Media kits include a combination of information whether created for electronic delivery or print. The number of components depends on the kit’s focus and intention. For instance, an author’s kit would include a different combination of information than a service business, or a multifaceted company or speaker.

Here is a list of component elements to pull from and tips to bring a media kit together. No single kit will need all components. Choose the components that match your or the receiver’s needs.

1. Table of Contents (TOC). Kit receivers always appreciate this feature, it respects their time. I recommend this rule: five or less pages, include the TOC in a personalized letter, using design elements such as bold, larger font or centering to set itself off from the rest of the letter. Six and more, use a single sheet. And place the page before all other pages, including the letter. For electronic delivery, use color, to help gain attention.

2. Company Information. An “About Us” page includes contact information. It is also an accumulation of other aspects about that company, however, in summary format. When founded but not how founded, vision and mission, simple list of services or product or just an overall view.

3. About Our Departments. If you have several different departments in your company, you can include a page with a summary of each departments responsibility.

4. About You. Similar to number 2 with the focus on a single individual. You will want to focus the language and information to exactly what the media needs to know. For example, solopreneurs the particulars would be about you, credentials, and information with a single focus. Similar to a resume but not quite.

5. Founder Page. Do you have a company founder with an interesting story of how they started the company? It doesn’t matter if they are deceased or retired. Honor their tenacity and creativity with their picture.

6. Upper Management. It is important to stress any special skills or background in the company that is an asset. Use one page per management level or several on a single page. Several pages are okay for this section if it supports the media request.

7. Services. One per page or several to a page. If you don’t have enough material for a whole page, create enough. If more than one service, add a list of the other services at the end of the page to indicate what else is available.

8. Products. Use service tips above. You will want to include whatever pictures need to depict the product.

9. Employee. This component is seldom included, yet it is a significant way to demonstrate how the company’s differences. This information is about the staff as a whole. Presentation depends on what the intention of the media kit. Statistics, number of employees, tenure, company events, or community projects, work well here. If the statistics don’t shine, don’t include.

10. Company History. Adding a history can make or break media attraction. If a young company you might think it’s could be a negative element, not true. Depends on what side you are presenting in the kit. For a season company, it is a must. What prevails or whether to include or not, is how interesting is the story. If it is interesting or creates curiosity, include it.

11. Awards. Include any awards or special interests of employees. Do you have published authors in your company, an Olympic participant, or something else? Consider including. Sometimes a backdoor interest can bring media coverage in. If there is only one award you can add it on another page. To create a whole page from short information, list past winners or describe the selection process. Ceremonial pictures add interest.

12. Distinction Page. This page needs to show how the company is different. Comparison charts, like those found in most software product sales information pages, are easy for readers to scan and comprehend. Graphs also work well.

13. Client List. List clients whether they are well-known or not. If your client list is extremely confidential, mention this in lieu of the list. You can expand the information by providing some brief background information about the client.

14. Company Affiliates. If you have a formal affiliate program, add this information. If you use top quality vendors, add their information as well. Connection add flavor to being attractive.

15. Press Releases. Use releases with dates less than 90- days.

16. Publication List. If an author, where published. If short, expand by adding details about the publication. A few summarized paragraphs will do. If you are or where a columnist or write your own electronic or printed newsletter add this information as well. Add copies only if relevant and current.

17. Speaking List. Have you spoken at events or to groups? List, if old, don’t include when. Instead group by categories. Include panel participations.

18. Radio/television appearances. Guest or host, doesn’t matter. Tell them where they can listen to any audio or video clips. I don’t recommend including. They are too expensive to send and for receivers to store. You want to set the availability information off in some sort of design element to make sure it isn’t missed. To expand an appearance I like to suggest adding elements about how you got on the show, what you did and didn’t like, or other details about the experience. Human interest stories always spark interest to the media. Give enough to peak their curiosity.

19. Personal Story. What is your personal story about starting the business, creating a product or service? Is it a rags to riches story? Usually people don’t think they have a good enough story to include, however, that normally turns out to be fiction. Look for the buried treasure, dust and polish to see the shine. Someone that can write from a charge neutral standpoint is best for these.

20. Testimonials. You can spread testimonials throughout the components using pull quote design effects. And also have their own page. To expand, enlarge font size or reduce margins.

21. Endorsements are personal acknowledgements. For media kits, credibility stands higher. They include more detail than testimonials. Add copies of special endorsement letters or just mention them in other components. Only add with the endorsers permission. Products and book authors frequently include these. Be creative with this in your kit.

22. Reviews. Product or book reviews are not endorsements. Reviews give an overview charge neutral opinion. Reviews have their own language. To learn that language, read movie or book reviews.

23. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). This component is a must in every media kit. Normally, media reads these pages first or second. Formulate questions by asking media personnel. Don’t guess what they want.

24. Photos. For trainers, speakers, or other professional services, color photos are too expensive to include and aren’t necessary. A small 6×9 black and white is appropriate.

25. Community. Add volunteer projects you have worked on or positions you have held. To expand, add additional details about the organization.

Note: Two-side pages count as one page.

When you are ready to send out a media kit, pull together the pieces that fit, create a personalized letter, slip in the contact person’s business card, usually the same person signing the letter, and its ready to mail or e-mail.

A beautifully designed media kit is nice but not necessary. Visual impact is important, yet, you can do this with a matching color theme and quality paper. Content needs to be the first and foremost focus. Fancy-looking media kits but if it doesn’t say anything to the receiver, it’s trashed. Value is in the information and news worthiness.

Catherine Franz, a Business Coach, specialized in writing, marketing and product development. Newsletters and additional articles: http://www.abundancecenter.comblog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Article Source.

Tags: media kit, components, public relations, PR

If a reporter was writing a story about you and your company and she visited your website, could she find anything useful and interesting about you to use in her story? And could she find it quickly? Or would she immediately abandon your site and look for one of your competitors to write about?

Make it Easy for the Reporter
Every website today should have a “Media Room” (also known as an online press room) with everything a reporter needs to write a story quickly. Not only should you include information about your company history, the management team and owners, your products and services, and so on, but today you should also provide links to industry trade groups, information about industry trends, and maybe even a list of your competitors.

Why would you include your competitors, you ask?

Because just like you, a reporter is very busy and often overwhelmed. If you were the reporter and you visited a website that handed you the perfect story and all the sources to write an objective article about widgets (which just happened to be something your publication’s readers, and more importantly your boss, would love to read), wouldn’t you be thrilled? Of course you would. And so would I.

Besides, every time a prospect searches for your competitors’ products and services, your website will come up in the search, too. Maybe the prospect will click on your website link instead of your competitor’s.

The Top 20
So let’s consider what you should include in your new website Media Room. Here’s a list to get you started; each of these would be a separate “sublink” within your Media Room:

Owners and management team bios (one short and one long bio for each person)
Photos: downloadable, scalable, in 300 dpi (suitable for print publications) and 72 dpi (for online outlets), named/labeled, one for each member of the management team and any products you promote
Company description and history, including dates, facts and sales figures (or percentage of growth by year)
A list of products or services and brief descriptions of each one
Customer demographics
List and description of any awards you or your company have won
List of story ideas with 4 to 6 talking points for each one
Audio and video clips with sound bytes about important issues
List of media experience for key company players
Issues and opinions page, including position papers, articles you have written, White Papers, links to industry resources for both sides of the opinions (all opening in a new browser window, of course)
Statements or quotes by key personnel regarding your business philosophy, hot industry topics, or comments about community issues.
Industry trends and news
Calendar of relevant trade shows and industry events
List of your key competitors and links to outside sites that may contain opposing or even negative views (opening in new browser windows, of course!)
Company and product news (with all your releases listed/summarized and linking to the full story)
In the News section (links to actual published articles, opening in new browser windows)
Contact information for key company players: day, night, cell phone, pager, fax, email (make it easy for the reporter to get in touch with you!)
Email alert service to notify reporters of news
Forms for reporters to order videos, photos, samples
Ability to search the site for information, keywords, topics, etc.
And don’t forget to put an obvious link to your Media Room, right on your home page … and every page. Don’t worry if you can’t do all of this immediately. Just keep chipping away at it, and soon you’ll have a terrific Media Room. Then watch how your publicity grows.

Lois Carter Fay’s brainy ideas and resources can help you get better results from your marketing. She is the author of Marketing Plan Essentials: Online & Off and co-author with Jim Wilson of Sales Success! Strategies for Women. Her free “BRAINY Tidbits” email newsletter is filled with tons of marketing ideas and resources and is distributed weekly to a growing list of subscribers. Learn more and subscribe here and receive “67 Ways to Promote Your Business” free by return email.

Article Source.

Tags: media room, online news, company website, public relations, PR

Only two media in Spanish speaking countries offer RSS: the Spanish newspaper El Mundoand the Argentine Clarín. Although the blogs are becoming more visible in the media and are becoming a research topic, still they are something of small “evangelist groups”, who promote its use… but this can change in little time.

To face this great challenge, Spanish-speaking PR professionals have to identify the enormous opportunities that other colleagues, fundamentally those whose native language is English, use for their clients, their businesses and, even for themselves.

Perhaps it would be easier for Anglo-saxons, with a different culture, to accept that in order to enter the blogosphere they must take themselves off the pedestal on which they think leaders should be placed, and be closer to thousands of people in a direct way, without any obstacles.

It is hard for me to believe that a politician, a high-ranking official or an executive in Mexico, Spain, Peru or Argentina, would agree to write a blog. Furthermore, except for some industries (i.e. IT), the use of blogs to maintain direct communication with their audiences continues to be limited to political parties, governments and even successful businesses.

In recent years, there has been a great advance, in which leaders have taken into account the advantages of having a web page and have included it in their communication campaign.

Nevertheless, for some industries of the Spanish-speaking countries, the Internet still is a foreign, difficult and expensive tool, and because of this they disregard its use to communicate with their audiences. The blogosphere offers the exact opposite of this: it is a communication tool close to the people, easy-to-use and with such a reduced price that, with so many resources available on the Internet, it can be practically free of charge.

It is easy to say that blogs could become a “democratizing” element with real possibilities to change the traditional relationship between sources and the media with the public.

Blogs will make possible the “participative journalism”, through which it will be possible to connect the problems of real people to other individuals with the same difficulties and worries. The possibilities are endless in societies that are used to the lack of transparency in government activities and large businesses, and even with media that lack credibility.

In fact, what is already happening in a lot of Spanish-speaking countries, as in the Anglo-saxon world, is an explosion of blogs that offer alternative information to the traditional media. Thousands of blogs are appearing to reflect, qualify and denounce, not only the governmental actions or those of political parties, but products, services or even plans that many businesses are carrying out.

Also, it is possible that the blogs can be seen as the real possibility for the small and medium-size businesses to access the Internet, without needing to provide a large quantity of resources or having to depend on IT people that don’t necessarily understand the business or communication strategies.

Perhaps here is the heart of the matter. These reasons make me think that there are many possibilities for the public relations industry in the Spanish-speaking countries to explore blogs. It is possible that very soon the blogs in Spanish may reach the same importance that other blogs are gradually but firmly gaining, in countries such as United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Australia.

Right now, I don’t believe that really independent blogs -that is to say, those that are not part of important communication groups or that are not written by professional journalists that update their blogs paralleled to their main activity- may be accredited like mainstream media in important events such as political campaigns, as is already happening in the US, and soon in the United Kingdom.

The public relations industry in Spanish-speaking countries should be prepared to obtain the maximum profit of this phenomenon.

How? I will tackle this through some proposed plans of action.

* Identify those blogs that have a good level of hits and organize them in categories: technology, political, media, etc. There are some directories that do this like Bitácoras.net, Blogdir.com, Blogsmexico.com, Blogalia.com, to mention a few. We should be open to see all kinds of blogs, keeping in mind that there will be occasions in which we won’t share the authors’ points of view, but that is important that we take them into consideration.

Let’s take the the case of the video games web pages. There are occasions in which children with barely 12 years become true opinion leaders, who are capable of destroying the launch of a new game in which thousands or even millions of euros were invested.

