The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #653 Oct. 2, 2012
Publisher: Joan Stewart
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“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
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In This Issue
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1. Easy Tip for Magazine Publicity
2. Pinterest Leads to Arrests
3. Write a Nursery Rhyme Pitch
4. Hound Joke of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
I’m hosting my garden club’s October meeting and I need ideas
quickly for fast, tasty snacks to serve. The program is a
“gourmet popcorn” taste testing, courtesy of Fireworks Popcorn
Co. in my town. What else should I serve? Email me at
JStewart@PublicityHound.com.
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1. Easy Tip for Magazine Publicity
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Writing the email subject line is often the most difficult part
of pitching a magazine.
But not if you use this tip, one of more than 30 that I’ll be
sharing during the webinar on “How to Find Your Way into Glossy
Magazines” at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Oct. 4.
Here’s the tip:
When writing the subject line, follow the same headline format
that you see on the cover of an earlier issue of the magazine.
Let’s say you’re a podiatrist and you’re pitching a story about
foot care for Bicycling magazine. You see this headline on the
cover of an issue from a few years ago: “Pro Secrets: 8 Ways to
Make Your Bike Faster.”
Take that headline, substitute your own words and turn it into:
“Foot Doc’s Secrets: 8 Ways to Prevent Boils & Blisters.” If you
can’t find a headline on the cover that’s a good fit with your
story pitch, flip through the magazine. You’ll often find a much
larger selection of headlines because the headline on the cover
isn’t necessarily the same as the headline on the story inside.
During the webinar, I’ll also show you how to learn, within
minutes, what hot issues the magazine cares about, which new
freelancers are writing for the magazine (so you can pitch THEM
too) and personal details about editors and writers that you
might be able to weave into your pitch.
Advertising in most of these magazines is incredibly expensive
and way out of the reach of many Publicity Hounds. If you pitch
correctly, you can get far more mileage and thousands of dollars
more in exposure than you can from a paid ad.
If the time is inconvenient, register anyway because you’ll get
the link for the video replay and all the bonuses.
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2. Pinterest Leads to Arrests
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When I was doing research for a webinar a few months ago for the
Iowa Newspaper Association on how to use Pinterest, I chuckled
when I came across the Pinterest board of “Bay Area Crime Mugs”
created by the San Jose Mercury News.
Turns out the Mercury News isn’t the only newspaper doing this.
The Pottstown Mercury in Pennsylvania and the Washington Examiner
are also pinning photos of crime suspects in their towns. On
Pottstown’s Pinterest board, readers have commented on a few of
the Pinterest photos and have even offered tips about suspects
who moved to another state, moved in with a girlfriend, and
assumed a new name.
The result? More arrests.
And you thought Pinterest was just for pretty photos of stiletto
shoes and fingernail art.
If the cops can make more arrests thanks to Pinterest, imagine
what you can do.
Last night, while I was ogling all those cool photos on
Pinterest, I was drawn to a photo of a cloth shopping bag with a
clever quotation on the front–a perfect gift for a friend! I
bought it immediately. Studies show that people on Pinterest are
far more likely to buy products they see there than people who
see products on Facebook.
So what are you waiting for? Follow my step-by-step directions on
how to get started by accessing the video replay of a webinar I
hosted earlier this year. Read more about what you’ll learn from
“How to Use Pinterest to Generate clicks, Traffic, Links, Leads
and Sales“.
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3. Write a Nursery Rhyme Pitch
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When Off & Away, a Seattle online travel service that offers
deals at luxury four- and five-star hotels, wanted to announce
its launch party, it scrapped the traditional press release and
sent reporters a nursery rhyme book about a duck named Pete who
struggles to find high-quality hotel rooms.
It’s one of five clever PR pitches that caught reporters’
attention.
Read them all in this article at the Ragan.com blog.
But before you try to be clever, learn the basics of a powerful
pitch and “A Simple 5-Part Formula for Delivering the Perfect
Media Pitch and Hitting it Out of the Park.”
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4. Hound Joke of the Week
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The other day I saw two dogs walk over to a parking meter. One of
them says to the other, “How do you like that? Pay toilets!”
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