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 When Becky Gomes of Pittsburgh attended the ArtiGras festival in Jupiter, Fla., several years ago, she saw colorful doodles, drawn by well-known celebrities, that were being auctioned off.

“That is just brilliant!” she thought. “Why don’t I do that for Cystic Fibrosis?”

Becky is on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit and got involved because her daughter, who is now 11, has the genetic disease that affects the lungs and the pancreas. When it was time to duplicate the fund-raiser for her own group, she  turned to Contact Any Celebrity (affiliate link), which sells the Celebrity Black Book, a database of contact information for more than 59,000 celebrities.

It includes a template for a “doodle letter” that Becky used when writing to celebs to ask for their contributions.

She include a photo of her daughter and mentioned that “Katie has Cystic Fibrosis” and gave a short explanation of what CF is. 

“I tell them a little bit about her day, what she goes through,” Becky said.

The response has been so good that CF has been sponsoring the fund-raiser for five year. It has received doodles from:

• Loni Anderson
   
• Mort Walker, creater of the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip
   
• Cathy Guisewite, creator of the “Cathy” comic strip
   
• Betty White, who drew a picture of her dog
   
• Dom DeLuise
   
• Sarah Jessica Parker, whose 8 x 10 portrait of herself , signed, along with another doodle of herself, started a bidding war and raised 0
   
• Roseanna Arquette, who sent a 3-pack

Cystic Fibrosis sent 600 letters and got a 6 percent response rate, much higher than the normal 1 percent.

“It really raises a lot of money for CG. It gives us something for the silent auctions that’s a little bit different. It’s not just a basket of wine. It’s something that people like.”

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

8 Ways to Get the Biggest Marketing Bang Out of SlideShare [Love Tip #4 for capturing leads] http://ow.ly/aLJGG

How to Use Facebook Ads to Get More Quality Leads and Attract More Blog Traffic. http://ow.ly/aLP4N

Wall Street Journal uses Facebook timeline to tell the story of Facebook’s IPO [Very clever] http://ow.ly/aNlnY

5 things they never tell Twitter newbies, but should. http://ow.ly/aNBnb

What to do when a LinkedIn recommendation for you isn’t quite right. http://ow.ly/aNl4q

27 highly recommended WordPress plug-ins. http://ow.ly/aOtTl

PR Peeps: Check out the “insta pitch” idea from PR guy Christopher Lee Nutter. [6th sub-head] http://ow.ly/aP0Ig

25 Link-Building Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Website. http://ow.ly/aPajJ

Infographic explains how long it takes to become an expert in various fields. http://ow.ly/aPcdD

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

It starts innocently enough when you meet a reporter for lunch at a local restaurant.

You spend the first 10 minutes making nice, and then the reporter pulls a notebook and pen out of his pocket.

After the first few easy questions to put you at ease, he asks, “Is it OK if I record our interview?”

Don’t freeze up. Don’t freak out. Don’t walk out of the restaurant. 

That question actually works in your favor because, with a recording, there’s no excuse for inaccurate facts or quotes.

If the reporter records the interview, you should, too, so you have a record of it.

Here’s a list of six voice-recorder apps for the iPhone. If you have a different type of phone, do a Google search for an app for your brand.

“Is it OK if I record our interview?” is one of 27 questions a reporter might ask you. I’ve included them all, explained how you should answer them, and noted which ones are trick questions, in my updated “Special Report #2: Questions You Can Expect Reporters to Ask During an Interview.” (I worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 22 years and I know all the trick questions.)  

The best surprise is no surprise.

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

Mistake #1 Made by Many Authors:

They wait until their books are written to figure out the target market.

Mistake #2:

They give no thought whatsoever to marketing the book until it’s printed.

How do I know? 

Because over the years, several hundreds authors have called me for help when they can’t sell their books. The first question I ask is, “Who’s the target market for your book?”