* Enter into the blogosphere with the objective of understanding the new medium, its tools, its possibilities and limitations, as well as the best-known authors, although they not be Spanish-speaking.

It may seem obvious, but there are many people that have never heard about RSS, feeds, posts, blogs, syndicated content, links or anything along these lines.
A public relations consultant can’t suggest that his or her clients launch a blog without having previously informed the client about what it takes to be successful and, above all, he or she can’t afford not to know an answer to an issue that may be presented in the blogosphere.

* Before launching a corporate or institutional blog, one should have a clear strategy of what he or she hopes to be communicate and should understand that the blogosphere has its own “net-etiquette”, that is to say, its own codes, that have implications regarding updating, information sources, the form, the tone of the communication… and, of course, the feedback of the public.

We can find that a good idea may produce mediocre results if inadequate tactics are chosen. In this sense, a blog is one more tool among the many available for public relations. And, yes, it offers some unique possibilities that other don’t have.

* Make the blog relevant, but take into account that it is a blog. There are people that keep thinking that the blogs are newspapers for teen-agers, in part because it is true. However this is not something bad at all since this shows how flexible blogs are.

Therefore, at the moment of launching a blog, one must find an equilibrium among the characteristics of the blogosphere with the objectives of the organization. One cannot do is to create irrelevant posts or wait too long to update the blog.

If a business does not have the capacity to maintain a continuous communication with its audience, whether for strategic reasons or legal limitations of another type, perhaps a web page is better for its objectives.

* Note that results can’t be immediate. It is one of the main challenges to all public relations professionals that should be faced, not only with the blogs, but when using any other tool.

Perhaps in the case of the blogs the challenge is greater because of the novelty of the medium and, in the case of some Latin American countries, by the low penetration of Internet.

* Be “blog evangelists”. One must know not only the blogosphere, one must be part of it. This is the only way in which a consultant will be able to offer his or her clients an adequate consultancy. It is not a matter of being a guru with thousands of visits a day, but it is necessary to be comfortable with the blogosphere and knowing who-is-who. The only way to persuade someone is being convinced of that which is preached.

The best business card of a consultant that uses the advantages of a blog for an organization should include, apart from its email, his or her blog address.

There will be many of things to do, but this could be a good beginning for the Spanish-speaking PR industry, that has yet to see blogs as a tool with a huge potential.

We must wait to see if the “blog phenomenon”, that is taking place in a number of countries, will spread to the rest of the world. The low internet penetration in Latin American countries, an incipient culture of the use of IT and a different way of understanding the social relations, will be the main obstacles that will determine if this phenomenon spreads as it has in the Anglo-Saxon countries, or maybe it will be possible that a different movement arises with local particularities that haven’t been exploited yet. We will wait and see… and we better be prepared.

Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña is Senior Account Executive in Weber Shandwick Ibérica, in Madrid, Spain. An award-winning radio scriptwriter in Latin America and Germany, he joined Weber Shandwick in 1997. He has offered strategy consultation for both multinational companies, such as BBC, McDonald’s, Siemens, Unilever, Kodak, LEGO, and Spanish companies, and industry associations.

Article Source.

Tags: blogs, blogosphere, public relations, PR, Spanish speaking countries

Sixty dollars doesn’t go a long way in buying advertising space. But if you spend it creatively, you can get over ten times that value in newspaper or magazine lineage. And it’s easy if you know how. Here’s how.

You’re familiar with press releases, right? A press release is a single page of information about your product or service that is sent to a magazine or a newspaper. If selected to be published, it’s printed as a short story and appears as if the magazine or newspaper wrote it. There is no charge for having your press release published by a magazine or
newspaper.

So stick around – find out how you can have your press release published (and your chances are pretty good) even if you can’t write worth a hockey puck.

There are certain criteria for having your press release published, no matter who writes it. First, it can’t sound like an ad for your product or service. Nope, no adjectives. If it sounds like an ad, it’ll be tossed out.
While most editors will make minor corrections so a press release will fit their editorial style, few to none will rewrite your release just to get it in. Editors get their choice of press releases every day, and the ones that catch their eye for publishing are the ones closest to their exact needs – requiring the least amount of editing and rewriting. Most editors know a
good thing when they see it.

Second, your press release must conform to the standard layout style of press releases. This tells the editor that you know what you’re doing in media relations and shows your everyday business practices follow suit.
So when your release is published, editors will be comfortable with the knowledge their readers will get good literature and – if they order – a good product. They can assume their readers will deal with a professional company on a professional level. If your press release lands on their desk with lots of typos and misspellings, it’ll land in the trash next.

Correct layout style means a big header stating “Press Release” at the top, followed by a contact name and phone number so editors can call for more information. Next it needs a kill date after which the press release shouldn’t run. If there is no kill date, state “No kill date” so it doesn’t look like you forgot it. Also, don’t forget to include a 5” x 7” black-and-white photo for increased interest, better readership, and more credibility.

The headline of your release is centered and in bold. Write your
headline with care; it’s this line that will make or break your release. If
it’s a great headline, people will read it — and the rest of the release. If
it’s a poor headline, people will read it – and the other articles in the
magazine. It’s your choice. My recommendation? The Jeff Dobkin 100
to 1 rule: Write 100 headlines, then go back and pick your very best one.

The body of the release follows. Double space, allowing an editor to
easily make corrections between the lines. Leave room around the
margins, too. Make it look easy to read, even if it isn’t. Use short,
descriptive sentences without fluff or excess verbiage. Use a pyramid
style of writing – the most important parts in the first paragraph or two -
because editors know to cut from the bottom.

Terse, concise writing just like a reporter from a newspaper would write
works best. Holy smokes! Did I just say “just like a reporter from a
newspaper would write”? What an idea!

How’s this: suppose you aren’t a strong writer, or you’re too busy with
other activities to write your own release. What do you do? Call the
local newspaper and ask to speak with a reporter. Now, I don’t know
about your area, but newspaper reporters here in Philadelphia don’t
usually make all the money they’d like. When you get a reporter on the
phone, ask if they know of any reporters who’d like an additional easy
writing assignment and would consider writing a press release – for pay.
Chances are better than good that the same reporter you’re speaking
with will go for the chance at easy money. If not, they’ll recommend an
associate on staff.

Go over your product information with the reporter, and add enough of a
benefit summary so they can write a quality release. Ask them to
recommend several different angles and what they think their very best
pitch would be. Then ask what their hourly rate is (usually about $20/
hour). Your release should take about two to three hours of writing time,
if that – and should cost around $60.

Now for the best part. Your reporter can submit your release to the
editor for you. Think about it. The paper’s own reporter writes a press
release – in the newspaper’s exact style of writing – and then hands it to
the editor with his own personal recommendation. Nice package.

So without writing a stitch, you get the release written then handed over
to the editor on a silver platter by a trusted staff member. Your chances
of getting it published are… you guessed it. When it’s printed, you just
received $1,000 worth of advertising for $60. As promised.

©2004 Jeffrey Dobkin

Jeffrey Dobkin author of the incredible 400-page marketing book, How To Market A Product for Under $500 ($29.95), He is also a speaker, and a direct mail copywriter. To order books or speak with Mr. Dobkin personally call 610/642-1000. Fax 610/642-6832.

Satisfaction Always Guaranteed.

Article Source.

Tags: advertising, publicity, getting more for your money, PR

If you’re like most publicity seekers, you probably think one project at a time. You’ve got a new product coming out in April, so you send out a release in March. You’ve hired a new executive, you’ll put out a release when she’s on board, etc.

For hard-core publicity insiders, though, there’s a rhythm to generating coverage, based upon the natural ebb and flow of the seasons. Such an approach can help you score publicity throughout the year, and will help keep your eye on the ball from January through December.

Essentially, a yearlong approach consists of two strategies:

- Timing your existing stories (new product introductions, oddball promotions, business page features, etc.) to fit the needs of the media during particular times of the year.

- Crafting new stories to take advantage of events, holidays and seasonal activities.

Before we run through the four seasons of publicity, a few words about lead time. In this age of immediacy (only a few seconds separate a Matt Drudge or a CNN from writing a story and putting it before millions), it’s easy to forget that, for many print publications and TV shows, it can be weeks — and sometimes months — before a completed story sees the light of day.

The phrase lead time simply refers to the amount of time needed for a journalist to complete a story for a particular issue of a magazine or episode of a TV news program. For example, a freelancer for an entertainment magazine may need to turn in a story on Christmas movies by September 15. That’s a lead time of three months, time needed for the editor to review and change the piece, the issue to be typeset and printed and distributors to place the issues on newsstands before December. Lead time can range from a day (for hard news pieces in newspapers) to a few days (newspaper features) to a few weeks (weekly magazines) to many months.

The longest leads are the domain of “women’s books” like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens. These publications often have a lead time of up to six months, which means they need information for their Christmas issues as early as May!

Here’s a tip to help you discover the lead time of a particular publication you’re targeting: call the advertising department of the publication and request a media kit. Since advertisers need to know when their ads must be submitted, each issue’s lead time is clearly stated in the media kit.

Factor the lead time into your planning as you look over the following sections. If you have a great story idea for Rolling Stone’s summer issues, you need to be on the ball well before Memorial Day.

The Four Seasons of Publicity:

First Quarter: January – March

What the Media’s Covering: Early in the year, the media is looking ahead. It’s a great time to pitch trend stories, marketplace predictions, previews of things to expect in the year ahead, etc. If a new President is being inaugurated, you’ll see lots of “Will the new administration be good for the (textile/film/cattle ranching/Internet/…or any other) industry?” types of pieces. This is a good time to have something provocative, or even controversial, to say about your industry.

The media also likes this time of year to run “get your personal house in order”sorts of pieces. Tax planning, home organizing, weight loss, etc. Anything that’s geared toward helping people keep their New Year’s resolutions can work here.

Key Dates and Events: Can you come up with a story angle to tie your business into an event that typically generates lots of coverage? Put on your thinking cap — I bet you can! Here are some key events during the First Quarter: Super Bowl, NCAA Tournament, Easter, The Academy Awards.

Second Quarter: April – June

What the Media’s Covering: An “anything goes” time of year. With no major holidays or huge events, April is a good time to try some of your general stories (business features, new product stuff, etc.) Light, fun stories work here, as a sense of “spring fever” takes hold of newsrooms (journalists are human, you know. They’re just as happy winter is over as you are and it’s often reflected in the kind of stories they choose to run.). As May rolls around, thoughts turn to summer. Now they’re looking for summer vacation pieces, outdoor toys and gadgets, stories about safety (whether automotive or recreational), leisure activities, things to do for kids and so on.

Key Dates and Events: Baseball opening day, tax day (April 15), spring gardening season, Memorial Day, end of school, summer vacation.

Third Quarter: July – September

What the Media’s Covering: The dog days of summer are when smart publicity seekers really make hay. Folks at PR firms are on vacation, marketing budgets are being conserved for the holidays and reporters are suddenly accessible and open to all sorts of things. Get to work here, with creative, fun angles. Entertainment-themed pieces do well in the summer, anything with celebrities works, lighter business stories, new products, trend pieces, technology news, back to school education-themed articles, you name it. Reporters are about to get deluged once again come September, so use this window of opportunity wisely.

Key Dates and Events: July 4th, summer movies, summer travel, back to school.

Fourth Quarter: October – December

What the Media’s Covering: The busiest time of the media calendar, the Fourth Quarter is when the business media turns serious and the lifestyle media thinks Holidays, Holidays, Holidays. Business angles need to be hard news. Fluffy trend pieces won’t cut it, as business editors begin to take stock of the state of the economy and the market. It’s a tough time to put out a new product release. For the non-business media, think Christmas. Christmas travel, Christmas gifts, Christmas cooking, whatever. If you have a product or service that can be given as a holiday gift, get on the stick early.

Nail down lead times for the publications you’re targeting, call to find out who’s handling the holiday gift review article and get your product in the right person’s hands in plenty of time –along with a pitch letter or release that makes a strong case about how what a novel, unusual or essential gift your product makes. After Christmas, you have a brief window for “Best of the Year”, “”Worst of the Year” and “Year in Review” pieces. Be creative — the media loves these things.

Key Dates and Events: Labor Day, World Series, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s Eve.

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: Publicity, PR, year round, public relations

How do you make a friend of the media? A press package can go a long way in helping you deal with the media. It allows you to have everything you need handy.

Many individuals in the media will ask you to send your press package to them, so it is very important to be sure to make one up and to keep it up to date.

What does a press package contain?

1. Your biography
2. Your picture
3. Information on Your Company
4. Press Releases
5. Any articles written about you

Note: If you are a frequent speaker, you also want to have an updated itinerary in your press package of where you will be speaking.

Copyright DeFiore Enterprises 2002

Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit their website for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses.

Article Source.

Tags: Press Package, contents, PR

What is the one thing that all of the best public relations agencies do every year?

They research and compile editorial calendars from publications that are pertinent to their client’s business.

You should too.

What’s an editorial calendar?

Editorial calendars are schedules of what topics a publication plans for cover for a particular month. For example, the INC. editorial calendar for July 2003 states that they’re writing an article on various business services.

Bingo!

If you feel that you can contribute to this particular topic, call or email the editorial department at INC. (try to “speak” to the managing editor) and find out who (which reporter) has been assigned to write the story. Email or call the reporter and explain how you can contribute. It’s that simple — it takes less time than writing this article – and is much more effective than blast-faxing a garbage bound press release to inappropriate reporters.

Final thoughts: Many publications post their editorial calendars on their Web sites — usually they’re found in their advertising media kits. Otherwise, contact the publication’s advertising departments and ask for a calendar. Check for editorial deadlines – many publications work 6 months in advance.

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: PR, Public Relations Tools, publicity, editorial calendars

Considering how fundamental they are to the publicist’s trade, it’s always amazed me how lousy almost all press kits truly are. Your typical press kit is a bloated folder filled with puffery, hype, irrelevant information and worse. The vast majority of these monstrosities do little besides kill trees and clog newsroom trash baskets.

The good news is that creating a press kit that actually works really isn’t that hard. Let’s look at the elements of a winning press kit, and help you avoid some common pitfalls.

The Psychology of a Press Kit

There are two fundamental rules to creating a good press kit:

1. The press kit exists to make the journalist’s life easier, not for you to present sales messages and hype. Good publicists are journalist-centric — that is, they think from the perspective of the recipient, not the sender. They take the time to learn what journalists need and then they give it to them in as simple, straightforward and user-friendly a manner as possible. Remember, publicity is not about you — it’s about giving journalists what they need to create a strong story.

2. Everything in the press kit goes to support your clincher. Everything else gets yanked out. (A refresher: a “clincher” is my term for the one or two line distillation of your publicity message. It’s the publicist’s version of the Universal Selling Proposition that marketers use to boil a product’s marketing message down to its essence.) You lay out your clincher in the pitch letter that gets clipped to the cover of the press kit, and the press kit serves to flesh out and support your clincher. That’s it. If your clincher is that you’ve brought a radical new way of thinking to your market segment, then a backgrounder about your “old fashioned commitment to excellence” not only doesn’t support your clincher, it may actually contradict it.

The Elements of a Press Kit

The Cover: In my twenty years as a publicist, I have never encountered a single journalist who told me the cover a press kit had the slightest impact on their decision whether to run a story. Yet, businesses still spend thousands on glossy, four color folder covers. Don’t bother. A simple colored folder with your business name imprinted upon it will work just fine.

Some businesses choose to get stickers printed up with their logo and place them on blank folders, which is fine too, as long as the stickers are neatly applied. Either way, don’t obsess over it — it’s what’s inside that counts.

Letterhead: The first page of each press kit element should be on your letterhead. Some folks prefer to get special “News from (name of company)” letterhead printed, although, again, I doubt it really matters.

The Lead Release: If your press kit is going out in support of an announcement, an event, a trend story or for another specific purpose, the release that lays out the news should be the first thing a journalist sees upon opening the folder. This “lead release” should be positioned at the front of the right side of the folder.

Backgrounder: This is the element of your kit that provides, well, the background information to support your pitch. It’s written in the fashion of a standard news feature (i.e. in third person, objective tone). This is typically the longest element in a press kit, often going 2 or 3 pages. As you’re crafting this, keep something important in mind: if a journalist is reading your backgrounder, chances are he’s already interested in your pitch. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t bother with it. You’ve hooked him and the backgrounder can reel him in. To do so, you must answer the two questions he has: “Is the claim made in the pitch legitimate?” and “Is there enough material here for me to do a story?”

Your pitch letter (based on your clincher) made a claim of some sort about you, your company or your product. You’re the fastest, the most advanced, the hottest-selling, the most civic-minded, etc. Now you have to back up your claim. Your backgrounder is where this happens. Provide proof, by giving concrete examples, third party observations, study results, etc. to support your pitch. If you’re claiming that there’s a trend taking place, here’s where you provide the statistics to back it up. If you’ve claimed that you’ve won more awards that anyone else in town, here’s where you describe them. Don’t stray from your purpose — to reel in the journalist by convincing him that your claim is legit.

The backgrounder also must demonstrate that enough material exists to support the claim – and that it will be easy for the journalist to access this information. Journalists don’t have time to do extended investigation on every piece. Provides leads to websites, trade journals, experts and other resources to back up your claim and help the journalist complete the story, you’ll have a big edge.

To write a backgrounder, do some role playing. You’re a reporter. Your editor has handed you a pitch letter and said “write this up”. In this case, of course, the pitch letter is your own. While you’re writing it, try to forget that the piece is, essentially, about you. Pretend you’re an objective reporter. Track down resources, dig up stats, interview experts. Try to see if you can create a credible piece that proves the pitch’s claim to be valid and interesting to the reader. If you can, you’ve got a great backgrounder. If you can’t, it may be time to come up with a new pitch!

Bio: Only include bios of people who are relevant to the pitch. A bio of your sales manager in a press kit designed to support a claim of technological superiority is pointless. A bio of your head of R&D is valid. Keep bios short (three paragraphs at the most) and include only information relevant to the pitch. The fact your head of R&D spent twenty years at NASA is relevant, that she loves golf and has two cats isn’t. The point of a bio: to show the legitimacy of those quoted in your release or being offered for interview, and to help the reporter craft a short description of the person when writing the piece.

Fact Sheet: The fact sheet should distill the entire press kit into an “at a glance” document. Keep it short, use bullet points and bold headings. For example, I might start with the heading The Story: and include a bullet point repeating the pitch. The next heading might be Why It’s Important: followed by some bullet points putting the pitch into a broader industry-wide (or perhaps even worldwide) context. Finally, I might use the heading Why (name of my company) is at the Heart of this Vital Story: and run some bullet points taken from the backgrounder giving support to my claim. Put this fact sheet at the front of the left side of the folder, just across from the lead release. This sort of fact sheet is amazingly powerful and almost never crafted in the fashion I just laid out. I’ve sold countless stories because of this style of fact sheet and you can too.

Other Stuff: Filling out the kit with a company brochure and a photo or two is reasonable, but don’t get carried away. Keep your kit simple, stick to your clincher and think like a journalist, not a marketer, and you’ll have crafted a first class press kit!

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: press kits, elements that work, public relations, PR

Stripped down to its core, publicity is little more than one person persuading another. You, the publicity seeker, must persuade a journalist that your story is worthy of receiving print space or air time. Your ability to sell your story to a journalist is what it’s all about.

If you’ve ever sat with an insurance salesman who droned on and on, you probably know that simpler is better when it comes to persuasion. A few choice words, a brief, well-reasoned argument and a strong close can make the sale. Too much detail, too much rambling and too much pontification can kill a deal.

When pitching a journalist, the same rules apply, Keep your pitch short and to the point — and the results will come.

Unfortunately, many beginning publicity seekers — and even some old pros — forget this advice. Instead of keeping things short, they seek to overwhelm journalists with multi-page press releases, extensive backgrounders and lengthy fact sheets. If they even get read (and most just go directly to the trash) these voluminous press kits only serve to bury your main argument in a blizzard of verbiage.

That’s why I love pitch letters.

A pitch letter is a brief business letter, almost never longer than one page. It can accompany a press release, or it can stand on its own. Pitch letters serve one purpose — to pique the journalist’s interest in your story. They needn’t tell the whole story. Rather, they are “teasers” for the meat of your story angle. If you’ve hooked the journalist with your pitch letter, you have a real chance of getting the rest of your press materials read — and your story placed.

Pitch letters can be sent by snail mail but, increasingly, they’re the perfect tool for e-mail contact. Too many publicity seekers send entire press releases by e-mail when a few brief paragraphs would serve their cause far better.

If you’re e-mailing a pitch letter to a journalist there are three rules to follow:

1. Keep it short. Try to limit your pitch to two or three paragraphs.

2. Never send attachments. In this era of worms and viruses, that’s bad netiquette.

3. Take the time to craft a short, snappy headline. You don’t have to tell your story in the headline — just make it intriguing enough for the journalist to click “open”, not “delete”

Whether your sending it on paper or electronically, here’s how to put together a strong pitch letter, step-by-step:

* Start off with your best shot

In the first sentence, try to give the reporter something that will make him say either “Gee, I never knew that” or “That’s an interesting angle for a story”. Or better yet, try to get him to say both things! Don’t mess around with formalities, and don’t bury your angle in hype. Here’s an example of a pitch letter we used to promote “the world’s largest game of Pictionary”:

Mr. Joe Smith Features Editor The Daily Herald Anytown, OH 44444

Dear Mr. Smith:

On November 19, during halftime of the California- Stanford game, 80,000 people will make history.

They’ll be helping to establish a New World Record by participating in the largest participatory game in history — a monumental round of Pictionary, led by the Stanford Marching Band.

Straight to point and no nonsense. Just the way a reporter wants it.

Here’s another example — one that fits the “Gee, I didn’t know that” category. It’s to promote the national winner of a contest sponsored by one of our clients:

Dear Mr. Smith:

A miracle has bloomed and is now being harvested in the heart of the South Bronx.

What used to be a trash-filled vacant lot covered with used hypodermic needles and crack vials is now a spectacular 2 1/2-acre working farm. Every day, under the watchful eye of Garden Director and seasoned gardener Jack O’Connor, dozens of neighborhood youngsters come to tend their garden plots, sing songs, hear poetry and learn about nature. Jack has only one rule of thumb: Before the fun starts, the day’s schoolwork must be completed.

* Target your pitch

Even if you have only one version of a press release, you can still target your pitch to a particular media outlet by crafting a specific pitch letter. The purpose of the pitch letter in this case — to frame the story in a way that makes it clear to the journalist that it fits in with that media outlet’s approach.

Here’s a letter we wrote to The Paul Harvey Show to pitch the story behind one of our clients, a board game company called The Games Gang. It resulted in a story on Mr. Harvey’s show — one of the biggest publicity hits you can get.

Notice that it’s written in a structure and style similar to what you might hear on The Paul Harvey Show. We also played up the “senior” status of the Games Gang members, as senior citizens make up a significant portion of their listenership.

Here’s the letter:

Mr. John Smith Producer “The Paul Harvey Show” Anytown, OH 44444

Dear John,

In June, 1986, a group of veteran toy sales people (average age: 60) were told there was no more room for them at the company they’d served for more than 30 years.

They didn’t slip quietly into retirement, however. Instead, they set out to prove the toy industry wrong — to show that experience and commonsense are the keys to success.

They’ve done it.

The company they formed, The Games Gang, has taken the games industry by storm. They’ve beaten the odds by creating one of the most successful games in American history — Pictionary — and following it up with another hit, Balderdash. Today, 10 million games later, the “Over The Hill Gang” is at the top of the game heap, having surpassed their larger — and younger — rivals.

We think your listeners and readers, especially those who feel as if their best days are behind them, will find the story of The Games Gang a real inspiration. We hope you agree.

I’ll be in touch soon.

