Some definitions:

Publicity is the type of promotion that uses public relations strategies to be picked up usually in a free form by different media, such as press, TV or digital media.11 People need to know your product exists before you can begin to achieve anything with it, therefore the product needs publicity. Publicity is different from marketing in that marketing is direct communication from your festival aimed at gaining sales while publicity is third party (free) communication of your festival that is meant to inform people of your existence or build on your brand. Publicity can be a component of a marketing strategy, but it needs its own plans and team in order to achieve the desired results. In publicity you aim your information at everyone, not just individuals, you are sure you will turn into customers. The end result is not sales but building a brand. It is important to remember that publicity focuses on third party communication, therefore you do not have total control of the final message. You need to make sure to craft your messages as best as possible so that they cannot be too altered by third parties. Festivals need to have a well-planned publicity plan.  

Marketing and publicity are similar in many ways and one of the ways is defining a target audience. A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumers within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.12 

How you say something is just as important as what you say. A message generated for middle-aged working-class audiences may not translate as well when given to teenage high school kids. Similarly, a message created for people living in Europe might not translate as well in Africa. 

• How can you compliment the marketing tools being used? 

• When will the social media posts go out? 

• When will you engage media resources?  

• How will you create the right build up?  

• What will the PR plan be after the festival to ensure audience retention while also capturing a new audience? 

• Before you share the information, you must know who will be taking in, is it in the right language? Right tone of voice? Is it enough? Is it too much? 

1. Marketing plan 

2. Social media plan 

3. PR plan 

Like advertising and sales promotion, sales can be increased by publicity, too. Publicity carries more credibility compared to advertisement. Publicity is cost free; it doesn’t involve direct cost. Publicity offers a lot of benefits to the producers and distributors. More extensive information on Publicity can be found here. 

The most effective forms that can be used for publicity are dependent on the following factors: 

1. Target audience  

Who and where is your target audience? For example: if your festival generates a large percentage of tourist attendees, you cannot spend the entire budget on local engagement, international engagement techniques such as social media need to be used. 

2. Available resources:  

Do you have the finances or manpower to carry out some of the PR techniques. For example: supporting a charity is a good way to get good publicity but does the festival have the finances and manpower to support another organisation? There are alternatives if you do not have the budget, but it is difficult to find them if you do not have the manpower. For example, donating materials used to build the stage to local communities that need it can be a financial alternative but having the manpower to develop those relations with the local community cannot be substituted. 

3. Location:  

What medium is most popular in your region or the region that you are trying to advertise. No point in engaging in radio publicity when most people watch TV or vice versa. Is your target audience on Facebook or Instagram? Nonetheless, the most effective PR plans involve engaging all the mediums possible as it generates the most publicity. 

4. Tone of voice: 

However, it is noteworthy to mention that publicity won't necessarily take the place of traditional advertising, but it can raise your profile. Even better, the best publicity strategies don't involve buying advertising time or space.14 

The balance small business lists the following ways to generate news stories about your business. 

• Use press releases to alert the media to newsworthy events or changes regarding your business. 

• Develop contacts within the media to increase coverage of your business. 

• Get involved in charity drives, local events, or industry milestones so your business will be mentioned in press coverage of those events. 

• Pitch yourself as an expert source for news stories using resources like HARO. 

Media Partnerships would be another helpful method, where you make a media company a sponsor where the ‘in-kind’ is publicity (Ads, articles, TV/radio/social media/podcast coverage) before, during and after the festival. 

Remember publicity is still needed during and after the festival, while marketing might end as soon as all tickets are sold or even during the festival because you do not believe you will not have any customers publicity does not end. The people attending the festival need to hear about the great festival they are attending, the ones who couldn't make it need to be convinced to attend the next one, the partners that did not collaborate need to change their stance for the next one, and the general public needs to have a positive image of your festival. 

In addition to being mentioned in the press, there are other types of publicity that your business can pursue. 

• Social media. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow you to connect with your potential customers. A strong social media presence keeps your brand in your followers' minds. Rather than trying to make a single post that goes viral, focus on building an interested audience in a slow and steady fashion. 

• Cultural relevance. A clever social media post, viral video, catchy slogan, popular commercial, or attention-grabbing public comment can put your business in the cultural spotlight. When that happens, you get free publicity anytime someone references your cultural moment. 

• Product placement. Send free products or offer free services to public figures, bloggers, or other media personalities. Your products may end up being featured in their blogs, social media posts, or other public content. 

• Partnerships. Working with other brands or businesses that have a larger audience can allow you to get your brand in front of a wider audience and generate publicity. Approach potential partners about collaborations, product swaps, or offering your products and services as a free bonus to some of their customers. 

• Promotional swag. Branded items such as calendars, pens, notepads, tote bags, and phone cases can put your brand name and logo in front of a wide audience. However, you have no guarantee that your target audience will be the one seeing this swag. Think of swag as a fun bonus for customers, rather than a guaranteed way to generate publicity, and budget accordingly. 

No matter what type of publicity you pursue, remember: it is one of many tools you should be using to promote your brand and attract customers. Generating publicity should be a strategic part of your marketing mix, along with advertising and other promotional strategies.15 Using influential people to talk about your product goes a long way as well, such as brand ambassadors.  

