Tips, Tricks & Tools for Free Publicity
by Joan Stewart
Think about the last pitch you emailed to a journalist, or sent by snail-mail letter.
How long was it?
If it was longer than a paragraph or two, the journalist might have hit the "delete" key or thrown the letter into the wastebasket. Or if you started your phone pitch with "let me fill you in on a little background," I'll bet you … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
Night after night, we see stories on the local and national TV news about topics like obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness.
The reporter's narration accompanies generic film footage of people walking on a crowded sidewalk, or students making their way to class on a college campus.
No problem--except if the story happens … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
Sally Kirby Hartman of the Norfolk Foundation in Norfolk, Virginia wants ideas on how to publicize the Academy for Nonprofit Excellence, which offers monthly two-day training sessions for area nonprofit staff and board members. Topics will vary each month and range from strategic planning to marketing, accounting and fundraising.
From Lois … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
Barb Bartlein of Bayview, Wisconsin, author of the book Why Did I Marry You, Anyway? 12.5 Strategies for a Happy Marriage , says she’s had great success with 99PR.com, a service that emails your pitch to radio talk show hosts and other journalists. The pitch looks like … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
Publicity Hounds spend so much time and energy chasing after staff writers at national magazines, that they often overlook a much more valuable group of contacts--the freelancers that write for those publications.
Why are freelancers more valuable? Because many of them already have key contacts at lots of major magazines and newspapers. … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
Twelve Publicity Hounds have super tips for Therese Myers of Albany, New York. She asked about how to get publicity for a bank branch opening in March. Her branch will be new in this small community in Maine, but it will be the seventh branch to open there within the last two years. Because headquarters are located out-of-state, she's worried … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
One of the biggest writing problems I see among people in my mentoring program, and others who hire me to improve their writing, is that they're afraid to write like they talk. They never use one-word sentences. They refuse to start sentences with words such as "and" and "but" because an elementary … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
I've received so much great feedback from Publicity Hounds who have used my tip about "TV Weatherperson's Day" on February 5 that I'm mentioning itagain.
When it comes to celebrity status, the TV weather people are at the bottom of the totem pole. While the news anchor is invited to host a glitzy charity ball, the weather guy is asked to … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
I confess to watching most of "Who's Your Daddy?", Fox's maudlin melodrama in which a blonde babe tries to pick her biological father out of a line-up of seven men and pocket $100,000. She guessed correctly, of course.
Adoptive parents and others, including the National Council for Adoption, pleaded with Fox's 182 affiliates not to air it. … [Read more...]
by Joan Stewart
When I worked as a newspaper editor for more than 20 years, I had my own pet peeves about people who were clueless about working with the media. They included: --Idiots who called to complain, "You've written about my competitor three times but you've never written about me!" --News releases that didn't list the name or phone number of a … [Read more...]
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