Sincerely,

Bill Stoller

* Show how your story relates to the reporter’s audience

Did you catch this line in the Paul Harvey pitch letter?

“We think your listeners and readers, especially those who feel as if their best days are behind them, will find the story of The Games Gang a real inspiration.”

That’s the line that probably put the story over the top. We took what was essentially a corporate story and demonstrated that it could have meaning to a wide group of listeners — even those who don’t play board games or care about entrepreneurs.

Try to find a bigger theme in your story, especially one that fits with the mission of the media outlet you’re pitching.

Pitch letters are wonderful and often underused tools. Just keep them short, get to the point, try to show how your story can appeal to a wide audience and, where appropriate, have a little fun, and you’ll be pitching like a pro!

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: tips to pitching, public relations pitch, PR

From time to time, people ask me how public relations has changed during the two decades in which I’ve been seeking publicity. My answer: technology. Twenty years ago, the fax machine was a newfangled novelty. Our primary means of communicating with journalists was the telephone and the US Mail. The advent of e-mail and the web has made life easier in many regards and tougher in others – namely, thanks to hordes of clowns with money making schemes and software that “blasts” press releases indiscriminately to reporters, it’s become very hard to get your e-mails through to spam-weary reporters.

But there’s another great advantage provided to publicity seekers by the Internet — the ability to create an “online news room”. In the “old days”, the press kit reigned. Big bulky folders loaded with press releases, glossy photos and slides were standard. They were expensive to design, costly to reproduce and required lots of manpower and postage to assemble and distribute. Today, you can simply direct a reporter to a web URL, where all your press materials and high definition artwork awaits, ready to be used. It’s a huge time and money saver.

A quick note: the traditional press kit isn’t dead. It’s still handy to create some physical kits to use with key journalists, as the very novelty of printed material can give you an edge at times. Also, some journalists still prefer a physical kit. Press kits are an important tool at trade show booths & press rooms, and special events. However, gone are the days of sending out large press kit mailings. Keep the kits for targeted use only.

Creating a useful online news room is really pretty simple. One of the main things a busy reporter wants is easy access to press releases, corporate and executive info and artwork. A well put together media room should provide a seamless walk-through.

Where Should the News Room Go?

There are two schools of thought on where to put your online news room. Some companies prefer to have it as a section on their main site, visible to all as a link on a menu bar or other navigational element. Others build entirely separate sites just for the media.

There are pros and cons to each. Putting it as part of your main site allows a journalist to “poke around” your site, absorbing more of the feel and culture of your company and its products. It also makes it easier if the reporter wants more information about a particular product than can be found in your media materials. Of course, since you’ll need to provide clear links to the online news room to help such reporters find their way back, anyone visiting your site can access your press materials. This is probably not an issue but, if you feel potential customers may become confused if they wander into the online news room, this could be worth considering.

Creating a separate site allows you to tailor everything to suit the needs of the reporter and prevents the possibility of confusion for potential customers visiting your main site. The reporter however, will be unable to quickly “poke around” the main site as described above, so you may consider that in your decision. If you do choose a separate site, give it a name that incorporates your company (if you’re the Acme Company, go for acmepress.com or acmeonlinenewsroom.com). Also, provide clear links to your main site throughout, and code them so that they open in a new window, allowing the reporter to see your main site without having to backtrack to the online news room.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

DON’T force journalists to register or sign in for access. They’re busy folks and may very well decide not to bother. Make life as easy as you can for them.

DO offer the opportunity for journalists to enter their e-mail address if they wish to be kept abreast of the latest news from your company, but don’t link it in any way to the ability to access any portion of the site. DON’T confuse non-journalists who may wander into the site. Make it clear at the top of your main page of your online news room what it and who it’s for.

DO provide a link to your consumer FAQ page and an e-mail link for customer service to give non-journalists a place to go to get their questions answered. This will save you a great deal of time responding to messages from non-journalists asking “why am I looking at a press release? How do I download a new driver” or some such thing. Here’s what Gateway says, “Gateway press contacts are only able to provide assistance for qualified members of the news media. They are not qualified to respond to product or technical support needs…If you are not a member of the news media, please feel free to visit our pages for Product Service and Support.”

DON’T try to lay out the online news room if you’re not a talented web designer. Don’t use flash, heavy java scripts and other doo-dads. The face you put forth to the media must be highly professional, and the ease of navigation and logical flow of the news room is vital.

DO hire a professional designer who has a portfolio that includes simple, easy-to-navigate, clean-looking sites.

What To Include in Your Online News Room:

Personal Contact Info. The name, address, e-mail, phone number, fax number and cell phone number of your primary media contacts must be front and center. If you have an Instant Messaging ID, put it in there, too.

Press Releases. Place press releases in chronological order (most recent at the top). Keep traditional press release formatting and use easy-to-read fonts.

Executive photos, product photos, charts, graphs, and other appropriate artwork. Provide multiple versions — 72 dpi (lower resolution) for online publications and websites, and 300 dpi (higher resolution) for offline publications. Put instructions such as To download, right-click and choose “save” next to the graphics. Make sure your pitch letters and press releases provide links to the appropriate artwork on your site.

Backgrounders, executive bios, white papers, investor relations info (if applicable), fact sheets, speeches, awards, streaming media of: press conferences, product demonstrations, president’s speeches, etc.

Search Tool. Make it easy for journalists to find just what they want, by making all your press materials fully searchable.

Online News Rooms to Study:

The best way to learn how to put together an online news room is to see how some very smart folks have done it. Here are three outstanding examples:

• Microsoft
• Google
• Crayola

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: news room, media, public relations, PR

You know that getting publicity is vital to the health of your business. You probably also know that e-mail is the way most publicity seekers get in touch with reporters to score that precious coverage. Here’s what you don’t know: The vast majority of e-mails sent to journalists never get read.

Bottom line: if your e-mails don’t get read, you have no shot at getting the publicity you so desperately need.

Here’s how to beat the odds:

Avoiding the Spam Trap

To a spam filter, your humble e-mail pitch may appear to contain an array of trigger words and suspicious phrases. A server that relayed your message may be on a blacklist – a “do not open” list of known spammers. Or perhaps the filter’s having a tough day and has decided to start blocking things arbitrarily. You can’t prevent every instance of spam blocking, but you can take some steps to help lessen the chances of your e-mail ending up in a black hole.

The most important step is learning how spam filters think, and creating e-mails that avoid the usual pitfalls. Fortunately, you’ll find that — once you can do this — many spam triggers are easily avoided.

Rather than taking up space here with all the how-to’s, allow me to simply direct you a terrific site on the subject here.

Getting Your E-Mail Opened & Read

After beating the spam filter, next up is getting your e-mail opened and read. The key: the subject line. No matter how on- the-money your pitch, a subpar subject line will kill any chance of getting the reporter’s attention. You’ve got one shot at getting your e-mail opened, make the most of it with a killer subject line.

Here’s how to do it: 1) Place the word “News” or “Press Info” or “Story Idea” at the beginning of your e-mail subject line, in brackets e.g.: [Story Idea]:

2) Try to incorporate the reporter’s first name also at the beginning of the subject line.

3) If you know the name of the reporter’s column, for instance “Cooking with Linda”, also try to incorporate that. One more thing — if the reporter doesn’t write a regular column, try to at least include their beat (e.g. Joe, re: your future pieces on the wi-fi industry).

With these three tips in mind, a successful e-mail subject line might read:

[Story Idea]: Linda, Here’s a Tip for Your “Cooking with Linda” Column

That’s a heading that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Here are a few more e-mail do’s and don’ts: Do:

* Make the information you place in the subject line short and to the point. Often, reporter’s e-mail software cuts off the subject at only a few words.

* Don’t get cute or be too vague in your subject line. For example “Here’s a Great Story!” is vague and sounds like spam; “This Will Win You A Pulitzer!” will make you look silly (unless you’re delivering the scoop of the century, of course!).

* Try to make your most newsworthy points at the top of your e- mail message – don’t expect a reporter to scroll down to find the news.

* Include your contact information, including cell phone, e-mail address, regular address, fax number & website URL at the beginning and end of the e-mail.

* Include a link to your website if you have additional information such as: photos, press releases, bios, surveys, etc.

Don’t:

* Include more than a short pitch letter or press release in the body of your e-mail.

* Allow typos or grammatical errors.

* Include an attachment with your e-mail. In this day and age of sinister viruses, reporters automatically delete e-mail with attachments.

* Place the following words (by themselves) in the subject line: “Hi”, “Hello” – the media’s spam filters will pounce and destroy.

* Send an e-mail with a blank subject line.

A cool tip: Use Google News to search for recent stories that have appeared relating to your industry or field of interest. Then, e-mail the reporter directly (use a subject line such as Re: Your July 5th piece on electric cars). Give positive feedback on the story and let him know that, next time he’s working an electric car story, he should get in touch, as you’re an expert with provocative things to say. Give a couple of supporting facts to back up the assertion, include your phone number and web link, and ask if he’d like to see a full press kit. This technique really works!

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: email, public relations stories, having an edge, reporters, PR

It’s safe to say that we live in interesting times. It seems we hardly have a breather between wars, tragedies, scandals, epidemics, circus trials and other events that capitalize the media’s attention. For the business seeking publicity, the “news hole” for more traditional stories — new product reviews, business features, offbeat promotions — keeps shrinking as the “big story” mentality takes hold.

Fortunately, you’re not completely at the mercy of world events when it comes to obtaining some exposure. By being smart and aggressive, you can find a way to break through the logjam by tying-in — where appropriate and tasteful — with the news of the day.

Here are a few good examples (including a couple in which I was personally involved):

Taco Bell’s Mir Brainstorm. The Soviet Mir space station was falling, and Taco Bell reaped the benefits. The company set up a 40’ x 40’ vinyl target — emblazoned with the company’s logo and the words ”Free Taco Here!” — 10 miles off the coast of Australia. In the extremely unlikely event that Mir hit the target, the company promised free tacos to all 281 million Americans. Space-travel experts said the prospects of the debris hitting the mark were slim to none. Taco Bell added relevance to the public relations stunt by claiming to have taken out an insurance policy. A minute-by-minute countdown of Mir’s descent and a photo of the floating target were anxiously seen by millions of hungry websurfers on the Taco Bell site. The result? Millions of dollars of free publicity on major news programs and media outlets around the world. Their website could hardly handle the traffic.

5 Star Shine Goes to War. Fellow Free Publicity subscriber Glenn Canady discovered that his car polishing product — 5 Star Shine — was being used by the U.S. Navy to keep the Aegis radar equipment up and running in the face of saltwater, sea air and other potentially damaging elements. Take a look at Glenn’s press release — along with a great hit he earned in the San Diego Union Tribune–by going to: http://www.5starshine.com/press-coverage.html

Dan’s Lucky Angel. We were charged with getting publicity for the “My Little Angel” doll, so we sent one to a photographer in Ireland, who took a shot of the doll “kissing” the lucky Blarney Stone. We then sent the newly-lucky doll on to Olympic speedskater Dan Jansen at Lillehammer. When the previously hard-luck skater finally won his elusive gold medal, we took the credit — and got lots of press!

Here’s how to tie-in with a news event:

1. Be prepared. If something happens that can offer the possibility of your involvement, you’ll need to act quickly. Make sure you have press materials prepared beforehand so they’re ready to go when needed. Obviously, you can’t predict news events, but you can begin examining your product, service or area of expertise to discover the types of events that may occur and the role you can play. Put together a strong bio that details your background and expertise. Make a list of the news editors, assignment editors and producers at, respectively, your local newspaper, TV stations and talk radio stations.

2. Be appropriate. This means two things, actually. First, don’t force a fit where none exists. If the world is focused on, say, a manned mission to Mars, your carpet cleaning business probably has nothing much that it can do to tie-in. There has to be some legitimate connection, or else you’ll be laughed out of the newsroom (on the other hand, if it’s proved that the germs behind some fast-spreading respiratory illness can live in carpeting, you’re just the person to talk to the press about how to kill germs hiding in carpets). The second measure of what’s appropriate is common sense and decency. Jumping on a tragedy with a hype-filled press release is just plain ghoulish. In the aftermath of something truly awful, go to the press only if you have something unique, helpful, non-promotional and newsworthy to offer.

