The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

If you aren’t writing special reports to help your customers help themselves, or to create a quick and easy product, you’re missing a wonderful chance to become better known and create an easy revenue stream.

The secret is to choose topics that are only an inch wide, and then present content that goes a mile deep. Getting started is easy. Just identify the Number One problem your audience faces. Then write a how-to report chock full of tips on how to solve the problem.

If you’re a speaker, author or consultant, chances are good much of the information is someplace in your office–in your handouts, computer files, books, or in back issues of your electronic newsletter. If you can’t write or don’t know how to write, you can hire a freelancer. Here’s the best part. You don’t have to worry about fancy covers, sizzling graphics or learning new software programs. See “Special Report #20: How to Write and Market Profitable Special Reports.”

Posted In: Information Products
posted On: 4/23/2005: 1:55 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

While en route to a speaking engagement, I found a page in Airtran Airways’ in-flight magazine that’s a great lesson on how to write thumbnail bios. These are one- or two-sentence bios that you can tack onto the end of articles you write for other publications, along with your contact information such as an email address and website URL. You can use them almost anywhere you want people to sit up and take notice.

The issue had a full listing of all the contributing writers. No stuffy, pretentious bios about the degrees they earned. Just a few sentences that give readers a glimpse into their lives, loves and hobbies. Here are my favorites:

Mimi Smith-Fleishman describes herself as “a soccer mom who doesn’t play soccer.” She and her family live in a Philadelphia suburb that’s just the right size.

Sandy Pantino has collected sand on no fewer than 253 beaches worldwide. Each sample is neatly labeled and stored in a container purchased from a souvenir stand at the beach in question. “Sand isn’t just sand, it’s all different,” she explains. “Believe me, I know.”

Associate Editor Wendy di Lampedusa is defiantly happy, and justifiably so.

Yolanda LaPert is a spiritual therapist and motorcycle drag racer. She is currently seeking corporate sponsorship for an all-woman expedition to Zanadu.

The Publicity Hound asks: Can you write a thumbnail bio about yourself that’s actually interesting? If so, then write a slightly longer version, and another even longer version, and post them all at your website under a button called Media Room. But keep your bio interesting.

Posted In: Writing Articles
posted On: : 1:51 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Here’s another big boo-boo made by made by many people who write news releases. They put the date the release was distributed right at the top.

Why not just include a headline in 40-point type that screams, “OLD NEWS.”

In an era where hour-old news is practically ancient history, dating your news releases is just one more reason for reporters to ignore them. When I worked as a reporter, I sometimes put aside a news release that I wanted to come back to later for a more in-depth story. But when I retrieved it, the date at the top reminded me that it was several weeks or even months old, and I was less likely to write about it.

This tip is courtesy of fellow Publicity Hound Jill Lublin, who presented a wonderful workshop on publicity Monday at the National Speakers Association Convention in New Orleans. Jill is the co-author of the excellent book GUERRILLA PUBLICITY available at online bookstores. She was also my guest during a teleseminar several months ago titled “Fail-proof Ways to Follow Up After Sending a News Release or a Pitch Letter.” She discussed everything from tricks to use if reporters don’t call you back (and you can bet they won’t) to 4 rules for following up via email. Read about the 29 other things you’ll learn.

Posted In: Press Releases/News Releases
posted On: : 1:47 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

She arrived in Milwaukee at age 24 with less than $40 in her purse, learned to speak English and took the streetcar to work.

Today, at age 75, Magrit Heitmann still logs up to 1,500 hours a year doing what she loves best–organizing the hundreds of volunteers for Germanfest, one of the signature festivals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

It was a clever angle that led the full-page story promoting the festival in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel–an angle you should keep in mind the next time you need to promote a special event.

Reporters love storytelling. So look for people stories behind the event. Interesting or unusual event organizers, volunteers, donors, founders and longtime participants make wonderful little “extras” you can include with your pitch. Just make sure they feel comfortable talking to reporters and would agree to be photographed and appear on TV.

Don’t spend another sleepless night worrying about drawing crowds and the media to your special event. “How to Plan & Promote Sizzling Special Events” package, along with our 15 checklists for event planners, will remove the risk and help you sleep better at night.

Posted In: Special Events
posted On: : 1:45 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Some time ago I wrote about nerdy websites. If you email anything to the media, make sure you aren’t guilty of these nerdy email blunders:

–A subject line that says “News Release” with no clue what the release is about.

–A generic greeting such as “Dear Editor.” Always use the editor’s name. If you don’t know it, don’t send it.

–Subject lines that include dollar signs, all capital letters, or exclamation points. Not only do they look bad, but they’re prime bait for the spam filters.

–Funky line breaks. Make sure none of your lines of text exceed 65 characters. Textpad is a great software program that will help you do this automatically.

–Unrecognized characters. The little box that shows up in the middle of a sentence is the most common. It happens because some characters, especially from Microsoft Word, aren’t recognized by some email programs. The problem is that the email message looks fine when you send it, but the charcters appear on the other end, depending on what email program the receiver is using. If you compose your message in Word, and then copy and paste it into the body of the email, be sure you do a test by sending it to several people who use different email programs. Then send it to the media only when you’re sure it’s void of funky characters.

–Broken links. Solve this problem by never including punctuation at the end of a URL, making sure a long URL is printed on a line of its own if possible instead of jumping from one line to the next, and making sure the URL has no typos.

–Misspelled “from” and “to” lines.

–Incorrect contact information.

–Anything sent as an attachment, including news releases.

–The email addresses of all media people in the “CC” line. Never send carbon copies of anything.

Now that you know how to send email correctly, it’s time to start using email to communicate with reporters. Marcia Yudkin, one of my favorite Publicity Hounds, shares all her best strategies on “Secrets for Getting Through to the Media Online,” a recording of a live teleseminar available on audio cassette or CD. Learn how to write news releases so they’re picked up by the search engines, where to find a free trial service that will tell you which keywords people use most often when searching for information on your topic, and how to compile your own media database so you aren’t spending hundreds of dollars on expensive directories.

If you market on the Internet, you can learn tips like these and many more by becoming a member of the Internet Association of Information Marketers.

Posted In: Publicity on the Internet
posted On: : 1:39 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments