Publicity Results launches our Step-By-Step PR Training course

Well dear readers, you may have noticed that I haven’t been focusing much energy on my blog lately. That because I’ve been developing a step-by-step PR training program – and yesterday we did it! We launched our new training
program. Whew!

We learned a lot in this process. We may be the best publicist in the business but Internet Marketers we are not:).

So you  may know we launched three hours later than expected and were bumed that we had a lot of people concerned that they missed the opportunity for the fast acting bonus.

As you might be able to imagine, this launch process has been totally insane. It’s our first “foray” into internet marketing, and we’re learning a lot as we go…

…and, like with any first stab at a new skill, we’re also making mistakes.

But I don’t want you to confuse our late launch time with the
value of what you’re going to get.

Because the truth of the matter is, if you want to get media coverage from the top-tier outlets all the way down to  your local news…

…we are the best in the industry.

We get people on Oprah, Dr. Phil (in 8 hour no less), The Today Show, and countless other outlets.

I really would love you to join this amazing group of people. I promise this program is going to rock your world.

Its only open to the first 100 people who sign up so HURRY!

To find out what its all about and to sign up, CLICK HERE.

Drew

PS … So if you want to get on show like oprah we are your
people – if you want to launch a product on the internet you
might want to look elsewhere

Update from PublicityResults.com

As you all know, my new website PublicityResults.com went live last week and we’ve been really pleased with the response.

Last week I also had the pleasure of interviewing Tracy Adler of yum Yum dishes. Visit Publicity Results and discover how a single mom with two kids continues to land media placements that triple her sales every single time! Month after month….

How we landed Dr. Phil in eight hours!

What a crazy few weeks I’ve had. Reciently we landed one of our clients on DR. Phil in 8 hours! The pitch we created was so successful I thought I’d share it, as well as few tips on how we pitched it… So I created a website and posted it – for FREE – along with  PR secrets the pros would rather you didn’t know.

We went live with the site today. Have a look and see if you can beat our record!

PublicityResults.com

Piecing it all together

Hi everyone!  From time to time, I’ll be posting my thoughts on Drew’s Publicity Buzz blog.  I’m learning PR as I go, so I hope to capture my observations and lessons learned to share with others.  I’m also an avid do-it-yourselfer and I often notice parallels between what I’m doing in my personal life and the commitments I have in my professional life.

I’m currently roofing the gazebo my wife and I built in our backyard a little over a month ago.  We chose split cedar shingles for their beauty—but not for their ease of installation.  Each night after work, my wife and I dedicate about an hour and a half to installing the cedar shingles.  It’s just enough time to see the last sliver of the setting sun drop below the mountain that shadows our house.  And each night, we get just a little bit more done than the night before—one pie-shaped panel the first night, one and a third the next, one and a half last night… and soon we’ll have it done.  We’re getting faster… and better… each night as we continue to develop our system.

It’s that same systematic approach that works so well in getting media coverage.  And just like the starter course of shingles at the overhang of each panel of the gazebo roof, it’s the core messages of a PR campaign that set the tone for success or failure.  Everything in a PR campaign builds on your core message, your brand.  If you can communicate what you do and why you’re unique in a short sentence that others easily remember, you’re there.  So I ask, “What is your core media message?”

About the guest blogger:

Shannon Nicholson, VP of Sales, brings his expertise in sales and customer service from 15 years of working in the banking industry.  Once committed to making a difference for people as a loan officer and financial counselor, he took a half-year sabbatical to ride his motorcycle through North America and South America.  He has now nestled into a new career: making a difference for people in the world of PR.

Keeping the Love Alive

Once your “Love Potion” has taken effect—that is, once you have a journalist’s attention– here are a few tips on how to keep it:

• Get to the point. Keep it simple. When talking to the media it’s time to break out your “elevator pitch” – you remember, that one to two minute snappy description of what you do and why it’s newsworthy right now. Stay on message and keep it simple. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Silly) will win the day!
• Make it easy for the media to contact you. If you’re hard to reach or you’re slow to respond, the media will just go to the next person on their list. Here’s a simple trick I swear by: Use a landline while talking to media. We all know how frustrating static and dropped calls can be. Being a clear voice on the phone can take you farther than you think.
• Give the media what they want when they want it. Journalists are under a lot of tight deadlines. Make their job easier and you’re sure to get repeat PR. If you’re difficult to work with, you won’t be contacted again.
• When the media contacts you – be amazing… so you’ll be sought out again and again. Two tricks to being amazing: 1- Do your homework! Have your pitch prepared and know the points you want to hit. And STAY ON MESSAGE! 2 – Listen to the journalist. What are they asking for? Not sure? Ask them directly what more you can do to help them with their story. The more positive the interaction, the more the journalist will be compelled to work with you again.