3. Be timely. If you have something of immediate value to offer (e.g. you’ve written a book about a major figure who’s just died), time is of the essence. Work from the media list you’ve already prepared and hit the phones. Tell the reporters, editors and producers who you are and the kinds of insight you can offer about the current situation. Since seconds count, offer to stop by with a copy of your book, or to email or fax your press materials. If you really are an expert on the subject of the breaking news story, you’re doing the journalist a huge favor right now, so don’t be shy.

4. Be timely, part 2. The other side of the coin: You have a story that might fit in with what’s happening, but it’s lighter, softer and less timely (5 Star Shine is a great example. It fits with world events, but it’s not hard news). In these cases, wait until the dust has settled. The first few days covering any big story, the media is interested solely in the hard stuff. The who, what , when , where and why info. If you can help with that, great. If not, hang on until the media machine needs more fuel. After a little while, there will be huge blocks of time to fill, breaking news will dissipate and the media will begin turning to lighter stuff to fill the void. Consider that, just in the past few weeks, you’ve begun hearing about such things as the “Talking Iraqi Information Minister Doll”. Expect much more to come.

5. Be creative. For non-tragic events, taking a fun approach often works wonders. Consider the Mir idea (it was already determined the station would land in the water, so there was no element of potential tragedy involved. If there was a chance that people could have gotten hurt, the promotion wouldn’t have been such a great notion). Or think about how ice cream companies that get mileage out of naming flavors for newsmakers, or fashion designers who send out lists of fashion hits and misses for major Hollywood events or DJ’s who do things like sleeping in a billboard until the hometown team breaks its losing streak. When there no lives at stake and the story is purely for fun, be as creative and “out there” as you can to tie in.

6. Be smart. One very important caveat has to be mentioned: unless you specifically cater to a particular audience — all of whom are in agreement a particular issue — don’t take sides politically. No matter how strongly you may feel about a certain issue, if a segment of your potential or existing customer base may feel differently, you’re taking a major gamble by choosing sides. If you want to poke fun at politicians, include both Democrats and Republicans. Unless your area of expertise requires it, steer clear of divisive issues such as religion, abortion, gay rights, etc. Using your business as a personal political soapbox can come back to haunt you. This isn’t about “wimping out”, it’s common business sense. Customers are hard enough to attract and keep — there’s no point in going out of your way to alienate them by showing disdain for their beliefs.

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: gaining publicity, using other news as publicity, public relations, PR

In an ideal world, your business would be overflowing with newsworthy stories, and the media would be waiting with bated breath for your next press release, ready to give you front page coverage.

In the real world, however, it’s not always so easy to generate real news. There are only so many hot new products or breakthrough achievements with which a business can capture a journalist’s attention.

So what do top publicists do to get news coverage for clients who have no news to share?

They create opportunities for publicity from thin air. A good publicist can quite literally invent a story that the news media will eat up. And, best of all, they’re usually stories that can be presented with little or no adjustment year after year.

Here are few of the ways you can create a great story from scratch:

Start a Hall of Fame. There are two reasons for you to take a look at http://www.publicityinsider.com/HallOfFame.asp — my very own Public Relations Hall of Fame. First, it’s filled with examples of companies who have created great publicity stories from thin air (the Pillsbury Bake-Off and the National Discount Broker’s Duck Quack, to name a couple) and second, it’s an example of a time-honored publicity technique — the Hall of Fame.

It couldn’t be easier. For your field, create a Hall of Fame, induct some of your industry’s top luminaries, send out a press release. You don’t need a marble-columned building or bronze plaques. A simple press release (and maybe a supporting website similar to the Public Relations Hall of Fame) will do the trick. Each year, induct some more members and send out another release. Really, it’s that simple.

Make a List. Mr. Blackwell made himself a household name with a simple “Worst Dressed List”. And the “Most Boring People of the Year” list that gets huge press every year? It’s the creation of a single, very clever publicist from New Jersey. And take a look at one of the more recent lists to get massive publicity — the Most Annoying People of the Year from AmIAnnoying.com ( http://www.amiannoying.com/2002/mostandleast.aspx).

The media simply devours lists. The best, the worst, the most, the least, the top 10, the bottom 10, whatever. Is there actual news here? Nope — it’s just entertaining, fluffy and a bit gossipy. In short, lists are the perfect fodder for an editor seeking to balance out all the horror and sadness of a typical news day with a bit of levity. Lists such as these are practically the reason “People” columns in newspapers were invented.

Craft an Index. Here’s a neat variation on the list concept. Essentially a twist on the government’s cost of living index, a publicity index is a fun way to quantify a trend.

Let me give you an example of a good index that generated strong publicity year after year. Back in my agency days, one of our clients was the company that imported Moet Champagne. Somewhere along the line, a very sharp publicist had a brainstorm, and invented “The Moet Index”. It was basically a list of some luxury items — such things as a Maine lobster, a jar of Russian caviar, a diamond bracelet and, of course, a bottle of Moet — with the total cost of all the items if one were to purchase them. The number was compared with the amount they would have cost last year, and the year before and — voila — the Moet Index was born. The Index purported to ask the question “How much more expensive is living the good life this year as opposed to previous years?” The media loved it, and Moet had a nice annual story. They simply tallied up the new numbers each year, distributed a press release, sat back and counted the clippings.

Create a Petition. Is there a hot topic in your industry? A growing controversy? Something people would like to see happen that’s not taking place? Create a petition!

Thanks to the Internet, starting a petition drive is a breeze. No need to stand outside supermarkets with a clipboard — just provide a link for your visitors and you’re off and running! Sites such as PetitionOnline.com http://www.petitiononline.com/petition.html allow anyone to start a petition for free.

Take a look at some of the petitions on the site: “Operation Keep Vanessa on General Hospital”; “Request to CBS to air the Lane Bryant Lingerie Show”; “Declare Sept. 11 a National Holiday”; “Eminem For President In 2004″. Whether serious or lighthearted, a petition that generates lots of signatures is a great publicity hook.

For example, take a closer look at the “Lane Bryant Lingerie Show” petition. It notes that, because 60% of women in America wear at least a size 14, CBS should provide a plus-size fashion show as a counterpart to its airing of the Victoria’s Secret show. Now, I don’t know who was behind this petition, but imagine if you ran a website for plus-size women, and you were the one who started the petition. And let’s say you managed to get 3000 people to sign the petition. Do you think you might have a pretty good shot at getting coverage in newspapers, women’s magazines and other media outlets. Heck, yeah!

Petitions are an awesome way to create publicity from thin air — and hardly anyone is using them for that purpose. Jump on this idea and keep it to yourselves. This is one just for my Publicity Insiders!

Here are my tips to create a story from thin air:

* Keep it light. Journalists know what you’re up to, and they’ll play along if it’s all in fun. Think in terms of placing the story in the “People in the News” column or with a “notes” columnist who specializes in lighter stories. Don’t try to pretend that your “Top 10 List” or online petition is earthshaking news. Keep your tongue planted in your cheek and you’ll have a much better chance of placement.

* Keep it positive. Mr. Blackwell is pretty tart in some of his comments and, I suppose, one of his targets could up and sue him one of these days. That probably won’t happen because he’s well- established and a star who took him to court would end up looking like a bad sport. Still, for your efforts, try to stay positive and avoid criticizing, ridiculing or otherwise embarrassing anyone. We live in a litigious society, and there are folks who wouldn’t take kindly to finding themselves on the “Top 10 Buffoons of the Year” list. Let others take those chances. While calling people boring, or annoying, or hideously dressed does seem to generate attention, there are plenty of ways to succeed taking an opposing approach. What about the most heroic, the most inspiring, the coolest, the smartest, and so on? Let your list, index, petition or Hall of Fame celebrate the positive in our society or your industry, and it will reflect well on your business.

* Keep it Relevant. To make it work for you, a created story needs to fit your business. Mr. Blackwell is a designer, so a worst-dressed list makes sense. It would do no good, however, for a car dealership to put out such a list. Keep it relevant.Let your story support your marketing message (e.g. Moet Index = “Moet is part of the good life”) and it will do more than fill your clipping book — it will fill your cash registers, too.

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses, he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site.

Article Source.

Tags: publicity, generate, public relations, PR

Want to get radio interviews and coverage in print publications to sell more books?

Master the art of writing magnetic media releases that attract attention of editors and publishers.

A media release (which also goes by its former name, the press release) is a one page, double spaced, single-sided document designed to transmit news about books, products, and people.

Because of its official sounding name, authors often make the mistake of sounding like Sgt. Friday of the TV show “Dragnet” when they write the release, and make it Too fact oriented.

Don’t forget that real live people, editors and producers, must pull the release from the fax machine and be motivated to read it.

Motivating Editors and Producers to Read Your Release In today’s world, getting editors and producers to actually read your release is a challenge. Every day, people tap into the possibilities of free publicity and are becoming proactive in getting their voice heard.

As the producer of a lifestyle TV show, I receive upward of two hundred releases a week. However, only a small percentage are both appropriate for the show and grab my attention.

Below are 10 tips to help you write releases that get your message heard. 1. Write an attention grabbing headline. Realize that your headline must immediately “hook” a busy producer or editor at first glance. If your headline doesn’t hook them, they won’t read further.

2. Be certain that your book is appropriate for the target audience.

Do not send a media release about your romance novel to a radio show that interviews only nonfiction authors. Wishful thinking is well and good, but realize that shows KNOW their target market.

3. Realize that there is a difference in format when sending a release by email and by fax. A faxed release and release sent by mail can be identical. However, an email release requires careful crafting to get right and is an art onto itself. The key concept to remember is twofold. First, the subject line spells the difference between the release being opened or deleted. Second, you must target delivery of the email release carefully, or you risk being banned forever to the recipient’s “bozo” file.

4. Be certain to include key information in a book release such as your ISBN number, publication date, page count and binding, and if you like a small .jpeg of the cover.

5. You can increase your chances of being booked on a radio station if you offer to give away books on the show in your release.

6. For media releases aimed at reviewers, include information on how they can get a book to review by email or fax.

7. Do not follow up to see if the recipient received the release. If this is a show or publication you are keenly interested in, call them with “new information” designed to create more excitement in featuring you.

8. Keep a notebook with you and jot down names of appropriate media contacts as you read publications and hear radio interviews.

9. Journalists and producers need you and your news, but will lose respect if you hammer them with releases that don’t apply to their market or beat. Discriminate.

10. Keep a “swipe file” of clever advertisements or headlines you can refer to when you need a creative boost.

copyright 2004 Marisa D’Vari All rights reserved

Download a free 79 page Special Report on how to Build Buzz for your business with free publicity. Regularly $19.95, FREE in honor of Shameless Promotion month.

Article Source.

Layout
1. 1-2 pages in length.
2. Double-space.
3. 1.5 to 2 inch margins.
4. Use company stationary with logo and slogan.
5. Avoid bright or dark-colored paper.
6. Center “News Release” at top.
7. Place a “release date” under “News Release”.
8. On second page, type “page 2″.
9. Use company stationary with logo and slogan on page 2.
10. Leave out “release after” date on second page, all else should be the same.
11. At end of press release, type “-30-” or “# # #”.
12. Include both black & white, color, and a variety of font
sizes (but no more than four).

Format
13. Inverted pyramid (biggest point or major message first).
14. Straight to the point at the beginning.
15. First and second paragraphs devoted to your main message.
16. Secondary information comes AFTER main message.
17. No pussyfooting around, be clear up front, at the very beginning.
18. Don’t go on and on.
19. In the third section, establish a connection with you.
20. Use a problem/solution format.
21. Comparing and contrasting ideas can be inside the problem/solution format.
22. Be careful of your facts, spelling and grammar
23. Only one news release per e-mail or envelope.

