Shawn Graham features Grasshopper - How to Pitch Your Small Business To Bloggers And Other Media Types

You have a great business and a great new product and you really want to be featured in TechCrunch or “insert name here” publication. But here's the thing—so does everyone else. The more prominent the blogger or media outlet, the harder it is to get noticed.

Although the PR industry hasn't entirely come to grips with it, the age of skillfully crafted press release has gone the way of the dodo bird. If you're a small business owner and you're trying to get some love from bloggers or the main stream media, you're going to have to try something different.

That's just what the folks at Grasshopper.com did when they were trying to generate some buzz for their Entrepreneur Movement. As the story goes, they FedEx'ed 5000 chocolate covered grasshoppers to some of the most influential people in America, including bloggers, politicians, celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEO's, journalists, reporters, and TV anchors. Their campaign was a huge success. A risky call to try something unconventional, but it worked.