2007 June

BusinessWeek podcaster needs help quieting dogs

6/11/2007 By Joan 37 Comments

Michelle Nichols of Reno, Nevada, the BusinessWeek podcaster who offered interviewing interviewing tips in item #1 above, is now asking your help with this dilemma:

“I have two Lab-type dogs, and I record my weekly podcasts for BusinessWeek from my home office. Occasionally, the dogs decide to bark for no discernable reason, and it’s a real problem for the recording. I just need them quiet for a maximum of 30 minutes.

“Here’s what I’ve tried to eliminate the barking so far:
1. Put them in my master bedroom with the drapes closed so they can’t see any distractions 2. Bought them each a $15 Nylabone they only get to chew when I’m recording. 3. Take them out for a bathroom break just before we record so I know they’re empty, and give them a water bowl so I know they’re not thirsty.

I thought about:
1. Putting them in my car in the garage but worried they’d bark or eat the car 2. My non-dog-owning boss suggested a muzzle but that sounded harsh. They won’t die of dehydration in 30 minutes but still, I don’t like the risk of having them muzzled and out of sight.

Do you or your dog-loving readers have any other suggestions?

Filed Under: Business Promotion, How to Interview

Google PageRank rank: How it’s determined

6/11/2007 By Joan 1 Comment

Whether you’re searching for the most influential bloggers, or the best online article directories, or simply trying to make your own website more attractive to the search engines, a valuable tool you must use to put everything in perspective is the Google Toolbar which you can download for free.

It’s available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. Key features include a search box, spell checker, pop-up blocker and auto form filler.

I use it mostly to determine how Google has ranked a particular website or blog on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the greatest importance. If I’m researching bloggers who I want to get in front of, for example, I spend more time at blogs with a page rank of 4 or higher. The PageRank tool appears just underneath my Internet Explorer browser window. The longer the green bar, the more important the site. (Hold your cursor over the PageRank tool and you’ll see the score.)

Google’s criteria for determining PageRank is a closely guarded secret. Gayle Carson, a co-founder of the Internet Association of Information Marketers, one of my trade associations, passed along an excellent article from Smashing Magazine in which the writers, after extensive research and studying academic papers, do their best to unravel the PageRank mystery.

The number of inbound links to a website from other high-ranked websites is key. But there’s a lot more involved than just that. Read the article, then do everything you can to increase your page rank on your blog and website.

Filed Under: Blogs, Publicity on the Internet, Writing Articles

Attorneys, legal analysts: Comment on The Paris Patrol

6/8/2007 By Joan 3 Comments

The last four hours, CNN has had a parade of defense attorneys, prosecutors and other legal analysts commenting on the livid judge who ordered Paris Hilton back to jail.

If you’re an attorney who practices in your own hometown and national legal news like this breaks, offer commentary, even if you’ve never represented a celebrity.

That’s what I told host Travis Greenlee, who hosts Rainmaker Retreats for attorneys, when I was a guest on his teleseminar on Wednesday. The topic? How attorneys can generate publicity.

Some ideas:

—5 signs a judge is angry.

—Why Paris wouldn’t like your local jail either. One attorney said jail wardens and prison officials puposely turn down the thermostat so low because it ”calms down” inmates.

–The judge and the sheriff’s department in L.A. had a shouting match during the hearing, with the sheriff telling the judge that he can’t tell them what to do with their prisoners. He did. They caved. Who’s in charge in your town?

–What about people you’ve represented who have had “mental issues?” Are the local courts ever forgiving?

Analysis. Perspective. A cool head. A controversial or contrarian viewpoint.

If you have it, offer it.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, How to Interview, Newspaper Publicity, Pitching the Media, The Local Angle, TV Publicity

Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest

6/7/2007 By Joan 1 Comment

This is in honor of June brides everywhere.

It’s the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com, a home-based business in Boca Raton, Florida that exists primarily to generate revenue from Google Adsense ads, sell a few products in its small online store, and sing the praises of cheap weddings.

To draw traffic to the website, owners Susan Bain; her mother, Roxie Radford; and sister, Laura Gawne sponsor the contest that’s under way right now. The deadline for entries is July 31. First prize is $500 cash.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think many of the winning gowns from the past two years came right out of the glossy bridal magazines.

Take a look for yourself at the 2005 winners and the 2006 winners.

When I saw the photos, I was convinced the women actually wear their toilet paper gowns at their weddings, but Sue says that isn’t the case. So why do the women go through all that trouble?

“I want to believe that the majority of people who enter probably visit our website a lot,” Sue said. ”Some of these people have very small budgets. To them, winning $500 is a lot. They come back and tell us they spent it on their wedding. I think they’re motivated by the money, but these are crafty, very talented people.”

Here’s the best part. The entire promotion campaign costs a paltry $200. They hired Paul J. Krupin from Direct Contact to write and distribute one press release.

News of the contest showed up in several magazines’ online versions including Glamour, Yahoo’s The 9, “and in tons of newspapers all over the country, from Sacramento, California to southern Florida where we live,” Sue said.

Feeling creative? Like you’re on a roll? Check out this year’s toilet paper contest rules.

Then think about what kind of a fun contest your own organization can sponsor. You’ll get many more ideas for great contests in “Special Report #18: Clever Contests That Will Tempt Reporters to Call.”

Thanks to Publicity Hound Gail Kent of Newport News, Virginia for tipping me off to this one.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Contests, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Photos & Graphics, PR Consultants/Publicists, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity on the Internet

Landing pages webinar with Mark Widawer June 14

6/7/2007 By Joan Leave a Comment

Why are so many of you obsessed with getting publicity, thinking it will make you rich and famous? But when you get it, you have no way of pulling traffic into your sales cycle?

I see that problem repeatedly among people who want publicity. I hear them bragging about a major media hit they got for themselves or their PR client, and all the resulting website traffic.

Nine times out of 10, I quietly go to their website to see what all the fuss is about, spend a few minutes looking around, and wait for them to ask me for my email address.

Not once do they ever ask for it. So I leave, shake my head and say to myself “another wasted opportunity.”

Based on many of the Help This Hound questions you submit for my newsletter, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” I see a related problem. Most of you who are getting traffic have lame landing pages.

Lots of Publicity Hounds, like Patricia Dischler of Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, who submitted a Help This Hound question about how to write a sales page for her book, struggle with sales copy.

So do I. As a result, I’ve been studying landing pages and sales copy the last five years, devouring everything I can find. I stumbled upon one of the ultimate teachers who can explain better than I ever could how to benefit from all that free publicity by creating compelling landing pages with sales copy that sells.

He’s Internet marketing expert Mark Widawer. I called him last week, told him the problem I’m seeing, and he said my Hounds need a crash course in landing pages. He graciously agreed to host a free webinar.

It’s specifically for Publicity Hounds who need help:

—Capturing the email addresses of visitors at your website.
—Staying in touch with them regularly until they get to know, like and trust you.

—Writing a landing page that includes sales copy so compelling that a few customers are whipping out their plastic long before you’ve asked for the order.

If you don’t sell anything, but you still want people to join your online community, this course is for you, too.

Our webinar is called “Six Simple Landing Page Secrets.” It will be held at 8 PM Eastern (5 Pacific) on Thursday, June 14. The webinar will be about 60-70 minutes, and you’ll need a telephone and a Mac or a PC to participate.

Seating is limited. If you’ve already got more customers than you can handle, please let a less fortunate Hound take one of the seats.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Publicity on the Internet, Publicity Resources