The next time you’re struggling with a headline for an article, press release, blog post, a page at your website or a paid ad, whip out this handy five-page cheat sheet and steal one of the 102 headline-writing formulas.

Fill in the blank, and you’ve got a killer headline.

It’s courtesy of blogger Chris Garrett, and it could be one of the most valuable tools in your office. Download it here.
     

Why Writing Great Headlines Is Important 

Killer headlines pull people into your copy. They beg to be retweeted. And they often tell the reader, “You have a problem and this article will solve it.”

For added oomph, choose several other headlines from the list and place them throughout your article or blog post as sub-heads, like I’ve done in this blog post. Sub-heads are great for scanners, who often won’t take the time to read every word. They’re visual clues that tell readers what else they’ll find within an article.
     
     
Sample Headlines 

Here are examples of headlines from this free report:

Get Rid of Your ___________ Once and For All

What Your _____________ is Not Telling You About _____________

10 Lies We Tell Our ________________

How to Spot a Fake ________________

5 Reasons _____________ is Better Than _________________

If those don’t fit the article or blog post you’re writing, you’ll find several that will.
     
    
More Tools to Help You

This report is one of 60 free or inexpensive tools I shared during the webinar “60 Ideas in 60 Minutes:  Free (or Practically Free) Tips, Tricks, Tools & Tutorials for Publicity & Social Media.” Click here to read more about what it includes and how to access the video replay and the handouts.

I’ve listed several ways you can use these headlines. How else would you use them?

When Google, the King of Search, gives Publicity Hounds an easy way to let our websites and blogs stand out, we need to embrace it with all four paws.

The newest tool is the +1 button, shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.”

You’ll start seeing it popping up on websites and blogs.

Here’s how it works.

When you install the code that makes the button visible on your own site, people who like your content can click on it and tell Google and others that they’re recommending it.  It’s Google’s equivalent of Facebook’s Like button.

But here’s the really powerful part.  When you recommend somebody else’s content, your photo shows up when that person’s website is listed in Google’s search results.  But your photo will show up only if you already have a Google Profile. Here’s an example:

 
Do these four things today:

1. If you don’t have a Google Profile, create one. 
       
2. Read more about the Google +1 button.  Here are Google’s FAQs. You can find a video and a helpful tutorial from Francisco Rosales at the SocialMouths blog.
      
3. Install the button at your website and blog.  Or save yourself the headache and have your webmaster do it for you.
     
4. Start recommending content you see elsewhere by clicking on the +1 button.

It’s too early to tell how successful the button will be, and whether it will go to the Google graveyard like the failed Buzz experiment, but you’d be crazy not to at least try it.

Do you think this button will catch on?

If you need local publicity, and you live in one of 19 states in the United States, or the District of Columbia, Patch.com is almost begging for your pitch.

A memo from Patch editor-in-chief Brian Farnham outlines a plan to increase traffic by increasing article production.

Patch currently requires every site to post a minimum of four times per day, but many are not. Hence, the memo.

Patch covers California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

It loves news about new businesses, community events, local government, crime, items for the events calendar, columns from local residents and government officials, news tips, and the all-important and often overlooked photos and videos.

This is the perfect time to pitch Patch for another reason.  AOL Inc, which owns Patch, is launching 33 sites in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, key states that play an early role in the U.S. presidential election.

How to Pitch Patch

1. Build a relationship with Patch writers and editors. Spend time at the Patch site for your community, and identify who is responsible for your local news. The editor’s name and email address is under the logo at the top of the page.
2. Email the editor and ask questions. I’ve found Patch writers to be incredibly helpful and friendly.
3. Many Patch writers are former journalists. And all journalists love to report news first. Keep Patch in mind when hear a newsy item about something in your community.
4. Add Patch to your media database. Every time you write a press release, ask if the content is something that Patch would like.
5. Is your business doing something new? It’s much easier to get business stories onto Patch than it is to get your story told in your local business journal, which usually requires multiple sources.
6. Don’t forget about stand-alone photos with captions, and video. (See How to Use Photos & Graphics in a Publicity Campaign)

One of the other reasons Patch is such a super tool in a publicity campaign is because people can sign up for the Patch newsletter in their community, and receive email alerts.  I’ll often stop what I’m doing when I see the Port Washington/Saukville (Wisconsin) newsletter arrive in my Inbox.

What kind of publicity have you gotten from Patch? Do you have any pitching tips to add to my list?

If you’re setting up shop as a PR consultant, and you’ve got your first client, one of the most perplexing problems is obtaining sample contracts, or writing a contract from scratch.

But what if you don’t have the start-up money to consult with a lawyer? Problem solved.

Kellye Crane, of Solor PR Pro, and Jenny Schmitt of Cloudspark, wrote the free, 30-page ebook called Get It In Writing, The Communication Consultant’s Guide to Contracts. Just click on the link and download it. No opt-in needed.

This is the most comprehensive free book I’ve seen on this topic, and consultants who work in any area of communications will save themselves weeks of research. The authors advise that you eventually talk to an attorney when using a contract, but if you’re short on cash, this book will at least get you started. 

It includes:

• Simple letters of agreement. I’ve always abhorred contracts and most clients do, too. Letters of agreement are so much simpler and less intimidating.
    
• Full contracts
      
• Performance agreements
    
• Subcontractor agreements
     
• Nondisclosure agreements
     

The authors list five “gotchas” in client-provided contracts, such as insurance requirements and a payment schedule that won’t work for you, and advise you on how to deal with each of them.

You’ll also find a list of frequently asked questions. If you consult in any area of marketing, take a look at this book.

 
And to Get More Clients…

Now that you have the documents you need, start positioning yourself so that potential clients can find you. And use a variety of marketing techniques to find them. I hosted a teleseminar with Marcia Yudkin a few years ago on 24 Ways to Attract Clients to Your PR Practice.
 
Are Your Proposals the Problem?
 
If you consult in any area and feel like a proposal-writing factory, with a poor close rate, I highly recommend the book How to Write a Proposal That’s Accepted Every Time by Alan Weiss, the million-dollar consultant to Fortune 100 companies and to other consultants. It’s $149, but worth 10 times that price.

It does not include boilerplate or legal contracts but focuses, instead, on establishing a proposal based on value in collaboration with the buyer, so that proposals are summations, not explorations.

When I started following the advice in this book, my close rate skyrocketed. So did my consulting fees.
 
Watch as Alan tells you more about what you’ll learn:
 

Here’s another hyperlocal website to add to your publicity toolbox: EveryBlock, perfect for publicizing local news in bigger cities, and also for finding other local blogs and media outlets you might not know about.

MSNBC.com bought it in 2009 and unveiled the new version yesterday.  It operates in 16 cities mostly on the east and west coasts: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

EveryBlock offers news down to the block level and encourages collaboraton among neighbors.  Enter any address in one of those cities and you’ll see news articles, blog coverage, crime reports and a wide variety of other local information, all updated throughout the day. 

You can also submit your own news, which they don’t edit.  Create a free account, and you can participate in discussions and even get email updates.
   
  
3 Main Types of News

• Civic information, including building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more.  In many cases, this information is already on the Web but is buried in hard-to-find government databases.  In other cases, the data hasn’t been posted online, but Everyblock gets it through government agencies.  
      
• News articles and blog entries, including information from major newspapers, community weeklies, TV and radio news stations, local specialty publications and local blogs.  If you can track down a local blogger who you didn’t know about, you can start pitching that blogger when you have local news to share. I found Meetups and even school reviews for Atlanta.
      
• Fun from across the Web, including local photos posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site, user reviews of local businesses on Yelp, and lost and found postings from Craigslist.  You’ll even find local deals from Groupon and ValPak.
       

This site is perfect for news from clubs and civic groups, schools, nonprofits, churches, political campaigns and neighborhood groups, and it’s continually updated daily throughout the day. EveryBlock welcomes you to draw a map of your own neighborhood (the example here is from Atlanta) if you don’t see it on the master list. 

It differs from Patch.com because EveryBlock concentrates on larger motropolitan areas. Patch is for suburbs and outlying areas. 

I’m adding EveryBlock to the long list I’ve already accumulated and shared on the webinar 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live or Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.  
     
    
Share a Tip for Using EveryBlock

Are you already using EveryBlock? If so, share tips on exactly how you use it, or how it has saved time for you.

If not, how will you integrate it into your publicity campaign?

I found a very cool website where you can insert photos of yourself or others into other photos and create your own custom photos that really attract attention.

It’s PhotoFunia.com. Insert your photo onto a billboard, turn it into a painting, or plaster it onto a big sign outside a sidewalk cafe, like a I did here.

Turn it into an Andy Warhol painting. Artists, this online tool is perfect for you because you  can actually make it look as though an artist is drawing your portrait. You can even use video to make it look like you’re dancing , fanning yourself, or appearing on TV.

I don’t think these photos are appropriate for publicity campaigns, or are they?

What are some fun ways you could use them for publicity, PR and marketing and in social media? Provide links to your own PhotoFunia photos so we can see how you’ve used them.  

We don’t want to see only the photos. We want to know how you will incorporate them into your marketing or your blog or website.

Who knows? I just might include your photo in the next update of my ebook, “How to Use Photos & Graphics in Your Publicity Campaign.” 

If you want to launch a publicity campaign and you don’t have the time to do it yourself, it’s time to hire a publicist.

Looking for unemployed journalists who need work is one of your best tactics. More about that in a minute. But here’s some general advice about how to prepare for your search.

Where you begin looking depends on how much you can afford. So before you do anything, determine your budget. Come up with a range of how much you can spend.

If, for example, you’re a self-published author who can afford no more than $1,000 for a publicity campaign, a solo practitioner publicist who is experienced in working with authors would probably be your best bet. You’ll find hundreds of book publicists on the Internet.

If, however, you’re a company that wants major national coverage for a controversial new product, and your needs go far beyond publicity to include things such as shareholder communications and crisis communications, a large PR firm that has expertise in all areas of public relations would serve you better. These firms will be far more expensive than solo practitioners but they offer more talent in a variety of areas.
   
  
Be Honest with Your Candidates
  
Share with publicists you talk to—right up front and as soon as you meet them—what you expect to achieve from publicity. Also give them a range of how much you can afford. This will save a lot of time. Good publicists who think your expectations or price range are unrealistic will say so, and they probably won’t want to work with you.

Don’t “test the waters” by meeting with several different publicists without discussing fees, only to learn later—after they have submitted written proposals—that their fees are way out of your range. This wastes your time and theirs. Instead, be open about your budget. Give them a range of what you can afford. Then, if they’re a top candidate, ask for a written proposal with a variety of options within your price range.

Don’t use the excuse “I don’t have a budget.” If you don’t have a budget, you shouldn’t be looking for a publicist. You wouldn’t walk into a car dealer’s showroom if you didn’t have money for a new car.

And please. Don’t call the publicist and say, “I don’t have any money, but I’d love to talk to you about my project and pick your brain.” It’s the same as saying, “I want your advice but I’m not willing to pay for it.”

It isn’t necessary to meet a publicist face-to-face before hiring one. Many publicists who live far from their clients do a wonderful job by communicating regularly.

But if you’re on a smaller budget, there’s no sense hiring someone hundreds of miles away. Look first in your own community. Whether the publicist understands your topic and has a strong track record of media placements is much more important than where the publicist lives.
   
  
Look for Employed and Unemployed Journalists

Email a reporter or editor for your local newspaper and ask for recommendations for local publicists. (If you can find these journalists on Twitter or Facebook, follow them, and send them a direct message. It’s best not to call.)   Often, they know about co-workers who have been laid off and would be grateful to work with you.

Rich Merritt, proprietor of PR Express in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, gave me permission to reprint his excellent answer on LinkedIn when someone asked about the best way for a small business owner to find a publicist.  

“Find an editor whose writing you like in your market and ask him or her if they freelance.  Almost all editors freelance, and can easily write articles and stories—but not all know how to write press releases.  Be sure to ask if they can.

“None can do media relations for you or send out press releases (they have to stay under the radar) but they can write your materials and make sure your materials are accurate, in the correct format, and are on target. Pick the right editor, and he or she will know more about your business than you do.

1. Ask the question on LinkedIn and direct it to people within your own industry as well as the public relations industry.  You can also ask your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter and sometimes get responses with seconds.
       
2. Ask for referrals from people you trust.
     
3. Contact your trade association and ask if any publicists are members of the association. They just might be. Publicists who represent authors, for instance, often are members of groups such as the Independent Book Publishers Association.
   
4. Ask your trade association for names of publicists who have worked for other members in your industry.
     
5. Ask the trade association if it contracts with a publicist. The big advantage is that the publicist already knows your industry and has key media contacts.
     
6. Contact editors who publish ezines on your topic, as well as bloggers. They often receive pitches from publicists.    
     
7. Identify high-profile, non-competing people in your industry who get great media attention. Call them and ask how they do it.
     
8. Join online discussion forums in your industry and ask for recommendations.
     
9. You can also ask the group for feedback after you have interviewed candidates and you’ve narrowed down the list to your top choice. Throw out the name of your Number One choice and see what comes back.
     
10. Call your local chamber of commerce, or a business networking group such as BNI (Business Networking International), the world’s largest business referral organization. Check their website  for a chapter near you. You’ll also find BNI groups in Canada.
      
11. Unfortunately, there’s no nationwide trade group just for publicists, although you can find regional groups like The Publicity Club of Chicago . Publicists are also members of the Public Relations Society of America, the Association of Women in Communications and the National Association of Women Business Owners. Publicists from small, independent PR firms might be members of the North American Association of Independent Public Relations Agencies.
      
12. The Council of PR Firms and the Holmes Report both have free databases of hundreds of PR firms that can be searched by name, state, client, size, etc. The Holmes Report is one of the most respected independent journals in the business, and most of its content is available online for free. So you can type in a firm’s name and check them out.
      
13. Call the publicity department of any mid- to large-size publishing company and ask if they know good freelance publicists.
      
14. The O’Dwyer Directory of Public Relations lists more than 1,000 PR firms.
      
15. Musicians should refer to The Industry Yellow Pages: The Official Music Directory of Booking Agents, Managers, Producers, Engineers, Publicists, Promoters, PR Firms, Talent Buyers, and Attorneys & Lawyers. 
      
16. Musicians should also check out Bob Baker, an author, speaker, workshop leader and expert in marketing for indie groups.

My ebook, How to Hire the Perfect Publicist, includes a list of questions you can use during your interview with publicists, tips on how to choose the best candidate, and and advice on how to work with a publicist so you aren’t stepping on each other’s toes.

I usually frown on free press release distribution services for three reasons:

1. They seldom “distribute” anything. Instead, they park your press release at their website, to be found—or not—by the search engines.

2. You can’t be certain that the releases are getting into the major news feeds unless you check. 

3. It’s next to impossible to contact them if you notice an error, like a wrong telephone number, in your release after you’ve posted it to their site. So the incorrect release lives online forever.

Yet one of the most frequent questions Publicity Hounds ask me is: “Which free press release service should I use?”

I now strongly recommend you take advantage of the free press release service that comes with the free Press Room Page in the “Expert Book” at ExpertClick.com, published by Mitchell Davis of  The Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons. Register here.
   
  
What You Get with the Free Service

I’ve been promoting Mitch’s paid service for many years because it allows you to post up to 52 press releases a year at no additional per-release charge. And if you notice an error in your release, you call his office. A human answers the phone and fixes the error. His releases are picked up by Google and LexisNexis. Until now, you had to pay for that service.

But not anymore. You get a very basic version at the “Freemium” level.

It gets you a News Room page, photo, profile and a link to your website. You can also post one free press release each month which will also show up in Google and LexisNexis.

Only the paid service has free telephone support. But theFreemium members are offered support via email with a 24- to 48-hour commitment to questions.  You can email support questions to mitchell (at) yearbookofexperts.com and the answers will be posted at their customer support blog. Mitch’s staff will notify you to visit the blog to see the answers.

Other things you need to know about the Freemium level:

• You’re ranked in the topic lists and search results after the paid members, but you can include 39 topics for indexing.
• These free accounts are supported by contextual Google Ads, on their profiles and news releases.
• Freemium member accounts are not included in the printed Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons.
• Inactive Freemium accounts may be removed from the system, when members do not send a news releases at least every 90 days. (I like this feature because it forces you to send releases several times a year.)
• You can’t edit news releases once they’re sent, but you may cancel them.

The Paid Services

The other two membership levels are:
–Classic at $95 a month
–Club at $295 a month.
 
Paid members get telephone support at (202) 333-5000.
 
You can see the Member Handbook and the benefits you’ll get by becoming a paid member. You can also see how to send a news release. (Full disclosure: I’m an affiliate, and get a commission on any sales that result from the paid services through my affiliate link.)
  

A Note for PR Pros and Publicists

Participants may only send news releases about their businesses. 

If you’re a PR person who wants to send news releases about clients, you’ll need to open additional unique accounts for them.

Why? Because the press room page system is what drives search engine optimization. That’s just plain smart.
 
 
Press Release Success Stories from Expertclick Members

Child safety expert Debra Holtzman knows journalists love Top Ten lists, and she has been invited to be on the ”Today” Show, based on her child safety tips.  

 Here’s a sample of a recent Top Ten List News Release on Ten Life Saving Tips Every Mom and Dad Should Know.

You can see all of Debra’s releases here.
 

Ed Poll adds his HTML subscriber newsletter and his subscriber opt-in form. He integrated his Constant Contact system into News Release Wire.

Here’s an example of how he uses the archive feature in Constant Contact to get the HTML code, and then sends a news release using that code. And here’s how Ed had added the HTML code to get more opt-ins to his email list in his Press Room Page. If you have an email system, you can do this too, by logging into your email account platform to create the HTML code and inserting that code into your Press Room Page. 

You can send many types of content via News Release Wire, not just news releases, and you can upload in many formats. They will push your content to your Press Room Page, via email, and to Google News and Lexis. Content can include:

• News Releases
• White Papers
• Blog Content
• Links to your website or subpages for SEO
• Your email newsletter
• Your opinions on news, many follow Google Trends to get ideas.
• PDFs of your brochures. 

Hounds, this is a no-brainer. You’d be crazy not to sign up for at least for the free service. 

If you’ feel like you can’t do it all, start pushing the monkey off your back by delegating some of your work—particularly the stuff you hate doing—to an assistant.

A good virtual assistant and other subcontractors can free you up to concentrate on the strategies and tasks that bring in the money.

But knowing where to look, understanding the kinds of work you can delegate to an assistant, and working in tandem with an assistant so you aren’t stepping on each other’s toes, can be confusing.

Here are my top five tips for outsourcing:

1. Ask for referrals.

Ask business friends and your social media connections for referrals.  LinkedIn is an excellent resource. Do this before you follow Tip #2. 
    
2. Use the outsourcing sites.
  
VWorker and ODesk are great, but you have to spend a lot of time sorting through bids, portfolios and other details, then communicating back and forth via email until your project is completed. 
   
3. Check references

When you find an ideal assistant, check references!  If you’re looking for someone to help with PR or write press releases, checking refernces is imperative because those tasks require special skills. Ask to see samples of their work. When checking references, ask about the person’s weaknesses as well as strengths.
   
4. Ask your assistant for suggestions

Give your assistants the freedom to suggest other types of work they can do for you. My assistant, Christine Buffaloe of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services, often suggests that I delegate tasks she KNOWS I hate doing.  And she shares with me tasks she has done for other clients.

5. Listen to Charlie Cook’s series of interviews on hiring assistants.

If you need more guidance on hiring an assistant, take advantage of Charlie Cook’s free series of interviews with 10 of the top experts who will reveal their practical insights on how they achieved their BIGGEST dreams through outsourcing and delegation. You’ll hear hundreds of tips you can start using immediately. It starts next week. Many of these luminaries charge $30-$20K for keynote speeches, but you can listen to the entire series of interviews for free by signing up here.

What tips can you share about hiring and working with an assistant? What pitfalls should people avoid? What horrible tasks have you been able to delegate to an assistant?