Publicity tips/Oldest furnace contest January 10, 2006

The Publicity Hound's
Tips of the Week
Issue #276 - January 10, 2006
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)
The Publicity Hound®
Circulation: 14,112

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"Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity"
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In This Issue
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1. Oldest Furnace Contest

2. Give PR Clients What They Expect

3. Pet Food Recall

4. Media Leads

5. How to Market a Store for Men

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Joke of the Week

8. And at My Blog...

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1. Oldest Furnace Contest
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I'm sitting here shivering in my Betty Boop pajamas, blue bathrobe and pink slippers, practically watching ice crystals form in my coffee mug.

As I write this, the clock here in Wisconsin says 6:30 a.m. We program the thermostat in our house so the temperature drops during the night and comes back up around 7 a.m., allegedly to save up to 25 percent on our heating bill. So it's the perfect time to tell you about the Oldest Furnace Contest, a clever marketing and publicity idea adopted by several furnace companies throughout the United States.

The concept is simple. Enter the annual contest, and if your furnace is the oldest, you win a free furnace. You can read about the contest sponsored by Wilkins Mechanical Services Inc. in an article printed in the Telegraph, the newspaper in Nashua, New Hampshire, at http://www.wmshvac.com/webapp/GetPage?pid=184

Why did the newspaper write a story about this? Because it's unusual. And it's fun. Furnaces seldom live past age 30. But this one, a cast-iron, "snowman" style steam boiler, beats 'em all at 135 years old.

Why not borrow this same idea for whatever it is you're peddling? Selling lamps? How about an Oldest Lamp Contest? Or even better, an Ugly Lamp Contest. If you own a lamp store, display the finalists in your front window with the names and photos of the customers who entered them. Can't you just hear everybody in town buzzing about your fun display?

At a newspaper where I worked, we had an annual "Ugly Tie Contest" and asked readers to submit their ugliest neckties. The winner, announced on Father's Day, won a gift certificate to a local men's clothing store. We displayed the top five ugly neckties on a posterboard in our lobby, and I'd often walk through the lobby and see visitors standing in front of the display howling with laughter.

The media love contests like these. And smart Publicity Hound use contests to promote what they're selling. "Special Report #18: Clever Contests That Will Tempt Reporters to Call" gives you all kinds of ideas for contests you can sponsor to generate publicity, build a buzz and brand your business. Learn about contests that generated national publicity and how other companies tied contests to their products and services. You can download the report and be reading it within a few minutes after your order is approved. Order at http://tinyurl.com/6uz9g

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2. Give PR Clients What They Expect
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When a meeting planner wants to hire me, or a PR firm wants me to train their staff on how to generate publicity, or someone says they want to join The Publicity Hound Mentor Program, the first question I ask is, "What, exactly, do you want me to help you do?"

Occasionally, somebody says, "I want you to get me on 'Oprah'." Or "I want our PR clients to end up in one of those fun features on the front page of The Wall Street Journal."

When I hear that, I know this won't be a good fit.

Michelle Tennant, a member of The Publicity Hound Mentor Program, knows the feeling. She's the owner of Wasabi Publicity, a boutique PR firm in Saluda, North Carolina. And she's heard her share of unrealistic expectations too.

Here's another one. You're a publicist and you have a 12-month contract with an author. You're two months into the project and the author is griping because her book hasn't gotten into any big national magazines yet. Michelle would tell you it's your own fault, if you never explained before the contract was signed that sometimes it takes up to six months or even a year for national magazines to bite, particularly since so many of them work six months out.

Addressing expectations before you sign the contract helps avoid those kinds of problems. In the January/February issue of The Publicity Hound subscription newsletter, Michelle writes about things that publicists and PR people must do to make sure that they can deliver exactly what clients expect.

The issue also includes articles on 19 "rules of the road" for Publicity Hounds suggested by a panel of journalists that met in New York in October, why you should banish the words "publicity" and "PR" from your vocabulary and concentrate instead on storytelling, an example of a pitch from a storyteller, how to write the perfect author resource box at the end of an article, a book that offers numerous case studies on marketing to Hispanics, how to attend f~ree monthly teleseminars featuring publicity tips, the network news program that wants your "good news" story, how to look like an expert on TV, and January/February story ideas. The newsletter is available as an electronic document and you can download it as soon as your order has been approved.

Order it for $10 at http://tinyurl.com/7adar

Or order a year's subscription (6 issues) for $49.95 at http://tinyurl.com/4mz3x

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3. Pet Food Recall
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If you read about the Diamond Pet Foods recall on the front page of the Jan. 2 issue of PR Week magazine, you'd walk away thinking the company did just about everything it could to deal with this crisis.

Its crisis plan included:

--A consumer alert and recall three days after a veterinarian in upstate New York alerted the company about treating three dogs with symptoms associated with liver disease. The dogs had eaten Diamond pet food. Seventy-six pets have died.

