Things to consider when creating a marketing budget and plan

One of the central components of successfully running a business is marketing.Many business owners don't pay nearly enough attention to marketing.However, getting the most out of a high-powered marketing campaign is really the key to getting customers into your business and buying your products and services.Getting the most our of your marketing campaign requires not only that you have successful brand development, but also that you make use of free publicity opportunities and that you hire a good publicity specialist.Here are the things that you need to consider when creating a marketing budget and plan.

1.Free publicity opportunities help you market your products and your image
Publicity is an important part of your marketing campaign.You are marketing not only your products, but also your corporate image.Here are some great key components to any marketing campaign: a press release, the Internet, and news conferences.
When sending out a press release, make sure that it's written well and contains all of the elements of a press release: headline, dateline, introduction, body, boilerplate, and contact information.Make sure also when writing your press release that you don't reveal all of your information.Play your hand wisely.You want to tantalize the news media, but you don't want to give away all of your information or else they won't call you for an interview, for clarification, or for more information.
The Internet is a great publicity resource and outlet that can go a long way towards creating great public relations and keeping those good public relations.Unfortunately, far too many businesses and corporations forget to use this all-important tool.Remember: not using the Internet can also make people see your corporate image as a business stuck in the early 20th century, and therefore incapable of meeting the demands of the 21st century.First of all, almost everybody uses the Internet.That's your entire customer base, basically.So you want people writing about you.This means bloggers, online magazines (ezines), and other specialty sites.You can also generate your own publicity by blogging on your own.Create a blog about your company and about your products.Link to other sites on your blog and convince the owners of those sites to link to your own site.This will create a great network of potential customers and clients.
News conferences are another great way of getting publicity.When you hold your news conference, make sure that you have press kits on hand so that members of the news media, whether broadcast, print, or Internet-based, can have immediate access to information about your company.Make sure that your news conference is necessary.It'd better be some pretty good news to make all of those reporters and journalists take time out of their busy schedule to come and hear what you have to say!

2.A good publicity specialist
The job of a publicist is to get you publicity and to help you make the most out of your marketing campaign.Your public relations specialist, or publicist, will be the one who contacts and interacts with the media on your behalf.They're the one who will write your press releases, take care of organizing your news conferences, be in charge of crisis control, and will generally direct and preserve your corporate image.The benefit of a publicist is that they know how to write that perfect pitch letter, and they know how to create a great media kit.
Here are some things that you should look for when you hire a publicist:
--how well and how quickly do they sell themselves in the interview?
The way that your potential publicist convinces you in the interview will be a clue as to how they can convince and interact with the media.If you're hooked right away, that tells you that this publicist will be able to do the same thing with tired journalists.
--do they follow-up?
If your potential public relations specialist calls you a few days after the interview to see how things are going, you know that you might have a winner.Publicists have to be determined and energetic when working with the media.They should be the same when trying to get a job with you.