Promotional cheerleader Mark Simon. All images courtesy of Mark Simon.

Promotion is anything that gets you and your work noticed at little or no cost. It’s free marketing. Yeah! Go Team Me! At least it’s free if you do it yourself. You may have to pay a publicist to help, but there are a lot of types of self-promotion that are easy and free.

The simplest form of promotion is to talk about what you do. Don’t be shy. How will that cute quarterback know you like him if you’re too shy to talk to him?

You can be the best artist in the world, but if no one knows it, they won’t know to hire you. You don’t have to brag, but it’s OK to talk about what you do. In fact, be proud of it. Cheer about your art! People are more likely to hire those who are confident in themselves.

How do you meet the right people? You know, the really popular kids who everyone wants to hang out with. Go to the parties and industry events. When you get there, introduce yourself to people. That’s why they are there too.

The easiest way to meet almost everybody at an event is to help out at the event. Offer to sit at the check-in table. Not only will you get to say “Hi” to everyone signing in at your table, you get to find out their name and quickly introduce yourself. That brief intro at the table makes it much easier to walk up to that person and talk to them later in the event.

Let’s say you get up the courage to go to an industry event and you run into the lead cheerleader and you really want to work on her team. Talking to her may make you feel important, but it probably won’t get you a job. Asking for a job might work.

Helping at events also shows potential clients what a great worker you are and they get to know you. There is a reason that the people who work on events always seem to have a lot of work.

The most common form of promotion is the press release. It’s kind of like getting the yearbook staff to write about you. You could get a full-page ad, without paying for an ad. The trick to writing your own press release is it needs to be newsworthy. Don’t just write about how great you are, but find the news hook that would interest the paper or magazine. Did you just win an award? Is a big project you worked on about to be released? Did your work help someone? Are popular people attached to the project?

Periodicals love running pieces about artists because it gives them great art to print.

For instance, Jimmy Buffet’s new movie, Hoot, just came out. My company provided the storyboards for the movie. Our press release went out just before the movie came out and within hours articles appeared.