--Updates on its website at http://www.diamondpetrecall.net/

--An onsite call center where calls were coming in at the rate of 1,500 a day. Even though many customers couldn't get through, call center staffers say they returned every phone call.

--A news release issued December 22 that was picked up by major and local dailies, the Associated Press, ABC News and CNN's website.

--Alerts to Diamonds' distributors, who then contacted retailers.

An admirable job of managing a crisis?

Hardly, says blogger BL Ochman in a post yesterday at http://tinyurl.com/df4c7

BL says it's absolutely inexcusable that Diamond's website is not up to date because the problem has been known and getting worse since mid-December.

"The Diamond Pet Food website is not up to date and its servers seem to be overloaded, causing the site to go down regularly," she writes.

She also berates the company for not issuing a statement about the recall since December. Her suggestions:

--Apologize and assure the public that they're on top of the problem

--Start a recall information blog

--Put its executives online to help consumers up to the minute

--Bring in veterinarians who can advise consumers whose dogs may have eaten the
contaminated products

--Start a fund to cover the vet bills and death expenses of affected pets

If you're the victim of a product recall, multi-million-dollar lawsuit, a nasty rumor that spreads through the Internet, or a major accident, would you know how to manage the crisis? Crisis counselor Jonathan Bernstein is standing by to help. When I interviewed him on "How to Keep the Media Wolves at Bay," he suggested dozens of things you can do to keep a crisis from spinning out of control. They include things you should know about how reporters will try to loosen your lips and why you must not let journalists lead you into a trap. It's available as a CD or an electronic transcript you can download and be reading in minutes. Read more about it at http://tinyurl.com/b8wcy

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4. Media Leads
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--Irene Watson is looking for books to review for her new book review website called Reader Views at http://www.readerviews.com/ "As a new author, I struggled to get reviews. Considering there are over 200,000 books published yearly, most books don’t get the proper review they should. I gathered a team of reviewers throughout U.S. and Canada interested in a variety of genres and we are reviewing books." Read the submission guidelines at http://www.readerviews.com/Submissions.html

--Hospitality Briefings ezine wants articles of 500 to 1,000 words that explore and affect the entire hospitality industry, from hotels and resorts to meeting planning and travel. The ezine goes to 30,000 readers, so you'll get great exposure, and they'll even use your company logo and contact information. A content team reviews proposals and evaluates them on four criteria: relevance to today's hospitality professional, well-defined topic focus, timeliness of topic and overall article quality. Email your pitch explaining your article topic to editor Megan Southwick mailto:msouthwick@douglaspublications.com

If you're submitting articles online or offline, what would you do if an editor said he wanted your article for his 60,0000-circulation newsletter and he asked you to please not submit it to any other publications because he wanted to "scoop" his competitors? What would you do? Say yes, thus killing your chances of ever using that article again? Or pass up the chance to be in his publication?

Attorney Patricia Eyres knows exactly what you should do, and it's neither one of those two options. She explains it on "Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles for Fee or for Free," a recording of a one-hour teleseminar I conducted with her. It's available as a CD or an electronic transcript you can download and be reading in minutes, as soon as your order is approved. Read more about what you'll learn at http://tinyurl.com/dbc3p

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5. How to Market a Men's Store
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This week, six Publicity Hounds have tips for Kevin Jackson of Chicago, Illinois. He recently opened Manifold, a men's specialty store that sells skin and hair care products, accessories and home furnishings for men. He wants ideas on how to publicize the store.

Publicity Hound Jennifer Raaths of Chicago offers five terrific tips, including this one:

"Call WLS-TV. Ask for Darah Languido, the Morning Show 'Best of Chicago' producer. She is awesome to work with and this may be of interest to her. They love doing lifestyle segments. If she’s not interested, ask if their mid-day news producer would be."


From Publicity Hound Paula Harris:

"Since women tend to make many of the purchasing decisions, host a special ladies shopping night for Valentine’s Day so they can get the special person in their lives the right gift. You could donate a portion of the evening’s proceeds to a women’s related charity. Make sure you send out press releases announcing your event!"


From Jil Frederickson:

"There is a daily email newsletter called Daily Candy at
http://dailycandy.com/index.jsp?city=5&switch=1 that does city-specific shopping/dining/doing suggestions. The Chicago version is pretty cool. They highlight new stores, great places to get gifts, restaurants, etc. See if you can get them interested in an article about your new boutique. They did a piece on a friend’s studio and he received a lot of business from it."


The Publicity Hound says:

Send news releases about unusual products to special gift guides, such as Father’s Day sections, published by newspapers and magazines. Not sure which media to pitch? Check out the Gift List for Holidays, a handy subscription service that sells contact information for 250 newspapers, top magazines, even TV and radio stations that feature gifts. Read more about it at http://tinyurl.com/9es8y and be sure to check out the tips I wrote for this website on how to pitch gift guides. These journalists are HUNGRY for your news.

