Publicity tips/Target Travelers Oct 9, 2007

The Publicity Hound's
Tips of the Week
Issue #367 Oct. 9, 2007
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.com/
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)
The Publicity Hound®

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"Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity"
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Save the Dates:

--If you're an author who's relying on bookstores to sell most of your books, you're doing it the hard way! That's because thousands of other books are vying for the buyers' attention. Market the smart way by positioning yourself as an expert online. Adam Witty and Tom Antion will show you how during a free teleseminar at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, October 22. Check next week's newsletter for details.

--Gurnee, Illinois, here I come. Don't miss my two workshops on Thursday, November 8, at the Gurnee Mall in Gurnee, Illinois. The morning session from 9 to noon will be on "Savvy Media Relations: How to Get FREE Print, Broadcast and Online Publicity." The afternoon session from 1 to 3:30 p.m. will explain "The New Rules of Press Releases." Come for one or both. Registration information in next week's newsletter.

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In This Issue
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1. Target Travelers

2. Speak at Colleges

3. Your Own National TV Show

4. Enticing Food Bloggers

5. Promoting a Sonoma County Website

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Joke of the Week

8. And at My Blog...


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1. Target Travelers
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Three out of four people on an airplane read the in-flight magazine that's tucked into the seat pocket in front of them.

Statistics show that most of those readers pass along the magazine to a friend, co-worker or relative. And those people pass it along yet again. On average, at least four other people read an inflight magazine after the traveler carries it off the airplane.

That's why targeting leisure and business travelers with a message about your product, service, cause or issue can be so valuable to your publicity campaign. Many inflight magazines have high circulations of more than a million.

That's a lot of eyeballs reading about you.

Last year, when I updated the special report I wrote on how to pitch your story to inflight magazines, my researchers found that contact information at several magazines had changed. When we updated the report this month, however, we found major changes at 25 of the 43 magazines in our report. Many publishing companies, addresses, key editorial contacts, pitching tips and website URLs have changed in just 12 months.

That's partly because the magazine and airline industries are in a huge state of flux.

Once you know the names of your key contacts, and exactly what they're looking for, you can start pitching. Most magazines prefer stories that tie into specific cities the airlines serve. They love knowing about things like special events and other tourist attractions.

Many magazines publish profile stories of successful local business people. They want calendar listings and even product samples for their "new products" sections. Many of them concentrate on a wide variety of general-interest topics such as technology, business, entertainment, beauty and fashion.

If you can't get your story into one of these magazines, you might be able to place a good-quality photo. The 2007 issue of "Special Report #29: Fly High with Publicity in the In-flight Magazines" includes live links for most of the magazines. Some of those links lead directly to their online media kits and editorial calendars. The report is only $37. You can order it at http://tinyurl.com/6uz9g and download it as soon as your order has been approved.


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2. Speak at Colleges
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If you're a professional speaker, author, trainer, coach or consultant--or an expert with a topic that college students, faculty or staff would find appealing--market yourself as a speaker to colleges and universities.

The best topics include anything dealing with leadership, being successful in and out of school, relationships and dating, overcoming challenges, alcohol awareness and drug prevention, and gearing up for the job market.

If you book a gig at a college, you can generate publicity:

--In college newspapers.

--On college radio and TV stations.

--In newspapers and on radio and TV stations in communities where the college is located.

--In blogs and ezines read by students, faculty and staff.

--In alumni magazines for your college or the colleges where you speak.

Not only that, but college administrators and staff who are responsible for bringing in speakers will probably refer you to people at other colleges and universities who hire speakers, assuming they love your presentation.

James Malinchak, "The King of the College Speaking Market," says many colleges have up to 17 types of key people who book speakers for events. Those events include student leadership gatherings, student government events, lectures sponsored by fraternities and sororities, career and job fairs, commencements and graduations, student conferences and summer programs. Add to the list academic, athletic and club events, and other meetings where an"outside" expert is needed.

James also says there are enough colleges and universities to keep a speaker busy for the remainder of their speaking career. But you have to know how to get in front of the decision-makers who do the hiring.

Join me this afternoon for a f*ree one-hour telephone seminar, and listen to James spill the beans on how to break into the college speaking circuit. It will be at 4 PM Eastern Time, and he'll be providing several lists of tips, so be ready to take lots of notes. Register at http://www.collegespeakingsuccess.com/stewart and he'll send you the call-in number and access code. If you can't join us this afternoon, sign up anyway and he'll send you a recording of the call.


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3. Your Own National TV Show
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Wishing and hoping for your own show on national TV?

Stop waiting for an invitation to audition. Instead, create your own show on your cable TV company's public access channel.

That's what foodie Dave Lieberman did when he was a student at Yale University. On his show "Campus Cuisine," he demonstrated how fellow students could cook like a gourmet on a shoestring budget. One segment, for example, showed how to whip up a smoothie using dining-hall fruit.

The show gained a cult following, with many students clamoring for recipes they could cook to impress a date. Students passed around tapes of his show, and his fame spread from the campus in New Haven, Connecticut to the studios of the Food Network, where 27-year-old Lieberman now stars in his own popular cooking show "Good Deal with Dave Lieberman."

Taking advantage of the public access channel, where you don't pay for air time, gives you invaluable experience in front of a camera. You can make your mistakes before a relatively small audience, and learn as you go. When you're ready for the next step, you can take your show nationwide by buying leased access time in TV markets large or small.

Using leased access lets you target specific cities during specific times of the day or night. Buying air time in 20 small, inexpensive markets throughout the U.S. can generate as many viewers as buying air time in one large expensive market like New York City.

Robert Smith has been using this strategy for himself and his PR clients. During a teleseminar I conducted with him, he explained how he did it. "How to Create Your Own National TV Show for Less Than $400 a Month" walks you step-by-step through the entire process.

It's available as a CD, and as soon as your order has been approved, you can download the handout that lists more than 50 story ideas. Click here to continue reading more about what you'll learn: http://tinyurl.com/y4by43


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4. Enticing Food Bloggers
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An article in Saturday's Wall Street Journal at http://tinyurl.com/3alxfg explains that as online food sites become increasingly influential in the restaurant business, chefs and owners are offering bloggers complimentary meals to get good write-ups.

In fact, publicists across the restaurant industry are now including bloggers and food website forum hosts on their medialists, and regularly inviting them to opening parties, f*ree meals and other events.

Bribery? Maybe.

But companies have been sending f*ree samples of their products to the traditional media for years, hoping for good reviews. And reaching out to influential bloggers is now a key component to almost any publicity campaign. With restaurants, however, the difference is that when you're dealing with bloggers, you might have to suffer in silence if they write a bad review.

That's because some bloggers don't allow comments at their blogs. A bad review can live online forever, with no opportunity for the restaurant to write a rebuttal.

If you want to invite bloggers to your food-related event, by all means do. But understand that:

--Most writers don't have to abide by ethics policies like the
ones that are in place at many newspapers and magazines. Traditional food reviewers usually try to dine anonymously and pay their own way to ensure that the review reflects the way average customers can expect to be treated. If a restaurant invites a blogger to dine, chances are good that the steak might be a little bigger than the steaks served to regular patrons.

--Unlike traditional food reviewers, bloggers don't have to fact-check their reviews.

--Bloggers love to link to each other. That means one lousy review can find its way onto other blogs and into discussion forums.

The advantage, of course, is that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to research products and services before they buy. One glowing review can bring droves of diners to your restaurant.

The Wall Street Journal article also mentioned that some food blogs and discussion forums are policing each other. Eater.com, for example--which discusses gossip on the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco restaurant scenes--tips off readers if it suspects that restaurant owners or employees wrote postings about their own restaurants at other blogs or food sites. Eater highlights those postings in a section called "Adventures in Shilling."

Reach out to bloggers, but don't miss all the other "Publicity Tips for Restaurants, Chefs & Foodies" which I created with Jaime Oikle of the Restaurant Report. It's available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can download and be reading as soon as your order has been approved.

