Getting Free Publicity Through Charity Events

 
You've heard the saying a gazillion times:

"Charity begins at home."

But in this age of mass media, charity that begins at home can also proceed straight to your bottom line—by generating traffic to your web site or your business.

And best of all, the mass media—especially the news media—are ready, willing, and more than able to partner with you.

Charity events and stories about community involvement appeal to the media for a number of reasons.

1. They're very sensitive to criticism that "You only want to show bad news" and will make every effort to show uplifting, positive stories whenever possible.

2. It's in their best interest to build goodwill by taking part in community events.

3. In the case of radio and TV stations, they MUST show that they're serving the community. Otherwise, their FCC license would be in jeopardy.

4. For the most part (there are exceptions), they're good-hearted people who really do WANT to help others.

Fundraisers and events that benefit the community amount to a win-win-win situation. Obviously, the charity gets money and attention to their cause, the station or newspaper gets points for its community spirit, and you get publicity that would have cost you thousands of dollars if you had to pay for it.

So, when you want to generate new traffic or more traffic to your business or web site, consider creating a fundraiser for a charity or community organization.

Co-op with a media sponsor

You can guarantee some enthusiastic coverage for an event if you can work a “co-op” or even find a media backer. Many TV stations, radio stations and newspapers will agree to help you by being a sponsor. Sometimes they offer free advertising, but they might even offer cash to help cover the sponsoring organization’s expenses.

Keep in mind, they’re besieged each year with sponsorship requests. The key to getting exposure is to offer them a lot of exposure in return. That might mean a huge banner or big signs at your event.

If you can give the names and addresses of everyone who buys a ticket to the newspaper’s circulation department (for telemarketing), you make yourself more attractive to them. I know some organization won’t be comfortable with that technique, but I’ll let you be the judge on that.

You can also attract media backing by making sure their logo and/or marketing slogan is included on every piece of your marketing material.

Understand up front that in most cases, you shouldn’t expect much help, if any, with the actual event planning. And don’t assume you’ll get more publicity from that media outlet than you might get otherwise. As I’ll explain in Chapter 10, news operations safeguard their independence and are particularly sensitive to getting a “push” from other departments.

Nonetheless, it’s a good thing to get any help you can from someone who already has a pool of viewers, listeners, or readers who might attend your event.

Different media, different hooks

Keep in mind, different media will look for different things before they’ll give you air time or print space.

Articles in this section include:

Choosing a Charity to Publicize

Making Your Charity Event Media Friendly

Getting Publicity on TV for Your Charity Event

Getting Publicity on Radio for Your Charity Event