Often, this is what I hear: “My Aunt Sally loves the book and says she thinks everybody should read it. So I guess the answer to your question is everybody.”

Dear author, you’re saying, then, that you want your book to compete with every other book out there? And you’re tying up, in some cases, several years writing, rewriting, editing and proofing, yet you have no idea who should buy it? And you don’t know how to craft a specific sales message to a targeted audience?
   
   
Learn to Spin Two Plates at Once 

You need to force yourself while you’re writing your book to figure out the many ways you’re going to market it.  By working on the marketing and the writing simultaneously, you will end up writing a better book. 

By forcing yourself to think about how you’re going to sell the book, you’ll end up improving the content. In fact, I compiled this list of 10 questions you should ask before writing your book.

Spinning two plates at the same time is particularly important if you’re hoping to lure a major publisher. And every publisher will want assurances that your book will sell. They also want to know that you’re willing and able to shoulder a major part of the publicity effort, even though their publicist will be working on your behalf for about six months.
   
   

Let Peggy McColl Help 

Author Peggy McColl teaches the “market and write simultaneously” trick to authors. Peggy really knows how to sell books.  She has catapulted her own book to the Amazon, Barnes & Noble and New York Times Bestseller Lists.

She has an ingenious yet simple, five-step formula any author can use to make their book a bestseller at almost no cost. She has used it to generate ,618.52 in sales the very first time out of the gate.

She’ll explain it during a free 90-minute webinar (or telephone seminar) at either 2 or 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, May 3, when Steve Harrison interviews her on “How to Make Your Book a Bestseller Even If You’re a Marketing Novice. Register here.

You’ll hear why her method works for all types of books, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of subject including self-published, POD, ebooks, newly-published—even those that have been out for years.

Peggy will also discuss Facebook pages, and why you need your own page just for your book. As for selling your book on Amazon, learn the big mistake most publishers make on that site.

I promote this free webinar as a compensated affiliate because I dislike hearing from sad authors who don’t know their target market, and can’t park in their garages because of stacks of cardboard boxes filled with books they can’t sell.

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

When I attended Judith Briles’ Author U last year as a presenter who taught authors how to use social media to promote their books, I practically filled a notebook while seated in the audience listening to the other speakers. It was a lineup of the best of the best in the publishing industry.

This year promises to be no different. If you’ve written a book, you’re in the process of “birthing” one, or you’re just thinking of writing one, Denver is the place to be May 3-5.  Briles puts on one heck of a conference.

Here’s the lineup:

Florrie Binford Kichler will forecast what’s happening in the indie world.

Publicity expert Steve Harrison, who hosts the National Publicity Summit and the Quantum Publicity workshops, will explain how to get every producer to call you.

Brian Jud will speak on how to market fiction, from craft fairs to summer festivals.

Social networking expert Georgia McCabe will give dozens of tips for promoting your book in social media.

Marty Dickinson will show you how to take your book to the next level with Google+.

Mobile marketing expert Mary Barnett will help you create a marketing platform with your phone.

Nick Zelinger will show you the latest trends in book design.

Dan Pacheco will share the inside secrets of why the Huffington Post and the local Denver Post are selling gazillions of books and how you can immediately implement their techniques. 

Janita Cooper will show you how to create audio and video from your books, and snazzy book trailers too! 

Daniel Hall, the master of all things Kindle, will show you how to do it yourself whether you want to create an ebook from scratch, or convert a printed book.

Here are five more reasons you should consider attending:

1.  All three days are packed with solid content. This is not a pitch fest.

2.  They feed you. You get a continental breakfast and lunch Friday and Saturday, dinner Friday night, and dinner on Thursday for those who sign up for the special John Kremer dinner workshop. 

3.  You’ll find convenient electrical outlets at all the tables. So leave your 25-foot extension cord at home.

4.  Wifi is free. 

5.  It’s well-organized. Briles didn’t miss one little detail last year. 

Register here before it’s filled. I’m promoting Author U as a compensated affiliate because book writing and publishing is just too difficult to attempt on your own, without guidance from pros of this caliber.    

