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Star PowerBy Kim T. Gordon You wouldn't guess by looking at me that I have something major in common with Sammy Sosa and Pete Sampras -- but we've all been endorsers or celebrity spokespersons for Nortel Networks. While I've never been able to hit a baseball or serve an ace, as a small-business expert and author I can drive home key messages that resonate with business owners, a skill Nortel Networks has put to good use. Typically, star athletes command endorsement fees in the millions, but other spokespeople, such as authors and industry experts, have considerably less stratospheric rates. So while your budget probably doesn’t include a national ad campaign featuring a superstar, there are excellent, lower-cost ways your small business can increase its visibility using a celebrity or expert spokesperson. Creating a marketing program using an outside endorser draws attention to your message and confers credibility. It's what I call the "made you look" factor. Your choice of a spokesperson should be based on your message and target audience. And there's a wide range of academics, authors, athletes, actors/personalities, association leaders and experts – all available for your events, retail promotions and public relations tours. Draw a Crowd To really stand out at your next trade or consumer show, use a celebrity or expert to draw traffic to your booth. For fees ranging from just around $2000 to about $5000 for an event, you can bring in a retired athlete, local celebrity or popular author. As spokesperson for Sprint, for example, I gave workshops at Entrepreneur Small Business Expos. The first 100 people to visit the booth following my talks got a free copy of my book -- and Sprint personnel got the opportunity to meet hundreds of potential new customers. If you're a retailer, you can follow the same principle to bring traffic to your store. Just promote the event using space in your regular advertising, send releases and invitations to the press and special invitations to your customer database. Make News Public relations media tours are an affordable way to reach millions of customers in a highly credible news format. A radio media tour consists of a series of 5 to 8-minute interviews by telephone with your spokesperson. Qualified booking companies, such as Bethesda Maryland-based, North American Network Inc. (301-654-9810), offer all-inclusive rates based on the number of interviews scheduled. They book the stations, write the press release, send media kits, moderate and tape the interviews and provide a comprehensive report. A three-hour satellite radio tour with approximately 15 interviews will cost just under $5000 plus the fees to your spokesperson, which can range from approximately $8-10,000 for the interview time and endorsement. There will also be fees for message development and any consulting or writing work your spokesperson may do. But the costs are highly reasonable in relation to the audiences reached -- as spokesperson for Sprint, a major radio tour yielded 18 million impressions, and a shorter tour for eBay’s Business and Industrial Products reached over 6 million listeners. Ridgewood New Jersey-based DWJ Television (www.dwjtv.com), which specializes in satellite TV media tours, offers similar services. For tours shot in a studio, the two-hour cost for about a dozen interviews is $15,000 plus your spokesperson's fees. Your broadcast spokesperson should work with you to develop a "news hook" so you'll gain the most interviews possible. You should expect to receive at least one or two mentions per interview, and the spokesperson must be adept at bringing the interviewers back to the key messaging points no matter what questions are asked. They should have excellent on-air skills, be unflappable and able to deliver the same message many different ways, once every ten minutes for several hours. To find a celebrity spokesperson, visit http://hollywood--madison.com. For a technical expert, author, or academic, visit a site designed for journalists, www.profnet.com. And click on "Corporate Services" on this site's toolbar. Get In-depth Coaching on this Topic>> Kim T. Gordon's columns and articles are read by nearly 3 million small and home-based business owners each month. She is the author of two books, including Bringing Home the Business: The 30 Truths Every Home Business Owner Must Know. Copyrighted material. May not be reproduced in whole or part without expressed permission from the author. |
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