Read more about what you'll learn at http://tinyurl.com/clr26


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5. Promoting a Sonoma County Website
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This week, Publicity Hounds offer several great ideas for Nancy Hayssen of Sonoma County, California. She wants to know how to promote her website at http://www.sonomacountyairport.com/ It targets Sonoma County residents and visitors who are traveling to the wine country from Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland.


From Garth Gibson:

"Think about adding more wine education resources in the form of reports with titles like: How To Boost Your Wine IQ, 10 Hottest Wineries in the Sonoma Valley, 25 Great Wine Sonoma Valley Getaway Ideas, and Must-See Sonoma Valley Wine Places To Visit Before You Die."


From Howard:

"Obtain coupon offers for tours, gifts, wine tasting, B&Bs, balloon rides, etc. Don't be afraid to charge those merchants some money for the benefit. Make sure to meta-tag those offers which may help you with the search engines."


A web design student says:

"Put together a memento book for each traveler. Have your logo on the front, your contact information on the back. Put in some interesting facts about the Wine Country. Leave a page for them to enter: flight date, captain, passengers in group, etc. Then leave some pages for photos. This all can be done on your computer for less than a good bottle of wine! It's a great memento, and it keeps your contact information with them and anyone they show the photos to!"


The Publicity Hound encourages you to ask for the visitor's name and email address in a box that bounces down from the top of your screen like I do at http://www.publicityhound.com/ because this box bypasses the pop-up box filters and is right in the visitors' faces. You can buy the coding for the Hover Ad Generator at http://tinyurl.com/2pebvb

Read all the responses at http://tinyurl.com/2jqwf3


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6. Help This Hound
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Karla Kinstler of Houston, Minnesota writes:

"I coordinate the International Festival of Owls at http://www.festivalofowls.com/ It's held annually the first weekend in March in the tiny little town of Houston, MN (population 1,020). It began simply as a hatch-day party for Alice the Great Horned Owl, the Houston Nature Center's only live animal, and grew into an event that last year brought in people from England, Jamaica, and Alaska. It is the only full-weekend, all-owl event in North America.

"The event is entirely focused on owls, including live owls, owl prowls to call in wild owls at night, top-name 'owlologists' as speakers, owl-themed food, owl photography sessions, owl crafts, the presentation of the World Owl Hall of Fame Awards (derived from a Publicity Hound suggestion!) And more owl things than you can shake a stick at.

"While we're developing an international following, our attendance has yet to climb over the 500 mark. With great events for families, biologists, and photographers, I truly believe our attendance should be at least 1,000, given our very rural location.

"Owls are such a fun subject to work with, I'm betting there are some Hounds out there with excellent publicity ideas.


The Publicity Hound says:
What a way to hoot it up! I know my Hounds will think of lots of fun ideas for this one, including some audio and video that will really help bring in the crowds. If you have a great idea for Karla, post it to my blog at http://tinyurl.com/26rs9p


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7. Hound Joke of the Week
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Thanks to Publicity Hound Dennis Tooley, publisher of the FunnyBone newsletter at http://www.bigfatbellylaugh.com/ for this one:


Behind every cat that crosses the street, there is a dog saying, "Go ahead, you can make it."


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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8. And at My Blog...
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Targeting Teens? Use Facebook and MySpace equally
http://tinyurl.com/2sd2vl


Organic industry should be pitching right now
http://tinyurl.com/38z3q7


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Where to Meet or Hear The Publicity Hound®


Oct. 9: Teleseminar on "How to Get onto the College Speaking Circuit"

With James Malinchak, 4 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. This complimentary, high-content call will be chock full of lists of tips on how to make a bundle speaking at colleges. It will whet your appetite for his boot camp Nov. 29-Dec. 2 in Los Angeles. Sign up for the teleseminar at http://tinyurl.com/fs56k


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Reprinted from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy list "89 Reasons to Send a News Release."

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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