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

When planning a publicity campaign, consider all your various target markets.

And do so, please, BEFORE you start blasting your message to the world.

Think you only have one target market? Guess again.

Here are the groups you may need to reach: 

• The many people who are in a position to buy your products and services. Can they afford what you’re selling? Are they in a geographic location where they need your product? Are they in an age group that would use it? 
     
• Journalists, broadcasters and freelancers who would be interested in covering your story.
     
• Your Facebook friends and fans, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Pinterest followers, and fellow members of online discussion forums devoted to niche topics, particularly those whose target markets are similar to yours.
     
• Authors who are writing books and might need you as a resource.
     
• Bloggers who are writing about your area of expertise, or those would would love a guest post.
     
• Podcasters who are dying to have you as a guest on their show because their audience needs what you know.
     
• Article writers searching for tips or quotes that your provide.
     
• Anyone struggling with a problem that you can help solve. 
     
• Retirees with time on their hands who can volunteer for your nonprofit, and maybe even donate money.
     
• Audiences that simply want to be entertained with a book, movie, play, song , tour or live show that you can provide.
     
• YouTube visitors searching for videos so they can get step-by-step directions on how to do something like fix a leaking pipe.
     
• Offline people or groups that need to know what you know.

If you have multiple target audiences, like most of us do, sending the same message to all of them is really difficult, and often pointless. That could mean, for example, no one-size-fits-all press releases. Or no cookie cutter pitches to the two dozen journalists in your media database.

And certainly no identical status updates that are published to your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook  accounts. (Sorry. But these are all very different platforms and you must communicate with friends, followers and connections very differently.) 

Finding Them Can be Difficult 

Results of a survey I conducted late last year show a significant number of respondents don’t know how to find their target market. Or, if they CAN find their target market, they don’t know what kind of a targeted message to send.       

You’re invited to a free 90-minute webinar I’m hosting from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, April 12, on “The 3-Part Formula for Finding & Capturing Your Target Market in a Publicity Campaign.“

You’ll come away with tips that will spare you hours of wasted time writing press releases and pitches that go nowhere, and precious hours communicating with the wrong people on social media sites.

Read more about what you’ll learn and register here. (Tweet the link and share on Facebook and LinkedIn if you think this will help people who follow you.)
   
   
Your Questions Answered 

Come with questions. I’ll answer them all.

If we don’t have time for yours, I’ll send you a personal reply by email.

More than 200 Publicity Hounds have already registered for the call.

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

10 Most Common Things being Pinned on Pinterest. http://ow.ly/a9Ivc

When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here’s what Facebook sends the cops. http://ow.ly/a9HV2

50 Facebook facts that will fascinate small business. http://ow.ly/a9Yv8

Want more readers for your blog? Import it into your Goodreads profile. http://t.co/SoqcLFcv

Got a Google Places page? Beware of this new rule, or your listing might be removed. http://ow.ly/abgHp 

10 waterproof smartphone cases to prevent disaster. http://t.co/NRbO9shZ

Author U Extravaganza May 3-5 in Denver has all-star lineup. http://ow.ly/ad2Y5

12 Most Downright Useful Digital Tools for PR. http://ow.ly/ad3k6 

Likeable Runway: Social Savvy Fashion Designers.

Writing Killer Web Copy – 4 Questions You Should Answer. http://goo.gl/3CeMo 

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

So many of us are addicted to Pinterest, that it’s all too easy to forget about some of the tried-and-true sites like Meetup.com  that should be on top of our “must do” lists during a publicity campaign.

If you do business locally, or you want to publicize whatever you’re doing  in your local market, Meetup offers a wide range of features that can help.
     
     
About MeetUp

First, a little about the site. It’s the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

Meetup boasts an impressive 9 million visitors a month, meets in 45,000 cities worldwide, and has 280,000 monthly Meetups on every topic imaginable. Use the search box on the homepage to look for a group that fits your interests. Or start your own group.   

