There’s an image I like to share when I’m hosting webinars, which demonstrates the value of doing your own PR and working on your own publicity.

You can see it here:

It’s a advertising rate card for the Daily Mail.

The reason I share it, is to show how much taking out an advert in the Daily Mail would cost you (I’m picking the Daily Mail because it’s such a popular paper, but this would work for any publication really), as opposed to getting media coverage for free.

Basically, taking out a full-page or double-page ad would cost you between £32,000 and £82,000.

Hmm, so not such a great option for us small business owners.

Buuuuuut, the great news is, you can actually get the equivalent of that coverage for free. I have clients who have done just that.

And, what’s really great, is that getting that free coverage is actually MORE effective than paying for an advert. (Studies show that editorial coverage from PR is seven times more effective than paid advertising).

Take my former client Dawn, using the techniques that I teach in my PR Power programme, she secured a full page article in the Daily Mail, from sending just one email with a well thought out pitch:

Bam – free coverage for her and her business right there.

Now this isn’t the first bit of coverage Dawn has got. While we were working together she got in touch with her local paper, and as a result had an article published – which led to her signing up ten new clients in one week! How amazing is that?

She went on to have another article published on a well known blog, leading to another ten new international clients. Oh, and thanks to her hard work and fantastic media coverage, she has just been confirmed as a TED speaker too. What a star!

And she’s not the only one who’s had amazing results.

My client Jayne secured tons of media coverage in just one week – and made a huge impact at the same time, using techniques taught in PR Power.

She sent out pitches to tell journalists about a campaign to tie in with Depression Awareness Week called #whatyoudontsee. As a result of those pitches she secured coverage in The Metro, Stylist Magazine, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, The Mighty and lots more, including the front page of Huffington Post. A-mazing!

In fact, she was so successful that the campaign reached over a million people – the Buzzfeed article alone had 700,000 views! We also worked on getting in touch with celebrities, and the campaign ended up being shared by famous names including Jonny Wilkinson, Marion Keyes and Wentworth Miller.

The best thing? People tweeting and posting Facebook updates to say how much the campaign had helped and inspired them. Sooooo awesome.

Because great publicity can make you money. And great publicity can make an impact. And after all, those are the two things that most of us want, right?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

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