first choice for my entrepreneurial story when I was working to increase exposure and sales using press releases. It started with me sending press releases about my products to local papers, then trade publications, and went on to include national & international magazines, including USA Today, Entrepreneur, Success, Popular Science and many others.

“Using the Power of Publicity to Increase Sales”

Those media efforts launched and helped the success of my business grow into a multi-million dollar company. Those releases gave my products millions of dollars worth in free advertising, outstanding third-party endorsements, squashed the competition, created a ton of sales leads…. and they positioned my products in the eyes of my prospects & customers.

Since then, I’ve harnessed the power of publicity to promote all kinds of products and services in more industries than I can count. Now I use publicity efforts to promote my Direct & Internet Marketing services, along with efforts to promote my client’s products that lead to millions in sales each year. It’s much easier than most people may think. There are hundreds of magazines starving for content, but it has to be of value or forget it, not to mention the millions of internet sites craving for new content.

When was the last time YOU sent out a press release? What’s YOUR opinion of media releases? Do you have a Media Section of your website? Learning how to craft and use press releases is extremely valuable for your promotional efforts…. and we’re going to look at how YOU can do it better too! The impact, reach and power of publicity have never been greater. You’re ability to get your stories published and read is much easier than ever before. Using publicity strategies with the power of the internet can give you a competitive edge, and increase your sales. Publicity is a valuable component of any company that wants a competitive edge.

For the purposes of today’s show, when I refer to either a press or media release, I’m referring to the same thing. Sure, if you want to get nit-picky a *Press* release is sent to print publications and a media release is sent to TV, Radio, and internet sites, but for today… the outcome is the same… to send a news worthy article or story that is something of value to a group of listeners, viewers or readers… and that includes your prospects searching the internet.

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to benefit from sending out press releases you had to identify media outlets, attempt to entice overworked and underpaid reporters, publishers or editors to pick up your story. It could be a long and arduous process. Even if you hired a PR Firm, you still were stuck with them targeting journalists and media outlets to select your stories. Today, you can benefit from online media sources that post and distribute your releases to millions instantly… We’re going to explore the strategies that you can use to become a publicity powerhouse!

You still want to include a strategy to get printed in traditional publications and viewed through media sources, but now you can use the power of the internet to do it faster and more effectively. Keep in mind, a poorly written, self-promotional press release will be just as useless in any medium… so you need to understand how the process works best to benefit from it.

It’s important to note that not all of the rules have changed for getting free publicity. The benefits remain virtually the same. You’re leveraging the resources of other media sources to reach your target market for much less money than advertising. The main difference from then to now is that before you had little to no control over what stories and how much of the story actually got published, but now thanks to online PR Services, your press release automatically becomes web content, which means it has a much better chance at automatically becoming news, and more importantly helping your prospects find you.

Follow me on www.Twitter.com/Prime_Concepts Subscribe to the RSS feed and post your comments or questions below.

While I don’t know about your opinion concerning marketing to the media, I can tell you from my own experience that sending out press releases on a regular basis has helped launch my business and played a vital role in growing it into a multi-million dollar success.

Regularly writing and sending out press releases gave my products millions of dollars worth of advertising for free, provided outstanding third-party endorsements, squashed the competition, created a ton of sales leads… and positioned my products in the eyes of my prospects. I’ve used the power of publicity to successfully promote all kinds of products and services in more industries than I can count.

Now if you’re thinking that planning and carrying out a publicity campaign to the media has to be time-consuming and difficult, think again. It’s actually easier than most people think. After all, there are hundreds of consumer and trade magazines, newspapers, TV and radio stations, and websites out there starving for content. If you can provide content that’s worth reading, you won’t have any trouble getting your releases published.

Before you start sending out your releases, take some time to research the TV or radio stations, websites, newspapers and magazines on your target list.  Make sure your release will be of interest to their audiences.

And before I go any further, I want to make a subtle but important distinction here. For the purposes of this article, when I refer to a press release or media release, I’m referring to basically the same thing. If you want to get nit-picky, a “press release” is sent to print publications (magazines and newspapers), whereas a media release is sent to TV, radio, and Internet sites. For the purposes of this article, though, they’re pretty much interchangeable.

More Options Than Ever

Not too long ago, if you wanted to benefit from sending out press releases you had to identify media outlets, and then attempt to get an overworked and underpaid reporter or editor to pick up your story. It was a long and arduous process.

Even if you hired a PR firm, you still were left trying to target journalists and media outlets to run with your releases. Fortunately, today you can benefit from online media sources that post and distribute your releases to millions instantly.

It’s important to note that not all of the rules have changed for getting free publicity.The benefits remain virtually the same. You’re leveraging the resources of other media sources to reach prospects for much less money than advertising.