Information to Include
24. Newsworthy information, not sales copy
25. All the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How elements. Their order depends on level of importance.
26. Enticing headline which summarize the material/news.
27. Photos if available, or where they can be accessed in press section of your web site. No stock images.
28. No cover letter.

Distribution
29. Don’t send press release out in a mass e-mailing
30. Don’t pester contacts
31. Editors will not distribute anything sloppy, difficult
to read, or understand.
32. Mail release by first class mail.
33. Don’t use any type of labels, including your return address.
34. Add “PRESS RELEASE” and “Release Date:” on outside of envelope.
35. Places to send press releases: writers@[magazines]; writers@[newspapers]; trade journals in your industry; print magazines on the topic; online agencies that distribute news releases.

(c) Copyright 2004, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Coach, specializes in infoproduct development. Newsletters and additional articles available: here and blog: here.

Article Source.

Although it seems less common these days, there are still a fair number of us
public relations practitioners who enter the business by crossing over from the
journalist’s side of the notebook.

When you make that transition, you become something of an oracle.
Colleagues and clients expect you to be the walking, talking answer to the
Rubik’s cube puzzle of how to gain the attention of the media. If only it were
that simple!

Landing media placements is at least as much about art as it is science.

But it’s also about you and who you are as a PR person. What did I learn in two
decades of writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and news services?

First of all, a PR pro doesn’t need a journalistic pedigree to succeed with
journalists.

But you do have to possess something else: knowledge of what journalists
really want from PR people. I’m not talking about what journalists want from
your story – that’s another subject.

I’m talking about you. Do you know what journalists want from you, as the
individual who’s e-mailing, faxing, calling and (too often, I fear) pestering
them?

Here’s my short list of attributes that will get you a hearing from journalists
(and that’s all you want – your story will sink or float on its own merits):

1. Honest brokers

Journalists know PR people have something to promote – a company, a
product, a point of view. That’s not the issue.

It’s whether the journalist trusts that the story is coming from someone who
won’t waste their time – someone who has invested the effort to understand
them, their organization, their boss, and whether the story might interest the
audience the journalist serves.

Trust is fundamental – but it’s also earned. Becoming an honest broker
requires more than one conversation with a journalist. It requires enough
dialogue that a relationship and a history of honest dealings can be
established.

2. Facilitators

Face it, journalists don’t want to talk to PR people – at least not on the record,
and not as newsmakers.

Good PR practitioners know they’re not newsmakers. They recognize that their
role is to make stories happen, not be part of them. So good PR pros focus on
being matchmakers, putting journalists together with the sources who make
stories come alive.

For the PR pro, as well as the journalist, it’s all about the story. It’s not about
you, or the institutional challenges you face in making the story happen. It’s
about making the story real. And that leads me to what journalists really,
really want from PR practitioners (and what we should strive to be):

3. Advocates for communication

No journalist wants to deal with a PR person who’s primarily unavailable, and
when he or she is available, has a vocabulary limited to phrases such as “no
comment.”

All other things being equal (including working for an organization or a leader
who doesn’t communicate) journalists still give the benefit of the doubt to a PR
person whom they know to be an advocate of communication.

That doesn’t mean someone who’s going to speak at inappropriate times about
subjects that aren’t in the best interests of their organization. It means
someone who understands deadlines, editors, the competition and the other
pressures that journalists face while trying to do their jobs.

It means someone who understands that the best interests of their
organization always include good relationships with the news media, the
trusted purveyors of independent information for the customers, employees,
investors and other audiences that the PR pro wants to reach.

In the end, that’s what all of media relations is really about: A good journalist
and a good PR pro want to serve their audiences first.

It’s not always possible for journalists and PR pros to achieve that objective
from their respective viewpoints in every interaction. But over the course of
time, in a relationship of trust, respect and understanding, honest brokers who
facilitate the story and advocate for communication will succeed in landing
media placements.

Paul Furiga is president of WordWrite Communications LLC, a Pittsburgh-based public relations agency that harnesses the timeless power of storytelling to share its clients great untold stories. He is the former editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, and has also covered Congress, the White House, edited magazines and written for publications ranging from Congressional Quarterly to Frequent Flyer magazine.

Article Source.

Media placement is an art. Practicing it often requires as much attention to approach and style as it does to the focus of your story. While it’s important to know how to use creative formatting techniques that can enhance editorial reception to a story (see article, “Using Publicity As A Creative Marketing Tool”) publicists can benefit from mastering some useful tips prior to approaching, by e-mail, snail mail or phone, the keepers of the media gate.
Some Basic Assumptions:

* Always tell the truth. Make sure your product or service does what it says it does and your information is accurate. If a question is put to you that you do not have an answer for, indicate to the reporter you’ll get back with the information. If you don’t, the info will come from someone else–and not necessarily from a source that will help your organization. Never “imagine” or “fudge” an answer. Remember, candor equals credibility. If your organization has taken an action that has reaped negative consequences, counsel your client to admit the mistake (unless the client is constrained from doing so by legal counsel). Negativity can also be mitigated if you can anticipate a reporter’s tough question, and frame an answer that puts the action into historical perspective; or by developing a positioning statement that lessens the harshness implied in the question. (For example, when a poisonous substance infiltrated Tylenol bottles, the company issued the statement that “we are victims too”).

* Know your outlet before you call. Have you read the magazine or newspaper in advance? Have you watched the tv program? Have you listened to the radio show? With print media, do you know the specific beat of the editor or reporter you intend to make contact with? Have you read his/her stories? It’s fine to cold call but don’t cold call blindly (unless there really is vagueness about that person’s turf).

* Attitude. There are some p.r. people whose emotional lives seem to count on an editor’s acceptance; and who feel like failures when the editor says “no.” “Unattachment” is the best attitude. “Unattachment” doesn’t mean “detachment” or “apathy.” It means coming from a centered place, with self-confidence in yourself and your ability to communicate a story effectively – but without being attached to the outcome. You’ll find this a liberating approach, one that disallows you from becoming intimidated by an editor or producer, and one that enables you to return to the same person in the future with no regrets. When an editor perceives that you are not overly emotionally invested in a story, you may actually get a better hearing. Be warm & polite, professional…and clear. See that individual as a peer and colleague. If they’re brusque in the moment, they may be having a bad day. Simply ask if there’s a better time to get back to them.

* That said, believe in your story and believe in yourself. The best p.r. people see themselves as resources of news and information who work with journalists to fill valuable time & print space.

* Be more empathetic than sympathetic. Being empathetic enables you to build on what was said and resond with alternate approaches. Being sympathetic means you’ve probably foreclosed the possibility of an alternate approach.

* Get out of the reporter’s way. When you’re providing a reporter, editor or producer information where the story is time-sensitive, relay the information and get out of the way. There’s a time for pitching an idea, and there’s a time for simply relaying information. In the case of the latter, act like an editorial assistant. Do your job and get out. You’ll earn the journalist’s respect when you do so.

* Don’t waste their time. When you call, communicate in sharp and crystallized fashion, the essence of the story. Keep it brief, respect deadlines and ask in advance if the moment is ok for that editor/ producer. NEVER call when you know an editor is under deadline pressure. Keep your message on-point and as brief as possible, but craft it in a compelling and creative way that will earn attention.

* Personalize. I’ve seen too many impersonal, photocopied pitch letters, whether via e-mail or snail mail. If you send something in advance to a call, or as a follow-up to a call, personalize. Don’t be overly chummy (unless you’ve been on good terms with that journalist for a long time). But keep sensitive to the fact that you’re a human being, and you’re communicating with a human being. For e-mails, craft a provocative phrase in the “subject” area. Too many e-mail messages get unread without a compelling lead.

* Listen to the editor. It’s as important to listen as it is to talk. Be sensitive to any verbal feedback, cues or clues that can assist you in fine-tuning your pitch. Keep your antennae fully extended.

* Respect the ‘no’ and be prepared for it. Ask quick, important questions: What is it about this story that doesn’t seem right for you? Is there anyone else for whom this story might work better? Suggest how the story can be adapted to the outlet’s needs. Best of all, suggest three to five different angles in advance. This reduces chances for rejection.

* But when you get your final no, let it go and release it. YOU haven’t been rejected, just your story. And if you’ve handled the approach professionally and cordially, you’ll always be able to come back with another story at another time. Regard your list of cultivated contacts as resources and investments for the long-haul, not for quick fix purposes.

* Occasionally, pass along an item of interest that lies outside your own sphere of self-interest. Be someone who’s not always out to get something. Also, supply your most important contacts with your home phone number.

* Get out from behind your desk. The better you get to know the journalist on a one-to-one basis, the better your chance of a receptive ear.

* Getting beyond voice mail. Leave a succinct, provocative, targeted message. If you don’t hear from them in two days, try calling early, or leave a message with an editorial assistant or colleague. Call back that other person to learn if your message was received and if there’s a return message. Sometimes, you can ask the switchboard for the department that person works in, rather than a specific voice mail.

Remember that an editor or producer is buying you as well as your story. The bottom line is trust. It’s up to you to earn it.

Mike Schwager is President of Worldlink Media Consultants, Inc., based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He is an accomplished veteran of media interview training, and has conducted successful trainings for scores of CEO’s and other senior executives, politicians, celebrities and authors.

Article Source.

You have a story to tell. Your company has developed a revolutionary new product, or an improved version of one that is known and respected in the marketplace. Most companies are media-savvy enough to take a proactive approach to publicity. Yet there are many firms that instead sit on a new development, waiting for the press to come to them because they are unsure of how to “break the news.”

The vehicle for the announcement is critical. One should avoid the “shot-gun” approach to publicity. In most cases, a technique referred to as “editorial cultivation” works. Determine the appropriate initial outlet – a magazine or newspaper, for instance – and approach that venue with your story. Once the story breaks via your primary media choice, other vehicles can, and usually will follow.

There is nothing wrong with the standard news release, except that most are written without first contacting the appropriate editor at the preferred publication. The first hurdle is deciding who to contact.

Finding your target audience
Establish your subject and audience. Once you have done so, the job becomes a matter of prioritizing the several most important print outlets for your story. If you already know your audience’s preferred industry publication, put it on the top of your list. For backups, refer to a directory like Bacon’s Magazine Directory, The Ayer Directory of Publications, or Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory, all of which provide names of the leading magazines and journals listed under each industry. For each specific magazine, in addition to circulation figures, these sources list the outlet’s primary editorial contacts, including addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Weigh the impact, immediacy and relevance of your story. In some cases, your news may have an impact on a wider marketplace and editorial audience than the sphere of influence of a trade magazine. Examples would be a merger, an acquisition or an initial public offering. Such news must be immediately disseminated. The best avenues may be: a national newspaper such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal or USA Today; a national wire service, such as The Associated Press or Reuters; a business wire such as Dow Jones or Bloomberg; a business magazine like Business Week or Industry Week; or even a national news magazine such as Time, Newsweek or U.S. News & World Report.

A number of Internet resources through which breaking news can be disseminated quickly are the PR Newswire http://www.prnewswire.com and Businesswire http://businesswire.com. PR Newswire and Businesswire will carry a story over their wires and on the Internet for a fee paid by the source. Newswires provide the “insurance policy” that a story will definitely get out. Even if the article is printed in a newspaper or magazine, the newswire provides a good secondary backup for the dissemination, and the article will appear exactly as it has been provided to these outlets.

News releases, especially informative, well-written and succinct ones, are the sources of the majority of ideas and leads for a trade magazine editor. The news releases should be written in what is called the “inverted pyramid” style, with the “fattest,” most pertinent facts on top, and the less salient facts further down. The headline should capture the essence of the story, and the subheadings should clarify the impact.

For a technical news article, details are vital. Keep them as clear as possible; and translate technical jargon and “buzzwords” specific to a certain segment of the industry you are targeting, into terms that even a lay person can understand.

Reach out and touch someone
For trade magazines and national news magazines alike, the initial phone call – or “cold call” – must be well-planned. Develop a pitch, or verbal presentation, that informs the editor of the significance of the story, and its relevance to his or her outlet. Keep your pitch short, succinct and newsworthy. Just as you would write a news release with the “fattest” or most pertinent facts on top, organize your verbal pitch to give the most important and interesting details right at the beginning.

