Publicity forms a very vital component of the promotion mix. While publicity people are paid, the publicity itself is an unpaid form of communication (non-personal) about the organization’s products, services or ideas. In the following section, you will know the types of publicity. Without paying any cost for the media, in publicity, target customers are attracted towards the organization and its offerings by publicity people. For example, different talk shows or chat shows are a platform for movie actors to promote their movies. The movie producers or actors do not pay any money to the TV channels.
According to the American Marketing Association, “Publicity is any form of non-paid commercially significant news or editorial comment about ideas, products, or institutions”.
Types of Publicity
There are various forms of publicity. These are:
1) News Release
The news release is the most common method of communicating information to the target customers. It is a single-page document containing information about the organization and its offerings. The word limit of this document is a maximum of 300. It is one of the types of publicity. Along with the news, certain other information, like the name of the organization, its address and contact persons with contact numbers, includes in news releases. The following guidelines will help design news releases:
i) Headline
A real headline should be designed. Showy and fancy languages must be ignored as editors may get annoyed. A brief and clear statement should develop for the headline, e.g., Introduction of I-smart by Hero Motors’.
ii) Opening Paragraph
The complete story about the news release should be summarized briefly in the opening paragraph. The writer or the developer may successfully frame the entire message if only this part of the news release gets published.
iii) Organizing the Copy
The news copy is the essence of the news release. The important portions of the message should discuss as early as possible, leaving the less relevant messages for the end of the news release. Typically, the editors of the media delete the lower paragraphs.
iv) Copy Content
Similar to the headline, the content of the news copy should be logical and factual. Relevant facts and figures should support the statements used. For example, a statement discussing a car’s fuel economy should be accompanied by the fuel economy figure.
v) Length
The news release should not be long. A brief and concise news release must prepares. There is a myth that lengthy news releases should provides to the editors so that they can remove unnecessary parts. This makes them irritated. They like their job to be as simple as possible. Chances of publishing increase in case news releases are optimum in length.
vi) Layout
Short paragraphs should be written. It should leave spaces so that the paragraph is easy to read. It should have proper margins on both sides and be double-spaced. This helps in writing instructions or making amendments by the editor.
2) Press Conference
When an organization calls different press personnel in a meeting to make any announcement regarding their business, it is a ‘press conference’. It is one of the types of publicity. The organization provides different photographs, audiotapes, videos or any written material to the media. In certain cases, only a letter or an editorial is sent to different media or publication houses.
3) Feature Article
The feature article is the most common method of gaining publicity. A feature article prepares to publish the organizational information on specific media or publications. The word limit is a maximum of 3000. Feature articles can be of two types:
i) Business Feature Article
This type of article thoroughly describes organizational products and is provided to business media.
ii) Service Feature Article
Not thorough but brief descriptions about household items, personal care and other similar topics are provided to media like internet sites, TV channels, newspapers and magazines. It is one of the types of publicity.
4) Captioned Photograph
Another device for gaining publicity is captioned photographs. It is a photograph containing a description of its contents. With the help of captioned photographs, organizations talk about improving or adding new features to the current product. They also use such photographs to introduce new products in the market.
5) Finance Releases
Finance releases focus on business portions of different distribution channel intermediaries like TV news channels, newspapers, magazines, etc.
6) Product Releases
Product releases are publicity methods focusing on new product launches and product improvements. These all circulate in all the possible media forms. It is one of the types of publicity.
7) Background Editorial Material
Additional information helps media editors, or writers understand the full content. This is called ‘background editorial material’.
8) Emergency Publicity
These emergency releases are necessary because of unexpected events such as worker strikes, accidents, etc.