In addition to printed advertising strategies such as your posters, brochures, business cards, flyers and pamphlets, one of the best modes of promoting your products and services is through public relations. When done right, along with advertising campaigns that involve poster printing, public relations can help you boost your income by thousands of dollars in a few weeks' time along with your printed poster campaign.

However, the problem is that many business owners fail to realize the power of a strong public relations strategy. Hence, the reason for many failures. In fact, many probably believe that advertising and public relations are the same. On the contrary, these two are different from each other.

Advertising is all about influencing your target market to your message in your postcards for example, so that you can make a sale eventually. Public relations, on the other hand, is creating and maintaining a good relationship with the media and other publicity people to help you launch your business to the public.

In order for you to better understand public relations so you can use it to your advantage, here are some of the basic principles of publicity:

Basic PR Principle 1: Honesty is still the best policy.

Publicity has been distorted so many times that it is hard to even distinguish between the true and fabricated statements or presentation. Nevertheless, many are actually tempted to tell a few half-truths just so their story will have more interest and appeal to the media people.

When you are talking to these types of people, the best way to go about it is to be honest in your transactions. Whether you email it or you conduct the interview with the journalist on the phone, you must always tell the truth. Journalists particularly can actually tell a lie from the truth so don't even think about doing it.

One more thing, you might get away with the hype the first time, but they will surely be on to you the next time and may not be forgiving when they catch you lying.

Basic PR Principle 2: Identify what is actual news.

News means stories that people would be actually interested in. News is something that your target audience would feel like reading when they see it. News is different from what would appeal to people and what you think is a hot story.

You have to remember that in order for you to know what is news and what is not, you should know what your target market actually cares about. Do you have a public figure that can vouch for the effectiveness of your product? What about a new breakthrough miracle drug that can cure

cancer? Anything unusual about your service that is distinct to your company? These things are hot news and you have to get them out to the media.

Basic PR Principle 3: Identify your target.

Target not only your market but also your news organization and publicity people. The same principle is true when targeting your public relations strategy – send your news out to those who would be interested in your story. Do not call someone that has nothing to do with your business. And do not send your news that the media would be afraid of it being spam.

Target your recipients of your story. When you do, you will have more chances of getting your news released and posted because they appeal to your media as well as your target market.