YOUR COUNTY.
YOUR BUSINESS JOURNAL.

















Published October 2006

Learn how to generate
buzz for your business

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” — Oscar Wilde

If you could turn to the Snohomish County Business Journal every month and learn powerful tips and proven strategies to build your business and profit from the power of publicity without spending a fortune, would you be interested? If you answered “yes,” look no further. The new “Media-Savvy-to-Go” column will help you get this job done to your reputation and business-building advantage.

Every growing company has a story to tell, yet not every growing company has the budget to retain an outside PR firm to tell it. This column will show you how to tell your own winning story without breaking the bank.

Introducing Nancy S. Juetten

Nancy S. Juetten has parleyed her Bellevue-based business — Nancy S. Juetten Marketing — into one of the region’s most successful enterprises by helping other companies tell their stories and build their brands.

Her practical insights into how to publicize a company’s products, services and achievements in the news media convinced us that she had valuable views that could benefit the readers of the Snohomish County Business Journal. We hope you enjoy her commentary.

— John Wolcott, SCBJ Editor

Step by step, month by month, you’ll learn how to prepare your news, share your news and/or expertise, and earn the headlines you need to spread your story far and wide. Plus, you’ll learn about plenty of useful and often free resources to help you get the mission accomplished. When you get into action, your brand, reputation and business will grow. You’ll soon learn that good publicity can last forever, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t begin sooner.

But don’t just start writing and sending press releases all over town, the Internet or the world without first determining the current “buzz” about your company and what you most want to accomplish as a result of your publicity efforts. First, take the temperature to see if you are sizzlin’ or fizzlin’.

Visit www.Google.com to discover the current “buzz” about your name and company. Better yet, visit www.linkpopularity.com to learn how popular your Web site is according to Google, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. If the only thing that comes up is the 5K race you ran three years ago, you’ve got some work to do. And, if you don’t yet have a Web site, add that to your list of essential tasks to accomplish. But before you do that, ask yourself a few key questions:

  • What do you want to be known for?
  • What qualifies you?
  • What is special and different about the way you do business?
  • Why is what you do or offer timely, newsworthy, trendworthy or relevant to the news media today?
  • What do you want “Google” of www.linkpopularity.com to reveal about your company and name six months and one year from now?

If you are thoughtful and strategic about your storytelling approach, you’ll be in a much better position to evaluate your return on investment in time, creativity and resources that you apply toward your media relations program.

Let’s face it: Any new marketing or public relations initiative needs to prove its value in the form of results to compel you to apply precious resources to the task. Be clear about what you want your public relations program to accomplish for your growing business. Always align your actions and storytelling with your desired results.

Next month, this column will address some proven ways to earn editors’ attention. In the meantime, keep reading the newspapers and watching the local and national news media. You’ll need to gain familiarity with the work of the reporters who write about your industry if you hope to influence them to tell your story. And if you have a burning media relations question to ask, get in touch.

Nancy S. Juetten owns Nancy S. Juetten Marketing Inc., a public relations and marketing communications agency. She also is the author of the “Media-Savvy-to-Go” publicity tips booklets and workbook. She can be reached by calling 425-641-5214, by sending e-mail to nancy@nsjmktg.com or by going online to www.nsjmktg.com.

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© 2006 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA