PR with Robert Smith: Part 1 by Michael Leedy | on March 8, 2013 Somehow I snagged Robert Smith (not from the Cure) via craigslist, when he offered to send a press release to 100 online news sources, normally a $97 value… for only a recommendation.

Intrigued, I was like, “Hmmmm…

…Did some research, realized that he was good people and said, ‘Sure, I’d love to take you up on this, but would like to hold off for a moment, while I figure out how to get some paid advertising going, specifically with SoloAd’s [which I recently learned about in Empower’s $15K Formula]. Needless to say, he basically responded with ‘we work with format of advertising as well as many others…’ …A few emails and a phone call later – we started on our Journey. I found the questions that he asked me to be quite helpful in more ways than one and suggest that you take a moment to answer them for your own business, if you haven’t already.

First set of questions (pre-phone call): 1) what is your business 2) who is your target audience 3) what are the biggest problems your customers have 4) what type of marketing are you currently doing? Is it working? 5) what is your website? 6) What are you looking to accomplish with your marketing? 7) What is your budget? (So I can send a proposal)

Second set of questions: 01) Contact name 02) company name 03) company address 04) phone 05) website 06) what is your profession? 07) Office locations 08) Number of employees (Include sales reps) 09) Describe your business 10) What makes your business unique? 11) name a few problems your customers may have 12) 2 biggest benefits of using your services 13) Have you won any awards? 14) Who is your ideal client? 15) Do you have any partnerships? 16) What technology do you use in your business? 17) What trends are you seeing in your industry? 18) What message do you want to convey to your audience? 19) Does the government regulate or affect your industry? If so, how? 20) If you answered yes to 19…what are your thoughts on the government. 21) What do you want PR to accomplish? 22) Is there any controversy surrounding your industry? 23) Any national news stories that affect your business? If you’re curious as to WHY I’ve answered all the (above) questions and WHAT I’m using the PR for… please feel free to email me at info@michaelleedy.com I figure: Why not let someone else handle the stuff I don't know (Robert Smith has been in the business for 20 years... and clearly adapting to the new strategies quite well), so I can excel at the stuff I do best!!

To be continued…

I’m Michael Leedy