Publicity for New Products

Issue #823 June 3, 2014
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

Publicity for New Products
Twitter Headers for iPhones
How to Get Paid to Speak
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

If you’re a weekend warrior, traveler, gardener, runner or walker, you’ll want to know about my “miracle machine.” It’s a portable therapeutic ultrasound machine that I’ve been using for about seven years, and it saves me numerous trips to a physical therapist. I’m using it right now to nurse the pulled tendon in my right wrist, caused by carrying luggage on my recent trips, and then straining it even more while gardening. I don’t earn a commission, but I want you to know about it because several friends have borrowed it when they’re in pain, and they all rave about it. You can find it at http://ultrasoundcure.com/. Fabulous customer service, too.

1. Publicity for New Products

The “New Products” section remains one of the most overlooked parts of many magazines, yet one place where you stand the best chance of generating publicity for a new book or product.

Magazine editors tell me that publicity-seekers bury them in press releases but sometimes don’t include good-quality photos. If journalists face a tight deadline and want to feature your product, but there’s no photo, they might not have time to contact you. Instead, they’ll feature someone else’s product.

When writing a press release, you can link to a high-resolution photo at your website. Scan the photo at 300 dots per inch so it will reproduce beautifully in print.

You’ll find more tips for pitching magazine editors in my video “How to Find Your Way into Glossy Magazines.” It includes two other ways to catch editors’ attention for your new product, pitching tips, two very affordable resources for contact info so you don’t have to buy expensive media directories, and the single most important thing to do before pitching a magazine.

Read more about how my video will increase your chances of getting publicity in magazines.

2. Twitter Headers for iPhones

When Twitter introduced its new header a few months ago, it recommended that you use a photo 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels in height.

But you face two problems.

You’ll lose the original quality of your image after you upload it. And your image won’t fit in the header since it automatically gets cropped and upscaled. You need to know the “visible” and “invisible” areas to make sure your followers can see what you want them to see if they’re looking at it on an iPhone.

Web designer Pauline Cabrera has created a handy Twitter template you can download for free.

It shows you exactly which areas of the header will be visible and invisible if viewed in the Twitter app using an iPhone 5. You can click on the image to see the actual size.

3. How to Get Paid to Speak

If you’re new to the speaking circuit, speaking for free has several advantages.

You’ll have time to learn from your mistakes and improve your content and platform skills before you start to charge. You can get free publicity from free speaking engagements. You can also gather testimonials to use in your marketing materials when it’s time to set a fee.

But how, exactly, do you charge? And how much?

You’ll learn the five critical steps to land paid speaking engagements during a free teleseminar on Thursday, June 5, at either 2 or 7 p.m. Eastern Time with Steve Harrison. He will interview six successful speakers who will explain how they launched their profitable speaking careers.

You will learn things like how to use LinkedIn to get paid gigs, how to get paid even if you have a spiritual message, and why companies will pay you to speak even if you aren’t famous yet.

You’ll hear why you don’t need a lot of fancy marketing materials but what you do need instead. And you’ll learn how one speaker became Exxon Mobil’s highest rated trainer for 29 years.

I am one of Steve’s affiliates. Even though the call is free, I earn a commission if you buy something from him down the road.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Meet Thor, the Great Dane puppy that refuses to get up at the crack of dawn.

Thanks to Publicity Hound Susie Galvez of Richmond, VA, for this one.