Your story here: Dante Lee's online black news portal is a leading destination for press releases.For small business owners, publicity is one of the best forms of marketing--it's inexpensive and often free. When black-owned businesses and organizations want to get noticed by black media, many send their press releases to Diversity City Media Inc. The multicultural marketing and public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most firm operates Black PR.com, an extensive press release distribution service, and Black News.com, the online portal for African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. news and issues. For just $150, Diversity City will feature a client's press release on BlackNews.com, plus e-mail and fax it to every African American newspaper, magazine, radio station, and TV station in the country--more than 850 outlets in total. "We used to have to go out and convince people to accept our press releases, but now we don't," says Dante Lee, the firm's 24-year-old CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and president. "People call us if their fax number changes. And if a new black newspaper forms, they call us and make sure that they are on our distribution list." With clients such as Black Entertainment Television, McDonald's, and Marriott, Diversity City generated revenues of $450,000 in 2005. This year, the three-person company expects to generate $1 million. The company, founded in 2000, works on a pay-per-release basis with all of its major clients. "Black radio can be very scattered Scattered Used for listed equity securities. Unconcentrated buy or sell interest. and it can be difficult to catch all of them, especially in markets that are important to BET. That is where his service can be very useful," explains Michael Lewellen, senior vice president of corporate communications Corporate communications is the process of facilitating information and knowledge exchanges with internal and key external groups and individuals that have a direct relationship with an enterprise. at BET. Last year, Diversity City, which subscribes to 221 black newspapers and 83 magazines, enhanced its offerings by implementing a new national clipping (1) Cutting off the outer edges or boundaries of a word, signal or image. In rendering an image, clipping removes any objects or portions thereof that are not visible on screen. See scissoring. See also WCA. service. Lee also relocated his company from Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city located in southern Los Angeles County, California, USA, on the Pacific coast. It borders Orange County on its southeast edge. It is about 20 miles (30 km) south of downtown Los Angeles. , to Columbus, Ohio Columbus is the capital and the largest city of the American state of Ohio. Named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. , in December 2005 to be closer to many of the advertising agencies and public relations firms he works with. The company has come a long way since Lee founded it as a student at Bowie State University Bowie State University ("Bowie State"), located on 338½ acres (1.4 km²) in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Located north of the suburban city of Bowie, Bowie State is part of the University System of Maryland. . Diversity City's first product was a Website called BlackHeadlines.com, and it was originally designed to provide news that highlighted destination locations for African Americans. Lee slowly started attracting clients by attending conferences, networking, using search engines, and purchasing small classified ads in industry magazines such as PR Week. But then, something unexpected started to turn Lee's fledgling company around. Celebrity authors, black organizations, and other companies that were hosting events and conferences began to send Lee press releases requesting that he write articles on them or their companies. So Lee decided to launch BlackPR.com in 2001, specifically to distribute press releases. The decision turned out to be a profitable one. "When I launched [BlackPR.com], I didn't realize how much revenue that particular service could generate," says Lee. "It turned out that I was making more money sending out press releases than I was from advertisers on BlackHeadlines.com. So that shifted the direction of the company." Diversity City Media Inc.; 5300 E. Main St., Suite 107, Columbus, Ohio, 43213; www.blackpr.com |
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