When Becky Gomes of Pittsburgh attended the ArtiGras festival in Jupiter, Fla., several years ago, she saw colorful doodles, drawn by well-known celebrities, that were being auctioned off.

“That is just brilliant!” she thought. “Why don’t I do that for Cystic Fibrosis?”

Becky is on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit and got involved because her daughter, who is now 11, has the genetic disease that affects the lungs and the pancreas. When it was time to duplicate the fund-raiser for her own group, she  turned to Contact Any Celebrity (affiliate link), which sells the Celebrity Black Book, a database of contact information for more than 59,000 celebrities.

It includes a template for a “doodle letter” that Becky used when writing to celebs to ask for their contributions.

She include a photo of her daughter and mentioned that “Katie has Cystic Fibrosis” and gave a short explanation of what CF is. 

“I tell them a little bit about her day, what she goes through,” Becky said.

The response has been so good that CF has been sponsoring the fund-raiser for five year. It has received doodles from:

• Loni Anderson
   
• Mort Walker, creater of the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip
   
• Cathy Guisewite, creator of the “Cathy” comic strip
   
• Betty White, who drew a picture of her dog
   
• Dom DeLuise
   
• Sarah Jessica Parker, whose 8 x 10 portrait of herself , signed, along with another doodle of herself, started a bidding war and raised $500
   
• Roseanna Arquette, who sent a 3-pack

Cystic Fibrosis sent 600 letters and got a 6 percent response rate, much higher than the normal 1 percent.

“It really raises a lot of money for CG. It gives us something for the silent auctions that’s a little bit different. It’s not just a basket of wine. It’s something that people like.”

Here’s an idea for companies, nonprofits, government agencies and organizations whose employees are celebrating significant milestones such as finishing a marathon, stopping smoking or losing weight.

Plan a special event around the celebration, invite the community, offer a fund-raising component to help a local charity, and promote it like crazy online and offline.

That’s what the Niederkorn Library in Port Washington, Wis., is doing this Saturday, May 12, to celebrate two librarians’ combined 206-pound weight loss.  Adult services librarian Annie Bahringer (shown at left in the striped shirt) has lost 105 pounds under her doctor’s supervision. Children’s librarian Cindy Beyer, who is in my Weight Watchers class, has lost 101 pounds.

“The Wellness Open House was my idea,” Cindy said. “Annie and I talked about it when we started on this weight loss journey and agreed that when we each reached 100 pounds, we’d have a private party and invite our friends. I thought it would be fun to have a Wellness Open House and invite the community.”  

The open house will feature local health care experts who have donated prizes that include massage certificates, Weight Watchers products and gift certificates.
   
   
Healthy Food, Too

Annie will be making healthy snacks such as Wasabi Crisps, Apricot Canapes with blue cheese and chopped pistachios, and Mini Caprese Bites featuring fresh mozzarella, basil and cherry tomatoes on a stick. Cindy will bring the desserts, including a Weight Watchers recipe for Peanut Butter Dip. 

The library is asking those who attend to contribute a non-perishable food item to give to the local food pantry. It hopes to collect at least 200 pounds of food.

I love the fliers that that library is using to market the event. At the bottom, it lists each woman’s goals for 2012.
 

Cindy’s goals:

• Lose another 50 pounds
• Participate in two charity walks
• To be fit and strong
   

Annie’s goals:

• A 60-mile bike ride
• Participate in a charity bike ride
• Write a healthy meals cookbook

Ideas on How You Can Celebrate

Here are six ideas on how you can sponsor other types of special events and generate fabulous publicity.
   
   
1. Employees Who Have Stopped Smoking

If a group of employees have stopped smoking beyond, say, six months, plan a celebration. For entertainment, invite a magician who can create “smoke” with dry ice as part of his show. Ask for donations for the American Lung Association or another worthy smoking cessation group.
   
   
2. Employees Who Have Run, Walked, Swam, Rowed or Skied

Sports-related competitions often attract teams from an organization or company. If your team takes the first-place trophy in, say, a cross-country ski event, sponsor a ski clinic with free lessons. Ask for donations to groups that teach people with disabilities how to ski.   
   
   
3. Employee of the Year

If your organization honors an Employee of the Year, a company open house would be a nice tie-in. Invite the community, and provide refreshments. Does the employee have a favorite charity?

Pitch the story to your local business journal, local bloggers and industry bloggers. 

