Opening a new pizza shop? Invite a reporter to the shop so the client can teach her how to make a pizza. Tell her she’ll even learn how to twirl the dough around on her fist, then throw it up in the air and catch it. <\/p>\n
Opening a hardware store? Invite a reporter to a class on how to install a new toilet, and invite him to write about it for the newspaper’s spring home improvement section.<\/p>\n
Sponsoring an awards banquet for your client’s company or nonprofit? Ask a local TV anchor to deliver the keynote address.<\/p>\n
Whenever possible, try to get reporters involved in your story so they can experience it, rather just standing on the sidelines writing about it.<\/p>\n
At the TransWorld Halloween, Costume & Party Show in Chicago where I spoke a few weeks ago, an audience member who hosts a “haunted maze” each year at Halloween asked how she can get a reporter involved in her story.<\/p>\n
“Ask the reporter to tour the maze along with her children,” I said. “Suggest she write about it from the perspective of an adult, and ask her kids to provide their own mini-review of the maze.”<\/p>\n
Why? Because reporters who are involved in stories become excited about their stories. And excited reporters seldom write dull stories. Ditto for their kids. <\/p>\n
You’ll find lots of other ideas about how to create fun for reporters in the column I wrote for the March\/April issue of The Publicity Hound subscription newsletter. The newsletter also includes articles on how a publicist got his client’s boring story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal with just one clever hook, how a jobs expert got his own syndicated column, how a personal productivity expert promotes herself as an expert, three new magazines to add to your media database, why you must beware of public records that include information about you, the 3 targets you must hit with your media message, a website that helps promote mystery novels, a terrific book that will show you how to create a media kit to accompany your new book, where to get free PR advice and how to pitch a national columnist for BusinessWeek Online. It even includes a list of March and April story ideas. All for $9. <\/p>\n
Order the March\/April issue <\/a>or order a year’s subscription<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Opening a new pizza shop? Invite a reporter to the shop so the client can teach her how to make a pizza. Tell her she’ll even learn how to twirl the dough around on her fist, then throw it up in the air and catch it. Opening a hardware store? Invite a reporter to a\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":12,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[328,29,205,610],"class_list":{"0":"post-24911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-event-publicity","8":"tag-media-relations","9":"tag-pitching","10":"tag-publicist","11":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41944,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911\/revisions\/41944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}