It helps to be able to know which publicity is paid and which one is free; it hard is to tell sometimes but sure its benefits for your business is great. Here is how you can spot the difference and how to use it for your advantage.

I have a knack for telling and differentiating paid advertisements from free publicity. I developed it while working for more than a decade writing and doing marketing. It may be easy for me to tell the difference but most people find it that hard. Let me help you how it is done, and its benefits:

Paid advertising

It does not take a rocket scientist to recognize a paid advertising material mostly because it is apparent and obvious. Those of course are the materials you see during commercial breaks in TV and radio. These materials are also seen as those colourful publicity materials in some portions of a web page.

Advertorial

These are advertisements that are embedded in an article, mostly being projected as part of an editorial. Sometimes advertorials are presented in the form of news.

Free publicity

This is the kind of publicity of which clients do not necessarily pay for the advertisements they post on any media outlet. This is the job of a PR consultant; to help their clients secure this kind of publicity. This is seen in a form of articles or as news broadcast. Free publicity, despite for being free, is favoured and more trusted by the clients because of the credibility it possesses. Public relations expert make it a point to make good use of the recent news to embed their plans of projecting their clients as experts of the certain field. When the Government announced a significant change in its policies on home buyers’ grant, a number of people from all the other related industries made press releases and signifying their stand on the issue. This is their way of establishing their knowledge and authority to increase their credibility in their area of expertise. A good public relation performance is not having your work recognized once or twice. It is has to be a regular routine of your business. Meaning, you must reach a point when the media people automatically think of you when they are faced with queries on issues related to your area of expertise.

Paid advertising assures you that your products and businesses are advertised exactly the way you want it to be marketed by paying for it. However, it is not entirely credible. Free publicity on the other hand is viewed to be more credible and trusted by the people because of the way it is presented. The thing with free publicity is you really must exert an effort to stand out among your competition so that you will earn your ticket for free advertising.