Marketing-Minded Financial Planners, the Media Wants to Give You Free Publicity.txt

In this great country of ours, there are basically three ways to get yourself tons of media coverage.

You can be a celebrity. Try becoming a TV, movie or sports star. That’s a good start.

You can become notorious. Getting arrested, or enmeshed in a juicy scandal, will do nicely.

But I recommend that you follow the third route. You can become an expert.

Experts, you see, are quoted in the media all the time. All the time. The media need experts to interview and quote, just like puppies need blankets to chew on. Couldn’t live without ‘em.

To a TV, radio, or newspaper reporter, experts are essential because they explain things to the watching and reading audience. News reporters, on air or in print, may choose the news and tell it. But experts explain it all.

Sports fans might look at it this way: reporters and on-air personalities are like the play-by-play announcers. But experts are the color commentators who fill in the meaning.

Try this: I defy you to watch any news program or channel for more than 10 minutes, without seeing an expert quoted. Won’t happen. Just like you’ll never see Monday Night Football without a gaggle of commentators.

But, unless you’re ready to cough up big bucks to buy mailing lists, it limits you. You can only reach the people you already know – the ones in your database. All those people will get to know you better, and that’s good – but you won’t be meeting any new prospects. To do that, it’s either spend on lists or advertising, or learn how to get yourself some free publicity.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners, Make Your Web Site a Resource for the Media.txt

Reporters, by nature, are curious people.

If you can get them to come to your web site, they will probably poke around and spend a few minutes there, learning about your business and your capabilities.

If your web site is any good, this should make them more likely to interview you in the future.

So in your press releases, go one step beyond merely listing your basic contact info.

Think creatively and come up with a clever reason for reporters and readers to go to your web site.

For instance: offer them a list of ten tips, or links to additional resources about the topic at hand. Or – anything. Mention it in your release, and include a link.

You might even include a list of top ten tips specifically for members of the media: "Top 10 poor financial decisions that young, ambitious reporters make."

Once reporters get to your web site, make them glad they did. Provide an area full of resource and background material just for them.

This includes archived press releases, full biographies of you and your management team, publication-ready logos and photography, a history of your firm, and anything else that will grease the wheels of media coverage.

They’ll come back often if you do.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners, It's Not Who You Know But What You Know.txt

Almost every day, I hear the same question, over and over, from motivated, well-meaning financial planners who want to use publicity in their marketing mix. It goes something like this:

“Who do you know in the media? (Or, sometimes they frame it as, “Who do I need to know in the media?”) Can you get me publicity?”

My answer is always the same. Who you know in the media is only half the game. And it’s the easier half.

I'm a former newspaper reporter, and am on a first name basis with plenty of newspaper reporters. And here’s what you get from knowing someone in the media:

It gets them to take your phone call, or your e-mail. Period. That’s it.

But it’s what you know – your unique expertise and experience - and how you serve it up to those hungry media folks that determines whether you’ll become a media star.

When they know you (or your publicist), they’ll gladly give you 30 seconds on the phone to make your pitch. But – and this is the harsh truth – for you to get into print or on the air, they must make the cold, calculated judgment that what you’ve got is newsworthy. Not even the strongest relationships or friendships can bend this iron rule.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners, Don't Hold Back Information From the Media.txt

Some financial planners think that they shouldn't share their top tips with the media.

I can see some validity in thinking this way. After all, the media is going to deliver these tips to the public at practically no charge. Then all those people who might have been paying customers won't have any use for their services.

But there's two things wrong with this:

First of all, it's true that most people are likely to use your information and never contact you. Then again, most people aren't likely to use a financial planner. The people you want to reach are that fraction that are looking, perhaps even subconsciously, for help with their investments. When they see your name in the paper, regardless of the information it is connected to, they will think about calling you.

Second, you aren't the only financial planner looking for publicity. And unless your wisdom far exceeds that of any other financial planner in the world, you'd better believe that your competitors will be offering practically the same information to the media. In the end, not only is the information disseminated after all, but you lose the chance to take credit for it.

Part of being a good media resource is delivering lots of good information. So share everything you’ve got. Hold back nothing. With journalists, “saving the good stuff” for paying customers is a certain ticket to becoming a media fiasco.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners, Create Your Very Own Story to Get Free Publicity.txt

One big mistake that many marketing-minded financial planners make when contacting the media is to drop what's called an "information dump."

Sending a reporter statistics on the growth of your business (no matter how impressive) or on the success rate of your stock picks (no matter how propitious) will simply overwhelm them and will not garner publicity.

What reporters want is a story – a smaller piece of information that is likely to hold their attention and help their readers, viewers or listeners.

Help the media slice and dice your professional knowledge into bits they can use. Pre-slice and dice it for them. Because when you do, you increase our odds of getting publicity.

Why attempt such alchemy ourselves? Aren’t those reporter-types the experts on doing that? Why not just “put it all out there” and let the media take it from there?

No! Because it’s you, not they, who know your own stuff the best. And it’s far easier for you to understand how they work than it is for them to pick out the right nuggets of pertinent information from your entire, lifelong accumulation of subject-matter expertise. (After all, today they’re reporting on the tax law, tomorrow it’s on to new trends in the insurance industry.)

So, your first job: create your very own story.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners Put Extra Content in an E-Zine.txt

As you start getting more media-savvy, you'll find yourself coming up with more and more information and ideas to help the public. Not all of these ideas will strike the fancy of your media contacts, but don't let them go to waste—become a media person yourself by publishing an e-zine.

Fill your e-zine with the same advice, information, and tips you use in your publicity articles. You'll want to edit in for readability on the Web—that means short paragraphs. Studies have shown that people hate reading long blocks of text on a computer screen.

You are using the same content, but have more ways to get it in front of your sources of referrals, clients and potential clients. Better publicity, better marketing, more business.

You don't have to be tech-savvy or even tech-competent to create an e-zine these days. Plenty of services now do all the tech stuff, design work, and bulk e-mail distribution for you…. for pennies. They are web-based, so you don't even have to download a program, and you can write your e-zine from anywhere.

Once you spend an hour doing the basic set up work, all you do is write a few clever words, they automatically fall into an appealing-looking template, and are then sent to your list.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]

Marketing-Minded Financial Planners Piggyback on "Topic A" to Get Free Publicity.txt

That big story the media pursue each day is what I call Topic A. And even if it doesn't seem to have anything to do with financial planning, it often lead to huge media visibility for you.

Often, Topic A has a controversial element, such as when tax cuts or Social Security is being discussed.

The last thing that you want to do is pick sides on a controversial issue--unless you want to cut your prospect base in half by offending 50% of the audience.

But as an independent expert providing objective, valuable, nonpartisan insight and analysis, you can stay above the fray – and still win points.

You could beat your head against a wall twelve months a year, trying to get a reporter to write about your retirement planning story.

Or, by contacting a reporter when a prominent person is retiring, you could garner the free publicity you seek in a few short minutes.

Which is better?

If you can link your expertise to Topic A, you stand a great chance of getting media coverage for yourself. Jump onto that story and hold on tight.

Often, Topic A involves politics. As a subject-matter expert, your job is to explain, not to take sides. When each side has a proposal, you simply describe what the effect of the President's plan will be, and what the effect of Congress's plan will be.

Much of the discussion is held on political shows, where people are constantly arguing. Avoid these types of programs, and stake your claim in consumer and business oriented shows. There are plenty.

Let the noisemakers make noise, and while they do, you shed the light.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele's MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

[tags]financial planners publicity, financial planners marketing, marketing, publicity, pr[/tags]