The Local Angle

Obama inauguration donors: Pitch to your local media

12/26/2008 By Joan 2 Comments

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is appealing to campaign donors and others to contribute to the Inauguation festivities, which will cost at least $40 million.

If you’ll be ponying up money to help, you could pitch the story to your local media. If you know the names of other individual donors or businesses in your area that are also contributing, let the media know that, too. Any time you can help the media by providing additional sources for stories, complete with contact information, you’re helping to build strong relationships that can pay off later.

A hat tip to Alan Abbey of Poynter.org’s blog. He suggested that the media access the entire list of inaugural donors and then do local stories about them. But why wait for the media to call? The slow end-of-year news cycle is the perfect time for you to pitch this story.

Filed Under: Newspaper Publicity, Pitching the Media, The Local Angle, TV Publicity

Life coaches: Offer tips on weathering the economy

10/17/2008 By Joan 5 Comments

Life coaches often complain that they have a difficult time generating publicity, perhaps because life coaches seem to be everywhere.

But Publicity Hound David Bohl, of Milwaukee, a life coach and former venture capitalist, made it happen, with some help from a sharp publicist. David was the expert sources for a more than three-minute interview on a Milwaukee TV station. That turned into another interview. His publicist, Gail Sideman of PUBLISIDE Personal Publicity in Milwaukee, explains:

“It’s Publicity 101 and something about which you talk all the time: piggyback onto a current event. In this case, it’s the slumping economy.

“I started writing a series of Twitter for David to release every half hour-hour a couple of days ago. It got some responses, which for a first time with a Twitter campaign, I thought was good.

“I took the Twitter tips and created a tip sheet/news release. With that in-hand, I made some calls to local television outlets. I had immediate interest from two of four stations. One of WTMJ’s producers emailed me in about an hour and requested the interview.

“One interview turned into two. Anchor Charles Benson liked David’s information so much, he asked him to hang around a few minutes until he got off the air. Benson then did a separate interview with David that was supposed to air at 10 p.m., yesterday, but I think got bumped for breaking news. This is something that still can air in the next few days if the station chooses.

“I think David created a nice trust element with Charles Benson and the people at WTMJ (I got great feedback from the producer), so thus far, the effort is working nicely. Not that I hope the market continues to tank, but I’ll use this angle as long as I can!”

She thought of other ways for David to keep the publicity train chugging down the track:

He hosted a free teleconference on how to weather the finanacial crisis without becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
At her urging, he wrote a letter to the editor and submitted it to the Wall Streeet Journal, in response to a story that said family time is one casualty of the economic crisis.

The gloomy economy presents opportunities galore for smart Publicity Hounds everywhere, not just life coaches. Here are five more ideas:

Create videos offering advice and upload them to the dozens of video-sharing sites using TrafficGeyser, a program that will save you hundreds of hours of time uploading to dozens of sites.
If you can’t get onto your local TV news, submit amateur videos to the stations for use on their websites. Also submit them to local newspapers, which are hungry for user-generated video.
Pitch influential bloggers with tips on how people can save time and money and keep their sanity when times are bad.
Subscribe to one of the publicity leads services that send queries from journalists who are looking for specific types of sources for stories. They’ll be writing and broadcasting thousands of stories on the economy, particularly if we head into a recession.
Think far beyond traditional media and target niches such as ezine publishers.

Save the fretting for your financial statements. But be optimistic about your chances to create publicity that piggybacks onto the economy and any other trend.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Pitching the Media, PR Consultants/Publicists, The Local Angle, TV Publicity, Twitter

Promote nursing homes, senior centers with this tech angle

8/17/2008 By Joan 2 Comments

One of the most difficult jobs for PR people is promoting a nursing home, extended care facility, retirement community or even a senior citizens center.

That’s because some of these places don’t have that much going on. But I got an idea for a terrific angle just now, thanks to Janet Podolak, a good friend and former co-worker who’s travel editor at The Lake County News-Herald, near Cleveland, Ohio.

Ask this question: “What technology has made the biggest change in your life?” And then report on the results of your survey.

That’s what Janet asked while touring various Cleveland attractions with a group of seniors from the nearby Breckenridge Retirement Community. Here are some of the answers she received:

“The garage door opener”

“Super highways”

“Refrigeration.”

You can read the rest of the answers in her blog post here.

Technology-related angles usually increase your chances of getting coverage, and there are so many opportunities to use this idea:

—To coincide with the opening of a nursing home, extended care facility or senior center.

—To coincide with an annniversary being celebrated by those facilities.

—To promote an upcoming event like an open house.

—To promote an upcoming program or class for the eldery, particularly if it’s tech-related, like a class on how to use the Internet.

When pitching an idea like this one, be sure you’ve lined up a few elderly people who would agree to be interviewed and photographed. It’s a good idea to also get permission forms signed by their family members. (See “How to Use Photos & Graphics in Your Publicity Campaign.”)

I’ve blogged about other ways to promote these facilities here and here. Now let’s hear your best ideas.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Photos & Graphics, Pitching the Media, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity for Niche Markets, The Local Angle

How to get journalists to mention your website

6/24/2008 By Joan 1 Comment

A common frustration with media interviews results when the reporter, for whatever reason, never mentions your website.

Here’s a way to solve that problem.

The next time somebody interviews you, and the reporter asks for the name of your company, use your website URL, not the actual company name.

Instead of me being the owner of “The Publicity Hound,” my company is simply PublicityHound.com.

That little trick won’t work every time, but it should work with telephone interviews, and especially when the reporter is rushed.

OK, but what happens if you can’t even persuade reporters to call? You pitch a story and it goes nowhere. Then what?

Have you followed up your pitch at least seven times?

If you haven’t, no wonder they’re not calling you. Jill Lublin, author of “Guerilla Publicity,” says you shouldn’t believe journalists who say they hate follow-ups. They hate lousy follow-ups. When I interviewed her during a teleseminar on “Failproof Ways to Follow Up with Reporters,” Jill said reporters often appreciate it when sources call a few days after they’ve pitched a story idea to offer something special like a graphic, or a photo, or an interview with a somebody who lives in the newspaper’s circultion area.

I agree. I worked in a newsroom for 22 years as a reporter and editor and was grateful for sources who saved my hide.

Filed Under: Newspaper Publicity, Pitching the Media, The Local Angle

Unusual weather a perfect chance to pitch weather stories

6/17/2008 By Joan Leave a Comment

Girl in front of fan Flooding in the Midwest. Wild fires in California. Snow in the Northwest. Scorching heat on the East Coast.

And it’s still only spring.

This is the time to pitch weather stories. If you sell or give away a product or service to help people cope with the weather, let the media know. They’re hungry for any tie-in.

Several years ago, after terrible flooding in the Midwest, the president of a Minnesota company that sells dehumidifiers called a local drive-time radio show on a popular Milwaukee station. It was during a week when homeowners had bought every small engine and generator in the state, which they used to remove water from basements. On that afternoon, there wasn’t a generator to be found in a store anywhere in Wisconsin.

For at least 10 minutes, the host interviewed the company president who explained how his machine works. The host even repeated the company’s toll-free phone number several times. I remember thinking, “Now THAT’S smart!”

What story idea can you pitch to help people cope? As I explained in my “Special Report #37: How to Tie Your Product, Service, Cause or Issue to the Weather,” piggybacking onto the weather is one of the easiest ways to get into the news, yet few Publicity Hounds take advantage of this opportunity.

Start today adding weather stories to your 12-month publicity plan or media plan.

Filed Under: Advertising, Business Promotion, Pitching the Media, Radio Publicity, The Local Angle