Baltimore Oriole echoing on my apple treetop.
Why new self-publishers on a marketing budget should take advantage of HARO.
HARO is the acronym for Help a reporter out. It’s an online service seeking information from people with expertise or specialization in a particular subject. Founded by Peter Shankman; Vocus Inc. is the parent company of HARO.
Yes, it’s free however, once in a while Vocus will get in touch with you to discuss their current marketing efforts and to see if their integrated digital marketing solution which includes search, social, PR, and email marketing would be beneficial to you.
Get back to them immediately and decide if their service will work for you.
A true win win situation for everyone.
Looking for free marketing then, go to HARO and sign up.
HARO has 5 very simple rules to follow and it would be wise to follow them. That’s all.
You’ll get to read them when you sign up and do take advantage of this service.
HARO will send you three e-mail a day on workdays. You will receive one in the morning, one in the afternoon and the last one in the evening.
- As soon as you receive the email from journalists or media companies have the alacrity to peruse the list carefully.
- Go for the questions that jump out at you and answer them comfortably.
- Read the questions carefully, check for deadlines and return your e-mail in a timely manner although, the earlier the better.
- Get right to the point and keep the e-mail to a minimum of three short sentences.
- Sending a link to your website or blog posting is beneficial when it comes to addressing specific inquiries. (Every author should have a self-hosted website.)
- Introduce yourself and answer the query in quick short explanations.
- Reporters are busy people and they have a deadline to meet. I should know, my dad was reporter for many years.
- Again, a link to your blog or website is a great idea.
- If the reporter is interested in you, you will be contacted with more questions, a request for your picture and other information.
- Keep trying, until one day; your feature goes live online.
- Check back with the source and thank them when you are featured.
- Communicate with the reporter and if for any reason you are not featured as promised – it’s ok, sometimes it happens. No one owes you any explanation so please be very professional about it.
- It’s a dog eat dog world out there. I don’t mean to brag but somehow I manage to know when a query is just a query, requiring information. With this I mean to say that the reporter is merely fishing for information so, you may or may not be quoted. All you can do is just take a chance.
- Most of us are pressed for time and time is precious and money. I would normally just ask the reporter to send me the questions via e-mail so that I can quickly shoot off the inquiries. I don’t like waiting around for a call/Skype call, which can be time consuming.
Since I joined HARO seven months ago I’ve been featured twice and that’s more than I could’ve asked for. My audience is growing considerably. I receive free publicity, which otherwise I couldn’t afford.
Both features were part of a business media outlet describing my self-publishing company Mirwag Inc. and my astute as an authorpreneur.
On FS Local
http://www.fslocal.com/blog/?s=gawri+manecuta&posttype=post&widget=advanced-search-widget-4
And on IdeaMensch
http://ideamensch.com/gawri-manecuta/
Bottom line, to aspiring authors and self-publishers do give HARO a chance.
Keep publishing and ask me how I can help you.
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