“Publicity involves giving public speeches, giving interviews, conducting seminars, offering charitable donations, inaugurating mega events by film actors, cricketers, politicians, or popular personalities, arranging stage show, etc., that attract mass media to publish the news about them.”16 

Publicity is, therefore, undertaken for a wide range of purposes like promoting new products, increasing sales of existing product, etc. It also aimed at highlighting employees’ achievements, company’s civic activities, pollution control steps, research and development successes, financial performance, its progress, any other missionary activities, or social contribution. The effect of publicity is, that the publicity message is more likely to be read, viewed, heard, and reacted by audience. This also results in a high degree of believability as it is given by a third party. Frequency or repetition of publicity in mass media depends upon its social significance or the values for news. But in most cases, it appears only once.17 

Measuring impact is tricky as essentially you are trying to influence how people view you as well as the number of people that know about your festival: 

1. Press Clippings. One way to gauge your success is to track the amount of press clippings that mention your company or products and services. The caveat is that articles and mentions should appear in publications viewed by your prospects. When you receive a large number of mentions in target media outlets, your PR program is successfully raising awareness for your business. 

2. Media Impressions. Another method of assessing your PR efforts is to calculate the number of media impressions for a given period. Multiply the number of press clippings by the total circulation of the publication in which it appeared. For example, if The Wall Street Journal mentioned your company and it has a total circulation of two million, you achieved two million media impressions. 

3. Content Analysis. In addition to the quantity of articles and impressions, companies evaluating the impact of their PR programs should monitor the content of the articles that are published. Quality matters – did the reporter mention your brand’s key messages? Is your company being portrayed in a positive light? To answer the question “does PR work?” You have to assess whether your press coverage is resulting in valuable content. 

4. Website Traffic. Another way to determine the effectiveness of your PR investments is to measure the amount of traffic your website receives before and after launching your campaign. Sales leads often come from calls-to-actions listed on your website, so analysing spikes in site traffic can help answer whether your PR efforts are working. 

5. Lead Sourcing. A well-executed PR campaign directly contributes to sales leads, but it’s difficult to determine when press coverage triggers sales. To learn if your PR efforts influence your clients’ decision-making, simply ask new customers how they heard about your company and its offerings. 

6. Market Surveys. Research is paramount to tracking a PR campaign’s success. Before starting your PR campaign, survey your markets to see if they’ve heard of your brand and offerings. After launching your PR strategy, survey your markets again to check whether awareness statistics are trending up. 

1. Social Media Mentions. Yet another metric for measuring the impact of a PR campaign is social media mentions. Social media measurements should also focus on conversations about your brand, as well as social communities in your industry. If social media mentions of your brand increase after launching your PR program, you can stop wondering “does PR work?”18 

Publicity essentially is a free tool therefore it should be cost-efficient. Costs that would appear are hiring PR personnel, fuel, internet, costs of running a campaign, sponsorship and supporting costs. The benefits are, however, more rewarding. 

Companies can buy a full year’s national public relations program for the cost of a single, 30-second, prime-time TV spot. These same economies hold true for local campaigns. When developing publicity campaign, many executives want to be sure that whatever expenses are involved in a project or campaign will be financially beneficial to the company. Not only do executives want a return on the investment (ROI) for publicity but they also want to see that the investment improves profitability and builds toward business goals and objectives.19 

Other than costs associated with media liaison and media release preparation and distribution, every positive newspaper or magazine article, favourable media mention or interview on radio or television is entirely FREE! Publicity gets you more attention. Paid advertisements can be skipped, even totally ignored. However, if your business is the focus of an article or gets mentioned favourably in a business story, you can quickly capture the attention of the readers and engage them with what you have to say. 

Publicity carries greater kudos. People have more faith in what they read in newspapers or magazine and in what they hear from radio or TV commentators than they have in paid advertising. Media mention also provides that much sought after “third-party” endorsement. Also, if your organization or name is constantly out there, doors tend to open more readily. Publicity, therefore, establishes you as an expert. If you’re constantly quoted in the media, the natural assumption is that you are the expert in your field and someone to do business with. 

Moreover, publicity builds your identity and improves your competitiveness. The more your business is written about or the more media appearances you make, the more your organization will become a household name and set you apart from your competitors. Publicity also helps form strategic alliances. Companies are more likely to engage with you if are an expert of leader in your field. 

Publicity has greater staying power. When you’re written up in a publication, your story is often passed on to others to read (particularly if the information provided is useful and has general application). Some companies even use reprints of stories for marketing purposes. Also, if you’re quoted in one place, you’re more likely to get quoted in other places. If you’ve been in the media, you also have a better chance of getting a gig as a speaker at meetings and conferences. It gives you instant celebrity.20 

Branding:  

Many companies that are successful over the long haul rely on the strength of their brand to cultivate new sales. If you can offer your customers a series of quality products that meet or exceed expectations, they may be more likely to give any new products you develop a try, simply by hearing the name of your brand. Successful branding typically takes time. Consistent publicity can help you strengthen your brand by repeatedly putting your company's name in front of potential customers. Over time, the public may grow to think of your company as a household name, which could set you apart from your competitors.21 

Publicity is viral: In the marketing world, ads don't regenerate themselves, but publicity does. All it takes is for your message(s) to appeal to people with high social networking potential and boom, it goes viral. It can give you more and more PR opportunities turning you into a household name.22 

Table 3: Example of format of marketing/social media/PR plan 

Figure 3: Social Media plan template23  

Figure 4: Media plan template24