If you never remember anything I ever tell you about marketing your business, remember this: if this guy can get on TV, you can get anywhere you want to be. Once again, this unbelievable story proves that half the battle is being well marketed, no matter what your product or service is.

So before we get to the video, let me tell you the story.

Apparently, either a completely fake yo-yo expert or a completely inept one, has been getting news coverage on local television station morning shows in the midwest US. He got on five shows before they caught on to him. Let’s take a look at him, shall we?

Let’s stop there for a minute. We’ll come back to the fact that he got extra air time from the station covering the fact that they didn’t research him before putting him on the air by doing the story in “fraud expose” style.

How much do you think it’s worth, in advertising dollars, to get five minutes on a local morning station?

Well, according to SpotRunner, if you were to buy a 30 second commercial in St. Joseph, Missouri, one of the places the Yo-Yo master got on the air, your weekly ad budget would be about $22 for a 30 second spot in prime cable markets or local networks. K-Strass, the alleged yo-yo master, was on for 3 – 5 minutes in the videos I’ve seen.

So that’s $132 times the 5 places he got on before he was caught, not including the coverage he got on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, because that was about how truly awful he was. $660 in free advertising.

Now, am I saying that you should make up a wild claim and go try to get a local station to put you on TV. Hell no. I’m saying that:

1- If that guy can get on FIVE television stations with a bogus story, what could you do with legitimate expert status?

and

2 – If you can make it a kind of publicity stunt or do something else spectacular to get extra coverage, you could be in the situation where the stations re-air your broadcast with additional commentary.

Though hopefully not similar to the case of this poor guy.

The point is, the stations are out there, wanting stories, and apparently, some of them aren’t even doing their research. Take advantage, but of course, just tell the truth and be creative. You’ll get a lot farther than 5 stations.

…. the coolest Google PR tool that SEW found, from Webmaster Eyes.

What it Does: It overlays the Google PR of any page linked from that site with the site’s PR.
Why it’s Cool: You can study it to learn more about how the PR is distributed on the site – after all it’s the individual pages that matter, not necessarily the site. You can also click on the PR button to navigate the site.
More About Google PR: MasterNewMedia.org has a mega-page on this.

Now, in case you’re new here, PR refers to Google Page Rank, and technically, just knowing it, or even having it, won’t increase your traffic by itself. But the clout itself IS often a traffic magnet when you get to 5 and higher. If high traffic is what you want though, you’re better off balancing relevant,fresh content with traffic-producing links pointing to you.