Sponsoring an event? One of the best ways to generate publicity is to invite a reporter to participate in something that will result in a pre-event story.<\/p>\n
For example, if you’re sponsoring a hot-air balloon race, invite a reporter to take a hot-air balloon ride a week or two before your event, so she can write about it for her newspaper and tell readers what they can expect if they take a ride, too.<\/p>\n
Is your local service club making Halloween candy and selling it to raise funds for the Katrina evacuees? Invite a reporter to put on an apron for an hour or two and help you make the candy. If you can involve a reporter in your story, you’ll end up with an excited reporter. And excited reporters seldom write dull stories.<\/p>\n
But how do you get a busy reporter’s attention, other than a phone call or an email? My friend Deb Schmidt has a great idea. If you can get your hands on a photo of the reporter, either from the newspaper or from the newspaper’s website, you can imprint the photo onto a CD. Then send the CD to the reporter along with a sticker that says “An invitation for Jane Smith.”<\/p>\n
If I were a reporter and saw my smiling mug on the front of a CD, you can bet I’d pop it into the CD player to see what’s on it. <\/p>\n
Deb and I shared on “How to Plan & Promote Sizzling Special Events,” <\/a>a set of 7 CDs that include 15 can’t-do-without-checklists for event planners. The lists cover everything from how to create a media plan for your event to how to avoid land mines if you’re serving food and alcohol. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sponsoring an event? One of the best ways to generate publicity is to invite a reporter to participate in something that will result in a pre-event story. For example, if you’re sponsoring a hot-air balloon race, invite a reporter to take a hot-air balloon ride a week or two before your event, so she can\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":3,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,205],"class_list":{"0":"post-380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-media-relations","8":"tag-pitching","9":"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\/380","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=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41789,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/41789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}