Article at a glance:

• Have a marketing plan before you need it.
• Consider your options, resources and budget.
• If you don’t have an audience, start building now.

I hear it almost every day from all sorts of prospective clients, including some very savvy business professionals:

“I’ve written my book (or developed my product) and I need your help with marketing it.”

So, I ask, “What’s your plan? How much have you budgeted for it?”

Plan? Budget? They’ve been so immersed in pouring heart and soul into their dream, they’ve given no thought to how they’ll share it with the world when it’s done. The best time to start thinking about marketing is long before the book is written or the “fibbajiwijit” is built.

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8 Tips for Being a Great TV Talk Show Guest

Article at a glance

• Relax and treat the host like a friend
• Dress in solid, darker colors
• Be an expert guest, not a salesperson

Making your first television appearance as a guest on a news or talk show can be one of the most thrilling, and nerve-wracking, events in your publicity campaign.

Let’s face it – we think TV, we think celebrity. It’s exciting. Ever spot the anchor from your local TV newscast dining in the same restaurant as you? Did you grab your companion’s arm, point, and say, sotto voce, “Look!”?  (Yes, I’m guilty, too.) Read more →

Last week we lost a legend, boxing coach and trainer Angelo Dundee. As most of you know, he was the cornerman for world heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali.

Although I still don’t understand this about myself, I’m a huge fan of world championship boxing — and boxing doesn’t get huger than Ali! Read more →

5 Tips for Making the Most of It

Getting media exposure means putting yourself out there. It might be chatting live on the air with a radio talk show host, taping an appearance for TV, coming up with posts for social media, or being interviewed by a print journalist.

The first couple times can make you apprehensive, but trust me, that disappears quickly. You realize the interviewers tend to ask the same questions, so there are few surprises. You figure out your best sound bites and the responses that get a nice chuckle, and you polish those up.

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Article highlights:

• As with diet and exercise, consistency makes all the difference in marketing and public relations.
• Four realistic tips for daily implementation of marketing plans.
• Discipline and willpower are keys to weight loss and winning marketing plans.

If you sat down at your desk the first workday of the New Year, and vowed to do something bigger and better to market yourself or your business in 2012, you certainly were in good company. There’s nothing like the fresh start of a New Year for motivating us to tackle what seemed to be an overwhelming task last year. But, unfortunately, the odds may be stacked against your well-intentioned plan.

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Story at a glance:

• Massive layoffs have changed the way newspapers do business; they’re now even more short-handed and time-crunched than ever.
• Newspapers need quick-turnaround content to help fill pages.
• How to position and pitch yourself to editors, so you can be featured in the news.

Back in October, I was a beneficiary of the sadness sweeping newspapers across the country — more than 20,000 layoffs since 2008 (and that’s a conservative estimate).

Here in Tampa-St. Petersburg, one of our two major dailies, The Tampa Tribune, laid off about 30 veteran reporters and editors in June, in a desperate effort to balance its books. It didn’t work. The paper laid off 165 more employees just last week.

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While Your Competitors Guzzle the Eggnog, You Can Be Getting the Media

And now, the season begins.

In the office, everyone is hanging around the coffee machine longer and enjoying holiday deserts.  Outside the office, people are caught up in the holiday parties, shopping, food, family gatherings, and enough reruns of holiday programs that they are replaying the Grinch song in their head. They spend a little more time online surfing eBay for gifts and writing emails to associates hoping to put any real work off until January 2.

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Why Small Radio Station Interviews Can Be Just as Good – If Not Better – Than the Big Ones

There is no question that the activity of public relations is primarily a numbers game.

The predominant viewpoint is that a campaign that reaches a large audience is typically a successful campaign. But when you delve beyond the surface, you may be surprised to discover that there are still instances in which smaller can actually be better.

In radio, that is very much the case these days.

So much has changed in the world of talk radio, where the power of the station isn’t as relevant as it used to be, primarily because of three key elements: ratings, formats and the Internet.

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The Secret is that it’s NOT all About You

Sometimes the harshest truths are the most important ones.

In public relations, one of the most important truisms revolves around the primary question that the media asks itself as it evaluates the potential stories it may cover: Who really cares?

They ask that question not out of rudeness, but rather out of a genuine desire to serve their audiences. Now, as consumers of the media, we may argue some of their choices of stories (I’m completely mystified with the media’s fascination with the cast of the Jersey Shore, but that’s just me), but we have to remember that the media’s revenue comes from the size and scope of their audiences. If they believe their audience wants to hear about a particular person or story, you can be assured they’ll cover it.

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How the Different Elements of Your PR Campaign Work Together

With all the movies coming out in 3-D these days, I started thinking about how a good PR campaign also has its own 3-D elements. Well, really, there are four types of media outlets today – TV, radio, print (offline and online) and social media – so you really need a 4-D strategy (a point I am sure I will be arguing online at some point with a smart-aleck physicist who takes issue with my science).

In PR, unlike movies, 4-D is the only way to go. I mention this because people frequently ask me which of the four media outlets I think is better. I try to explain that each one is effective in its own right, however, as the media feeds off of itself, the most effective PR campaign will include using all elements in a strategy that leverages a 4-dimensional approach.

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