Here are nine ways to use Meetup in a publicity campaign:
   
   
1. Create a Meetup account.

Even if your group has no special events to publicize, or you have no intention of meeting regularly, or even if your membership is invitation-only, create an account anyway. Write a good description of what you do and the kinds of people who would be a good fit. You never know who’s searching for you.

Wellspring, a gardening retreat and conference center near my home in Wisconsin, found The Port Washington Garden Club on Meetup after I created an account about two years ago.  The education director searched on Meetup specifically for groups devoted to gardening and horticulture. She found my club and emailed me. Wellspring now promotes our events and we promote theirs. If you aren’t on the site, nobody can find you!

2. Attend a meeting, meet members and start forming relationships.

Don’t go intending to blast a free commercial about your business or hand out copies of your latest press release. Nobody likes that.

Meetup’s business groups  have lots of ways for members  to promote their businesses to each other. Get a feel for the group, its practices and offer free, helpful information. They’ll be dying to know what else you know. They’ll also be more inclined to spread the word about what you’re doing. 
   
   
3. Offer to speak at a Meetup group that includes people in your target market.

The Wisconsin Business Owners Lunch & Learn Meetup has invited me to speak twice, and I accepted. But I didn’t pitch. Instead, I gave a content-rich presentation on blogging. And I walked away with a pocket of business cards of people who want to subscribe to my weekly ezine, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week.”  

Groups like these are always looking for speakers. Here’s a nice promotion that featured me the last time I spoke in January. Great publicity!
   
   
3. Offer free information and samples to Meetup groups.

Group organizers love free stuff they can pass along to their members during a Meetup. A doggy day care owner can offer an oversized all-natural dog biscuit for a Meetup group of dog lovers. A plumber can give away a step-by-step guide on how to fix a leaky faucet to moms in a Single Moms Meetup. You can find the group organizer and contact information for each Meetup on that group’s page.
 

4. Connect your Facebook account to Meetup.

This lets your Facebook friends see what you’re up to on Meetup, and vice-versa which further spreads the word.
   
   
5. Take advantage of Meetup promoting your group.

Once you’ve created a Meetup group, Meetup will promote it automatically. Most groups have new members within a few days.
   
   
6.  Found a Meetup you love? Look for similar Meetups.

On some Meetup pages, you’ll see a box that says, “People in this Meeteup are also in…”
   
   
7. Need to get in front of bloggers? Many communities have blogger Meetups.

In Chicago, for example, there’s the Chicago Bloggers Meetup with 309 members and the Chicago Blogs Meetup with 80. Getting to know bloggers long before you want publicity is a great strategy. Don’t have a blog yet? That’s OK. Ask them how to start one. 
   
   
8. Learn about PR, publicity, marketing and social media.

In most major cities and many smaller ones, you’ll find Meetup groups devoted to these topics. I found two social media groups in the Milwaukee area that I want to join. What a fun way to learn more  about whatever you need to know.
   
   
9. Look within Meetup groups for PR-related vendors.

Need a press release writer? Photographer? Ghostwriter?  Publicist?

Meetup’s search box makes it easy to find, within minutes, local groups where these people congregate.  

   
That’s my list. How else do you use Meetup.com for publicity? 
 

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

Here’s another reason not to rely on Wikipedia as a trusted source of knowledge for anything.

A new study published in the Public Relations Journal shows that a stunning 60 percent of articles about specific companies contained factual errors.

The research was conducted by Marcia W. DiStaso, Ph.D., co-chair of PRSA’s National Research Committee and an assistant professor of public relations at Penn State University. She surveyed 1,284 PR professionals to find out how they use Wikipedia or correct errors they find there.

