The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

If you’re a retailer who’s looking for some clever ways to do fun in-store promotions in this sluggish economy, and you’re on a tight budget, pick up a copy of A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions by Carolyn Howard Johnson.

It’s part of her “How to do it Frugally” series. When it comes to marketing on a shoestring, Carolyn knows all the tricks.  

On Pages 67 and 68, she lists some “frugal oopmph builders” that will also create a buzz in your community.

Here are her ideas. Many of them cost nothing or nearly nothing.  Some of them will even make your event profitable. 

• Make your event so much fun or such a good deal that people won’t want to put off their purchase until later—or better can’t because the purchase is an essential part of goings-on. A Make It and Take It event falls into this category.  (A local ceramics shop that lets people make their own pottery can host a special “Make a Jewelry Dish for Mom” event just before Mother’s Day. Invite a local reporter to bring her kids and report on it.)
       
• Provide an ambiance that’s different. Include color and scent and sound. There’s nothing more delightful than a real Christmas party with wassail, carols, and the scent of evergreen. Forget those things and it’s just another hard sell. (Include a description of the colors, scents and sounds in your press releases!)
        
• Use a unique invitation. Send your customers one adorable earring for a Ring in the New Year party. (Include an earring in the invitation you send to a local reporter or blogger.)
                      
• Let your refreshments sell additional products. Put packets of the cider you use for the cider near the punch bowl with a sign announcing the price. Have the host who ladles the punch talk about how easy it was to make and mention that the do-it-yourself packets are available for purchase. Stack tins—festively wrapped and ready to go—of the rum cakes you served up in finger-sized cubes nearby. Good signs are a must. (Off the recipe for the do-it-yourself packets to the food columnist at your local newspaper, and let her know about the in-store promotion.
      
• Feature a tasting table of all kinds of other goodies you sell. If you don’t sell foodstuffs, get someone who does to set up a table in trade for publicity at your event. (Many people will JUMP at this chance to participate because they hate doing their own publicity.)
    
• Ask favored customers to help rather than hiring extra people. It is easy to get someone to be the honored punch ladler. Reward them with a gift and a public thank you. (Send a letter to the editor of your local weekly newspaper and include the names of people and businesses you’d like to thank. Also thank them on your Facebook page, by writing on their Facebook wall, and by complimenting them at other social networking sites where they hang out. See 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook.) 

Bricks-and-mortar store owners can find lots more tips in my article on marketing tips for hardware stores and 13 publicity ideas for retailers. 

Carolyn, by the way, has three decades of experience as founder and manager of her own chain of stores. She has also been a New York publicist, and a retail consultant and journalist. Follow her advice, then be ready for the rush of customers.

The book, published by Thinking Store Press, is $17.95.

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Newspaper Publicity, Photos & Graphics, Press Releases/News Releases, Social media marketing, Special Events
posted On: 6/26/2009: 5:15 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

With all the focus on social media, you’re probably scampering to create new content for sites like EzineArticles.com, Facebook and Twitter. 

You may be writing articles, creating tips lists, and offering quizzes.

That’s great. But don’t make the mistake of abandoning online press releases, which is all too easy to do when you’re consumed with posting every day to Facebook and Twitter.

Here are eight reasons why you should continue posting them to your website:

1. Optimized press releases pull in traffic. 
   Make sure you use relevant keywords in the headline and throughout the body copy.  But don’t stuff the release with keywords, or that will be a red flag to the search engines. Take advantage of StomperNet’s excellent seven-day free email course on search engine optimization. Each lesson in “7 Deadly SEO Mistakes” takes just a few minutes to review. 
            
2. They save time for visitors.
   It’s a great way to show journalists, bloggers and others what’s new and important, without making them spend a lot of time investigating your site.  New product launch?  They’ll find it in a press release.  New CEO?  There should be a release at your site that announces that.  Special promotion under way at your company?  Write a release that explains it.  Put a link to all your releases in your online pressroom.
           
3. You can use them to reach consumers directly–and promote.
   Years ago, we had to write printed press releases and cleanse them of anything that sounded like hype or promotion before sending them to journalists.  Gone are the days, thankfully, when we had to genuflect at the altar of traditional media, say a prayer and hope they covered our story.  Online press releases let us reach consumers directly without relying on the media gatekeepers.
            
4. Video and audio links.
   Video and audio links  can lead visitors to content that goes into more depth on a particular topic.  It’s a convenient way to get that information in front of visitors instead of making them wade through page after page at your website.
           
5. They help bloggers.
   Online press releases make it easy for bloggers to provide more information for their readers.  All they have to do is link to the release from within their posts.
            
6. Links to landing pages.
   From an online release, you can link to specific landing pages at your website where readers can find more information.  Yes, you can even link to sales pages where you list all the benefits of the product you’re selling, and then ask readers to hit the “Buy Now” button.  How cool is that?
       
7. They keep your site looking fresh and updated.
   This is assuming that you post them regularly. It just dawned on me that it’s been several months since I’ve posted a new release, and I’ve just added that to my “to-do” list for today.  
            
8. They can help you build your tribe on social networking sites.
   From the releases, you can provide links so readers can connect with you at social networking sites. Why not include a link to your Facebook Fan Page, like I have here?
         

Two tips that will help anyone who wants to post online releases:

From the press room at my website, I link to my at ExpertClick.com: The Online Yearbook of Experts.  This subscription service lets me post up to 52 press releases a year with no additional per-release fee.  It also gives me a page in their online database of experts, which journalists search frequently when looking for sources for articles. If you subscribe, tell them I sent you and they’ll knock $100 off the subscription.

If you want to learn more about how to write and distribute online press releases, you can opt into the free 12-week tutorial I created on “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”  More than 6,000 people have taken the course.

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Facebook, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity on the Internet, Search engine optimization, Social media marketing, Twitter, Video
posted On: : 9:44 am: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment

Publicity Hound Ruth Furman, a PR specialist and a speaker at this weekend’s World Tea Expo in Las Vegas will be among panelists who will discuss ways tea retailers can generate publicity.

She asked if I could provide some tips for her handout, and I thought I’d share them here.

These tips are written specifically for those who sell tea. But there’s no reason you can’t tweak them for your own retail business, regardless of whether you’re selling dog beds or industrial widgets.

Retailers, remember that the days are long gone when we concentrated only on pitching story ideas to traditional media outlets. The Internet provides opportunities galore for spreading the word about any product or service.

1. If you’re not Twittering about tea, start right now! Remember that many people searching for tea information on Twitter will be using Twitter’s search engine. Use a hash tag (example: #herbaltea) when tweeting. Learn more about how to use Twitter hashtags for promotion and publicity. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.
2. The topic of gardening is hot right now because of the bad economy. How can tea-lovers create their own tea garden, filled with herbs and other tea ingredients?
3. What’s the Number One flavor of herbal tea? Survey tea lovers at your website and on the social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Write the results in a press release that you post online and distribute to the media.
4. What’s the correct way to make the perfect cup of tea? Create a short video of from two to three minutes, include a link to your website, and upload to the video-sharing sites.
5. Listen to the teleseminar I hosted recently with David Mathison, author of the book Be the Media. He offers tips galore on how to use social networking to promote and to build an email list.
6. Create your profile on Facebook. Then promote your retail tea business by creating Facebook Pages. Click the “Ads and Pages” icon in the lower left corner. You can create a Page for each product, and then invite your Facebook friends and others to become “Fans” of your pages. Remember that your Profile has Friends. Your Pages have Fans.
7. Create a tea-lover’s group on Facebook. Email them each week with a “tea lover’s tip of the week.”
8. Upload photos of tea and tea-related products, tools and ingredients to the photo-sharing sites like Flickr and PhotoBucket.
9. Create a profile on LinkedIn and start answering questions regularly on tea. It will help promote your expertise. (See “How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully.”)
10. Subscribe to “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week” and receive the ezine every Tuesday. It’s loaded with tips on how to generate free publicity.
11. Sign up for the free email tutorial “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases” at  so you can learn how to write and distribute press releases.

If you’re a retailer and you have your own publicity tips, feel free to share it here.

Posted In: Business Promotion, Facebook, Holidays, LinkedIn, Photos & Graphics, Press Releases/News Releases, Social media marketing, Twitter, Video, YouTube
posted On: 4/27/2009: 10:38 pm: By Joan
Comments: 2 Comments

Tying celebrities to your news story can generate publicity you never dreamed of. But if the celebrity responds, the publicity can multiply.

That’s what happened to Elliott’s Hardware in Dallas, Texas yesterday when former President George W. Bush stopped in for a one-hour visit, bought a few items and joked that he was looking for a job. The Associated Press, which distributed the original story to its member media outlets when the hardware store offered Bush a job, distributed yesterday’s story after the visit, and it appeared, once again, in many newspapers and at news sites.

Here are three tips about piggybacking onto celebrity news, taken from my “Special Report #50: How to Pibbyback onto Celebrity News to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause or Issue”:

1. Sponsor a contest that piggybacks off celebrity news.

For as long as I can remember, the tabloids have been reporting on Oprah’s roller-coaster weight. First it’s up, then it’s down, then it’s up, then it’s down. If you’re a weight loss expert, you can sponsor a contest called “How Oprah Can Take off Those Last 20 Pounds—Forever.” Then write a press release and post it online. Or if you don’t want to go to the trouble of sponsoring a contest, and you can still find a tie-in, go with it.

That’s what Author Laura K. Bryant did. She wrote a press release about her book, “Trust Yourself to Transform Your Body: A Woman’s Guide to Health and Weight Loss Without Diets” and used a clever tie-in to Oprah. (You can read the release which is part of Lesson 50 in my free tutorial “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”)

“I sent the press release to all the local news stations in Chicago,” she said. “This particular release got an immediate (within 2 minutes of it being sent) call from a WGN News producer, who requested my media kit. Once the kit was received, my book was highlighted on WGN News, as a ‘Hot Summer Read.’”

2. Piggyback your stories onto hot movie titles.

When the movie “Anger Management” was in theaters, I saw all sorts of stories that tied into that title. Ditto with the “Mission: Impossible” movies. Sometimes all you have to do is incorporate a hot movie title into your pitch and you’ll catch the media’s attention. Example: Trying to lose weight to fit into that new bikini? It isn’t Mission: Impossible.

3. Piggyback onto a network Movie of the Week.

Keep your eyes on the big network movies during sweeps months in May, November and February. Pitch story ideas that piggyback off movies. For example, when “The Burning Bed” with Farrah Fawcett was a major TV movie in 1984, I remember the local women’s abuse shelter in my community was the lead story on the local news that night, right after the movie ended, because it tied into the movie. If your company or nonprofit is “the local angle” to a big TV movie, contact the TV station that’s airing the movie. You could be the lead story on the 10 or 11 o’clock news that night. Also contact the TV stations if you want to weigh in with an opinion about a controversial movie.

Posted In: Celebrity tie-ins, Contests, Pitching the Media, Press Releases/News Releases, TV Publicity, The Local Angle
posted On: 2/22/2009: 10:04 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

When somebody uses Google to search for a person with your expertise, and types in “time management expert” or “leadership expert” or “parenting expert” or “(fill in the blank) expert,” does your name show up near the top of the list of search results?

Does it even show up on Page 1 of the results?

If not, here’s a powerful way to land a spot on Page 1. If you’re already on Page 1 for your website or blog, you can use this same trick to generate another listing on Page 1. 

Use a service like Expertclick: The Online Yearbook of Experts to appear near the top of the list. As you can see below, my Expertclick subscription which includes my expert profile, gives me a #3 ranking for the term “publicity expert,” just behind the #1 ranking for my website and the #2 ranking for the bio in my online press room. 

This drives my competitors crazy.

 
Send releases free for a week 

Here’s the great part. Mitchell Davis, who owns Expertclick and NewsReleaseWire.com, is letting anyone take a free test drive for a full week, with no commitment to subscribe.

I recommend you take advantage of his offer and create a profile. Then start writing and distributing several press releases. You can distribute up to 52 a year with a paid subscription, in addition to getting a listing in the Yearbook of Experts, which journalists search frequently when they’re looking for sources.

Your profile won’t land you on Page 1 of Google instantly because Google probably won’t index the page for several more weeks. But if you stick with the service, you’ll most likely make it onto Page 1 of Google for the phrase ”(fill in th blank) expert,” assuming that you use it within your Expertclick profile. The search engines view Expertclick as an authoritative site. That’s why you’ll rank high.

I’ve written about how Adam Armbruster’s Expertclick listing gives him the #1 spot on Google for “TV advertising expert” and “television advertising expert.” Tim Walsh is #1 for “toy expert.” And Debra Holtzman has the #1, #2 and #3 spots for “child safety expert,” thanks to Expertclick.

 
Sign up by Feb. 19

To take a test drive, you have until the end of tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 19, to sign up:

—Call Mitch at 202-333-5000 and ask him for The Publicity Hound special. He’ll set it up for you so you can see how the service works—with no commitments to subscribe.  (They answer their own phones.) 

—Or set it up yourself by clicking here. Choose the Gold Level.  Then complete the “Participant” information for the person who the account will be bout and the ”Subscriber” info for the person in charge of the account.  Check the credit card box, but don’t enter your number because you aren’t paying for this.

In the “Special Offer” box enter: “Free Week from Publicity Hound.”  Then click on “Create Your Press Room Page” and you’ll able to edit instantly.  Once they approve your account, you’ll be able to start sending press releases.  Their terms of service apply, so be sure to read them. 

 
Use Expertclick to bury bad news

If you’re ever in a bad news situation, you can ”push down” or bury the bad news on the search listings by using a service like this one to distribute several press releases on different topics. Because your press releases are more current than your older, bad news, they will usually be closer to the top of the list.

Posted In: Business Promotion, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity Resources, Publicity on the Internet
posted On: 2/18/2009: 3:43 pm: By Joan
Comments: 4 Comments