story ideas

6 Ways to Overcome a Writing Setback

2/14/2012 By Joan 1 Comment

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a company that offers to-do list tool applications for individuals and businesses, and who also consults at a psd to html company.

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Whether you maintain a blog or develop user-friendly content for business websites, every writer fears getting stuck on a topic or a particular post. Fresh, relevant content is a critical component of any SEO strategy, and maintaining a steady and sustainable writing pace is essential.

Here are six strategies for overcoming writing setbacks you might encounter.

1. Learn How to Generate Content Writing Ideas

The best way to avoid a setback is to plan and brainstorm a wide variety of ideas. You should have a collection of writing topics handy so you only pick the ones that are most interesting and relevant for your website. Keeping a notebook or running list on your cell phone can help you accumulate writing ideas so that you can hit a blank page with a good deal of momentum.

Blogger and author Marelesa Fabrage shares some places where she finds ideas:

A question a client asks you.
A comment your 2-year-old makes as she is trying to avoid eating her vegetables.
A slogan you read on a billboard.
An article you read on another blog during a coffee break.

Inspiration can strike just about anywhere. Be ready for it!

2. Focus on the Goal for Content Writing

When writing content for a website, you can fill up your website with information and ideas. An idea doesn’t engage readers, deliver on any kind of promise, or provide a clear focus for your writing.

Brian Clark writes at Copyblogger:

“You have an idea, but what’s the goal? From a content marketing standpoint, you’re usually seeking to educate or persuade.” A clear goal will help you cut away the parts of your content that don’t belong.

3. Don’t Mistake Facts for Benefits

Before writing, you’ll need to clearly understand how your post will make a customer’s life better, translating your information into benefits. If your goal is to educate customers about your industry and to hopefully convert them into customers, make a list of benefits that directly meet the needs of readers. According the site Improve the Web,“The more benefits you describe, the more you connect your content to the needs, interests and reasons people buy from you, the more efficient your website content will be.”

4. Focus on Writing a Compelling Title

No matter how hard you focus on identifying a goal and the benefits your content offers, you still need to think of ways to draw the attention of your readers. A solid title that hooks readers may provide the path forward that you need.

Some benefits to crafting a solid title are explained at the Allison Jones blog: “Crafting the title allows me to refine my topic and figure out the structure of my post.” Learn how to writen effective title at ProBlogger.

5. Write with an Outline and Bullet Points

If you’re having a hard time figuring out what to write about your chosen topic, experiment with either an outline of sub-headings or even a series of bullet points. Jim Estill writes at CopybBlogger, “Bullet points… can make writing an article a lot simpler in terms of organization because you no longer have to figure out transitions from one idea to the next.”

Work with the most basic parts of your post to create a skeleton before filling in the gaps. You also may find that a skeleton is exactly what you need for your website or blog content.

6. Focus on a Specific Topic You Understand

If your writing is stalled, the problem may be with your focus. Are you trying to address a topic that is too broad? A stalled writing project is typically a symptom of not understanding a topic well enough.

The solution is to conduct research in order to sharpen your knowledge and to improve the quality of your content. Christopher Auman shares at Blog Critics, “If you try to cover a large topic in a mediocre or unconvincing way, people will probably not bookmark and return or even worse they many not even finish reading and move on.

If you’re still stuck after trying out these tips, don’t worry. There are plenty of ideas for writing effective content. Check out this list of 37 things to keep in mind when writing content for starters. Writing is a craft that requires practice and patience. Give yourself a few months of practice and you’ll be amazed at the progress you can make with your website content writing!

Filed Under: Blogs, Writing Articles Tagged With: Blogging, business blogging, content creation, story ideas, writer's block

10 ways to be an indispensable media source

9/8/2011 By Joan 5 Comments

What separates people who are masters at generating publicity from those who are constantly grousing that “the media doesn’t care about my story?”

Often, it’s knowing how to be a valuable media source. Here are 10 ways to make yourself indispensable to reporters, editors, freelancers, broadcasters, bloggers, ezine editors and all new media.

1. Understand your Number One task: to be helpful.

A reporter’s job isn’t to give you publicity. It’s to write an interesting story so that people will continue to subscribe, read, watch or listen. Anything you can do to make that happen will put you in their good graces.

2. Be available around the clock.

If a reporter calls you when it’s inconvenient for you to talk, do everything possible to rearrange your schedule. If you ask the reporter to reschedule the interview a day or two later, you could miss being featured in the story. Give reporters your home, office and mobile phone numbers.

