Build Your Marketing Plan Around Publicity
Marketing and publicity plans should not be separate activities. They go hand in hand. When you put together your marketing plan there needs to be a publicity component included.
I call it the “baking powder”. You may be wondering: “what the heck is she talking about?!?!?” Well, I love metaphors so I will use a baking metaphor for this. Imagine you are going to bake a cake. You have all the ingredients for the cake and a recipe to follow. Right? Well in business, the cake is the “increase” in your business. It can be profit, leads, recognition, sales, etc. And we all want the cake, that’s for sure!
Your marketing plan is the recipe for that cake and the baking powder is THE ingredient that will make your cake rise as opposed to staying flat and stubborn. You can bake a cake without the baking powder but if you know a little bit about baking, you know that will give you a flat cake. It may taste great, but it will sure be sad looking.
Apply this to your business. You can prepare your marketing plan, but if you don’t use publicity as a way to make your business “rise” to the occasion, you will be stuck with a great plan, product or service that no one or very little people know about. Your business will seem flat and sad. Chances are you don’t really want that. So why not prepare to have your cake and eat it too!
Planning both will also allow give you an advantage with time and budget. Penciling in publicity costs will allow you to stick to publicity approaches that fit your budget and goals. It will also allow you to schedule your campaign with enough time to roll out an effective one. Remember publicity has its process. So your marketing plan is essential but if it doesn’t include publicity it will fall flat.