4. Volunteer(s) of the Year

Does your nonprofit choose a Volunteer of the Year? Honor him or her—or all of them—at special awards ceremonies.  The Hospice of Palm Beach sponsors an annual luncheon for volunteers. Look on the left side of this page, where visitors to their website can contribute without attending. 

5. Honor Local Heroes

What a great community service this would be! Decide what types of heroes you want to honor. Consider asking the community to nominate their favorites.

Invite the heroes, as well as their families, to the event. 
   
If you have other ideas for similar events, I’ve reserved a spot for you in the Comments section below.

So many of us are addicted to Pinterest, that it’s all too easy to forget about some of the tried-and-true sites like Meetup.com  that should be on top of our “must do” lists during a publicity campaign.

If you do business locally, or you want to publicize whatever you’re doing  in your local market, Meetup offers a wide range of features that can help.
     
     
About MeetUp

First, a little about the site. It’s the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

Meetup boasts an impressive 9 million visitors a month, meets in 45,000 cities worldwide, and has 280,000 monthly Meetups on every topic imaginable. Use the search box on the homepage to look for a group that fits your interests. Or start your own group.   

Here are nine ways to use Meetup in a publicity campaign:
   
   
1. Create a Meetup account.

Even if your group has no special events to publicize, or you have no intention of meeting regularly, or even if your membership is invitation-only, create an account anyway. Write a good description of what you do and the kinds of people who would be a good fit. You never know who’s searching for you.

Wellspring, a gardening retreat and conference center near my home in Wisconsin, found The Port Washington Garden Club on Meetup after I created an account about two years ago.  The education director searched on Meetup specifically for groups devoted to gardening and horticulture. She found my club and emailed me. Wellspring now promotes our events and we promote theirs. If you aren’t on the site, nobody can find you!

2. Attend a meeting, meet members and start forming relationships.

Don’t go intending to blast a free commercial about your business or hand out copies of your latest press release. Nobody likes that.

Meetup’s business groups  have lots of ways for members  to promote their businesses to each other. Get a feel for the group, its practices and offer free, helpful information. They’ll be dying to know what else you know. They’ll also be more inclined to spread the word about what you’re doing. 
   
   
3. Offer to speak at a Meetup group that includes people in your target market.

The Wisconsin Business Owners Lunch & Learn Meetup has invited me to speak twice, and I accepted. But I didn’t pitch. Instead, I gave a content-rich presentation on blogging. And I walked away with a pocket of business cards of people who want to subscribe to my weekly ezine, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week.”  

Groups like these are always looking for speakers. Here’s a nice promotion that featured me the last time I spoke in January. Great publicity!
   
   
3. Offer free information and samples to Meetup groups.

Group organizers love free stuff they can pass along to their members during a Meetup. A doggy day care owner can offer an oversized all-natural dog biscuit for a Meetup group of dog lovers. A plumber can give away a step-by-step guide on how to fix a leaky faucet to moms in a Single Moms Meetup. You can find the group organizer and contact information for each Meetup on that group’s page.
 

4. Connect your Facebook account to Meetup.

This lets your Facebook friends see what you’re up to on Meetup, and vice-versa which further spreads the word.
   
   
5. Take advantage of Meetup promoting your group.

Once you’ve created a Meetup group, Meetup will promote it automatically. Most groups have new members within a few days.
   
   
6.  Found a Meetup you love? Look for similar Meetups.

On some Meetup pages, you’ll see a box that says, “People in this Meeteup are also in…”
   
   
7. Need to get in front of bloggers? Many communities have blogger Meetups.

In Chicago, for example, there’s the Chicago Bloggers Meetup with 309 members and the Chicago Blogs Meetup with 80. Getting to know bloggers long before you want publicity is a great strategy. Don’t have a blog yet? That’s OK. Ask them how to start one. 
   
   
8. Learn about PR, publicity, marketing and social media.

In most major cities and many smaller ones, you’ll find Meetup groups devoted to these topics. I found two social media groups in the Milwaukee area that I want to join. What a fun way to learn more  about whatever you need to know.
   
   
9. Look within Meetup groups for PR-related vendors.

Need a press release writer? Photographer? Ghostwriter?  Publicist?

Meetup’s search box makes it easy to find, within minutes, local groups where these people congregate.  

   
That’s my list. How else do you use Meetup.com for publicity? 