This leads to my last point:

• Build a relationship; be concerned about their needs– not yours. As budgets get cut and news outlets struggle, journalists’ jobs are becoming more and more stressful. Be a resource for them. Filter out relevant information and supply them with additional resources. Make their jobs easier and you will become their go-to contact in your field – and that’s priceless.

A Love Potion for the Media

I’ve worked at building relationships with the media for years and over that time I’ve come to realize that there’s no real short-cuts. What works with journalists are the same basic  rules we all learned in kindergarten. To open the media flood gates and become a sought-after expert, follow those same basic rules for building relationships and you’ll be a great media expert.

To get you started, here’s a few simple tips:

• Early bird gets the worm. When the media contacts you, get back to them ASAP! Make it a high priority and never take more than 24 hours. Even on weekends.

• Pitch requests that relate to your area of expertise. You’d think this was obvious, but it bears repeating. Stick close to home when pitching and your credibility will shine through.

• Give the media what they want not what you want. To be a great interview, you need to be a great listener. When talking to a journalist, listen closely to what they’re saying and what they’re asking – don’t force your agenda. Allow things to develop organically. As a lesson in what not to do, here’s a link to one of my favorite crash-and-burn interviews  – Terry Gross from Fresh Air interviewing Gene Simmons from the band KISS. I squirm in my chair every time I listen to it!

• Send journalists articles, stats and research to help them with their story. You’re the expert and you’ve done a lot of research in your field. Share relevant information and help your interviewer shine. Do that and you ensure that you’ll get call-backs!

Are you ready for the flood?

We’re a team of media professionals. We should have been better prepared. Instead, last week we were caught without a boat when the dam burst. We received a flood of response after publishing a survey asking about how PR fits into your marketing plan and what sort of training would be most helpful.

When I started PitchRate.com, a resource for free publicity, I had sent out a number of surveys to assess the marketplace. Lets just say that back then the number of responses was uninspiring. We were hoping for more as the team prepared last weeks survey to go live, but part of me was expecting a similar level of engagement. To my amazement, after sending the email blasts, posting it to my blog and informing my social network, we  were overwhelmed. Within 15 minutes we had such a large response that areas of our network were nearly over capacity. Luckily we were monitoring everything closely and the team responded quickly, expanding in order to handle the incoming flood.

It’s the same with PR – its possible to make lots of pitches with little response. In order to get results its necessary to keep refining the message and keep on pitching. It’s a numbers game and eventually the floodgates will open. When they do, will you be ready?

Does Your Business Need a Hearing Aide

In today’s world, to stay ahead of your competition you practically need a Ouija Board. Successfully navigating a business takes a delicate mix of reading signs, being sensitive to the cultural zeitgeist, and good intuition. It seems an impossible task until you realize there’s a single source that can act as your map, compass and oracle, all wrapped into one. That source? Your market.

As I type this, giants like General Motors and Blockbuster Video are stumbling because they were too slow to hear and respond to consumers. They seem to have lost their way. Nimble companies like Honda and NetFlix are on-track, looming large in the giants proverbial rear-view mirrors, where objects may be closer than they appear.

NetFlix in particular is a great example of responsive customer interaction. Through their website they draw us in with a very interactive experience, inviting us to be movie critics, suggesting titles and offering options for content delivery. All of this creates a community and fosters positive brand associations. On the corporate side, this community works to generate data on what customers are looking for, and what they’re not happy with (think “no late fees”). By acting on customer feedback, NetFlix earned $55 million through the first half of this year while Blockbuster lost $15 million and today announced its closing stores.

But those are the big guys. As a small business owner, how can you apply these same ideas to help steer your business to success?

Open the lines of communication: Use today’s social networking technology to interact with your customers. Blogs with comments enabled, Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages are all common avenues of conversation.

Get Found: Now your social network needs to get found and free PR is the way to get the word out. Free publicity sites like PitchRate.com connect news reporters and other media with experts and sources – meaning YOU! Journalists sign up for free and send out queries on stories they are covering. Sources with expertise in diverse areas (you), also sign up for free to receive the media queries. During the interview, you simply let people know how to find you – which should be easy now that you have your social network in place.

Tracy Adler, creator of www.YumYumDish.com, has seen Internet sales triple for her colorful, portion-controlled snack ware products for kids since using PitchRate.com.

