Extend the Post-Publicity High From Media Mentions

by Marcia Yudkin

Imagine checking out a web site you'd never seen and seeing "Welcome, Wall Street Journal readers!" at the top, with a reference to a Journal article quoting the company CEO. Or picture walking into your doctor's office and whiling away the wait reading a framed profile of her that appeared in Healthy Living magazine. Too few media coverage recipients make the most of their minutes in the spotlight. In fact, with a couple of shrewd moves, publicity is a blessing whose benefits can keep on coming practically forever.

First, as soon as possible incorporate your media success into your marketing materials. "As featured in..." is a good all-purpose phrase that impresses people. Even better, there's no reason to ever remove this reference. Once featured on “Good Morning America,” you can always tout that having happened. If you were highlighted in a publication or a broadcast that included web coverage, install a link from your site to their page about your company or you. Put a five-star media credential on your next set of business cards or print up labels about it to stick on your envelopes.

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Second, for print coverage, make nice-looking copies and send them with a personal sticky note to current and past clients and folks trying to decide whether or not to do business with you. Include these copies in your press kit, and in any portfolio you use instead of or in addition to a brochure.

Third, if you have an office where customers or clients come, frame clippings and hang them on the wall. If you have storefront windows, hang the clippings so passersby can read and detour in to do business with you. Be sure, though, to refurbish your display copy every once in a while if it's hanging in the sun. I've seen restaurants undermine the effect of a rave review because the clipping resembles the faded parchment of the Magna Carta.

Do you have too many media mentions to use in these ways? Then corral someone creative to create a collage of these clippings. Or construct a quote sheet full of snippets and their sources, rather like what we sometimes see in ads for critically acclaimed movies.

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Finally, some cautions. One business owner I interviewed in an article in Business 2.0 excerpted long passages from my article at his web site. Without permission to do so, that's a no-no. When I pointed out that he was welcome to link to the article at Business 2.0's site but not to distort my work by cutting the portions that were not about him, he sheepishly (and wisely) complied.

Likewise, some publications want you to buy glossy reprints of the article in which you appeared from them rather than make your own. To be on the up and up, you should do just that.

And suppose the media said negative things about you? It's OK to quote and attribute the positive phrases sprinkled there amidst criticism, so long as you preserve the meaning. From Variety having said, "Excellent dreck!" you cannot extract "'Excellent!' -Variety."