“It does not surprise me that so many Wikipedia entries contain factual errors,” said DiStaso. “What is surprising, however, is that 25 percent of survey respondents indicated they are not familiar with the Wikipedia articles for their company or clients. At some point most, if not all, companies will determine they need to change something in their Wikipedia entries. Without clear, consistent rules from Wikipedia regarding how factual corrections can be made this will be a very difficult learning process for public relations professionals.”

Wikipedia’s editing process is so cumbersome, that some people just don’t bother. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, told the Associated Press last fall that Wikipedia is losing the crowd that keeps it updated. The typical profile of a contributor is “a 26-year-old geeky maole” who moves on to ther ventures and leaves the website.

Administrators are working to simplify the way users can contribute and edit materials. Finally.

If you’re in PR, or you do your own publicity, do you use Wikipedia? Do you find it difficult to use? Do you regularly monitor it? Have you tried to submit a Wiklipedia entry for your client but it got rejected? Share your story in the Comments section below.

The Publicity Hound’s Blog

This week’s guest post was written by Charmel Delos Santos, a private trader, author, mother of three, and ex-beauty queen wannabe. Ger her free preview ebook, “High Heeled Traders,” and learn how to trade profitably like only a woman can.

*     *     *

By Charmel Delos Santos

I taught my 2-year-old daughter a children’s song last week and she has since been humming it for days—she seems to like repeating an itty bitty three-word-part she can’t keep out of her head. Like golden nuggets of wisdom, some words nicely strung together can have a lasting effect.

So let me share how I strung some words together and got some immediate and far-reaching publicity.

In December, I finished a book on stocktrading for women and decided to go on a “business and pleasure holiday.” I live in Sydney, Australia and went to holiday in the Philippines where I came from originally.

After a week of splashing island time, we pitched TV stations and got their interest. Two TV stations promptly sent their news crews for my book launching there. One TV station aired it on the evening news immediately following, and the other one aired the video clip three times on their cable channel!

A reporter wrote an article, Stock market trading is like shopping,  for the news website which bannered in their “Profiles” section for days. Also, the articles and video clip received high viewership and were consequently bannered in the “Most Read” features, even beating the article on Facebook IPO!

This is the newsclip:

Back here in Sydney, I pitched our local newspaper, the North Shore Times, and they wrote a feature article on the book. After publication, I thanked the journalist and told her about all the interest it generated and offered to send her a complimentary book. She replied and asked me how I’d like to have a “book giveaway” promo on their Facebook site!

Make Magic with Words

Journalists are busy people. Attract their attention right away by putting the statements that will jump out at them in the headline or subject line or in the very first paragraph of the press release.

Here are the ideas I’ve used:

1. Use local references.

My book and my messages have global appeal which is “investing/share trading for women,” but I made an effort to make it a juicy, relatable topic for the local audience. 

For the local newspaper, the North Shore Times, my headline was “North Shore women are trading”. ” In the Philippines, the press release carried a statement that appeals to the values of the target audience. I said the “Filipinas (as women in the Philippines are called) are very keen in finance to help them care for their families.”
   
   
2. Use humor.

 No jokes required, but a little play on words that will make a journalist smile, be amused or feel good will surely get you into their good graces. If you can get a weighed down journalist to lighten up, imagine how he could use that to good effect to his audience!

• I included a twist—associating a “non-business” word to finance. I used this in the press release I sent to them, and again in the TV interviews. Phrases like “Trading gets extreme… makeover!”
   
• I compared two vastly different concepts “trading is like shopping.” If you can do so with a resulting comic effect, that would be so much better.      
   

3.  Make a “challenging” statement.

This could be a totally new perspective or state a little-known but increasingly important point.

I said that “Women are natural traders” although they really are scared of trading in stocks, and 90 percent of traders are men. I explained that trading is just buying and selling. “In our world, it’s called shopping. Women shop a lot.”

I also said “more stay-at-home moms are trading” because they like the flexibility and want the extra income.

So there! Weave some magic into the words you use to pitch the media. You’ll have more credibility and get more publicity!

The Publicity Hound’s Blog