“Thanks to PitchRate, I’ve landed several media interviews, including the Associated Press,” she says.

I’d like to take a little of my own advice and ask you: How is PR currently playing into your business model?

Click Here to take a short survey

6 Tips for Businesses to Stay Relevant

“Be light on your feet” is perhaps the best business advice I’ve received regarding today’s economy. Never has there been a more important time to be flexible and nimble in your business strategy. In this uncertain economy, it is a must. It may be the most important thing a company can do.

A company must be able to adapt to the rapidly changing market or it risks becoming irrelevant. Here are 6 tips that I use to help my businesses stay a step ahead of the competition.

• Always be on the lookout: New ideas can come from some very unexpected places. Really listen to what people in your network are saying and be vigilant about potential opportunities hidden in solving their problems.
• Never be positional: We often associate exceptional visionary leadership with an individual. While a particular individual may be a “genius”, they can also hold you back while you concentrate on one person’s ideas. The reality is that many of us have even greater potential if we use the creative energy of the people on our teams.
• Know your resources: A realistic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your company is the key to being able to take advantage of new opportunities
• Be open to new opportunity no matter how “out there” it is: Its human nature to resist change, but true market leaders drive it. Wildly successful companies often see a niche where others don’t, creating their own market in the process.
• Make decisions, not judgments: Finding the key to tomorrow requires a mental shift from our routine day-to-day, year-to-year struggle. Organize planning sessions with only a strategic focus. Encourage and facilitate the paradigm stretch using creative thinking techniques and thought exercises such as brainstorming, visually identifying relationships. Don’t label ideas as good or bad, instead let the conversation flow, making decisions on what’s possible based on your goals and resources.
• Don’t be afraid to shake things up: Once you’ve generated ideas that are out in left field, evaluate them carefully for the seeds of change. Bring the seeds into the present for planting and cultivating. Don’t let them lie fallow, bring them to life as goals and action plans.

One of the many ways I’ve recently put this into practice was with a total redesign of the PressKit 24/7 website, an on-line press kit I offer. We had been getting significant traffic to the site, but we were not getting a satisfactory number of people signing up for the service. I called my team together for a brain-storming session we generated 3 areas of improvment.

1. Information needed to be reorganized to be more succinct
2. We needed to offer a better interface to meet customers needs when inquiring or purchasing the service
3. The look and feel of the site needed to change to reflect a technology instead of a service.

After implementing the ideas that came out of the session, we’ve seen a happy increase in the percentage of visitors that convert to Presskit 24/7! What do you think?

Three steps to free PR

I recently received an email from Shel Horowitz, author and entrepreneur, asking how he could best use PitchRate.com to his advantage. His question was simple:

“I’ve been on Pitchrate every now and then, but have never figured out how best to use it. If you were me, what would be the first two or three things you’d do on Pitchrate?”

Shell is already familiar with PitchRate.com, but in case you’re not, it’s a free service that connects journalists with the highest rated experts. What this means is that when preparing for a story, journalists and producers use pitchRate to make a request for experts to interview. The requests are then sent out in daily emails to our experts who can  pitch the journalists on their area of interest.

To answer Shells question, the first three things I would do on PitchRate.com are:

• Step 1: Your PitchRate profile is attached to every pitch you make. Therefore, in order to make the best use of the resource, you need to make sure yours will grab tye medias attention. The cornerstone of your profile is your bio, so make sure it’s interesting and creative. Writing your own bio can be a daunting task and Joan Stewart offers some great advice about how to do it right on her blog, The Publicity Hound. In your profile, you should also include links to your website and any other relevant documents for journalists, such as photos or press releases.
• Step 2. Search PitchRate.com for journalist requests that match your area of expertise and make make a great pitch. You can do this by either scanning the daily emails sent to your in-box or log into your account and search the website. Both are update daily with the most recent journalist requests.
• Step 3. Prepare you face for the media. PitchRate.com offers an array of resources including PR Happy Hours, teleseminars and videos to help you prepare to put your best foot forward when the media comes knocking.

PitchRate.com is great great resource, but using it to generate PR isn’t a passive process. You get out of it what you put in. By taking these three steps when starting out, you’re setting yourself up for success.

If you still have questions about how best to use PitchRate.com to geverate PR for your company, ask them in the comments section of the blog so everyone can benifit from the answers.

Shel Horowitz can be found on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/l/;frugalmarketing.com and http://www.facebook.com/l/;shelhorowitz.com