Then submit a brief--a short item about your store--to inflight magazines for airlines that serve Chicago. It’s great tourist information the magazines might be happy to include if they’re writing a larger article about Chicago. Or write a brief about products you sell that are perfect for men who travel. See "Special Report #29: Fly High with Publicity in In-Flight Magazines" at http://tinyurl.com/6uz9g Learn about the various types of briefs from "Briefs, Fillers & Quizzes: How to Write Them and Why Editors LOVE Them" at http://tinyurl.com/3294r

Read all the responses at http://publicityhound.net/?p=444

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6. Help This Hound
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Judith Reppucci of Cape Cod, Massachusetts writes:

"I do pro bono work helping a very small nonprofit organization, Wings for Falmouth Families, here on Cape Cod. The organization helps families which have children experiencing a medical crisis, and it's trying to raise money through a 'Ladies of Wickford'-style calendar featuring 'saucy but discreet' photos of prominent local men. It’s being sold at local bookstores and on the group’s website for $20.

"Printing problems delayed promotion, and although my news releases have managed to place column notices and articles in the local papers, we are far from our projected sales goals. My primary work as a freelance copywriter involves writing fund-raising letters, and I want to use the Chamber of Commerce to send an email blast to businesses, but the organization doesn’t seem to see the value. Do your wonderful Hounds have any other advice for a last-ditch sales effort?"

The Publicity Hound says: I'm not surprised that the stodgy chamber isn't interested in your
saucy calendar. But my fun-loving Hounds sure are! All Hounds with great ideas should post them to my blog at http://publicityhound.net/?p=453 But before you do, check out the names of the hotties shown in the calendar at http://www.wingsforfalmouth.com/calendar.php

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7. Hound Joke of the Week
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"You can't teach an old dog new tricks. OK, so don't train old dogs. Same with salespeople."

--Jeffrey Gitomer from his book The Patterson Principles of Selling at http://tinyurl.com/bo9ep


DOG JOKES & QUOTES EBOOK: 170+ G-rated dog jokes and quotes, perfect for a dog-lover, your favorite vet, or just for a few good laughs.

BONUS: Buy the ebook and you also get a compilation of the 50 best websites for dog humor.
http://www.publicityhound.com/dogjokebook/


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7. And at My Blog...
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Here's what you can read in recent posts at my blog:

--Attend Business Journal "Book of Lists" parties this month if you're invited, but don't use the party as a chance to pitch
http://publicityhound.net/?p=452

--A dazzling grand opening for a restaurant won't ensure a great restaurant review
http://publicityhound.net/?p=263

--Don't lay guilt trips on media that won't cover you
http://publicityhound.net/?p=449

--Never pay someone to review your book
http://publicityhound.net/?p=450

My blog at http://www.publicityhound.net/ has 20 categories so you can read only items on whatever publicity-related topics interest you.

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Where to Meet or Hear The Publicity Hound®:


January 19: Kenosha, Wisconsin

Wisconsin Women Entrepreneurs Racine-Kenosha Chapter, "How to Organize Your 2006 Media Campaign and Get Thousands of Dollars in Free Publicity," 5:30 P.M., UW-Parkside, Union Building, Room 104, $19 for members and $24 for guests, including dinner. To register, call 262-632-7993.


January 25 Teleseminar:

I'm the special guest for a free teleseminar on "Pitching Problems" sponsored by Wasabi Publicity at 1 PM Eastern Time. Sign up at http://www.publicityresults.com/


February 10: Washington, D.C.

National Speakers Association Winter Workshop, concurrent session for staff on "How to Position the Boss as an Expert the Media Love," 4:30 to 5:45 p.m., Crystal Gateway Marriott. Details and registration at http://www.nsaspeaker.org/dc/online_schedule.shtml


March 22, 2005: Waukesha, Wisconsin

2006 Micro Entrepreneur Expo, "How to Get Free Publicity," Part 1 from 5:30-6:15 and Part 2 from 8-8:45 PM, Waukesha Area Technical College; pre-registration $25 or $30 at the door (includes dinner). To register, call 262-695-3468.


May 18: Washington, D.C.

PMA University. "How to Turn Your Ezine into a Cash Machine." Sponsored by Publishers Marketing Association. 8:30-10:15 a.m. Details pending.

***If you're in the National Speakers Association or the Public Relations Society of America--or another business, marketing or PR group--and you want details on how to bring in The Publicity Hound to do a fund-raiser for your chapter, or you want me to host a teleseminar customized just for your group, contact me at mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com?subject=speaker_inquiry or call 262-284-7451.

***Attention Meeting Planners: If you're booking speakers for winter, spring or summer conferences or events, keep me in mind--even if you have a last-minute cancellation. I deliver high-content, interactive programs that are lots of fun. Call 262-284-7451 or mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com?subject=speaker_inquiry for details.

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Joan Stewart
a.k.a. The Publicity Hound®
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
U.S.A.
Phone: 262-284-7451 (Central) Fax: 262-284-1737

Mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com