Direct Contact PR, Internet media faxgrowth




 
amateurfetishist.com

articles

Actions to help people will get you more publicity

Best professional branding publicity comes from problem solving tips articles and advice

This is one of the most common suggestions I have for people who seek publicity.

Help the people you can help the most.

When you write a news release the best professional branding will come when you ask media to publish something that helps people and show them you can really do it well.

You can’t do this by simply talking about a subject. Too much talk and discussion and passive explanation and you will lose attention. Text dense prose lacks direct tangible, immediate effect. There’s no way to achieve or experience real results right now. So if this is what you place in a news release, you are likely to fail.

You need to shrink wrap the dialog and explanation. You also can’t preach.

What you do instead is simply define a problem and then tell people with that problem exactly what to do to make progress solving that problem.

Action pack your article and dialog from now on with the specific ways to take action that produces a predictable result, contribution, effect or impact.

Let’s just say you were a romance expert and you wrote a book about romance and intimacy. Now to get publicity you want to propose an article or interview talking points that improve intmacy between people. Well there are five types of intimacy you identify. Intellectual, social, emotional, spiritual, physical.

If you offer up two ways each that’s ten. Three ways each that’s fifteen actions.

Take all your ideas and turned them into carefully organized specific set of actions. You need to offer actions designed to produce specific feelings and sensations and experiences that create intimacy.

This does not necessarily need to come out of your book if it wasn’t done this way. When you seek publicity you are free to go outside your book and simply focus on being expert at the subject matter of your book. So go a head and be free. Grow new ideas out of what you wrote in your book.

In fact, now that your book is published your new goal is to turn people on wherever you go and offering entertaining, educational, and galvanizing suggestions in the form of actions can make a truly great and memorable impression.

So no matter what you’ve written, try to learn to speak this way (action focused) from now on when you talk to and present to media and your public.

People don’t want to hear platitudes of just how they should think. They want to be told what to do that produces the results you are telling them to achieve. Your book explains. In your PR and interviews you have to offer things that are more immediate. This is work book time. Your PR are the recipes for action.

People will not remember the why or the how come. They will remember only specific things you tell them to do, that THEY LEARN REALLY WORK. If they experience even a glimmer of success then they will remember and attribute it to you. This is what you need to achieve for AND with them. Give them the actual steps to real success. Then they will trust you and buy everything you have available in every way you make it available.

The fact that what you now offer up goes beyond your book does not matter as long as you can own the words here and make these your own. We can leave the words in the book behind. You can talk beyond the book and help the people you can help the most by giving them what they need and what the most, which is to be told what to do. Right now.Now we have to learn how we (YOU) can talk and present (in person, in interviews and in media articles) so that we (YOU) really turn people on and HELP THEM.

That’s what PR does.

The Key to Success is to Really Do Something

Action plan for turning passive reading into active maximum enjoyment

Read a book. To get from passive knowledge to active maximum enjoyment and real tangible benefits you need to do more than just read.

Take notes while you read. Underline ideas that you like. Highlight the things you’d like to make happen.

After reading, review the notes.

Think about each and every underlined passage.

Now think, actively dream and visualize about how you can use the idea.

Now write down what you want and need to do to apply the idea to your life, business, career, project or whatever.

Then identify the tasks you need to perform to make this idea happen.

Now create a schedule to do the tasks.

Now implement that schedule and take the first action on your list of task.

Keep going.

Getting more book reviews for self-published books

Getting more book reviews for self-published books

Self-published authors often complain about how hard it is to get book reviews. Many of my clients are self published authors.

I don’t think that media distinguish books by whether they are from self-publishers or quality publshers that much any more. Some do, but it’s because they make an assumpition of quality. That is what they really seek to do anyway so as not to waste their time. They separate books that are quality books from books that are not.

Self published books get reviews day in day out. I will heartily affirm the advice from Jacqueline Simmons of Beagle Bay and Jim Cox of Midwest Book Review that a quality book is the first essential requirement.

But there is a second essential requirement you need to get down pat especially if you want to achieve financial success with your book.

That is this: You have to talk to your target audience and persuade them to take action to get your quality product. That means that the messages you create have to communicate meaningfully and incite and even galvanize these people to action.

There are many ways that authors can do that. The best way is to simply decide that you want to truly impress and interest the right people. So start with this question:

Who is going to be most interested in what I can talk about? This can’t be “everyone”. It has to be people in a pool or group that has similar interests. Then you have to think up how you are going to reach them and communicate with them. You have to identify the communications technology and pathway you will use.

Finally you ask yourself to identify what are you going to say in three minutes that will get them to come right up and hand you money.