3. Make it easy for reporters to access background information.

Things such as bios, fact sheets about your company, downloadable photos, your logo, and other materials should be accessible in your online pressroom. It’s best to not make your pressroom password-protected.

4. Do what you say you’re going to do.

If you interview with a reporter and promise to send them a White Paper you’ve written, send it when it was promised. If you promise to follow up with the answer to a question that you were unsure of during the interview, follow through.

5. Give reporters and bloggers additional leads on stories they might be interested in, even if those stories aren’t about you.

Those leads can include people who are doing innovative things in their industries or those who would make interesting profile stories. Leads can also include emerging industry trends, and ways that companies or nonprofits are using technology to save time and money. If you can provide background for any of those stories, let the reporter know.

6. Read stories they produce, and provide feedback.

Do this very carefully.

Let’s say you work for the county health department and you want to establish a relationship with the local health reporter. Read her stories regularly and occasionally offer feedback. Were they accurate? Did she miss a key angle of the story? Was the story well-reported? Yes, you might end up offering unsolicited comments to a reporter who has a thin skin. But any competent reporter should welcome feedback.

For bloggers, this includes commenting at their blog. Check back at the blog periodically after you comment. Good bloggers respond to comments and often keep the conversation going.

7. Pitch follow-up stories.

If a journalist interviewed you six months ago, and something significant has happened since then that ties into the story, let them know. Journalists love “follow up stories,” and so do readers.

8. Stay in touch by offering reporters specific information they need.

While building relationships with reporters, ask: “How can I help you?” Listen to what they tell you, and give them what they need. “How can I help you?” is just one of 10 magic phrases that journalists and bloggers love.

9. Never go over a reporter’s head and complain to their boss unless you have talked to the reporter first.

Relationships with journalists won’t always be rosy. When a reporter treats you poorly, or writes a story you think is biased, or includes an inaccuracy in an article, resist the temptation to immediately contact their boss.

Call the reporter first and discuss it. If you don’t like what you hear, then and only then, contact a supervisor.

10. Say thank you.

So few people write thank you notes anymore. If you do, you’ll really stand out from the crowd. Never thank a blogger or journalist for covering your story. Instead, thank them for their in-depth interview, their accurate story, their thorough questions, or their writing style. And never thank them “for giving me publicity.”

Another effective way to thank journalists and bloggers is to share links to their articles and blog posts on the social media sites.

What have I missed? What do you do to be an indispensible media source?

Filed Under: Blogs, How to Interview, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Nonprofits, Pitching the Media, TV Publicity Tagged With: How to Interview, how to talk to reporters, media source, online pressroom, pitching reporters, story ideas, working with bloggers, working with the media

3 ways to customize a pitch to journalists & get a “yes!”

8/18/2011 By Joan 2 Comments

The next time you pitch a journalist, will he read your pitch and know that you know who he is, what he covers, and why his audience should care about your story?

He will if you customize it.

That means sending a pitch that you can’t send to any other journalist because it’s unique to his media outlet, his beat or his audience. Those kinds of pitches prompt a journalist to think, “This is perfect for us!”

During the webinar I’m hosting at 3 p.m. Eastern Time today, Aug. 18, on “A Simple 5-Part Formula for Delivering the Perfect Media Pitch and Hitting it Out of the Park,” I’ll discuss how to customize a pitch. Here are three approaches:

Piggyback off a previous story the media outlet covered and pitch it as a “follow up.” That’s media lingo, and it will attract his attention. I gave an example in this post I wrote earlier this week about a candy shop in a mall.
Pitch a story idea for a specific section of his newspaper, a specific department in his magazine, or a certain portion of a radio show. Example: “This story is a perfect fit for the Consumer News Round-up segment of your show.”)
Pitch a story that appeals to a personal hobby or interest that ties into his beat. Let’s say you sell decorative corks and stoppers for wine bottles, and you’re pitching the food and wine editor of a magazine. His Twitter profile mentions he’s a wine collector. You could add this to your pitch: “Your wine collection will be as pleasing to the eye as it is to the pallet with a selection of wine stoppers from whimsical to elegant.”

Today’s webinar also includes handouts that explain how to customize the same pitch for three different media outlets, 27 story ideas you can pitch when the idea well is dry, and examples of great pitches that have generated mountains of publicity.

If the time is inconvenient, register anyway because I’ll send you the link for the page where you can download the video replay, the handouts, and all the other materials.

You can also sign up after the webinar is over and you’ll be led to the download page.

