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Recruit Your "Champions" to Help Spread the Word About Your Organization

Guest articles > Recruit Your "Champions" to Help Spread the Word About Your Organization

by: Robert Deigh

Looking for good word-of-mouth public relations to help you raise your organization's visibility? You may have customers, business partners, suppliers, friends and others who are willing to help spread the word about your company and its products and services. You just have to ask them. I call these people "champions."

Champions may or may not have a financial interest in your success but they want to help you do well. They are happy with your services or products, they like you and your team and would be proud to look back one day and know that they were instrumental in your success.

Champions can include:

• Current and former customers
• Local opinion leaders (civic, government)
• Board members
• Trade association and chamber colleagues
• Networking group fellow members
• Former employees
• Mentors
• Vendors
• Partners
• Investors
• Friends
• Family members

Here's how champions can help spread the word about you and your organization:

1. Provide them with your key talking points and ask them if they'd be willing to speak with the media on your behalf if the occasion arises. If a reporter wants to speak with one of your customers, for example, your "champion" will be prepped and ready.
2. Have them write testimonials for your Web site and your marketing and sales kits.
3. Draft short articles for their byline in industry publications and Web sites. You can often edit a white paper down to 800 or so words to create an article. They can make mention of your company in the article.
4. They can contact prospects and brag about how pleased they are with your products and services.
5. They can serve as members of an advisory committee
6. They can make mention of your company in presentations they make to industry groups.

Don't forget to return the favor:

1. Keep champions up to date on your organization - make them feel part of the "family." Send them your company newsletters, press releases, press clips and other public communication.
2. Invite them to an all-staff meeting or a "Breakfast of Champions" once a year to help them get to know your team. If they are customers, let them tell your employees firsthand how their work really makes a difference.
3. Cross promote their organizations with your own. If you have a newsletter or blog, give them a plug once in a while. Put information about them on your Web site.
4. Send reporters their way if they would make good sources even if the story will not include your company.
5. Send them a small tokens of appreciation
6. Invite them to industry networking events as your guest.

Robert Deigh is principal of RDC Communication/PR and the author of "How Come No One Knows About Us?" (WBusiness Books, available May 2008), the PR guide for organizations large and small that want to win big visibility. Deigh helps organizations increase their visibility and build their brands by creating strong and positive relationships with the press and other audiences. He is also a well-known speaker and trainer on media and PR topics. Want more free info to build your business? Subscribe to Deigh’s popular monthly 1-page online newsletter “PR Quick Tips” from his website at www.rdccommunication.com. He can be reached via email at rdeigh1@aol.com, or by phone at 703-503-9321.

Contributor: Robert Deigh

Published here on: 07-Aug-11

Classification: Sales, PR

Website: www.rdccommunication.com