You may think this is a crazy way to sell books or to get book reviews, but I do this for authors for a living. Authors are actually the best person to identify “the magic words” because when they start talking sincerely and openly and get spontaneous and excited about their writing, that’s when they say the things that interest people the most.

AND THE BEST PART ABOUT THIS IS THAT YOU CAN DO THIS ANYWHERE.

But you may need help with this. You may need to work with someone who watches your audience when you talk and notices what happens when you say certain things. What you are looking for is the sentences and speech that gets people to drill you with rapt attention.

You need to identify and capture what you say that really turns people on.

This is the exact language and information that you need to use in your news releases that get you book reviews. This is what you need to use so that you also get feature stories and interviews. You need to learn what you can say that really turns people on. It may or may not be inside the book you wrote. Don’t think that it has to be out of the book. It can be about you, your topic, your dog or your Aunt Tilly. It just has to be so good that people get so interested in you that they are persuaded to take a look at your creation.

From my experience with authors and experts of all types, what it really comes down to is a three to five minute piece that galvanizes people with you doing what you absolutely do the best. There is a method that I use to help people develop what they need. Here it is:

Imagine being in front of 20 to 30 of the very best people you think would be most interested you and what you do. Describe these people so that you have a picture of who they are and what they look like.

Now identify the absolute most interesting topic, challenge, or problem situation you can think of, that will interest the maximum number of people just like them.

NOW give them your five to ten best tips, problem solving actions, ideas, stories, jokes, or lessons learned. WHATEVER! Just focus your energy on your target audience and give them your very best. Can you give these people your ten commandments? Can you knock their socks off so that half of them come flying out of their chairs with their pocketbooks or wallets open? (BTW that’s a 50 percent response). That’s your goal. Do you realize that even if you only get one in ten to buy, that’s a ten percent response, and that’s still remarkable. Most business operate their marketing profitably at a much lower response rate. Less than 1 percent.

I want you to pretend you have three to five minutes to give a these people eight to maybe ten absolutely phenomenal show stoppers. That means for ten items, you have less than 20 seconds or less for each one, plus a one minute intro and a one minute ending.

This is what we put into your news release. This si what you offer to reviewers to get them interested in your book. Don’t think that all you need to do is describe your book. That’s not going to cut it. You need to prove that people will be interested. You need to communicate and demonstrate the value to the audience.

The goal is to create a vision for the media that clearly illustrates and allows them to see in their minds — How you can help or entertain or educate the people you can help or educate or entertain the most.

Focus less on ideas than on actions that people can take to deliver immediate or tangible real time or near term benefits, impacts, or predictable consequences. These show stoppers should be “Do This Today” types of actions.

This forms the core content to the news release/show proposal pitch.

These will also be publishable as an article with some caveats we can add to the beginning and ending of the core content to turn it into a proper news release offering. It will also become the core script for a Q & A style interview, so they serve many purposes. These ideas will also persuade media editors to ask for and review your book.

You can do whatever you can do. You just have to be your wittiest and most galvanizing self. You can be humorous and/or serious, just be good and make them memorable. Keep them G Rated.

This method works. I use it all the time to get my clients to stop selling and really create, develop and offer the media the news, education and entertainment they need to decide to give people media coverage. I used this technique with authors of all types.

Want proof? Create a Google News Alert on the words ‘book review’ so you can receive clips and see who’s getting covered to your heart’s content like this:

http://news.google.com/news/search?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=book+review+

Study the results each day and see how the media is writing about book authors these days. Evaluate existing coverage and use my 3 I technique.

So here’s the bottom line. I hope you take may advice. Self published authors do get reviews.

First WRITE A GOOD BOOK.

Second LEARN HOW TO TURN PEOPLE ON WHEN YOU SPEAK ABOUT YOUR BOOK.

Help the people you can help the most and offer the very best most educational and entertaining three to five minutes of talk you possibly can.

BY the way, if you do follow this advice, send me your best tips or talking points in an email message. I’ll be happy to comment and give you recommendations on what you’ve created and show you how to go the distance to create a news release that will produce the maximum results.

This is how you’ll get the most media response, the best book reviews and the most effective publicity you’ve ever experienced. You’ll also sell more books.

I guarantee that once you create and prove this little script of yours and once you really get it down and prove to yourself that it’s repeatable, you can use it again and again everywhere you go. That’s the miracle of the microcosm in America. We’ve got a country of 330 million media indoctrinated people, and once you learn how to galvanize them in your back yard, you can use technology to repeat the message and reproduce the response again and again.

Seven Key Types of Attention Grabbing Headlines, Email Subject Lines, and Tweets

Seven Key Types of Attention Grabbing Headlines, Email Subject Lines, and Tweets

I am constantly identifying micro-content that grabs attention. In a world where people have adult ADD (attention deficit disorder), getting their attention is an ever increasing challenge.

