Getting Publicity for Your Work at Home Business

Getting publicity for your business is very different from marketing your business. When you market your business, you control your message and try to persuade people to buy from you. Marketing can include things like paid advertising, attending a trade show, direct mail campaigns, and your newsletter.

Publicity is convincing others to talk about you, instead of you talking about yourself. It's something you earn, not something you pay for. Instead of convincing people to buy from you, publicity informs people about the newsworthiness of you and your business, from an objective point of view.

Marketing is important because it helps to build your brand. Publicity helps the public to trust you. But to get this kind of attention, you have to make yourself newsworthy.

Publicity usually begins with a press release that you send to media outlets and online press release sites. It includes being interviewed in magazines and newspapers, being interviewed on radio or TV, having popular bloggers blog about you – and any other way that people can tell others about your business.

Here are some ways you can make yourself newsworthy and generate free publicity for your business. Use one of these ideas to get started, or come up with an idea of your own, then send out a press release about your news.

- Prove that a myth or stereotype about your business is wrong.
- Why did you start your business? If you started your business because you didn't think anyone else was doing a good job in your industry, that can be a newsworthy story.
- Has your business experienced a setback and survived? Write a story about your comeback and send it to the media.
- Do you have an eco-friendly home business? Write about how you’re helping the environment.
- Sponsor a local community service project that relates to your business.
- Offer surprising facts about your business. What is a little-known fact about your industry that people would be surprised to learn?
- Close down your business for a day and spend the day doing charity work with your family. Invite other home business owners to join you!

Get as creative as you want. Making your business newsworthy just takes a little bit of imagination and inspiration.