One thing I do for all of my pitching is to capture in my mind the “essence,” “vision” and “overview” of the story, especially in the context of the news of the day and the aspect of the story that may be “evolutionary” or “revolutionary” in the context of historical perspective.

Try to keep the tone conversational. Communicate your story in a clear, concise, yet enthusiastic fashion. Point to the relevance and impact of your story on the editor’s readership, as well as to what is new and unusual about its content. If the editor “bites,” or at least seems interested, offer it as a first-exclusive if this particular media outlet is a prominent one and important to your organization. In all cases, be prepared to e-mail or fax the information, and send photos, technical illustrations or diagrams to visually describe technical information. Schedule interviews between the editor and your spokesperson if this is requested, or if it’s important to your organization to get its representative quoted.

Try to avoid voicemail, unless you have honed the pitch to a point where it is brief, clearly worded and convincing. Voicemail is a notorious playing field for “phone tag” and does not allow you to ask follow-up questions or to gauge the editor’s response, thereby fine-tuning your own approach. Voicemail is also used by some journalists as a method to “screen out” calls. Leaving a voicemail message supplemented and elucidated by an e-mail message does make sense, and in my experience e-mail often works, particularly after a live conversation has occurred (no matter how brief) or voicemail message has been left. After an initial communication, whether by voice and/or e-mail, follow-up in a day or two if you’ve not yet heard back from the editor.

Etiquette and other matters
Respect deadlines. If you reach the editor live, and you discover he or she is near deadline, immediately indicate that you’ll return the call later. Better yet, learn in advance when that magazine’s deadline is occurring, and avoid reaching the editor at that time. If you do call at a good time, be personable, keep your pitch brief and relevant.

Know your story. Keep your enthusiasm high (but stay centered), and make sure you understand the story thoroughly. Confidence in the importance and viability of the story always communicates over the phone. Be warm, polite, professional and clear. If the editor is in a bad mood, be astute enough to know that you are not the cause.

If the news is very important to the company, the person entrusted with the call should be someone who has public relations or prior journalistic experience. It is prudent for a professional communicator to initiate the approach and deal with the editor as the primary contact. If the editor requires someone with technical expertise and in-depth knowledge of the technology, an expert’s name and contact information should be provided for a follow-up interview. Media relations representatives should always lead the editor back to themselves as the primary contact. And, this is important: as the media relations rep, remember in very “hot” news stories with short deadlines to get out of the editor’s way once you’ve “pitched” and “sold” the story. After that, see yourself as an “assistant” in helping the editor get the facts and the interviews, end of story. Don’t try to manipulate the story or get in the editor’s way, in any way. You’ll be respected for that, and will be able to come back to that person in good graces in the future.

On some occasions, the reporter or editor may wish to speak to the chief executive officer (CEO). If this happens, know in advance if the CEO is available for an interview. If so, make sure that he or she is prepared, as some CEOs may not be seasoned spokespersons. In this case, a conference call could be arranged between the CEO, p.r. representative and the editor.

Listen to the editor. Whether you initiate a cold call, speak to an editor calling in response to an e-mail message, or receive a cold call from an editor who is querying about a story or lead obtained through the newswire, it is as important to listen as it is to talk. Be sensitive to any verbal feedback, cues or clues that can assist you in fine-tuning your response.

Respect the “no” and be prepared for it. After an initial rejection, ask quick, important questions: “What is it about this story that doesn’t seem right for you? Is there any way this story can be adapted to better suit your needs?” Suggest changes. Best of all, prepare three to five different angles in advance, as this reduces chances for rejection.

What may be appropriate for one editor may not be appropriate for another. Before concluding a conversation, ask if the news might be more appropriate for someone else with a different beat, or in a different section of the magazine. If referred to a new person, introduce yourself by way of that referral. If you have exhausted all your angles to a story, thank the editor for his or her time and release yourself from this connection. Sour the contact, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a credible relationship in the future.

Cultivate your contacts. Whenever feasible, try to meet the editors and reporters who are important to you. Offer to take them out to lunch, but do not be insulted if they decline. The better you get to know the journalist on a one-to-one basis, the better your chances of winning a receptive ear.

Do not be discouraged by the rejection of a story idea. If is far more important to keep the channels of communication open. Record the vital information about your journalistic contact in a Rolodex or software address book, such as Sharkware. Also, supply your most important contacts with your home phone number and/or cell phone number, signaling them that you can be reached after business hours. This practice communicates professionalism and reinforces your reputation as someone who goes “beyond the call of duty” to meet editorial needs.

Packing the punch. If your company is one of the fortunate few whose news is printed in a national publication, the story automatically becomes a prime candidate for the leading magazines within your industry, as well as for generic print and broadcast media. Remember, too, that broadcast often follows print (especially if you’ve placed a major wire service story or placed a story in a USA Today or Time Magazine).

When working with the media, remember to do your homework, hone your pitch and maintain a positive attitude.

THE PUBLIC RELATIONS CHECKLIST

* News releases should be double-spaced. Include the media contact’s name, phone number and e-mail, as well as the date and location from which the story originates.

* If a new product is being announced, include all operating parameters. Clearly described how the product works and how it differs from what currently exists in the marketplace. Do this by quantifying the benefits and advantages of this product and comparing it with competing technologies. Stress the user or customer benefits, and explain tangible results.

* Avoid terms such as cheaper, more efficient, fastest, unique and revolutionary without providing parameters by which these benefits can be measured.

* Products or other news leads should tie in with current trends or larger- scope news stories.

* Do not use acronyms without spelling them out, or buzz words without explaining them for the layman.

* For financial news releases, focus more on how the takeover, merger or acquisition will impact the reader or the marketplace, as opposed to the details about money and market shares.

* Provide quotes from executives who can comment on both technical and market information. And always go to the bottom of the line in asking.

* Use photos, charts, graphs or tables, with captions and information, to elaborate upon your story, especially if this is a new trend.

* Ask the journalist what he or she will require to make the interview successful.

Mike Schwage is President of Worldlink Media Consultants, Inc., based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He is an accomplished veteran of media interview training, and has conducted successful trainings for scores of CEO’s and other senior executives, politicians, celebrities and authors.

Article : Source.

Publicity is an important and often overlooked tool of creative selling; and a more cost-effective way of reaching your target audience than advertising. With the inherent third-party endorsement of the media implied in every editorial story, a news or feature article in a newspaper, magazine, or on television or radio, is an infinitely more credibly-perceived communications message than an ad or commercial. Publicists less frequently are favored with hard news stories. They are more often tasked with getting “softer” news and feature stories on-air or in print. Here are some techniques involving creative conceptualization and application – what I call CREATIVE FORMATTING – and they work very effectively when carefully thought-through and constructed.

1 – Use News to Make News.

When you prepare a press release or pitch letter, keep the following editorial criteria in mind:
* Relevance (how valid and appropriate is this story?)
* Impact (does this story affect a large number of people?)
* Timeliness (is the story current?)
* Novelty (does the story have an unusual or unique twist to it?)

Your topic should tie in with current news issues and/or subjects that concern the public. In my earlier p.r. days, I promoted one product by showing how it could be used to the advantage of a specific news item of the day. In this case, the issue was government waste. Revelations were surfacing that various federal agencies were buying products at absurd prices above retail: you may remember $500 toilet seats and $75 rulers. The American taxpayer was being seriously abused by bureaucratic waste.

Our client was a publishing house that had just come out with a directory for buyers at government agencies. The directory listed major manufacturers all over the country who were not in the business of ripping off Uncle Sam. The directory was distributed to the agencies free of charge. The publishing house made its money by selling ad pages to companies who wanted to attract the attention of these buying officials.

We attracted a significant amount of publicity by telling editors that the publishing company had come up with a partial solution to the problem of wasteful government spending. The story was picked up by the wire services and nationally syndicated TV newscasts.

2 – Seasonal Tie-ins

News editors are always looking for feature stories that tie in with holiday or seasonal happenings. I remember a very successful campaign for a manufacturer of postage meter equipment. Eight weeks before Christmas, we convinced the manufacturer to designate a Holiday Consumer Affairs Specialist who could talk about “everything you wanted to know about mailing gifts for the holidays.”

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we arranged dozens of phone interviews with reporters at large radio stations in major markets. The company was plugged in every interview and the entire campaign tied-in with a major catalogue and in-store p.o.p. merchandising campaign. Sometimes, a creative p.r. idea can pave the way for a strategic marketing campaign.

Another successful campaign tied in with the advent of winter and escalating fuel prices due to an international oil crisis. One of our clients manufactured a draft sealer, a simple rubber plug that fit into electrical wall outlets. The sealer kept cold outside air from coming into the home and kept warm air inside from leaking out. Consumers could save money on their fuel bills. We convinced the Today Show to do a live five minute segment on a new energy-saving device for the home.

3 – Products Are Newsworthy When They Are Evolutionary or Revolutionary

On Sunday, May 29, 1994, we generated a story in the Business Section of the New York Times on a new kind of paper that changed color upon the touch of the hand. We knew the story had merit, because the product represents a revolutionary leap forward in paper goods.
Several years ago, a new product created by a camera manufacturer, an instant slide processor that develops slides in seconds, represented an evolutionary step up in instant photography. We offered Good Morning, America a first exclusive on the announcement, and we convinced the show’s producers to have host Joan Lunden demonstrate the product live in a five minute segment. The product sold out nationally.

4 – Anniversaries

If the product is vital to the American way of life, the media might click with a suggestion for a story on a major anniversary of the product. This includes biggies like television, radio, refrigerators and cars all the way to such mundane indispensables as zippers and toothpaste.

Other kinds of anniversaries work too. During the centennial celebrations for the Statue of Liberty, we convinced Kelloggs to sponsor a campaign that publicized the closest living relative to the man who designed and built Lady Liberty. This included the scripting and shooting of a video news feature story for television newscasts around the country, and our pickup was enormous–including some very nice positive image reinforcement for Kelloggs.

5 – Controlled Messages

A controlled message is a message that you prepare in advance and place with various media as a finished product. When we promoted a book that turned into a major bestseller called Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay, we employed a number of techniques that come under this category.

Three examples of this technique are the video news feature, matted columns for suburban newspapers, and by-lined articles for specialized trade publications.

A video news feature is simply a 90-second to two-minute news piece that gets scripted, shot and distributed to newscasts around the country. The local newscast incorporates the piece as part of its news coverage, and the average viewer has no idea these stories are supplied by outside sources.

A matted column is simply a one-column or two-column story that is sent to suburban news weeklies as camera-ready copy. They don’t have to edit it or prepare it for print. The column usually offers some kind of consumer advice, with a discreet yet effective plug within the story.
Vertical trade publications are magazines that are published for a specific audience or industry. Hundreds of them are published each month. Years ago, we ghosted by-lined articles for the president of a company that analyzed utility rates for other companies, showing them how to save thousands of dollars every year. These articles were placed with dozens of magazines that catered to a variety of industries. This campaign was the company’s sole marketing vehicle for many years.

6 – Trends

When one of our clients, a major photography magazine, needed to increase its exposure, we designed a segment on The Today Show in which one of the magazine’s editors brought the very latest camera equipment to the program. For seven minutes, he demonstrated the most current camera technology to millions of viewers. He also achieved some substantial awareness for his magazine.

Another client, the Magazine Publishers Association, was interested in increasing recognition. They wanted to establish the fact that magazines are at the leading edge of creative advertising communication. We designed a segment on The Today Show that displayed the latest in pop-up ads in various magazines.

In another situation, a German beer company wanted to increase sales in the USA. The company turned to us, asking us to increase their name recognition with a publicity program instead of advertising. The built-in challenge was that very little can be done editorially for alcoholic beverages. The solution was to look for secondary uses which would nonetheless position the beer in a meaningful and positive way.

We convinced a well-known German restaurant to develop dishes prepared with beer as an ingredient. We invited the entire national food press to a Cooking With Beer Festival. The food writers for every major magazine and newspaper attended. Media coverage was staggering. Many products can be used in special publicity events. By promoting indirectly, sponsors can reap media coverage.

