Now that new products through an advertising business or business itself is both challenging and risky. Once the money is gone, there’s seldom second chances. An alternative to advertising is a public relations strategy. Effective PR is a cost-effective way to gain exposure for your product, get leads, and generate more sales and build a great business.

Through advertising a product that is mentioned in the news or feature you receive a passive advertisement and the credibility advertising just can’t buy. A news report is actually far more likely to move people to action than conventional advertising, and a good public relations strategy is the way to get the media to seek you out.

Making the PR process work for you? There are 10 tips you need to create an effective PR plan to give your product competitive advantages in your market:

1. Research your market. Be the most specific you can get about which community will use your product, that will make it easier to identify which method you need to work with. Narrow in your target to be specific and realize that no product ever commands 100 percent market share, nor does it need to in order to be successful.

2. What are the product benefits relevant to your market. what your product does for your potential clientele isn’t as important as the features. You are trying to sell your product so you will get traffic. What are the benefits of your product and now show them the numbers that prove that your product saves your clientele time and money–or makes money.

3. Individuality of your product. Prove your product is faster, better, cleaner or more economical than your competitors’ product or industry standard because of research you do and the knowledge of the product. Such specific and proven advantages will provide concrete evidence to feature your product over anyone else’s.

4. Use testimonials. Everything’s equal, and a testimonial may be one of the strongest ways to enhance the credibility of any promotional piece. This holds true for editorial piece work as well. The biggest difference is the way the testimonial will be presented. Some promotional pieces might get away with “Bob.K.” from Nebraska who says your widgets are “great.” But an editorial piece needs to be about a targeted benefit.

5. Target your market. Trying to sell a studded neck coller at “Hot Topics” would be better then trying it at lets say Sears. With research you’ll identify specific article sites or programs for the industry you are targeting. You will need to do some research to find out which are most seen or read by your target market. These types of publications that are available are newspapers, magazines, newsletters, radio and television broadcasts according to locality and special interest groups. Working on the internet the research is much easier.

6. Prepare your product release. Your release needs a great headline and make sure it has your keywords in it. Your first paragraph should be no more than 25 words and needs to both the headline and summary of the story. A publicist spends on average seven seconds “speed reading” the hundreds of releases they receive each day, so the first short paragraph is critical. And remember to keep your editorial to one page or less.

7. Sell your promotion. You have a product that may interest someone. Give them the headline and the first article. They’ll make a decision then and there whether they like it or not. Then, forward immediately marked clearly to their attention. Earn the right to follow up by asking if you can call back the next day or at some other specific time, depending on publication dates.

8. Follow up. Re-confirm whether or not they received the information you sent and offer to provide more information if necessary.

9. Keep in contact. But don’t be pushy. If the product is of value, it will sell itself. All you should do is provide your contact with more information. This is also a good way to make sure your press release gets a second look.

10. Pictures. A photograph can literally sell a thousand words. Daily media are more photo-conscious than ever, and are more interested in photos than the monthly special interest magazines or trade journals. Those publications are usually only interested in a photograph if it educates or informs the reader.

Are they a guarantee of success? No.

By following them, you’ll immediately increase your chances and you’ll also start to build the good media relationships you’ll need for the future. You’ll also give your product a strong competitive advantage in the media market, while any results you do achieve from “free press” will be more effective.

If you’re looking to start your own online business, these steps can help. Eventually, you can work to apply your “off-line” efforts to the online space–a strategy that can leverage your message in a number of ways conventional media simply can’t.

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