You’ve probably noticed, if you live on this planet, that we live in a media-driven world.

You may have mixed feelings, personally or philosophically, about this. But it’s a fact of modern life. And in at least one very important way, it’s good news.

This is how:

Living in a media-driven world is very good for professional practices, like financial planners. For anyone, in fact, who makes a living or runs an organization that is based on using their know-how or getting a message across.

Because if you fit any of these categories – and most people do, even many who work with their hands – you can get media coverage. Favorable, positive media publicity. Free publicity. And you can use that free publicity to build your practice.

Best of all, you don’t have to resort to cheesy or tacky tactics to do it. You can do it responsibly and professionally. And still grow your business.

You’re going to do it by using the very same expertise you tap into every day at work. Only instead of applying that expertise to your client, patient, or customer service, you’re going to use it a little differently.

You’re going to share your knowledge with the media – and through them with the public. With the people and businesses who will become tomorrow’s clients.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

Many of my clients have had the misguided perception that they won’t be able to get media coverage from a publication that their larger competitors advertise in. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most respectable publications erect a wall separating advertising and editorial (news/feature) coverage. Reporters and editors are specifically instructed to not give preferential treatment to advertisers. It’s one of the first things you learn in Journalism 101. Many larger publications are so cautious about this; they end up actually being less likely to write articles about or containing quotes from advertisers.

This leads to two very important "don’ts":

1. Don’t give up hope of getting quoted in or writing an article for a publication just because you don’t advertise in it.
2. Don’t ever suggest to a media person that they should use your story because you are an advertiser. This will irreparably damage your reputation with the media.

There is a small minority of publications that do give advertisers favorable editorial coverage. I argue that these are publications to stay away from.

Remember, the point of media coverage isn’t to get your name in print, but to influence potential customers. If you saw a favorable article about a vendor next to a full-page ad for the same vendor, how likely would you be to trust the article?

The wall between advertising and editorial is a time-honored journalism tradition. Crashing into a wall usually hurts, so don’t try it!

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

That big story the media pursue each day is what I call Topic A. And even if it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with financial planning, it often lead to huge media visibility for you.

Often, Topic A has a controversial element, such as when tax cuts or Social Security is being discussed.

The last thing that you want to do is pick sides on a controversial issue–unless you want to cut your prospect base in half by offending 50% of the audience.

But as an independent expert providing objective, valuable, nonpartisan insight and analysis, you can stay above the fray – and still win points.

You could beat your head against a wall twelve months a year, trying to get a reporter to write about your retirement planning story.

Or, by contacting a reporter when a prominent person is retiring, you could garner the free publicity you seek in a few short minutes.

Which is better?

If you can link your expertise to Topic A, you stand a great chance of getting media coverage for yourself. Jump onto that story and hold on tight.

Often, Topic A involves politics. As a subject-matter expert, your job is to explain, not to take sides. When each side has a proposal, you simply describe what the effect of the President’s plan will be, and what the effect of Congress’s plan will be.

Much of the discussion is held on political shows, where people are constantly arguing. Avoid these types of programs, and stake your claim in consumer and business oriented shows. There are plenty.

Let the noisemakers make noise, and while they do, you shed the light.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

Some financial planners think that they shouldn’t share their top tips with the media.

I can see some validity in thinking this way. After all, the media is going to deliver these tips to the public at practically no charge. Then all those people who might have been paying customers won’t have any use for their services.

But there’s two things wrong with this:

First of all, it’s true that most people are likely to use your information and never contact you. Then again, most people aren’t likely to use a financial planner. The people you want to reach are that fraction that are looking, perhaps even subconsciously, for help with their investments. When they see your name in the paper, regardless of the information it is connected to, they will think about calling you.

Second, you aren’t the only financial planner looking for publicity. And unless your wisdom far exceeds that of any other financial planner in the world, you’d better believe that your competitors will be offering practically the same information to the media. In the end, not only is the information disseminated after all, but you lose the chance to take credit for it.

