Getting Media Support - A Mutual Uplift Process

In the spirit of the win/win scenario, here is a marketing approach that turns the marketing sales funnel into a potential megaphone and makes clever use of the personal referral.

Let's say there is an event coming up - a trade show, business mixer, or even a shopping center grand opening. You want to create significant buzz about the event, but have almost no funds for advertising. What can you do? Answer: get folks you know - both online and offline - to help spread your message by sending you actual "Dear Editor" letters via email. Here are the steps:

1) Send email to schools, post to your blog and social networks that you would like to be sent "Dear Editor" letters as email or email attachments which you can in turn capture as JPEGS and post to a Squidoo lens.

2) Explain what the content of those messages need to contain. Encourage the person writing the message to include his contact information because you want that kind of information to be available to the news media for follow-up and confirmation purposes. Since this is a win/win deal, encourage the letter-writer to cleverly also promote his business in the "Dear Editor" letter. The letter needs to be brief. No more than a half-page in length.

3) Capture each message used as a JPEG and load it to a Squidoo lens using the Polaroid Squidoo module. Should the Polaroid module does not meet your needs, us the Text/Write Squidoo module and HTML from a Photobucket.com account. This formula is designed to acknowledge the people helping your promotion. It demonstrates you really do appreciate their help. It should also give the news media a wide selection of "Dear Editor" letters from which to choose for their respected publications.

4) Simply contact the news media using a brief email message with a link to your Squidoo lens. The news media should figure out what you are doing and be impressed with your clever approach. Why? Because you are actually helping them do their job in ways most folks do not.

This is not pie-in-the-sky rhetoric. This process is being implemented for a shopping center grand opening in Hidden Valley Lake, CA. Visit the following link to see what is scheduled to take place at the Grand Opening of Hardester's Shopping Center.