Craigslist

Do you buy ads? Offer a testimonial for free publicity

6/16/2011 By Joan 1 Comment

I’m all about generating free publicity, so you don’t have to pay for ads.

But if you buy ads, here’s a little trick that may very well give you more space—this time for free—in newspapers and magazines, and even online.

Offer a testimonial on the power of the ad—how it generated more customers, phone calls, orders or whatever. Several people I know have been featured in full-page testimonials in daily newspapers, magazines and business journals.

Here’s one I saw this week.

On Page C6 of Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Christa Carone, corporate vice president and chief marketing officer for the Xerox Corp., was featured in a full-page ad touting how a partnership with The Wall Street Journal helps Xerox attract corporate customers who are “Ready for Real Business.”

“Ready for Real Business” was the name of the expensive ad campaign Xerox launched in September last year. It focused on the company’s relationships with clients like Procter & Gamble Co., Target Corp., Ducati, the New York Mets, the University of Notre Dame and Marriott International Inc. All allowed their brand names to be used in the campaign.

Results of WSJ Ad

Here’s part of Carone’s testimonial:

“When we launched our ‘Ready for Real Business’ campaign, we did it in a big way in The Wall Street Journal, and with high-impact front-page units in The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

“In print and online, the Journal allows us to engage decision-makers in relevant Xerox case studies. When these readers click through to our RealBuisness.com website, they are already attuned to our content and ready to take action.

“It’s the right audience. The most relevant content. And it gets results.”

Display and Classfieid Ads

I’m guessing that the WSJ ad rep for the Xerox account asked to feature Carone in the display ad testimonial . But newspapers don’t always follow up like that.

Remember this the next time you buy an ad and it generates great results. That includes classifieds, which have been desimated by Craigslist. Newspapers will be more than eager to let you tell the world that it was money well-spent.

Also see:

Offering testimonials can pay publicity dividends for years

Special Report #48: Smart Tips for Free, Cheap and More Effective Ads

Filed Under: Advertising, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity Tagged With: christa carone, Craigslist, Ducati, Procter & Gamble Co., Target Corp., testimonials, the New York Mets, university of notre dame, wall street journal, xerox

50+ (almost all free) websites to promote events

10/5/2010 By Joan 1 Comment

When it’s time to promote a live or special event, do you rely on the same old websites to spread the word?

Posting on Craigslist, Facebook and LinkedIn is a no-brainer. But if you aren’t doing much more than that, you could be missing the smaller niche websites where you can target your ideal attendees like a laser beam.

A Great Site for Musicians to Promote

For example, did you know that more than 25,000 musicians have used the free account at ArtistData.com to promote more than 4. 9 million shows, events and other news across MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and other websites that reach their niche audiences?

You can submit information about a gig and it will automatically post your music-related calendar listing to more than 25 sites. That’s a lot of eyeballs reading about you. (Thanks to my friend, indie music marketing expert Bob Baker for that tip.)

But that’s just for musicians. Major websites like Craigslist and niche sites abound for businesses, tourist attractions, authors, speakers, experts, nonprofits, sports events and more.

Join me from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Oct. 19, for the webinar “50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market and Pull Sell-out Crowds.”

Update on Oct. 27, 2010: I recorded the webinar and it’s now available as a download link, along with the MP3, handouts and the PowerPoint presentation I used for the video. click on the link above.

Bonus for the First 20 Registrants

The first 20 people who sign up get my handy checklist of all the sites I mention during the webinar, plus a long list of offline places to promote events.

If you aren’t among the first 20, you still get a replay link for the video, the PowerPoint slides I used during the presentation, and the MP3. I will email you the handouts the morning of the call.

This webinar is perfect for:

PR pros and publicists whose clients host events
Authors who want to promote book-signings
Experts who host teleseminars and webinars
Virtual assistants who do PR for their clients
Speakers who promote classes, workshops, training events, seminars and boot camps
Nonprofits that host fund-raisers, from neighborhood activities to black-tie charity balls
Anyone who does PR for tourist attractions like museums, parks, festivals and sporting events
PR people who promote activities at schools, colleges and universities
Event and meeting planners
Corporate PR departments that promote events for their companies
Volunteer groups that help with event promotion
Arts groups that must pull crowds to art festivals, gallery tours and meet-the-artist events
Party planners
Anyone who co-sponsors events

Hope to see you on Oct. 19!

Filed Under: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Facebook, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity for Niche Markets, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Special Events Tagged With: Craigslist, events publicity, Facebook, public relations, special event PR

13 fun, easy ways to find content for your blog

8/4/2010 By Joan 6 Comments

The next time you’re looking for a topic for your blog, ask yourself these three questions, suggested by small business marketing coach Sydni Craig-Hart in 5 Simple Steps to Generate Relevant Content for Your Blog:

1. What’s keeping your clients up at night?

2. What’s the biggest challenge or problem they’re facing right now?

3. What information and resources do you have to share to make their lives easier?

Here’s what I love about those questions.

For each one, you can probably come up with more than one answer. Three answers equals three blog separate blog posts. Eight answers? Eight posts.

Here are four more questions I’d like you to consider when trying to find content:

4. What question have I received from someone recently in my email?

Pay attention to ALL questions in your email. When you answer, cut and paste it into a new blog entry, and then elaborate and, if appropriate, link to resources.

5. What’s the most frequent question beginners in my niche are asking? If I’m a speaker, I’d ask myself, what’s the Number One question that beginners in my audiences are asking?

Keep a running tally of all these questions, and use them when you need blog content. Never assume that just because you know the answer, it isn’t interesting to others who follow you.

6. What’s the one issue I’m struggling with right now and searching for the answer?

When I can’t find the answer to a question, I go to LinkedIn and ask. Sometimes, only one or two people respond. But often, I receive several great answers that can be woven into a blog post. I’m suddenly smarter, and so are my readers. I’m careful to explain within the LinkedIn question that I want to blog about the issue.

7. What’s the “hot new thing” or controversial topic in my industry that everybody wants to know about? For example, people in my audience, mostly self-promoters, want to know what they need to do to get a great return on their investment of time with social media. They might know how to use Facebook. But they want to know how to use Facebook to make money.

Patsi Krakoff, who was my guest expert on the teleseminar Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging, partnered with me to create a list of 101 ways to find content for your blog, a handout we offered to teleseminar participants.

Here’s a sneek peek at six more ideas on that handout:

8. Invite your followers to ask you questions. Answer them at your blog. Become “The Answer Man” or “The Answer Woman.”

9. Find inspiration in photos. Browse through photos on a site like iStockPhoto.com. Look for a cute animal photo, or a funny image, or a photo that makes you think, and write a post around it.

10. Industry definitions. Create a list of industry definitions, particularly those that confuse people.

11. Visit Craigslist. You might find interesting workshops, press releases or other material worth a comment in the small business, community or events categories for the cities nearest you. (See How to Use Craigslist as a Global Publicity Tool.)

12. Don’t do it all yourself. Recruit a guest blogger on BloggerLinkup.com.

13. Show readers both sides of an issue. Write about the advantages/disadvantages of something.

How about adding to the list? How do you find content for your blog?

Filed Under: Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Newspaper Publicity, Photos & Graphics Tagged With: blog content, Blogging, Craigslist, Facebook, istockphoto.com

Speakers, publicize your speaking engagements these 9 ways

11/22/2009 By Joan 4 Comments

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.