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Generate more exposure, revenues and growth with – or without – the help of a PR professional.
BY BARB GORMLEY
n early 2007, Toronto personal trainer Yuri Elkaim was primed to launch his first fitness prod- uct, a series of audio-guided workouts for MP3 players. With
so many exercisers plugged into mu- sic players, he was confident it could make an impact on the fitness world. He enjoyed the front-end aspect of creating his business’s new profit centre, but when it came to promo- tion his confidence flagged. “I could have figured it out for myself,” he says now, “but there would have been a big learning curve.” After a failed attempt to barter personal training services with a
58 Fitness Business Canada January/February 2009
friend with marketing experience, he happened to connect with sea- soned publicist Marjorie Wallens at a small-business networking group. Impressed with her energy and cre- dentials – she is a former longtime journalist and broadcaster and a reg- ular exerciser – he quickly hired her.
The publicist’s approach
Rather than immediately pumping out press releases, Wallens first tried all of Elkaim workouts herself. Then, suitably impressed, she helped him clarify his mission statement and the messaging they would use to promote the workouts. “We needed to be sure
we were both going in the same di- rection,” says Elkaim, who paid about $1,000 a month for Wallens’ services. With all the background informa-
tion gathered, Wallens then com- piled a list of 10 key media contacts to target, and she devised an atten- tion-getting promotion. “We bought 10 inexpensive MP3 players, loaded them with my workout CD and sent one to each person with the press re- lease,” says Elkaim. The idea was to make it easy for them to experience the workout rather than just reading about it. (“It’s like the difference be- tween tasting a cake and reading the recipe,” explains Elkaim.) Within a
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