Off the Cuff: Getting Publicity

SALES & MARKETING

August 02, 2010
By Mark L. Venit, MBA, Contributing Writer

Guglielmo Marconi is generally credited with the invention of radio (though his patent was overturned in 1943 by the United States Supreme Court and awarded to Nikola Tesla).

Shortly after Marconi’s first wireless transmission in 1895, yours truly was heard on radio in Philadelphia as a DJ and a newscaster. (Having produced more than 3,000 commercials during my career, I still create, produce and voice a few dozen radio commercials today for clients in our industry). Sometimes on slow news days, I had to hype otherwise insignificant events into “news,” so I’d have something to broadcast, whether it was earth-shattering, interesting, or simply time-fillers.

An old aphorism I learned during my halcyon radio career was “The news … when it happens, where it happens, even if we have to make it happen!” The phrase applies today about getting publicity for your business.

While it’s easy to post your company’s doings on the Internet and let the world take it from there, it’s another story getting coverage of your company in the newspaper or on television. But if there’s something interesting — or downright newsworthy — about what your company is doing, you won’t get attention unless you initiate the process of making it happen. When you have something really newsworthy to brag about, get the ball rolling by sending a press release to your local newspapers or business publications. Do likewise for notifying local television stations and make a follow-up telephone call to the newsroom to see if you should get ready for a news crew that may visit your shop.

Your press release should be no more than one page in length and give the details of the story and a brief explanation of the company, its products and services, location and any special attributes. Before you send your press release, do some additional homework to learn the best ways to go about getting it printed or getting your story covered. Sending photos along with your release always helps, as well as giving a suggested headline. Quoting yourself, customers or staff members in your press release also helps editors find reasons to run your press releases. If you write them well, they often are published exactly as written.

There are, in fact, several things that could be interesting about your business. Here are a few examples of what might get your company in the news:

• New Equipment — ABCDesigns last week installed the largest screen printing press in Iowa in at its plant in Carroll. Capable of printing 700 shirts per hour, the 14-color press will help ABCD keep up with orders for its growing line of T-shirts distributed throughout the Midwest.

• New Technology — Presto Promotions fired up its new direct-to-garment digital printer, the only one of its kind in service in Utah. Using the latest digital graphic technology, the device can print full-color photographs on apparel in less than two minutes.

• New Location or Expansion — AdWear moved into its new 40,000-square-foot facility in St. Paul last week after the building was certified by city inspectors last month. Notes CEO Will Roberts, “We doubled our sales during the past two years and the new building will accommodate our projected growth for the next five to seven years.” Roberts also reports the company will add eight to 10 new employees this year in its embroidered apparel and vehicle graphics divisions. The former production facility will now serve as the company’s downtown showroom and will expand its hours of operation to include evenings and Saturdays.”

• Staff Development — Maxine Lykens, vice president of Michigan Apparel Decorating, returned from her annual trip to the Imprinted Sportswear Show in Long Beach, California, the nation’s largest apparel graphics trade show. Lykens attended a workshop on strategic marketing and, while at the 500-exhibitor show, purchased a new CAD-cutting machine that will help the company expand its product lines to now include signs and vehicle graphics. “MAD-Max,” as she’s known to her customers, comments, “This is the eighth consecutive year I’ve attended the event,” and noted that this year she was accompanied by sales manager Joanne DuBois and staff artist Ron Richards.

• A Big Deal — Dr. Hilla Liman took office last week as President of the Third Republic of Ghana in West Africa last week, following the military junta’s withdrawal from power. His election is due in part to help from Empire Specialty Printing Corporation in Upper Darby (PA), which provided 22,000 T-shirts to village captains of the People’s National Party and The People’s Vanguard, the two parties that merged for the election. The firm also provided to the Ghanaian doctor’s campaign tens of thousands of key rings, pens and buttons that showed the logo of the merged parties, designed by ESP’s CEO Mark Venit, who was also engaged as a political consultant to Liman’s campaign staff. (Yeah, this is a true story. It happened in 1979).

• Employee Promotion — Peak Performance Apparel & Promotions has promoted Marge Ginovera to Embroidery Production Manager. Ginovera has worked at the firm for seven years, beginning her career there as a quality control technician and then an embroidery technician. Ginovera also personally handles the digitizing assignments at PPAP, a technical process that translates graphics and text into the electronic communications language that tell the needles what and where to sew.

• Plant Tour — First & Goal Inc. welcomed Miss McVicker’s 6th grade class at Amistad Elementary School in New Haven to tour its Hamden screen printing and embroidery plant and see T-shirts being and see baseball caps being embroidered for sailors stationed at the submarine base in Groton. Both items were decorated with the U.S. Navy’s official insignia. Each student received a tote bag with the same design, compliments of First & Goal. While on tour, the students watched staff artists create graphics on computers and saw how the designs went through the company’s processes to execute the graphics onto apparel. First & Goal also conducts tours for local scout troops and high school business classes. The photo below shows the class huddled around art director Michael Angelo as he adds text and color to a design the company is readying for the Strawberry Festival.

• Presentation — Joy Shane, owner of Pride & Joy Apparel Creations in Roanoke Rapids (NC) was the featured speaker at the Rotary Club’s weekly breakfast meeting on Tuesday, explaining about how her moved from the dining room table to her garage to her new shop on Route 301 within two years of starting the business. Now in its fifth year, the company now sells custom decorated apparel throughout the Carolinas and Virginia, and employs a year ‘round staff of 14 locally and two salespeople based at the firm’s satellite sales office in Emporia, Va.

• Event — North Star Custom Apparel welcomed more than 300 attendees to its Thunder Bay facility as host of the Chamber of Commerce’s February edition of its monthly Chamber-After-Hours Mixer. Shown in the photo — left to right: John MacDonald, president of North Star, Pierre Trudeau, president of the Chamber, Mike Beaver, mayor of Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay native Paul Shafer, who flew in from New York for the mixer (and to attend a family celebration).

• Bragging Rights — Mardi Gras Graphic Products ran three shifts this week to keep up with demand from New Orleans Saints fans for tens of thousands of shirts, caps, and jackets celebrating the team’s Super Bowl victory on Sunday night. Emblazoned with the team’s logo and the words “Who Dat?” and “Super Bowl Champions,” the various apparel items give the company a huge boost in business just as Mardi Gras shirts are about to hit the streets in The Big Easy next week, notes MGGP’s owner Khalid Khan. “We were anticipating a strong year ahead,” notes Kahn,“ but we now expect very strong sales right through to [the Saints’] next season. We just hired 10 extra full-timers and will probably add a few more in the fall.”

I’ll trust with the suggestions above, you’ll find lots of excuse — nay, reasons! — to publicize your enterprise. Now, go get your company some coverage!

Do note that publicity for your business in the newspaper and elsewhere is great for creating buzz and helps amplify your advertising. But it’s decidedly NOT a substitute for solid, intelligent marketing and advertising endeavors. The impact of buzz alone is short-lived. But by continuing to execute your firm’s advertising program, you can keep the good buzz alive almost indefinitely.

Mark L. Venit, MBA, is president of Apparel Graphics Institute Ltd., Ocean Pines, Md., which provides management and marketing consulting and proprietary research to apparel graphics companies throughout the Americas and Europe. He also is the chairman of ShopWorks Software LLC, a provider of industry-specific business software. Venit teaches pricing, strategic marketing, salesmanship and other business management topics at the Imprinted Sportswear Shows. You can contact him at markvenit@cs.com.

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