Publicity Lessons

Guerrilla Publicity / Jay Conrad Levinson, Jill Lublin and Rick Frishman. [2nd ed.]

Avon, MA : Adams Media, c2008.

I received this one from Mini Book Expo recently; I requested it since for some strange reason marketing interests me. I come from a family with a fair number of entrepreneurs so will be passing this around. Publicity is defined for the purposes of the book as "getting free or inexpensive exposure for your product or service, and building favorable interest in it. It's creating a buzz, an identity, and name recognition, and getting your message across."

It's another entry in the successful Guerrilla Marketing series, started by Jay Conrad Levinson, and has been updated in this second edition to include information on using blogs, podcasts and all kind of social networking media. These things change so fast I am sure some of the details will be out of date almost immediately but the principles are sound. Because my interest lies in the non-profit/arts sector I am always intrigued by ideas for low-cost publicity -- I've never known a small arts-focused business to have much extra money lying around. Even though this is definitely geared to business, with a focus on increasing sales and profits, I found some ideas that could be effectively transferred to something like a library setting, as well as ideas which could help community based businesses increase their profile through partnership with the local library.

The information is laid out clearly for people who may have no prior experience in this area (ie: me!) and leads us from the basics -- introducing yourself, determining your market, writing a press release, all the way to designing a complete PR campaign and dealing with negative buzz. It is fascinating reading if you are at all intrigued by this field, and widely applicable beyond just profit-based businesses. I found it to be a very useful read. There are also lots of resources on their website, and I think I'll go back and find a copy of the newest Guerrilla Marketing as well.