2007 April

BBB Torch Awards great for credibility, publicity

4/18/2007 By Joan Leave a Comment

I joined the Better Business Bureau last year because using its logo on my homepage really adds to my website’s credibility.

So I was stunned to learn recently that the Wisconsin BBB has to practically beg people to apply for its annual Torch Awards for business ethics and integrity.

I’m applying for the award this year, so I attended a workshop at the Milwaukee office of the BBB recently to learn about the judging criteria and to pick up pointers on how to create a great application package. Even though I’m my own employee, I can enter in the category for companies with 1 to 10 employees.

You can apply, too, even if you’re a nonprofit and even if you don’t belong to the BBB.

In Wisconsin, only about 100 companies applied for the award last year. I was also surprised to learn that some years, the BBB doesn’t get enough good entries in a particular category to even choose a winner.

Are you proud of your ethical business practices? Do you give fabulous customer service? When something goes wrong, do you make it right? Do you subscribe to truth in advertising? Do you foster ethics and integrity within your industry and community? If so, you’re a perfect candidate for this award.

What a great way to generate fabulous publicity in business journals and trade magazines and separate yourself from the Enrons of the world.

The BBB will host workshops during the next few months in communities all over the U.S. and Canada. If you’re thinking of applying for the award, you’d be smart to attend. In Wisconsin, the deadline for applications is Friday, August 17. Winners will be announced at a huge awards banquet in November.

The application process can be tedious and time-consuming. But based on what past winners have said, it’s worth it. Check out the 3-minute clip of past winners talking about what’s happend to them as a result of winning. It can be viewed by those of you who have broadband or dial-up connections.

As I mentioned in my ebook “How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound,” awards are one of the best ways to generate publicity. I’d love to be able to brag about winning this one. Call your local BBB office for details.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Nonprofits

Amazon bestseller campaigns not worth it

4/18/2007 By Joan 1 Comment

I’m sick to death of the parade of authors who hit me with sales pitches to buy their books on Amazon.com on such-and-such a day.

And I absolutely refuse to pester the 30,000 people on my email list and let them know about these Amazon campaigns.

Full disclosure: When these campaigns were all the rage a few years ago, I donated some of my own publicity products as “bonuses” if I knew the authors and respected their work, even though I refused to do a special mailing to my list. But I’ve distanced myself from these campaigns recently because they’ve lost their luster and many of them just don’t work.

Steve Weber, author of the new book “Plug Your Book!–Online book marketing for authors” (Weber Books, $24.99 paperback) agrees. He presents one of the best explanations I’ve read on why most of these Amazon bestseller campaigns fall flat. And he concludes:

“If it’s important to have a stellar Amazon Sales Rank for a day, you can do it much faster and cheaper by simply buying a few hundred copies of your book from Amazon yourself. Have a copy shipped to each member of your high-school class, your neighbors and in-laws, and every newspaper and magazine editor in your region. That would spark some real word of mouth for your book.”

If you’ve written a book, or you’re thinking of writing one, buy this book. Steve shows you how to get massive online exposure with no special computer skills. He explains why authors fail with paid advertising, pay-per-click, fee-based reviews and the Amazon campaigns. And he explains how to boost your visibility with blogs, Google, MySpace and other social netowrking sites, and how to capitalize on peer content and “amateur” book reviews.

Check out Steve’s Plug Your Book! blog.

Filed Under: Authors & Publishers, Blogs, Publicity on the Internet, Social networking

Michigan driver’s ed school needs publicity ideas

4/17/2007 By Joan 11 Comments

Roger Pozeznik of Kalamazoo, Michigan writes:

“I run All-Star Driver Education in Ann Arbor. Two other big driving schools in town seem to have a monopoly and have gotten lazy with there teaching skills. It’s frustrating to see that they have full classes.

“The school I work for is very well-known on the east side of the state and they are in about 20 schools. We have done the basics: targeted mailing lists, PA announcements, and we’re putting raffle boxes around town to to win a free class and collect names/leads to follow up on. The other schools have such a hold on the locals because they never really had any competition, and they have been around for years.

“What can we do to promote the school?”

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Publicity for Niche Markets

Ribbon-cutting event? You can do better than that

4/16/2007 By Joan Leave a Comment

I know you’ve seen photos just like this one hundreds of times.

It’s called a ribbon-cutting event, complete with the giant cardbaord scissors, and it’s one of the most-photographed, most boring ways to try to generate publicity.

Equally repugnant are those giant cardboard checks that somebody “presents” to someone else, usually when a company or a group makes a donation. That’s called a check-passing.

It’s a shame that so many uncreative PR people rely on cardboard checks and scissors when they can’t think of a better way to attract media attention for their business that’s opening, or when their organization is making a donation.

Next time you’re tempted to stage an event like these, I hope you’ll consider some better alternatives. Dan Collins, director of media relations for Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, uses a variety of offbeat ideas that are far better than cardboard checks and scissors. He explained them all on the CD we recorded called “Fun Alternatives to Boring Ground-breakings, Ribbon-cuttings and Check-passings.”

—Donating money for new hospital equipment? Work with the hospital’s PR department to line up a patient who would agree to be photographed using the equipment.

—Publicizing a bank branch that’s opening? Ask the local newspaper to photograph the first customer on opening day.

—Better yet, stage a fun event at the bank. How about hiring a magician who can do magic tricks with dollar bills? Alert the media.

—If your organization is donating money to buy food for the local food pantry, ask a reporter to help stock the pantry when the food arrives, then write about what it’s like to work at the food pantry for a day. Inviting reporters to become involved in your story often results in far more interesting stories.

What if your boss insists that you stage one of these events? Then what do you do?

I suggest you take the photo yourself and submit it to a low-level newspaper like one of those free qeekly shoppers that often print those kinds of photos. You’ll save face with larger newspapers that view those photos are unimaginative and trite.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Newspaper Publicity, Photos & Graphics