Green is the New Black

Do you run a business or nonprofit that helps improve the environment? Are you an expert on "green" topics? If you are, and you're not doing media interviews on a regular basis, you're missing lots of opportunities to further your cause or promote your business, product, or service.

When it comes to publicity opportunities, green is definitely the new black.

I subscribe to a service that helps journalists find sources for articles or broadcast segments. It's called ProfNet, and this week has brought subscribers a lot of queries on green topics -- I saw four just this afternoon alone. You have to be a PR practitioner to receive all of the journalist queries that get sent out to paid subscribers every day, but others can receive highly-specialized "feeds," as they're called, through a Profnet reseller called PRLeads. With PRLeads, you specify your area of expertise -- in this case -- "green." You will then receive only those queries that match your expertise.

PRLeads costs $99 per month, which is substantially less than a ProfNet subscription. It's not for everyone, but I do recommend it for people who are good resources for the topics I see over and over in the ProfNet queries. The key to success with the service, though, is being in a position to comment on a topic or subject that gets a steady stream of inquiries. If your expertise is esoteric, it's probably not a good publicity tool for you.

And, of course, once you receive the queries from journalists looking for sources, you have to respond in a way that tells the reporter that you're just the person to talk to. But I'll address how to do that another time.

Have you had success as a PRLeads subscriber? Tell us about it here.