Prospecting involves researching potential buyers.

The list
of prospects may be derived from a variety sources. An
example is the membership roll of the parent teacher
association (PTA) of a local elementary school. This source
is particularly useful to dealers o books for elementary
schoolchildren
 Qualifying means selecting from among the prospects those most
likely to buy to quality prospects, the following must be considered.

1.Ability to pay and

2.Willingness to listen to a sales message.
Publicity
Publicity is a method of promotion where news is generated
about the firm or its products or services and appearing in print,
broadcast, or electronic media and not paid for by the firm
 Publicity is one of the promotional methods which can be tapped by the
cash strapped small businessman. The only requirement is a prepared
publicity release describing any of the following;
1. Existence of the firm and the products or services offered
2. Unique characteristic of the new products or services of the firm and
3. Firms unique method of doing business.
The publicity release will be published free by the various media if they are
found to be interesting or newsworthy :Criterion must then be the guide of
those preparing publicity releases.
TYPES OF PUBLICITY

There are various types of publicity that the small business may use for
its promotional efforts . They are the following;
1.News publicity - deals with events of national, regional, or local interest.
Kinds of news publicity:
a. Spontaneous news publicity- one made as result of a fire, union strike,
lahar onslaught, bank holdups, and other major occurrences;
and
b. Planned news publicity- one based on news releases prepared and
distributed by the small business on the basis.
2.Business feature articles - refer to detailed stories bout the firm or its offerings,
most often appearing in business magazines.
3. Service feature articles - refer to lighter stories focusing on personal care,
household items, and recipes which find their way in the page of newspapers
and magazines.
4. Finance releases - are stories that are targeted to appear in the business
sections of newspaper and magazines.
5. Product releases - refer to new products and product improvements and
aimed at all forms of media for publicity.