How To Do Well By Doing Good: Generating Traffic And Profits Through Community Involvement

By George McKenzie

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Youve heard the quote a gazillion times:

"Charity begins at home."

But in this age of mass media, charity that begins at home may also proceed straight to your bottom line--by creating visitors to your page or your business.

And best of all, the mass media--especially the news media-- are ready, willing, and more than able to partner with you.

Charity events and stories about community involvement appeal to the media for a couple of reasons.

1. Theyre very sensitive to criticism that "You only want to show bad news," and will build every effort to show uplifting, positive stories whenever possible.

2. Its in their best interest to contruct goodwill by grasping part in community events.

3. In the case of radio and TV stations, they MUST show that theyre serving the community. Otherwise, their FCC license would be in jeopardy.

4. For the most part (there are exceptions), theyre sizeably successful - hearted all the people who WANT to help others.

So, when you want to build new traffic or more traffic to your business or website, think about hosting a fundraiser for a charity or community organization. Let the media understand youre involved through a news release. Its often a grand idea to inquire of a high profile human from the media to be your honorary chairperson.

Also, if possible, offer the media a story about someone who has benefited from the charity. If you might "humanize" the work the charity is doing, "put a human face on it" so to speak, your chances of grasping coverage (that is, publicity), will skyrocket.

And dont forget to look for opportunities to pre-publicize your event, especially on radio talk shows.

Fundraisers and events that benefit the community amount to a win-win-win situation. Obviously, the charity gets money and attention to their cause, the station or newspaper gets points for its community spirit, and you get publicity that would have cost you thousands of dollars if you had to pay for it.

Early in my radio career, one of my friends used to sign off his show every day by telling his listeners this:

"Remember, do nice and youll always do well."

Its true in life. Its especially true when you want to get costless publicity in the media.