The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #435 Jan. 27, 2009
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. When Oprah Calls on Sunday
2. 5 Big Blogging Boo-boos
3. Pitch Spring Gifts Now
4. I Don’t Want You to Disappear
5. Promoting Abstract Art
6. Help This Hound
7. Hound Joke of the Week
8. And at My Blog…
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1. When Oprah Calls on Sunday
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So there you are on a Sunday afternoon, watching TV with the kids.
The phone rings. It’s one of Oprah’s producers, following up on a pitch you sent several months ago.
Panic time! You can’t remember the details. You can’t even remember the pitch!
That’s what happens when you send a story idea to Oprah or one of the big TV talk shows and mistakenly assume that if they don’t bite within a month or two, they’re not interested.
Big mistake.
Oprah’s producers work insane hours, including Sunday afternoons. That’s why you must be ready at a moment’s notice to discuss your story succinctly and with passion, even when the kids are screaming and the dog is barking in the background.
But before you receive that phone call, your pitch has to catch the producer’s attention. It’s one of the most difficult feats to accomplish because it must be compelling enough to pique their curiosity, but not so long that it’s rambling.
Michele Anton, a former guest booker for “Oprah,” has accepted and rejected hundreds of pitches. She knows what works and what doesn’t, and she’ll share her tips during a complimentary teleseminar that my friend, Steve Harrison, is hosting on Thursday, Jan. 29, at your choice of two times.
Michele will explain what NOT to send to producers, what NOT to pitch to guest bookers, and mistakes you should never make, or the decision-makers will blackball you forever.
Then, she’ll explain the three big secrets for doing it the right way. You’ll also hear from other veteran TV producers and surprise guests.
Then, read about my Number One tip for getting onto Oprah and the other big TV talk shows.
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2. 5 Big Blogging Boo-boos
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Working too hard on your blog and seeing little traffic, hardly any comments and zero sales?
If so, Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, aka the Blog Squad, say it might be because you’re making one of these five frequent mistakes:
–You’re not blogging often enough, usually because you don’t have time. Here’s my solution. Each week, I’m trying to reduce by at least one hour the time I spend answering email (unproductive) and using it instead to write on my blog.
–Your blog isn’t focused on a topic, or a series of related topics. If your content is all over the landscape, you can’t get the Google juice necessary to pull in traffic for specific
keywords.
–Your readers don’t know who you are because your name, or your photo, or both, are missing from your blog. If they don’t know who you are, how in the world can they eventually like and trust you?
–There’s no way for your readers to subscribe to your blog updates. Either you aren’t offering an RSS feed, or you’re not letting readers subscribe to automatic email alerts each time you post.
–You aren’t engaging your readers and making them part of the conversation. Instead, you’re writing only about topics you like. Offer quizzes, write about controversial topics and ask for their opinions, find out what topics they what to read about, or challenge them to do something that will improve their lives. Keep them engaged, and they’ll keep coming back.
Those are only five little morsels from the dozens of tips The Blog Squad shared during yesterday’s teleseminar on how to “Build Your Biz with a Blog: It’s Not an Option Anymore!–How to Build a Professional Blog that Turns Prospects into Clients.”
You can listen to the replay here.
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3. Pitch Spring Gifts Now
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With all the shake-ups in the newspaper, magazine, TV and radio industries the last few months, you can’t afford to rely on outdated reference materials.
If you sell a consumer product, including a book, that would make a great gift for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Graduation Day, a prom, a wedding, or any other event taking place in April, May or June, you must know about the Gift List. It’s a subscription service that provides contact information and leads for more than 1,000 media outlets.
It profiles new product editors from a range of national magazines, regional publications, news wires and syndicates, national broadcast television, syndicated television, national radio, and the top daily newspapers.
The Gift List interviews them and profiles their interests from fashion, beauty, tech, home, fitness and more. This is the time to kick your spring publicity campaign into high gear because deadlines are now for major national magazines.