POSITIVE PUBLICITY SELLS. A creative publicity program can be a powerful tool for selling your product or service. Publicity efforts can be more cost-effective than traditional advertising. Plus, they pack more power because the publicity comes from recognized media sources instead of from your company. This increases consumer confidence and promotes a positive public image. The end result of creative publicity is an increased awareness that attracts potential customers.

Mike Schwager is President of Worldlink Media Consultants, Inc., based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He is an accomplished veteran of media interview training, and has conducted successful trainings for scores of CEO’s and other senior executives, politicians, celebrities and authors.

Article Source.

Tags: publicity, marketing tools, public relations, PR

When a reporter is wowed, intrigued, surprised or captivated by your press release, you can be pretty sure you’ll get some media coverage. And for most businesses, positive media coverage is worth its weight in gold. The bad news: Although truckloads of news releases fill reporters’ inboxes every day, few of them are dazzling, or even interesting.

As a former editor, I speak from experience when I say that most press releases end up in the garbage can. But don’t let that stop you from sending them — a well-written news release can generate more publicity and goodwill than you could ever accomplish with a paid advertisement. To help keep your release out of the garbage and get it in print, start by following these five guidelines.

1. Make it newsworthy. Releases should be used to announce news, and they should only be sent when something truly newsworthy is happening at your company. Don’t send releases that sound more like advertisements than news; they’ll get tossed immediately. (However, newsworthy events may happen more often than you realize — see the Resource Box below for ideas.)

In keeping with the news format, eliminate any superfluous language or outrageous claims (don’t describe yourself or your products as “wonderful,” “amazing” or “unbelievable”). Is your release written in language that would appear in a story in the newspaper or magazine you’re pitching? If not, it might sound like fluff rather than news. Make it clear from the beginning what your news is and why it should matter to the reporter and his or her readers.

2. Tell a good story. Although you’re sharing hard news (I hope), your press release should still be interesting to read. Even though your readers are media-types who do this for a living, they still like to hear a good story. Draw in your readers with a creative introduction and interesting language. Find new ways to say ordinary things. Read magazines, newspapers and books and pay attention to the stories that interest you and keep your attention. Then try to mimic those techniques and styles when writing your own releases.

3. Target your audience. As with any writing project, keep your audience in mind when you’re writing. The editor of a small-town newspaper has different interests than the editor of a trade journal for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Choose the media outlets that would be most interested in your release and send it to them. For best results, you might even send each person a unique version tailored to their interests. And always send your release to an actual person — rather than sending a release to a general news desk, find out which reporter covers your industry or the type of news you’re sending and send it directly to him or her.

4. Develop a relationship. Once you’ve located the reporters who cover your industry, start developing relationships with them. Call or e-mail to introduce yourself and find out if they prefer releases to be faxed, e-mailed or mailed. Be respectful of their time and the harried pace of their work, but don’t be afraid to check in occasionally to follow up on a press release or let them know how much you enjoyed a recent article. Don’t just rely on them for fr*e publicity; find out what you can do for them and do it — one-sided relationships never last. Be easy to work with and willing to accommodate their needs, and they’ll be much more interested in covering your news.

5. Be consistent. Your communication with the media must be ongoing in order to get their attention. One release sent in a vacuum will probably not yield a lot of results. If reporters are unfamiliar with you or your business, it won’t be a top priority for them to cover your release. However, if they’re accustomed to receiving (actual) news from you and you’ve made an effort to forge a positive relationship with them (see #4), they’re more likely to a) actually read your releases, and b) publish them, or at least keep you in mind as a resource for future stories. If you really want to take advantage of the possibilities press releases can offer, keep hanging in there.

Nancy Jackson, owner of The WriteShop, helps companies better market their products and services with powerful written communications including Web content, newsletters, brochures and publications.

Article Source.

There’s the old joke about the two buzzards sitting in a tree overlooking a highway. One responds to the other, “Be patient? I’m hungry. Let’s kill something.” Just like that buzzard, it is not in the nature of most marketers to be patient for business to grow. They want to go out and “kill something,” too.

The trouble is that most marketers go after new business the wrong way. They want to “take down” the new piece of business using all the tools of the trade from advertising and direct mail to cold calling and event marketing. This is an expensive way to drum up business.

Your existing clients are just waiting to tell you about people they know who could use your services, and then help sell you in to these people they refer. Not only is this more cost effective, it practically guarantees the prospects will share the same characteristics of your best customers. And with the advent of social media and new technology, it is even easier to do.

“OK, Harry,” you’re asking, “but how do I do it?”

The first rule of getting referrals: ask. When should you ask? Let’s review.

- After your customer has purchased something from you is a great time to ask. The new customer is pumped up about your offering and you can harness that energy by asking for names of others who could benefit from doing business with you.

- Upon delivery of your product or service is the next time to ask. The benefits of your offering should be readily apparent now, so you can remind the customer of the importance of their referrals.

- Anytime you have personal contact with your customer is a good time to ask. You are continuing to build a relationship with them and can use the opportunity to ask for referrals. Don’t ask more than three times per year.

Many people hesitate to ask for referrals because they are not sure how to do it. Just be honest. Tell your customers that referrals are very important to the growth of your business, and that you want to grow it with people just like them. Remind them that the people they know will benefit from your service the way that they have. Then, ask.

Tell your prospect that you’d like for them to give you the names of three or four people who might benefit from your services. Pull out a sheet of paper and pen and look expectantly at them. If they can’t immediately give you names, ask some prompting questions. Such as:

Who are your three best friends? Who are the most successful business people you know? Can you think of anyone who would benefit from my services?

Write the names down and keep writing until the customer runs out of names. Then, go back and ask for contact information for each one. Get email addresses.

Thank the customer in the way you feel most comfortable. Some people like to send a gift, others will just drop a note of thanks. Some wait to see if the referral becomes a customer and then send a higher end gift. Do whatever works for you, but do thank them and keep them in the loop, letting them know about your follow up and the outcome of your prospecting.

So, don’t just sit there in your tree. Get out there and kill something.

Harry Hoover is a partner in My Creative Team. He has 30 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for Fortune 1000 businesses like Duke Energy, Irwin Tools, Levolor, North Carolina Tourism, National Gypsum, Nucor, Rubbermaid, VELUX, and Verbatim.

Article Source.

Tags: PR, word of mouth, referrals, public relations

Public relations is all about credibility and trustworthiness. If you don’t practice PR, then you are likely to be incredible.

Some of the elements of a PR program include research, media
relations, publicity, special events, employee relations,
client relationship management, crisis communication, trade
shows/conferences, community and government relations, and
corporate identity. PR helps you shape internal and external
opinion about your organization with an eye toward building
support among your key “publics.”

What can you expect from PR if it is done correctly?

- Boost Credibility. Media coverage or word-of-mouth from the
right people heightens your credibility much more than an ad
ever could.

- Build Trust. People trust what they are familiar with. A
proactive PR program that gets and keeps your name in front
of people can be the first step in building that trust.

- Generate Leads. Positive publicity for your products and
services can generate sales leads for you to follow up.

- Word-of-Mouth. By increasing awareness of your company,
people and products, media coverage provides fodder for the
word-of-mouth machine.

- Shape Attitudes. From employee communication to publicity,
PR tactics can be used to tell your story convincingly to key
publics.

- Refine Customer Service. Those who believe PR is about
one-way, top-down spin doctoring – I hope – are relics of the
past. Two-way PR, in which the company actually solicits and
listens to customer feedback, can provide the kind of edge
companies need today in this age of commoditization.

So, don’t be incredible. Make PR an integral part of your business strategy.

Harry Hoover is a partner in My Creative Team. He has 30 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses.

Article Source.

Although I still believe there is a place for advertising as a brand maintenance or brand affirmation tool, I am convinced that to build a brand today, you need PR. At one time advertising did build brands. But this was in a simpler America. That America, sadly, is no more.

I’ve been re-reading The Fall Of Advertising & The Rise Of PR, by Al and Laura Ries, and it is their book that has moved me from suspicion of advertising’s demise as a brand-builder to conviction.

As the Ries’ say, “Publicity is the nail, advertising is the hammer.” What does this mean? It means that your PR effort helps make your message believable so that your advertising will have credibility when it hits.

Typically, companies want to hit the market hard and make a lot of noise. Advertising allows you to launch quickly, control the message, and have your message in as many media as you have the money for. However, that does not mean your message will be believed. The louder advertisers yell, the less likely I am to believe them. How about you?

PR takes time and does not necessarily work on your schedule. Planting new ideas or changing minds is a slow process. When your PR program rolls out over a longer period of time, prospects have time to adjust their attitudes. Brands that take this approach are longer lasting, too.

Chevrolet, for years the number one auto brand, was still number one in ad spending in 2001. It spent $819 million dollars – 39 percent more than Ford spent. That year, Ford outsoldevrolet by 33 percent. Since 1997, Chevrolet has outspent and undersold Ford. Chevrolet spends $314 per vehicle and Ford spends $170 per vehicle. Do you think advertising is working for Chevrolet?

Kmart, embroiled in financial difficulty for years, had revenues of $37 billion and spent $542 million on US advertising in 2001. Wal-Mart spent $498 million and garnered four times the revenue: $159 billion split between its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. The average Wal-Mart store does $46 million in sales each year while its Sam’s Club average store sells $56 million. Sam’s Club does almost no advertising.

Those are old brands, you’re saying. What about some newer brands, Harry?

OK, let’s look at Pets.com. Remember the dog sock puppet that starred in their commercials? It won awards, but not sales. In six months Pets.com had $22 million in revenues and spent four times that much on advertising. Off-base advertising creativity at work.

The Body Shop was built totally by publicity. No advertising at all. Starbucks, until recently, did virtually no advertising. It has built a brand through good PR efforts. Starbucks’ annual sales are around $1.3 billion, while advertising expenditures over 10 years, have totaled less than $10 million.

Finally, what advertising agency do you know that has built its brand with ads? Things that make you go “hmm.”

Harry Hoover is a partner in My Creative Team. He has 30 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses.

Article Source.

Tags: PR, advertising, public relations

The next time a newspaper photographer takes your photo, remember the 8 things they hate:

1. Bossy people who demand that other people be included in the photo, so there won’t be hurt feelings. Never tell the photographer whom to photograph. This puts them on the spot. Usually, the photographer will oblige and take a few shots just to placate you, then make a mental note that you’re a real pain to deal with.

2. Know-it-all photo subjects, usually amateur photographers, who think they know the correct angles, lighting and backdrops. The photographer doesn’t tell you how to do your job. So you shouldn’t tell her how to shoot a photo.

3. Not giving the photographer enough time to take a photo. After he arrives, he might want to look around, consider several different backdrops, check and double-check equipment, make sure the lighting is adequate, and experiment by shooting you in several different settings. So don’t rush him.

4. Public relations people and staff members who act like bodyguards and refuse to let the photographer talk one-on-one with the photo subject. Photographers like one-on-one contact for several reasons. It makes the photo subject feel more at ease. It also helps the photographer discover something about the photo subject that they that might not have known.

5. Inconsiderate people who leave the photographer waiting for half an hour in the lobby. Call media outlets as soon as you know there will be a delay in case the photographer wants to reschedule. Every minute you make a photographer wait is one less minute they can spend helping you look good.

6. Demanding to see the negatives so you can choose the photo you want printed. Leave this decision to the photographer and photo editor.

7. Demanding that you get to keep the negatives. The negatives are the property of the media outlet. They are under no obligation whatsoever to give them to you, although some media outlets will sell you a print.

8. People who ask if the photographer can send them 10 reprints—for free. Don’t make this request of reporters or editors, either. Call the publication and order them yourself, and expect to pay.

Treat photographers the way you want to be treated. Help them make you look good, and the extra time you spend with them will be well worth it.

Joan Stewart publishes “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week” a free ezine on how to generate thousands of dollars in free publicity. 

Article Source.