The main difference between “the good old days” and now is that back then you had little to no control over which releases were selected and how much of the release actually got published. Now, thanks to online PR services, your press release automatically becomes web content, which means it has a much better chance at automatically becoming news, and more importantly, helping prospects find you or your website.

Before you start writing your releases, create a publicity plan. Develop a clear understanding of your target audience. Who are they? Are they consumers or trade professionals? What do they need? What magazines or newspapers or websites do they read? Try to define their demographics and lifestyle using your current customer database.

Next, make a list of your core messages and ideas. For example the problems, solutions, and topics related to your products and services. What problems can you help customers solve? Why should they care? How can you entertain and inform them at the same time?

As an example, recently my company launched a new membership site called ProfitRichMarketing.com membership site. It’s a website that’s focused on all things related to marketing to help our clients grow their businesses. We wanted to drive traffic, generate leads, gain subscribers and get higher rankings in the search engines so that our prospects could find us when they are searching for specific keyword terms.

We started the process by creating a publicity plan and answering the same questions I posed a little earlier. Our goal was to reach business owners, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, sales people and anyone else who wanted to learn how to promote and use marketing methods effectively.

We knew that our prospects weren’t searching to join a content membership site, but that they would be searching for solutions, for tips, tactics, strategies and techniques related to understanding marketing, sales, promotion and publicity.

So we created press releases and articles that were newsworthy (not self-promoting “commercials”), and filled them with keyword-rich search terms. We included hyperlinks back to us, and even a tagline about our company.

We published our media releases on our own websites and we sent them to various press release distribution services. I’m sure you understand the concept of posting it to your site… just get your webmaster to create a section on your site with clear navigation and links with the keywords, titles and topics of your press releases.

There are basically two types of press release distribution services available to you. The first type is distribution services that specialize in getting your press releases out to lots of different Internet sites. This helps you reach thousands of people almost instantly because listings get automatically sent to Google News, Yahoo News and others.

Your search engine rankings improve too when you include hyperlinks back to your site from your releases because in-bound links are a weighted component of the search-engine rankings algorithms.

The other type of distribution service focuses on getting your release into the hands of media decision-makers. While some distribution services claim to do both, usually you’ll have to use more than one service and track the results. I don’t endorse any particular service, but you can find several on Google or Yahoo just by searching for “News Release Services.”

Remember, editors aren’t interested in helping you make money or driving traffic to your site. They’re looking for a story that will sell issues or boost subscriptions. Maintain a media database of your contacts as you go along.

The real benefit isn’t just when your stories or articles get published, but when you get copies of all media features and use them to beef up your other marketing efforts.

To find out how much this kind of free publicity is worth, ask your contact what the comparable cost in paid advertising would have been in air time, column inches, etc., and multiply that amount by three (because of credibility) to reach an estimated value of your publicity. When you do this, you’ll see how that “free publicity” can suddenly be worth millions!

P.R. Quick & Dirty… 7 Reasons why you need free publicity:

1. Establishes credibility about you and your products or services.
2. Enhances customer retention.
3. Makes it easier to enter new markets.
4. Creates a competitive advantage.
5. Helps to position your products or services in your target markets.
6. Helps you sell more.
7. The price is right. It’s practically free!

TIP#1: When you prepare the release, use the term “MEDIA RELEASE” for television and radio and “PRESS RELEASE” for print media. Getting those terms mixed up sends a red flag to the editors and producers and your release may end up in the trash before they even look at it.

TIP#2: Many publications struggle each month to fill advertising space and welcome articles and product releases that add value to their audiences.

Basic anatomy of a media/press release:

It’s nothing more that a sales letter without a salutation or a signature.

1. Start with a unique benefit message in the form of a headline & subhead focused at the target market of their readers, listeners of viewers.

2. In a first paragraph mention your name and the compelling messages and benefits that you offer. Use might want to use highlighted bullets for easy reading. In most cases it’s critical to tie your benefits to hot or current topics.

3. The next couple of paragraphs should state why you or your company is unique and has credibility to offer such solutions.

4. The closing paragraph is the action step that you want your readers, listeners or viewers to do. For example, call for a free report, come to our event, etc.

Send out press releases each month to multiple mediums. Go to the library and check out the reference section for directories of publications. One great resource is the Standard Rate & Data Service (SRDS) directory and site. www.SRDS.com.

Call them and ask for their “media/advertising kits”. Then reveiw their publicaiton (or media source) and get familiar with the style and content to make sure that what you’re submiting has VALUE to their audience, readers, listeners, viewers, etc.

Then you can submit story angles that get attention and add valude… and more importantly, drive traffic to your site, build your prospect and customer lists and help you sell more product and services.

ACTION STEPS

What are my industry, profession, topic… print publications or media companies:
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YOUR NEW MOTO:

“I spend at least 2 hours a day on outbound marketing & promotion to bring business my way.”