2005 October

Create a “Top 10″ list

10/11/2005 By Joan

If your company or nonprofit serves a national or international audience, here’s a great idea publicity idea you can steal. Ditto if you’re an author, speaker or consultant.

One of the ideas in my ebook ”How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound” is to create a list of the top 10 cities or states that are the best or worst at (fill in the blank).

Example: The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America has compiled a list of the Top 25 Allergy Capitals in the United States. The website also includes the entire list of 100 cities, including the methodology used to compile the rankings.

You’ve probably seen similar lists like this dealing with things such as the 10 most romantic cities, the 20 worst cities for traffic jams, the most obese states, etc.

But the “top 10″ ideas don’t stop there.

Here in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin holds the title of “The Number One Party School in America,” based on students’ consumption of beer, liquor and marijuana. The honor was bestowed by The Princeton Review, which names the “Best 361 Colleges.” Its 70-question survey asks students to characterize 62 aspects of college life from the quality of their institution’s food to the quality of the professors. (It ranks only the top 20 schools in each category.)

Your methodology doesn’t have to be as sophisticated. In fact, I’ve seen the media gobble up “Top 10″ stories about fun topics, even with little data to back up the claims.

What “Top 10″ list can your organization create?

Filed Under: Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Nonprofits

Pitch these Halloween ideas for publicity

10/11/2005 By Joan

From now until October 31, the media will be reporting an anything even remotely connected to Halloween. So start thinking about ways you can piggyback off this holiday—the second biggest retail holiday of the year. Here are some ideas to get you started:

—Roadside markets, nurseries and agricultural associations can offer tips on how to buy the perfect pumpkin. Marcia Wood, a science writer and protege in The Publicity Hound Mentor Program, suggests a tip sheet on “How to extend the porch life of a pumpkin.”

—If you’re featuring Halloween-related entertainment like a haunted house or haunted maze, invite local print and TV reporters to “review” it.

—Certain religious denominations frown on celebrating Halloween because they think it glorifies devil worship. If you’re among them, write an op-ed piece for your local newspaper.

—What are the most popular Halloween costumes that are flying off store shelves? If you sell costumes, let the media know.

—With obesity a nationwide problem in the U.S., what tips can nutritionists, doctors and clinics pass along to parents who want to keep their kids from gorging on sweets?

—In many communities, trick-or-treat will be held during daylight hours on Sunday, October 30, for safety reasons. How about writing an article for your local daily or weekly newspaper detailing your spooky memories of trick-or-treat when it was always on October 31 and always after dark?

When Halloween is over, start thinking about ideas to pitch for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Check out this article at my website titled “Deck the halls with story ideas at Christmas.”

Filed Under: Newspaper Publicity, TV Publicity

Pitch the Religion News Service for publicity on religion, spirituality topics

10/7/2005 By Joan

If you have a story idea about values, religion, spirituality or philanthropy, consider pitching it to reporters at the Religion News Service, owned by Newhouse News Service.

The news service has more than 100 secular clients, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, Time and Newsweek magazines, National Public Radio and ABC World News. In addition, RNS has more than 200 religious clients, ranging from the Catholic Register to Christianity Today and the nation’s leading Jewish weeklies.

If you’re an expert spokesperson who will be interviewed by the religious or secular press, know how to be the type of source the media return to again and again. ” Media coach Al Rothstein, who was my guest during a telephone seminar a few years years ago called “How to be an Expert Spokesperson the Media Love,” says one of the key differences between a spokesperson and an expert spokesperson is that the expert spokesperson isn’t afraid to make predictions. In other words, a spokesperson is simply the messenger who knows how to deliver the message in a way the media want to receive it. An expert spokesperson is not only a good messenger, but the media can tap into expert’s brain.

Filed Under: How to Interview, Pitching the Media

Create a quiz for inflight magazines

10/6/2005 By Joan

Whenever I fly American Airlines, I pull the inflight magazine out of the seat pocket in front of me and turn to the back to see if there’s a Mensa Quiz. Then for the next half hour or so, I go to work filling in the blanks, or decoding a series of numbers, or playing the word association games.

An hour later, I tally up my points and see if I’m Mensa material. (Not!)

The “High IQ Society” generates fabulous publicity with these quizzes. You can borrow their idea and dream up a fun quiz of your own, then submit it to the print publications on your media hit list, including inflight magazines if the topic is a good fit.

Be sure to include the answers, and give those taking the quiz a key so they can grade themselves. Mensa does something else that’s brilliant. It provides a bonus question, then tells readers to go to its website, log in and find the answer. What a great way to generate website traffic.

You can do the same thing–offer bonus questions or even have an additional quiz at your website.

In my “Special Report #29: Fly High with Publicity in Inflight Magazines” I give you all kinds of tips (plus contact information) on how to pitch 36 inflight magazines. Most imporant: You must hold the magazine in your hand and look through it, or see the online version, so you have a good idea of exactly what content it includes, its various departments and features, and even the freelancers who write for it.

You also must be sure you know EXACTLY what each editors want. Inflight magazines, for example, usually don’t print business features unless they have a bearing on tourism

Filed Under: Magazine Publicity

How to Attract a Reporter’s Attention

10/6/2005 By Joan

Sponsoring an event? One of the best ways to generate publicity is to invite a reporter to participate in something that will result in a pre-event story.

For example, if you’re sponsoring a hot-air balloon race, invite a reporter to take a hot-air balloon ride a week or two before your event, so she can write about it for her newspaper and tell readers what they can expect if they take a ride, too.

Is your local service club making Halloween candy and selling it to raise funds for the Katrina evacuees? Invite a reporter to put on an apron for an hour or two and help you make the candy. If you can involve a reporter in your story, you’ll end up with an excited reporter. And excited reporters seldom write dull stories.

But how do you get a busy reporter’s attention, other than a phone call or an email? My friend Deb Schmidt has a great idea. If you can get your hands on a photo of the reporter, either from the newspaper or from the newspaper’s website, you can imprint the photo onto a CD. Then send the CD to the reporter along with a sticker that says “An invitation for Jane Smith.”

If I were a reporter and saw my smiling mug on the front of a CD, you can bet I’d pop it into the CD player to see what’s on it.

Deb and I shared on “How to Plan & Promote Sizzling Special Events,” a set of 7 CDs that include 15 can’t-do-without-checklists for event planners. The lists cover everything from how to create a media plan for your event to how to avoid land mines if you’re serving food and alcohol.

Filed Under: Pitching the Media, Special Events