Think Outside the Box to Get More Product Publicity

My brother owned an auto parts business and like most small business people the last thing he wanted to do was sit around and chat with salesmen. He didn’t have the time, but didn’t want to alienate his vendors either.

In the auto parts business, salesmen liked to stop in a chat and it took a lot of time. So my brother thought of a creative way to solve the problem. He took the chair next to his desk, where the salesmen sat, and cut four inches off the legs. What happened when the next salesman stopped in was interesting. He sat in the chair right next to my brother’s desk and found himself sitting uncomfortably and looking up at him. The salesman was up and left within ten minutes and my brother was back to work!

As a product publicist, thinking outside the box can make a huge difference. For example, one of our clients manufactured plastic welding tools which use plastic welding rod and I suggested doing a product release about the rod itself. His response was typical. He assumed most people knew what plastic welding rod is and, therefore, didn’t want to publicize it. How ironic, not publicizing what people need routinely.

I convinced him that it was exactly the wrong attitude! What I did was prepare a news release featuring the rod, materials, variations, configurations, etc., and created a very colorful and eye-catching photograph that would intentionally not be market-specific.

Venmark Product Photography

The product news release was very successful and the plastic welding rod received a great deal of media coverage including a leading automotive consumer publication and several major industrial publications and websites.

What happened next was interesting. My client told me, “the fascinating thing about publicizing the plastic welding rod was that we sold more plastic welding kits as a result of that publicity then we did when we publicized the actual kits themselves, including being on the front cover of “Government Product News,” a leading magazine!

The product publicity for the plastic welding rod drove traffic to the company’s website and the visitors clicked-thru to the plastic welding kits and ordered them. Again, the result was selling more kits than publicizing the kits themselves! That’s the beauty of thinking outside the box: you never know what positive things can happen!

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© 2016 Steven M. Stroum (with permission to share)

Steve Stroum

Steven M. Stroum, founder and president of Venmark International is a seasoned publicist, marketer, and entrepreneur who has been featured in INC Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, Industrial Marketing, OMNI Magazine, USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, The Middlesex News, San Francisco Chronicle, and other media outlets. He has also appeared on numerous radio and television programs, addressed many business and civic groups, and been a guest lecturer at Boston College, Babson College, MIT, and his alma mater Northeastern University.

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