This is the third post of a series of 3 on Advertising and Promoting your Airbrush Business. Visit the other two posts…Radio and Live Promotional advertising and Social Media and Printed Promotional Material to learn more about simple things you can do to help get your name out there.
In this post we are going to deal with how one goes about getting into your local newspapers and on your local TV news shows which doesn’t cost you anything!…. Ok…. well…maybe not anything. It actually is going to cost you, an artist, one of the hardest things that an artist has to deal with…NOT being shy! That’s right, you heard me, it’s time to come out of that shell that to many artists hide inside of and just watch as the world walks by and doesn’t even notice them.
The irony of this article is that in order to get FREE exposure…. you actually have to expose yourself…. Now don’t fret, its not as bad as it sounds. In the case of the newspapers, it really only involves sending an email. However, in the case of TV…..well, you can’t be camera shy… lol…. it’s TV for crying out loud… lol
Lets start with the Newspapers. This will vary from location to location but I think its safe to say that most cities have 3 types of newspapers. The first would be the major metropolitan newspaper…usually the one that has the name of the nearest “Big City”….like “Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Cincinnati Inquirer etc… the second would be the localized/neighborhood newspapers…. something like The Suburban Journel, Community Press etc… and the last would be the “Alternative” papers or “News-zines” these usually deal with a lot of local Arts and Cultural news in your area….In Cincinnati the most popular one of these is Cincinnati Citybeat.
First article ever written about Anything Airbrushed featured our Airbrushed Halloween Make-up
Over the years we have had a number of articles written about us both front page as well as small little mentions in all of the above and it all started with a random phone call to “Glamour Shots”….thats right…that annoying place that was so popular in all the malls in the 90’s where you go in and have your make-up professionally done and then have a professional photo shoot…..Anyway, one of our artists, Jodi, just so happened to be one of the makeup artists at one of these “Glamour Shot” when a call came in from the Cincinnati Post newspaper saying they were looking for interesting ideas on Halloween articles and they were wondering if Glamour shots ever had customers come in Costume. Long story short, Jodi immediately told them about us and our Airbrushed Halloween makeup. They called, sent a reporter and a photographer and did an entire article on us. It was with this first article that we were introduced to newspaper articles.
Now, to make this post as short as possible i’m going to get right to the point of how you get FREE newspaper articles. We came to learn that reporters (both newspaper and TV) were ALWAYS looking for fresh new story ideas and it was only a matter of sending a letter with pictures to the newsrooms….these days it’s as simple as just emailing. Most news station websites have their reporters emails listed with their Bio’s as well as a “Tip Line” email that goes straight to the news room manager…..That’s it!….it’s as simple as an email.
Article about the Cincinnati East/West Divide and the shirts we designed to depict this quirky Cincinnati topic.
Well, Ok …. you still have to do the research of the email addresses, write and interesting email and send some good pictures to entice them. This is why I say its harder for artists because most of us are shy and introverted and we hate attention…..well suck it up!…. you’re a business owner now and its time to toot your own horn. It’s not that hard….all you have to do is pretend you are writing a letter to tell someone of your Favorite Airbrush place…. what would you say?…how would you go about explaining to someone that you found this really new and interesting store and they really have to go there?
Once you have done it a few times it gets easier. But it really all comes down to not being shy. Get out there and tell people about your business. It’s not always going to work the first time, and you don’t want to bombard these reporters and news stations every month with something new…but maybe twice a year send them an idea and let them know the different things you can do. Some of the ideas we have had published were articles on our Halloween Make-up, Murals, Airbrush Tanning and articles whenever we move or open a new location. Other ideas include things that are exclusive to your city…for example, in Cincinnati they have a huge divide between the East Side and the West Side of the city…it has become an “inside joke” throughout the generations so we designed shirts years ago that were featured in an article about the East/West Divide.
Once you get a handle on getting a few articles written about you then you can venture into designing actual print Ads that you can pay to have in the papers. This is still rather in-expensive and if you have been featured a few times in the papers themselves(especially the alternative papers) you tend to get a good discount.
These are a few examples of paid ads we have run in local “alternative papers.
As I said in the other articles, getting your name out there means you do have to be creative and not every idea is going to work the first time around. You need to be persistent but not a pest, you need to be proud to show off your creativity and your accomplishments. People will pick up on it and it will pay off.
Lastly, the TV…. basically it’s exactly the same as the newspapers. I do not have a fun little story to share with you on how we got into the TV exposure, it quite frankly just came to me one day that if sending a letter/email to the newspapers works then why not try the TV stations. I did…and now every few years we get featured for our Halloween make-up(this is the topic I always contact them about) on one of the local stations. You can see examples of our TV appearances on our YouTube channel Here
Let me be clear, when I talk about TV, I am talking about the local morning and weekend news shows. So you are targeting these reporters and news anchors when sending in story ideas.
The “seasonal”type stories would seem to be the most well received. Hence the reason our Halloween stories are usually always accepted. So Halloween make-up is always a good idea, then Valentines day for such things as Boudoir paintings and Body painting. Mothers/Fathers day for fun shirt ideas, Back to school for different products like backpacks, cinch bags and of course custom spirit wear. The idea is to contact the stations and tell them you have a great idea for a (insert season here) story and explain to them what it is. Show them examples and really talk it up. We have all sat through stories just like these and have probably remembered them. Your business is no different, there are people out there that want airbrushed stuff….so….get out there and show it to them. Again, don’t try for every year, skip a year or two with each station because you do not want to burn them out on the ideas.
I hope these three posts have helped open your eyes to the world of “getting your name out there”
Be sure to checkout the other 2 posts on Radio and Live promotional advertising. and Social Media and Printed Promotional Material.
As always feel free to leave comments or ask questions