Filed Under: Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Pitching the Media, Radio Publicity Tagged With: free publicity, pitch reporters, pitching journalists, story ideas

Never EVER use this word when pitching—or eat soap

8/16/2011 By Joan 3 Comments

When I worked as a reporter and someone would pitch me, I recoiled when I heard one word in their pitch:

“I own a candy store in the Tuttle Street Mall, and I’m trying to get a little publicity for it.”

Here’s an even more egregious sin:

“I own a candy store in the Tuttle Street Mall. All of the other candy store owners in this town have gotten free publicity from your newspaper, except me.”

I could have asked, “What’s special about your candy store?” or “Why would my readers be interested in your story?”

But because the caller broke the Golden Rule and uttered the dreaded word publicity, I’d grumble something into the phone like, “If you want to buy an ad, I can transfer you to the ad department.”

That’s what we did back in the 1980s and 90s when I worked at newspapers. But today, you wouldn’t be nearly as lucky. Today, reporters would be so busy that they’d write you off as a pest. Perhaps they would even blackball you.

Because most of them don’t even answer their phones, you’d have to pitch by email. And they could mark your email as spam, thus prohibiting you from ever getting through to them again.

You could face the same consequences if you use the “spray and pray” technique and pitch the same one-size-fits-all story idea to multiple media outlets, thus robbing your pitch of the customization needed to prompt the journalist to read it and think, “This is PERFECT for our audience!” I wrote more about “spray and pray” here.

Here’s a Better Pitch for the Candy Store

“Your story in last Sunday’s paper about how local retail sales have really dropped because of the slumping economy caught my eye because my candy store is experiencing just the opposite. Our sales have gone up each year, and I suspect it’s because in bad economic times, people turn to chocolate. That’s what I found when I thoroughly researched the chocolate industry five years ago before opening my store.

“If you’re planning a follow-up story on the mall, or you’d be interested in talking to other chocolatiers in town who I know are also experiencing the same sales trends I’m seeing, I can provide contact information. You also might be interested in a White Paper from the American Chocolate Association that gives a brief history of chocolate in bad economic times.”

“I can be reached at…”

Why That Pitch Works

If I were the reporter, I’d jump at that story. Here’s why the pitch worked:

The store owner let the reporter know that she read last Sunday’s story on small businesses. She was smart enough to let the reporter know she reads the paper and she knows what the reporter covers.
She used the word “follow up.” That’s newspaper lingo.
The story highlights a trend. Even if your candy store sales aren’t up, you could mention something you’re doing to make that happen, like hosting children’s birthday parties and wedding showers within the store.
The store owner offered two extras: contact information for other chocolate retailers, and the White Paper.

Delivering succinct pitches is one of the most difficult parts of the job for professional PR people. If you don’t have their background and experience, knowing what the media want and how to deliver it can be next impossible.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Filed Under: Newspaper Publicity, Pitching the Media, PR Consultants/Publicists Tagged With: newspaper publicity, pitch reporters, pitching journalist, PR pitches, story ideas

Pitching journalists? How to avoid ‘spraying & praying’

8/12/2011 By Joan 5 Comments

Raise your hand if you’ve done this: You’ve sent an identical pitch to several journalists.

In PR circles, that’s called the “spray and pray” technique. You might even spray it to dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of journalists. And then you pray that somebody will bite.

They almost never do. Here’s why:

Because it isn’t personalized, journalists can tell instantly that it’s a one-size-fits-all pitch. There’s nothing special about it for their media outlet. You’re feeding them from the same trough as all the other journalists. When I worked as an editor, people pitched stories to me that had absolutely nothing to do with our geographic area or our readers.

If you won’t bother to find out about the outlet you’re pitching

and the reporter whom you’re asking to write the story,

why should they bother covering you?????

The next time you pitch a journalist, your pitch should send the following message:

I know who you are.

I know what you cover.

I’m familiar with your media outlet.

I know your audience and what they need

I can solve their problem (or I can entertain them)

How do you let them know that without coming right out and saying it?

One way is by researching the journalist and looking for clues about things they think are important. Another is crafting the pitch in such a way that it sounds like it was written only for them.

Learn More Aug. 18

When I worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for more than two decades, I accepted and rejected thousands of story ideas. I’ll show you all the elements that go into a perfect pitch when I host the webinar A Simple 5-Part Formula for Delivering the Perfect Media Pitch and Hitting it Out of the Park from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Aug. 18.

I’ll explain the missing step that trips up most people. And I’ll give you lots of story ideas and angles that may never have occurred to you.

Your handouts will include a list of all story ideas and a few sample pitches that really caught journalists’ attention.