Part of being a good media resource is delivering lots of good information. So share everything you’ve got. Hold back nothing. With journalists, “saving the good stuff” for paying customers is a certain ticket to becoming a media fiasco.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

A common complaint you’ll hear is that the media is fixated on negative stories.

But, let’s face it, that’s what people watch. Jerry Springer and Maury Povich wouldn’t make millions of dollars a year if people hated watching spouses fight and jilted lovers weep.

And have you ever heard of a publication or show that thrived on telling happy stories about good news?

The fact is, the media love problems. The more problems you help clients or customers deal with, the better.

People, bless their sick little hearts – and by extension the media too – love to hear about problems. Especially when you can discuss them intelligently. Especially when you can help them solve theirs over the media.

This leads to another of those 80/20 rules that seem to abound in the marketing field. You know, like: "80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients." There’s a reason this rule has been around for so long – because it’s usually true.

Here’s an 80/20 rule for publicity that I’ve found to be very effective.

Build 80% of your publicity messages around the needs and problems you help people solve. Devote no more than 20% to projecting yourself as the expert who knows how to best address those specific problems.

When you slice broad expertise into narrower, specific topics and stories, you are almost ready for the media folks to start listening to us! Take a look at some of my other articles to find out how best to contact them.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

One big mistake that many marketing-minded financial planners make when contacting the media is to drop what’s called an "information dump."

Sending a reporter statistics on the growth of your business (no matter how impressive) or on the success rate of your stock picks (no matter how propitious) will simply overwhelm them and will not garner publicity.

What reporters want is a story – a smaller piece of information that is likely to hold their attention and help their readers, viewers or listeners.

Help the media slice and dice your professional knowledge into bits they can use. Pre-slice and dice it for them. Because when you do, you increase our odds of getting publicity.

Why attempt such alchemy ourselves? Aren’t those reporter-types the experts on doing that? Why not just “put it all out there” and let the media take it from there?

No! Because it’s you, not they, who know your own stuff the best. And it’s far easier for you to understand how they work than it is for them to pick out the right nuggets of pertinent information from your entire, lifelong accumulation of subject-matter expertise. (After all, today they’re reporting on the tax law, tomorrow it’s on to new trends in the insurance industry.)

So, your first job: create your very own story.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

The media need you. Need the information and expertise you offer, that is. But they are not encyclopedias. They don’t serve up information. They serve up stories.

That heap of paper that thuds onto your doorstep early each morning – it’s called a newspaper, not an information paper.

And that evening broadcast you watch to catch up on the day’s events? They call it the Evening News, don’t they? Not the Evening Information.

The media take the huge mass and swirl of information out there every day and spin it, by a process that seems magical but isn’t, into what we all call news. Into stories.

Simply put, news is what’s new. It’s what everyone’s talking about today. Whatever that may be. Or, it’s whatever the news media, in their judgment, think we need to know today, so we can all talk about it tomorrow.

First, let’s just get our arms around this key distinction between news and information. It’s critical to getting meaningful publicity.

News and information: two different things.

The media take a raw ingredient – information – and condense, distill, sort, and package it into a product called news. News, whether in print, on TV, or the Internet, is delivered in tidy little packages called stories.

Compared to your financial planning knowledge, news stories are unbelievably short, simple, and – sorry to say—usually shallow. (That’s not as cruel as it sounds: the audience – your prospects – usually don’t need to know huge amounts of information, to decide they may need your services.)

But those stories sure do pack the powerful punch of immediacy, urgency, and relevance to daily life.

Examples:

Information: a financial planner devotes an entire career to mastering the intricate details of investing and managing a 401(k) retirement account.

News: Congress passes a far-reaching retirement savings law. Suddenly, millions of Americans face a deadline to make financial decisions that may affect their quality of life for decades. The financial planner explains the new law succinctly and clearly in an interview aired on the local TV news, and guides viewers through the choices they face. The entire story is two minutes long, just right for the general public. By contrast, when the financial planner speaks on the topic as an expert before an audience of her peers, she will present for an hour.

Information: Dr. Jones is a leading authority on certain rare infectious diseases, lecturing and writing on the subject in the world’s most distinguished medical journals and colloquia.

News: The Governor of Dr. Jones’s state contracts one of those diseases, and uncertainty over his ability to remain in office swirls. Dr. Jones does not treat the Governor, so he cautions that he cannot comment on the specifics of this case. But calmly and objectively, he explains to reporters in lay terms the general facts about this kind of illness, pointing out that 90% of people with it recover promptly with treatment once diagnosed.

Information: broad, deep, and evergreen.

News: narrower, shallower, but timely and topical.

The knowledge within it is no less true, real, or important. It’s just been distilled into bite-sized bits that fit the space in the paper, the time on the show, or the audience’s attention span. Distilling that information into news, and then assembling it into appealing packages called stories, is essentially what the news media do.

So don’t be like one of those characters in an Alfred Hitchcock movie – getting in trouble because you know too much. Instead, learn to slice and dice your topic into many narrower, manageable offerings.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

Think that you aren’t big enough for national media coverage? Says who? Certainly not the USA Today. In one recent two-week period, they quoted financial planners in Southfield (Michigan), Dublin (Ohio) and Clearwater (Florida). These are not exactly metropolitan hubs.

When your media confidence and experience grow, consider branching out to a larger audience than just your hometown or targeted industry.

To go national, you may want to consider using lists and directories where you can search for what media to go to, and learn the best way to reach them.

There are three kinds: free web-based links to hundreds of media, (like kidon.com or Newslink.org), published directories, CDs, and subscription web sites (like Bacon’s and Burrelle’s) and customized, low-cost lists from brokers or similar providers. Your local librarian will be able to help you, too.

Use lists and directories as a guide – a starting place.

If you’ve read the articles on my site, or read my book, you’ll have already figured out – smart you! – that mass-sending releases or articles without a follow-up, or an actual personal exchange via phone or e-mail, will not get you far. Even the most frequently updated lists can’t stay on top of the rapidly changing media world.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

They’d hate to admit it, but the media is pretty predictable.

There are some stories that will run in newspapers until the saints go marching in. Some of the obvious ones: diet tips, anything having to do with kids or animals, political scandals, celebrity divorces…you could probably find a story about each one of these topics in every single edition of every daily newspaper in the country.

Long ago, newspaper editors realized that these topics attract readers. And, if you got your story published, the same determination was made about your topic. Once a topic is anointed as "news-worthy" by the media, you can keep coming back to it again and again, as long as you have a reasonably new angle.

Think of every PR success as the seed for the next placement. Re-read your article when it appears, and ask yourself, “What could I have elaborated on?” or “What’s going to be happening next in that field?”

For example, say your published story was about municipal bonds. Stay on the lookout for any municipal bond news that arises. Bond failures, new bond issues, appealing rates—all of these could be topics to bring back to a reporter. You may also consider a story about other tax-free return investment vehicles.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.

As you start getting more media-savvy, you’ll find yourself coming up with more and more information and ideas to help the public. Not all of these ideas will strike the fancy of your media contacts, but don’t let them go to waste—become a media person yourself by publishing an e-zine.

Fill your e-zine with the same advice, information, and tips you use in your publicity articles. You’ll want to edit in for readability on the Web—that means short paragraphs. Studies have shown that people hate reading long blocks of text on a computer screen.

You are using the same content, but have more ways to get it in front of your sources of referrals, clients and potential clients. Better publicity, better marketing, more business.

You don’t have to be tech-savvy or even tech-competent to create an e-zine these days. Plenty of services now do all the tech stuff, design work, and bulk e-mail distribution for you…. for pennies. They are web-based, so you don’t even have to download a program, and you can write your e-zine from anywhere.

Once you spend an hour doing the basic set up work, all you do is write a few clever words, they automatically fall into an appealing-looking template, and are then sent to your list.

Ned Steele works with people in professional services who want to build their practice and accelerate their growth. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he is the author of 102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or Practice. To learn more visit http://www.MediaImpact.biz or call 212-243-8383.