Book Review: PR Therapy by Robin Blakely

There are three reasons why I highly recommend Robin Blakely's new book, PR Therapy: Ignite Your Passion for Promoting Your Products, Services, and Even Yourself!. First, it addresses the fears and anxieties that small business owners, authors, speakers, and others have when they realize that they need (and want) to generate publicity for their products or services.

Authors, in particular, are uncomfortable with what they see as "self-promotion." Because they are so closely aligned with their products, authors fail to see that it's not self-promotion, it's product promotion. This topic came up over the weekend during my "How to Build Book Buzz" workshop at the Florida Writer's Association annual conference. I reminded the person who raised this issue that authors owe it to their readers to let them know their book is available to entertain, educate, or inform. I see it as a public service -- how can you help the people you wrote the book for if you don't tell them about your book? And you're not talking about yourself with the press -- you're talking about your book.

Robin's first two chapters help people better understand what might be getting in the way of their publicity success and offers tactics for dealing with those often self-imposed obstacles. Reading the first few chapters is a bit like having a conversation with your mother ("Of course you can do it! You are brilliant!"), your shrink ("I'm sensing some anxiety about the prospect of incredible success. . . ."), and your best friend ("You go girl!").

Second: It's the only one on this topic that I've seen that helps readers better identify their target audiences. I've written about the importance of knowing your audience well on this blog before, so I was happy to see that Robin spends several chapters on the topic. She helps readers discover how to zero in on the people who are most likely to purchase their products or services.

Third: PR Therapy is loaded with the kind of "here's-how-to-do-it" information that I also provide in my books. People without a PR background need to know the best time of day to call a radio talk show producer and how to craft the perfect pitch. It's all here in any easy to use, follow, and understand format.

Check it out in any local bookseller or on Amazon.com; learn more about the author at www.prtherapy.com.

What's the best publicity book you've read?

Who Are You Targeting?

Who is your target audience? And how do you figure out who that is?

I ask these questions because when I am providing guidance to individuals publicizing a product, service or organization, it's clear that many don't have a good grasp of who is most likely to need or want what they're promoting.

Here are a few questions to help you determine if you're going after the right customers with your promotional messages:

1. How would you describe the person who is most likely to be interested in your message? Does gender matter? What about age or ethnicity, profession, income level or location? Write down as much as you know about this person.
2. What thought-leader influences this person? Who does this person look to for guidance (real or imagined) when making a purchasing decision? Those influencers might be local or national and in some situations, could be celebrities.
3. Who are your current customers? What can you learn from them? What do they all have in common? How can you find more people just like them? And...do your current customers look a lot like the person you described in point 1?

It's crucial that you know as much as you possibly can about your target customer because it's the only way you'll know how to get your messages in front of the right people.

What targeting successes -- and failures -- have you experienced? We'd like to hear your stories.

Oprah, Schmoprah

I was asked today to advise a small business owner who wanted to be a guest on Oprah. My task was to explain how she could do that.

Does she market a consumer product targeting the women who are watching Oprah? No. She's in a business-to-business field; her customers and prospects are small business owners. You know they're not watching Oprah and I know they're not watching Oprah, but I got the impression that this business owner didn't give a moment's thought to her target audience and Oprah's existing audience.

The Call of Oprah is just too irresistible. Well Oprah, schmoprah. A lot of business owners, experts, authors -- you name it -- want to be on Oprah. But what's the point of spending countless hours and thousands of dollars working to make it to the couch next to the revered talk show host if your target audience isn't watching her?

Here's one of the secrets to generating the kind of publicity that will boost your business: You have to get in front of your target audience to reach them. It's really that simple. What do they read, watch, or listen to? Are they online? Do they watch the morning network news programs? Are they newspaper or magazine readers? Do they shun traditional media? Find out where they're getting their information, then figure out how to become part of that information flow. But don't just set your sights on Oprah because she's so powerful. She has no power with people who tune her out.