Have you ever noticed how much of the news really isn't that new? Heres an exercise that focuses on your examining the stories in the news, and then searching within your own company to find themes which can be fashioned into newsworthy items.

One thing you'll notice immediately: the news moves quickly, but it moves around major themes. Sports, Entertainment, Business, Health--these are all themes that one finds throughout the week in any newspaper or on an internet news site such as Google News or Yahoo. As you scan through the news, focus on these categories, but also keep your mind open to breaking news.

For example, if your small, local company has some connection to a breaking national or international story, a quick call or email to the local paper may be in order. Let's say your company sells cellular phones made in an area of the world just hit by a natural disaster. Fortunately, it appears all your suppliers are intact and there won't be any interruption in providing your product to your local customers. A good headline for the story would be: Asia disaster unlikely to increase cell phone prices anytime soon. Of course, the reporter might expand the story to include the general category of consumer electronics to give the story a greater appeal.

And how do you know this? You probably don't have contacts in Asia, but you possibly do at your trade association and certainly from the salespeople who sell the phones to you. A quick call to either will confirm whether or not cell phone delivery and production will likely be interrupted by the disaster.

There's an old saying: All news is local. People read the news and then constantly analyze how what they've just read will affect them, if at all.

Remember your goal: get your name in the paper or on the internet or possibly on radio or television as a reputable source. Journalists aren't going to try and build your brand; they need a story. It doesn't matter: as long as you and your company are mentioned you will boost your brand by being quoted in the press.

But, what if there's no breaking news story you can tie into? That's the reason for this little exercise. Take a few minutes and read several stories from different sections of your local paper. Don't just stick to the business news; this is the time to use your imagination. As you read through the stories, let your mind associate the story content with how your business solves customer problems. Remember, your customers come to you not so much to buy your product but to buy the solution to their problem that your product solves.

When you allow your mind to connect your company-supplied solutions to the articles you read in the news, then you open up your imagination to creating connections between your business and the newspaper audience. Remember, you can't blatantly pitch your product to a newspaper reporter and expect the reporter to run it.

But what about the national trade press? You're just a little store, right? You're not a huge supplier or one of the biggest players in your industry. What can a small business marketer do to get attention in the trade press?

Share.

Share with the industry, through the industry press, what's working for you. Share how you met some customer need through an employee innovation; share how something's working (or not). Share a marketing win you're proud of. Industry publications need fresh stories from the trenches to share with the other readers that are standing in their own trenches.

There are other resources out there on the web for press releases, and we'll cover those in a future issue. Plus well soon review a good book on the topic, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR. Just for now, start making those connections as you read the news.

Remember: Brand (who you are) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + People (customers and employees) = Marketing Success.