What is interesting is that if you study the mini-messages that work, you begin to see that there are special characteristics that fall into a small but important series of categories. Here they are:

1. Problem Identified
2. Problem Warning
3. Problem Solved
4. Someone in Trouble
5. Someone Saved or Rescued
6. Something Bad Happened
7. Something Good Happened

You can look at newspapers or magazines and news search engines and see these categories everywhere.

If you are trying to create galvanizing micro-content, these alternatives make it really easy to identify some ideas for you.

Simplifies things, doesn’t it?

A Book Publicity Success Story for a book published over ten years ago

A Book Publicity PR Success Story - about a book published over ten years ago

I just had to share this one hot off the press.

About a month ago I wrote a news release for client Susan Casey, author of the book Women Invent! The book was first published in 1997.

I decided to create a feature story and I worked with the author to develop quality detailed content with an offer of photos highlighting the accomplishments and achievements of famous women inventors from the past 100 plus years. We sent out the news release email html in early February to a custom list of science, education, and women’s media nationwide.

Here’s the link to the article published yesterday March 31, 2009 in Fast Company Magazine:

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/some-greatest-inventors-were-women

Lesson learned – the age of the book doesn’t matter. Galvanizing content and timeliness matters.

March is Women’s History Month.

Good to the last drop!

If anyone wants to see the news release pdf file please send me an email.

Paul J. Krupin – Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/

Recession-Schmecession! The sky isn’t falling. The ground is rising!

Recessions present unique opportunities to expand your business

Bruce Rigney and the remarkably talented folks at Rigney Graphics posted some very insightful data in the wonderful post titled:

Recession-Schmecession!

http://www.rigneygraphics.com/emails/recession0109/

Great data and analysis. Smart recommendations.

Now if only our bank accounts gave us the flexibility we need to take advantage of these opportunities!

Getting other people to talk about you in a favorable way

How to get the right people to talk about you in a way that helps your business

How do you do that so that the right people talk about you in a way that helps your business?

What you need to do is sprinkle the airwaves with certain types of information that result in communications between people that ties back to your business so that:

1. drives interest to your business or website
2. produces traffic or incoming calls or visits and prospect inquiries; (so you can covert prospects into customers); or
3. produces direct sales (so you don’t have to convert at all).

Here are the ways to do that:

1. tell a remarkable story
2. offer up a really incredible product or service
3. break some important news
4. be phenomenally helpful, educational or entertaining
5. be innovative
6. be unique
7. be original
8. be unusual
9. be incredibly knowledgeable
10. help the people you can help the most

What you need to do is develop this information and package it into a core document which can serve as a source for a suite of other specific communications you can use in a variety of ways.

Now recognize that there are over 20 different categories of online and offline media that you can place your message.

Package it and present it so that it is readily usable in each technology and situation. What you need to do is reformat the message the same core message can be readily injected and utilized by these various technological mediums.

Then you’ll be able to persuade other people to get the word out for you.

Are books dead? Is publishing dying?

discusses what it takes to be successful publishing, promoting and publicizing

Books aren’t dead. Publishing isn’t dead. It’s just that publishing technology keeps on evolving. The way we sell intellectual property is diversifying.

I work with many, many creative people and companies and what I am observing is that the number of ways people buy written words that they can read and acquire for value is increasing. As a publisher, this represents a major challenge. But the rewards in a country of 330 million people are still phenomenal. So I believe it’s worth the effort.

In the publishing field, you can start with a single book and then do what Dan Poynter has been saying for many years now. You diversify the intellectual property and sell it in what ever way people will buy it. So that means turning a book into a tape, video, ebook, or a workshop, or a teleseminar, or a web seminar or whatever your particular target pool of people will want and purchase. You can package your IP small and big. You can format it for pdf, Kindle, large print, tape, video, audio (mp3), video (MPEG, WMV).

Promoting it is the same. First you learn what you have to say to interest people and produce the action you want. Then you incorporate that learned tested message into your marketing materials. You start with your person to person discussions. Then once you learn what turns individuals on you expand it to small groups. Then you can move on to your news releases and then use the same core copy in your direct marketing materials.

Now you also have the ability and choice to reformat the same core copy and adapt it so that you can use it in all sorts of prime media formats and Internet media formats.

What you need to do is be systematic and test and develop and retest and redevelop till you have the content and communications that produce the same effect on people each time you use them.

