As a small business owner, you are likely always on the lookout for ways to gain publicity—to be seen by potential customers who may have never heard of your company before and to gain exposure that will help bolster your company’s reputation in your respective industry. Publicity is often considered an integral part of a well-rounded marketing strategy but can sometimes be hard to come by.
How Is Publicity Different from Marketing?
In simple terms, marketing is a way of promoting your business yourself, either through ads or other promotional efforts, whereas publicity has to do with gaining media coverage. Publicity is typically earned, rather than purchased. But that is also one of the reasons why you want it. In addition, exposure through publicity is more trusted by consumers because they know that it wasn’t bought and paid for by your company. Examples of publicity include newspaper, television, or magazine features. A more modern form of publicity could involve your company or its products being shared organically on social media.
While publicity has many upsides, the downside of publicity is that you don’t typically have control over the narrative. There are those who will say, “All publicity is good publicity,” but this statement certainly doesn’t feel true when your business is portrayed in a negative light. Publicity also may not be directed toward your target audience. Instead, the content could be more broadly distributed and seen mainly by those who would never patronize a business like yours. Marketing efforts, on the other hand, can be targeted toward those you think are most likely to become your customers or clients.
In summary, publicity can be very valuable, but it’s important not to rely solely on publicity to promote your business.
How One Long Beach Architecture Firm Benefitted from Publicity
Grisafe Architecture is a small architecture firm in Long Beach, California that engages in many of the marketing strategies that many other small businesses employ. They have a great website and use search engine optimization strategies to help potential clients find their site. They do social media marketing on Facebook and Instagram. They run digital ads on websites that their target audience visits, and occasionally do email marketing.
Recently, they were presented with an amazing opportunity for local publicity. The firm’s owner, Mark Grisafe, was asked if Grisafe Architecture wanted to be featured in a television series called Destination LA. This particular series highlights small businesses in the Los Angeles area that the series producers feel are impacting the culture and making the Los Angeles area a unique and special place to live and work.
Grisafe readily agreed to have his Long Beach architecture firm be a part of their series, since it would be a great opportunity to introduce his company to a large audience. He also jumped at the opportunity because Destination LA is a well-produced, Emmy-winning series, and he knew his business would be represented well.
To create the feature on Grisafe Architecture, Destination LA producers came to their Long Beach office, conducted interviews, took video footage of their office space, and even visited one of their recently completed tenant improvement projects. The finished piece was aired as part of Season 3, Episode 12 on CBS-LA (KCBS Channel 2). It was also shown on IGTV and is now part of Roku’s permanent collection. You can view the segment on Grisafe Architecture on the company’s YouTube channel.
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