Nobody produces a more extensive list of consumer product media interests, submission guidelines, contact preferences, deadlines and more.
Learn more about the service and take a test drive here.
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4. I Don’t Want You to Disappear
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I recently changed servers at the list management company that distributes this newsletter, and I don’t want you to drop off my list.
Please add galaxy.sparklist.com to your Friends list or Whitelist and contact me immediately if you suddenly stop receiving the newsletter so we can find out what went wrong.
You can find back issue you have missed in the archives.
Thanks for your loyalty, Hounds, and for your great ideas, publicity success stories and other content for this newsletter.
Making sure readers continue receiving your newsletters is a major problem, but the rewards are worth it. You will increase your chances of generating publicity if you have both a blog and an ezine, and cross-promote from each.
I interviewed online marketing expert Don Crowther, who is a stickler for testing, on all the ways to cross-promote.
Coming soon: My survey, asking you about what you want to read here, how I can serve you better, and what products and services you need that I don’t offer. And you’ll love the way I’ll say “thanks” to everyone who completes it.
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5. Promoting Abstract Art
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This week, three Publicity Hounds have tips for Beth Stafford of Concord, N.C., an abstract artist who is looking for a few quick, simple ways to promote her website and her blog.
From Michele Bailey-Lessirard:
“Your art and website are beautiful. My first reaction is why not blog more. The last post was back in October. It’s about UFOs which was very interesting and leaves me wanting to know more about you–and then there is nothing…Join Facebook. Start twittering in your dog Cassie’s voice, from Cassie’s perspective. Play up the PiCassieO angle. It’s original and fun.”
From Shelli Johannes-Wells:
“Market to dog organizations, hotels that allow dogs, pet stores, veterinarians, etc…”
From The Publicity Hound:
Dive into social networking right now, or leave a lot of money on the table. Here are three of my best tips:
–Create a profile on Facebook and build one or more fan pages. This is the place to display and promote your artwork. Fans do not have to be followers. That’s why these pages are so valuable.
–Also, start uploading photos of your artwork to Flickr, the photo-sharing site.
–Create videos, or an entire series of short videos (about 2 min, 30 seconds each) of you, dog Cassie and your artwork, and upload to YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. These will bring tons of traffic to your website.
Read all the responses to this week’s Help This Hound question.
Send your own Help this Hound question and include your city and state.
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6. Help This Hound
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Michele Lessirard of Vero Beach, Fla. writes:
“I have been blogging for more than seven years at New Moon Journal and my blog.
“Now, there’s a high-profile Harry Potter-type author named Stephanie Myer who’s written a series of vampire novels. One best-seller is New Moon. Of course, I am competing now for search engine optimization with her New Moon book and soon-to-be movie. The New Moon Journal is an astrology blog dedicated to creativity and personal growth using the lunar cycles for power, healing and problem solving.
“How can I use this name recognition and ride on the coattails of her book. Is it possible?”
The Publicity Hound says:
It sure is. The many authors, publishers and book publicity experts who read this newsletter can post their best ideas to my blog.
Here’s my idea. Go over to Amazon.com and review Stephanie’s books, which will let you link back to your blogs. You can also create “best of” lists dealing with your topic and all kinds of other content to attract the attention of her readers.
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7. Hound Joke of the Week
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Thanks to Elaine Grassbaugh of Columbus, Ohio for this one, which I ran by the censorship police. They said go for it.
Yesterday I was buying a two large bags of Purina Dog Chow at Wal-Mart for my dogs Dexter, Gypsy, Sky, & Blade. I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. (What did she think, that I had an elephant?)
Since I had little else to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn’t have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina eating plan again, although I probably shouldn’t because I ended up in the hospital last time. On the bright side, though, I’d shaved off 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.
I told her that the way it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry, and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned me. I told her no–a car hit me after I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard! Wal-Mart won’t let me shop there anymore.
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