business journals

Need local publicity? 6 tips for pitching Patch.com

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

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.
Email the editor and ask questions. I’ve found Patch writers to be incredibly helpful and friendly.
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.
Add Patch to your media database. Every time you write a press release, ask if the content is something that Patch would like.
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.
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?

Speakers, publicize your speaking engagements these 9 ways

If you do free or paid speaking engagements, there are opportunities galore to get in front of audiences that need to hear whay you have to say.

But some Publicity Hounds don’t quite know where to begin. In Friday’s issue of the SpeakerNet News ezine, Michael Schatzki said he wants to give a new hour-long speech he has created at least 20 times so he can polish it before charging a fee.

His target audience is people in their late 30s to early 60s, business people or a general audience. His topic is on how to motivate people to fitness. Micheal asked for tips on how to let groups know that he speaks for free. He’s compiling all the results for the SpeakNet News archives.

I responded and offered these nine ways to publicize free or paid speaking engagements:

Contact local chambers of commerce, Rotary, Kiwanis, Business Networking International, and any other business networking groups.
Consider joining Toastmasters. You’ll get instant feedback. And Toastmasters know which groups in town welcome speakers.
Go to MeetUp.com and see what business groups are meeting near you. I belong to a MeetUp group for Internet marketers in Wisconsin, and at our last meeting, we discussed which speakers we could invite to speak for free.
Go to Craigslist and check out the community category. You’ll find sub-categories for classes, events and small business. Post a note in the best category offering your services. Make sure you don’t post the same item to more than one category. See How to Use Craigslist as a Global Publicity Tool.
Get a local business journal, daily or weekly newspaper or business magazine and check the section of the paper that announces local business events and who is speaking. You’ll find many groups you probably never knew existed. There’s usually a phone number to call for registration. Call that number and ask for the meeting planner.
If you’re Twittering (you should be), let your followers know about your topic and ask them for suggestions. If you’re speaking in a specific geographic area, use a hashtag (#) with the name of a city in your tweet, like this—#Chicgo— so people who are searching for information on that city will find your tweet. Learn more about how to use hashtags for publicity.
If you’re on LinkedIn (you should be), post the question in their Q&A section and you’ll probably get many responses from people who do business near you.
If you’re on Facebook, ask your friends to spread the word. See 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook.
You probably won’t have to resort to paid ads. But if you do, you can target people in specific geographic locations with fairly cheap ads on Facebook and LinkedIn.