A large feature story and several photos of Jessie Gwidt, shown here demonstrating how to make garden art, helped boost registrations for The Port Washington Garden Club

The next time you publicize a local event, keep these 11 tips in mind.

I compiled them after doing publicity for my garden club’s annual Gardening Seminar, which we hosted on Saturday. 

We generated mountains of publicity, from the local weekly newspaper to a nice story at Patch.com.
   
   
1. Start early!

I missed a deadline for a gardening newsletter because they work three months ahead. I knew I had to submit the calendar event for our local city magazine early but mistakenly assumed that deadlines for all the newsletters I was targeting were much shorter.

2. Pitch Businesses with Scrolling Signs

Those scrolling signs you see outside banks, credit unions and even some retail stores are perfect for your message!

I contacted several basks in our area and all of them posted a blurb about the seminar. The Fireworks Popcorn Co. in my town also has a scrolling sign and thanked me for submitting my item because so few other people do.   

3. Don’t Forget the Meteorologists

Your event might be perfect for pitching to the weather guys and gals at your local TV station, particularly if it’s held outdoors and relies on good weather.

Visit the TV stations’ websites, look for the weather team, and you might be lucky enough to find their email addresses. That’s what I did. 
   

4. Pitch the Shoppers

Local newspapers and other publishing companies print “shoppers,” those weekly freebie newspapers that you pull out of your mailbox. 

They’re packed with advertising, but they often need photos and text to plug the holes. These local papers are PERFECT for Publicity Hounds publicizing local events.
   
   
5. Let Local Colleges Know

If your event is educatonal, students and instructors at your local colleges and technical schools might want to attend.

I contacted a horticulture instructor at the local tech college and asked her to distribute our fliers to her classes. She did. She attended and brought several students with her.
   
   
6. Compile a Master Media List

Our club didn’t have a master list of media contacts, which really slowed me down.

I’ve compiled a simple list on a Word document, with deadlines, and I can hand it off to whoever does publicity for the next event.  I used many of the same tips I shared from the webinar on ‘How to Create Your Own Database of Valuable Media Contacts” which I hosted last week.
   
   
7. Pitch Your Best Visual Story Ideas 

Jessie Gwidt, one of our members, creates  beautiful garden art from castoffs she finds around the house, in her garage, and at rummage sales, and taught others how to do it at our seminar.

I chose that story to pitch to The Ozaukee Press, our local weekly newspaper and our Number One media target. I hit a bases-loaded home run. They ran a large story with several photos of Jessie and her creations on the front page of the Lifestyle section and jumpd the story inside. The same issue of the newspaper included the press release that had all the details, almost word for word.

Before you pitch, create a plan so that you’re pitching logical but different story ideas about the same event to different media outlets. That way, they all aren’t getting the same story, and your audience will be exposed to a lot different things that will be featured at your event.
   
   
8. Use Patch.com  

If you live in one of the 22 states in the United States where Patch has a local site, you’re in luck.

I pitched a story about a husband-and-wife gardening team in our club because they were both teaching classes at our event. Lisa Beyer, the editor, said she’d rather do a more general feature story on our club and mention the gardening seminar.  Patch lets readers subscribe to daily email alerts so they don’t miss any local news.     
  

9. Assign Two Photographers, Not One

I was disappointed with the photos I shot on Saturday with my iPhone 4S because the lighting was so poor. I should have taken a camera with a flash.

Then I got to thinking, what if I had lost my phone, or if it had fallen into the toilet? All those photos, lost forever.

Next year, I’m suggesting we have two photographers and also assign someone the job of shooting video testimonials. Let’s get participants talking about us when they’re still pumped up.
   
   
10. Debrief

Our committee is meeting again on Saturday to debrief and review a list of all the things we want to do better next year. We were tickled at the large turnout, but we noted about a dozen things we need to discuss.

Before the event, ask members to email you with anything the see that needs to be added to the list.
   
   
11. Send Thank You Notes

I’m busy writing thank you notes to the tech school instructor, the popcorn shop, the banks, the newspapers and everyone else who helped us publicize our event.

Don’t send email thank yous! That’s the lazy way. Handwritten notes are so much more personal and sincere. 
   
   
That’s my list. Let’s see yours. What are your favorite tips for publicizing local events? 

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

PR Pros: When you write a press release, do you share it on social media sites? Experts disagree. http://ow.ly/8486v

15 magnets to help you capture & convert leads at your website. http://ow.ly/83XYg 

Heading To a Trade Show in 2012? 5 Tips for Getting the Most ROI Out Of Your Event: http://ow.ly/859iM

Retailers: 17 ways to use Twitter to engage your audience. [No excuse not to tweet!] http://ow.ly/83UdR

Publicity Tip: Readers LOVE year-end lists, like this one, The 50 Best Workout Songs of the Year. http://ow.ly/83RUZ 

The Essential word List for Lazy PR Writers.http://ow.ly/859s3 

5 ways to master the new Facebook timeline. http://ow.ly/86rsi 

When Business Blogging Works Too Well… | Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad http://bit.ly/ukgnlr

Do you have a form at your website? Add this clever tool to encourage people to promote you: http://ow.ly/85fX7

Local news outlets among Google’s most-searched terms:  http://ow.ly/85ath

Barbara Roy

This week’s Help this Hound question is from Barbara Roy, a communications specialist  in Oakland City, IN:

“I  need ideas on how to promote an upcoming charity car raffle in 2012 through the Mad Mac Foundation, a group that sponsors educational programs for at-risk youth.

“Proceeds from the raffle will be used to get teenagers, who illegally race their cars on street, into the classroom where they can learn how to build tuner cars from the ground up. The training will help them transfer their skills, which they’ve been using illegally, into career paths that might include auto engineering and design, auto repair, and creating video games that involve cars.  The curriculum includes science, technology, engineering and math.

“Two cars will be given away during the July raffle.

“The winter months will be spent on materials prep and strategy. But beginning in January, we’ll focus more on going after sponsors and businesses to carry the raffle tickets.  I could really use recommendations on how to gain mass awareness for this nationwide event. 

“We will have branding, messaging and content on the website by January, as well as a Facebook event page.  Can your Hounds offer their best ideas?”

If you have ideas, please comment.

Create a buzz all over town long before your store opens.

These days, in a sour economy, businesses opening just about anywhere are major news. So don’t shy away from publicity. Here six ways to promote your retail business before you open.

1. Display a large banner or sign outside your building letting people know you’ll be opening. Thanks to Alyson Stanfield, a business coach for artists and an art marketing expert, for this idea which I read at her blog yesterday.
   
   
2. Pitch the story to the local media. Contact a reporter at your local newspaper, business journal or business magazine and pitch a story about the opening. Angles can include why you chose this time, when the economy is bad, to open a new business.
   
   
3. Write a press release. Post it on a site like Craigslist, which gets millions of eyeballs. Post it only in one category and only in the city closest to where your business is located.
   
   
4. Plan a fun grand opening celebration. Publicize it on a local event sites like Yelp, EventCrazy.com and MeetUp.com.  This list of 27 questions to ask before promoting your event will stimulate ideas and help you plan a more interesting event. Please, no boring ribbon-cuttings. You can do  better than that. Here are some alternatives to ribbon-cutting events.
   
   
5. Just before you open, create a business profile on Google Maps.
   
   
6. Contact related businesses and offer to cross-promote. Ask them to display flyers about your grand opening at the front counter. Tell them that once you open, you’ll be happy to promote something they’re doing. If you’re opening a pet store, contact owners of dog kennels, dog obedience schools and veterinarians.

What other ideas can you offer for ways that retail businesses can promote long before they open? Any examples in your own community?

Leticia Meireles of San Diego, CA, writes:

I just had my birthday and in lieu of gifts, I’ve been asking friends to support a cure for breast cancer.

Many generous business owners helped me to gather almost 100 items to be sold on my fundraising online auction—items on Ebay too. Many of them are from retailers and restaurants in San Diego. Others are for national chains such as Borders and BestBuy. All proceeds will benefit the Susan Komen 3-Day for the Cure.

I need to raise $10,000 but no one seems to be bidding. What should I do differently?  You can see the items up for bid here.

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?

Don Luepnitz of Norwalk, CA, writes:

“I am with the Norwalk, CA,  Moose Lodge, and we can sure use some help getting the word out and trying to get new people to come down and or join.

“We offer dinners, breakfast, bingo, darts, full bar, kids room, and have fundraisers for ourselves and other charites. We also sponsor kids’ sports teams, and we have a Facebook Fan Page.”

“How can we use traditional and social media to attract more members and visitors?”