What I’m seeing is that the use of technology is a force multiplier. Whether you put proven messages into a news release and convince a publisher to share your news is what you are aiming for. The choices of placement are now expanded. With prime media you have newspapers (daily and weekly), magazines, radio, tv, news services, syndicates. With the Internet web sites you also have the online counterparts to all the above. But you also have content opportunities at other people’s web sites, blogs, forums, discussion groups, ezines, mailing lists, audio, video sites, and the news search engines and specialized search engines. There is also social media – blogs, and the MySpace, Facebook types of sites, and the Twitters and more. People are now receiving plug messages for good stuff in all sorts of ways. Encouraging snippets motivate people when they come from trusted sources.

So in addition to creating THE TRULT GREAT BOOK, you also need to have galvanizing copy that not only gets you published but also searches well and motivates people to action off of very small snippets. You start with the book. Then you learn and document the best way to turn people on.

Once you get that down you can leverage it using the technology and mediums available to reach people. Each technology has its own style, format and communication system requirements. This means you may have to learn new styles and ways to communicate. But if you for example have a great problem solving tips article that produces media interest, you may also be able to use that core in articles and posts online at forums, blogs, mailing lists, ezines, and other places.

Even the David Meerman Scott’s New PR methods are basically just adapting to the new technologies. They say “write news release that sells product” because people can see it on a news search engine.

However the success still hinges on the quality and remark ability of the product, and the persuasive content and quality of the news release. People respond to quality. They ignore and bypass mediocrity. The good stuff rises to the top. The bad stuff sinks away out of site.

People tell their friends when something is really good. They also steer their friends away from stuff that’s not that good. That’s because people want to be seen as helpful to others in the marketplace.

And if the statement “You gotta get this!” or “That book is incredible!” gets flowing on social media sites from person to person, you can find yourself swamped with orders.

From my perspective as a publicist who helps people achieve success, the two base requirements for creators who want to achieve success are 1. create something really good and 2. develop the proven communications needed to trigger action by your target audience.

You must learn how to sell your product by speaking to people. Your personal experience with your products with your customers and audience is very valuable. You use their feedback to guide you to the best communications you can use.

Once you have this then you can use all the available technologies to communicate meaningfully with your particular audience.

This may take some systematic careful planning and effort. But it really creates opportunities. One book can be sold in many different ways. Each one is an income stream that can be developed and can contribute to a very significant income.

The most important thing you can do is to create something remarkable. That’s what you have to do first and foremost. It’s like making candy. You test your recipe by giving it to people and refine your formula till people just get a little taste and instantly want more. You’ll know when people like your candy by their reaction.

In my view, what you need to do is simply devote yourself to being the best that you can be. I see that success is going to people who help the people that they can help the most. This is true whether they are a writer or a comedian or a manufacturer of products or a provider of services. If you devote yourself to excellence and service of others, then people recognize and appreciate what you do, because you do it so well.

My job as a publicist always seems to be trying to help people find out what they do best because sometimes they don’t really know because they have not asked the right questions and really paid that much attention to the very people they are trying to reach, help or entertain, and sell.

It’s up to you as the creative source to produce the candy that make people go crazy and tell their friends all about it. That’s the base challenge – the key requirement. The creation has to be really good. If you are an author or a publisher, you need to write a really good book. If you are an inventor, you need to create a product that really makes a difference. If you are a service provider, you need to offer advice or help so that it really does solve a problem and improve what people can do.

If you don’t do that first, then not much can happen as you try to get people interested in it.

Once you create a product that taste like candy, then you have to learn how to get people to talk about that candy.

News search engine tips and tactics for authors and publishers

News search engine tips and tactics for authors and publishers

Did you know that you now have access to some of the world’s most powerful online electronic clipping tools?

They are called News Search Engines. You can use them to dramatically improve your success with the media.

News search engines are specialized search engines that visit news sites from all over the Internet and use computer algorithms to select stories for inclusion. They then cluster the stories and photos into an online magazine format. As the news changes the news search engines keep you informed of the latest developments.

They allow you to search the latest news stories from hundreds to thousands of news sources. This gives you the critical business intelligence about not only what the media is covering but how they like to publish what they cover.

Some of them also allow you to create special news alerts, which send you an email message every time a news story comes out on your special topic or keywords of interest.

This is very powerful and useful technology and at least for right now, it’s free.

Let’s explore these and find out how you can use them to get more publicity for your business, for your books, and for you and your authors.

Top News Search Engines include the following:

Google News
Yahoo News
Alta Vista News
All the Web News
MSN News
Daypop
Topix.net

Not all news search engines are created equal. Some provide coverage of some areas while others don’t. Some news search engines even let you establish channels like this one, set up to reveal news from the book publishing industry for selected news services and syndicates.

Yahoo Book Publishing News of the Day

You can search and find information on a wide number of critical topics. It is up to you to identify your key words. This is a fine art because if your search words are too general you will get way too many stories each day to be useful to you.

Read the rest of this entry »