This is the perfect time of year to let the media know about holiday or year-end traditions followed by you, your company or your church, school or family. Here are some examples: –If your company has a holiday tradition of helping others in need, like helping at the local food pantry for a day, let… Read More
Pitching
Use short pitches
Think about the last pitch you emailed to a journalist, or sent by snail-mail letter. How long was it? If it was longer than a paragraph or two, the journalist might have hit the “delete” key or thrown the letter into the wastebasket. Or if you started your phone pitch with “let me fill you… Read More
Who’s your daddy?
I confess to watching most of “Who’s Your Daddy?”, Fox’s maudlin melodrama in which a blonde babe tries to pick her biological father out of a line-up of seven men and pocket $100,000. She guessed correctly, of course. Adoptive parents and others, including the National Council for Adoption, pleaded with Fox’s 182 affiliates not to… Read More
Invite reporter with a pet to cover vet clinic opening
Beth Ann Black of Coppell, Texas has a client, a large group of specialty veterinarians–all for animals–that will celebrate their fifth anniversary this spring. She wants fun promotional ideas, beyond the one they’ve already thought of: hosting an open house where current and potential clients bring teddy bears to be examined so the doctors can… Read More
Alternative publications
The more you pitch to large magazines and newspapers, the stiffer the competition for an editor’s attention. That’s why placing stories in alternative publications can be so much easier–and sometimes more effective. They have a ready-made audience for your topic, regardless of how obscure it is. Check out the New Pages Guide to Alternative Periodicals… Read More
How to Get Onto “The 700 Club”
Sharon Dotson of Bayou City PR in Houston, Texas wants to know how to get a client onto “The 700 Club,” a live TV program that airs weekdays from The Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) broadcast facilities in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Hosted by Pat Robertson, the program focuses on Christian ministry. From Sandy Dumont of Norfolk,… Read More
Finding the nut graph will help you with pitches
Journalists refer to it as the “nut graph.” It’s short for “nut paragraph,” the part near the beginning that explains, in a nutshell, what the story is about. The nut graph often lends perspective, includes statistics or makes a comparison between something then and now. Here’s an examples from a recent Wall Street Journal. A… Read More
Finding the right story hook will help you sell on radio
Veteran radio talk show host George McKenzie thinks radio is an often overlooked publicity outlet for authors, consultants, and anyone who has a product or service to sell. Why? Because they pitch their books, products or service to radio DJs, and fail miserably. The secret, he says, is not to pitch what you are selling.… Read More
Less is more when contacting the media
Inexperienced Publicity Hounds make the frequent mistake of inundating media people with too much information. For example: –Sending an unsolicited media kit along with a pitch letter, with grand illusions of the journalist spending hours poring over your materials. (Dream on). –Sending an unsolicited book, with hopes that a radio talk show host will find… Read More
Use sales copy techniques when pitching
When you send a snail-mail or email pitch to a journalist, does the copylook like a big block of gray? Or do you flag the journalist to the most importance elements of your pitch by using things such as sub-heads, boldtype, indented paragraphs, underlined text and a post-script? Publicity Hounds who borrow those techniques, used… Read More