I am in awe of people who tell me they know everything about self-promotion. In fact I’m in awe of people who tell me they know everything about anything. Mainly because my BS detector goes into overtime and I know, for certain they are wrong. No one knows everything about anything. If they think they do, they are just kidding themselves.
I can only speak from experience, mine, and others. Take back in the sixties when I ran a small weekly newspaper in a town near LA. A local pharmacist came to see me and told me that he would hold me personally responsible if an edition of the paper was published and his shop’s name wasn’t in it. He didn’t care how. It could be an ad, a notice that he had been robbed, a classified, his kid being arrested, whatever. He told me that he believed that repetition was important.
I mentioned that he was the only pharmacy in town and that I didn’t really understand why he felt it was so important to be in every issue. He said that, yes, he was the only game in town, but he didn’t think that would be true forever. He and I set up a plan to ensure he was in every issue. He ran specials, and ads periodically, and ensured that he gave me weekly news about what was happening in his shop, and to him and his extended family.
Sure enough, in a couple of years, a shopping center with a large supermarket and chain drug store went in down on the highway. Three small grocery stores went out of business, but my friend survived and actually grew. He expanded his hours, added new products, and sure enough competed face to face with the big box store. He’s (or at least his son and grandson) still there and prospering, ensuring his business is in every issue of the local paper.
He couldn’t afford to run full page ads like the chain store. But he could place small, periodic strategic ads and ensure that news releases about his company were in every issue. He would spend a few hours each week coming up with ideas that piqued the interest of the editor and kept his name up front. He told me he was no marketing expert, but sometimes I wonder.
We have more than 500 companies that see the parking industry as a major source of revenue. About 15% of those regularly promote themselves in the parking media (that includes PT, Parking Magazine, and The Parking Professional). I find this stunning. So many companies will just hide in the weeds and not tell anyone about their successes.
The most read feature in PT is our Industry News section. Here we put little vignettes about the happenings in the industry. New hires, new installations, companies that are partnering with other companies, who bought whom, who sold whom, even once in a while a new product or invention. To be mentioned there you simply have to send your news release to our Parknews.biz editor, Astrid Ambroziak. She will take it from there. She can be reached at astrid@parkingtoday.com.
What possible reason can you have not sending your info to her? Are you trying to keep it a secret? Or are you just lazy. Remember my pharmacist friend. Never let an edition of PT go to press without your name in it. It’s up to you.
JVH
