Today I'd like to discuss another marketing method suggested by Forrest S. Mosten in his book Mediation Career Guide

Mr. Mosten suggests Press Releases and News Stories as another method of marketing.  I have tried press releases and did one to market what I thought was a unique offer, gift certificates for the holidays.  I called it Give the Gift of Peace.  While I did manage to increase traffic to my website I did not realize any clients from this effort.

Mr. Mosten suggests that "Newspapers are always looking for local stories.." however, being located in a large urban area I'm not so sure that is the case.  Certainly there are small, neighborhood type publications which may meet this need but what I have found is that most of these publications will do a story if it is associated with an advertisement.  I have only tried one print advertisement in one targeted publication and that generated zero traffic.

I would be interested to hear your experience with these methods, especially if they have been more successful than mine.

One of the first books I purchased to help me with getting my mediation practice off the ground was "Mediation Career Guide" by Forrest S. Mosten.

This book contains a lot of good advice on starting and marketing a mediation practice.  I'd like to discuss some of the methods suggested by Mr. Mosten and my experience with them.

The first method Mr. Mosten suggests is mailed announcements.  Mr. Mosten suggests purchasing quality announcements and mailing them to everyone you know who may refer you business.  

I tried a variation on this theme.  I used VistaPrint to design a postcard announcing the opening of my practice.  I came up with what I thought was a good target market for referrals, Certified Divorce Financial Advisers (CDFA) in my area. I mailed a postcard to all of them I could find listed.  

That was 3 years ago and as yet I have not received one referral from any of the CDFAs to whom these announcements were mailed.

I was discouraged by this and have not done any other mailings since.  At the time my practice was focused primarily on divorce mediation and CDFAs seemed like the perfect "audience" for my message.  Perhaps the downfall of my attempt was that I did not know any of these people personally or even through others.

I would be interested to know if any of you have tried similar mailings and what your experience was.

Today I find myself pondering how to get this blog "out there" to invite participation from fellow ADR and Divorce Coaching professionals? 

I have been networking on LinkedIn and have listed my blog there, so far however, not one comment.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Post them here (if I can find you that is ;)

I started this blog for three reasons:

• To network with other ADR professionals
• To discuss the business/marketing aspects of building a mediation practice
• What works?
• What doesn't?

• To discuss mediation and the mediation process 

As an ADR professional for over 5 years I have struggled with building my practice, something I did not experience in my former law practice.

I would like to posit this question to the ADR professionals out there as well as the general public:

In a society used to waging war how does one market peace?

I look forward to your comments and discussion.  New and bold ideas are always welcome as are the tried and true.

I plan to share what I find as I continue to research this topic and I hope you will do the same.