Online Publicity

What is Publicity when it Comes to Marketing?

The marketing mix consist of the four P's: product, place, price, and promotion. When it comes to publicity, we are looking at the promotion sector of the marketing mix. In this sector, there's a promotion mix that includes advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, sales promotion, and ultimately publicity. Publicity is defined as gaining public visibility or awareness for a product, service, or your company via media. Publicity campaigns can be executed over traditional communications channels (print, TV, and radio) or online ones (such as blogs, social media, and Internet publications). 

What is the Difference Between Publicity and Advertising?

There's two basic categories that promotion fall into, and that's paid and unpaid. Publicity is unpaid promotion and advertising is paid promotion. For example, If a local newspaper or a magazine does a write-up or a review on your business or product, then that's unpaid publicity. Paid advertising of your business or product is doing an ad in a local newspaper, buying banner advertising space online, or paying for any other advertisements. 


It’s imperative to understand the difference between advertising and publicity- publicity is the specific strategy that increases public awareness through media. There is no single approach to publicity strategy. It can be a successful tool that helps companies establish a better brand position, and the effects of online publicity are continuous and have the chance to repeat themselves. By analyzing your target audience and refining a publicity strategy that caters to them, then your brand/company can benefit greatly through promotional publicity.

Ways to Publicize Yourself:

Current News and Trends- Journalists always want to publish whatever will interest their readers and result in more pageviews and subscribers. When people think of publicity, they think of mass media and paparazzi, but this is the most difficult to achieve because there's so many pitches that journalists receive each day. Pitch in a way that will genuinely interest the people who you are contacting. Do not pitch thinly-veiled attempts to get links and shares for you or your clients.

Product Placements- The incorporation of any product into a movie or TV show has to be done in a way that is within the real of possibility in the world of the movie or show. The product should not be inserted out of nowhere but instead play a role in advancing the plot. Product placement is an expensive, high risk, and high reward tactic.

Tie-ins with TV Shows and Movies-  People have emotional connections to their favorite TV shows and movies, and they'll naturally be interested in anything that incorporates those programs and films. After all, a lot of marketing is based on appeals to emotion. Because it can be easy to incorporate a tie-in with a movie or TV show, the benefits, when successful, tend to be less effective than product placements.

Staging a Contest- People like free stuff, so contests can be a great way to get attention, but it needs to be good strategizing. And because people like free stuff, they would be interested in reading or hearing about a contest, which result in more publicity thanks to the the media outlets writing about what their readers are interested in. As long as the contest is original and interesting and will offer prizes that are truly newsworthy and valuable, then well-crafted pitches should pique the curiosity of relevant media outlets and bloggers.

Working for a Cause- There's almost always a benefit to a business when they work for a charity, but aligning one's company with a cause can be risky, depending on the level of controversy that the issue generates. What you should ask yourself is "How can I align my product or brand with those causes in a way that will increase natural mentions of me whenever that cause is mentioned?"

Tie-Ins with Holidays or Events- Holiday and event tie-ins can be good ways to insert your brand into a special, relevant time that is celebrated or held by your target audience. Holiday tie-ins are typically a safe way to get some attention — but while the risk is low, so usually is the reward. Many companies will do some publicity stunt for almost any given event, so it will take something very creative to stand out.

Create a Character and Tell a Story- We are fascinated by good characters because they reflect parts of ourselves and the societies in which we live. The creation and publicizing of a good character — even in an advertisement — will provoke thousands of journalists, writers, and bloggers to write about him or her on their own. If the character is associated with a brand, then that brand will also get the attention.