Thea Zagata - Ladies Who Launch Blog Posts

I have a secret...

…that I need to share with you (and you won’t hear this from too many small business public relations professionals). Drum roll…PR is not brain surgery! In fact, with a little bit of guidance, you can actually do it yourself.

For instance, today I was on a call with a potential client who is going to be launching a new beauty PR product. She was inquiring about my DIY PR Pack and she wanted my honest opinion. She asked me, “Could she seriously secure press on her own without the help of the publicist?” She was horrible at selling herself. How is this possible? Where would she find the time? How would she know who to contact? These may be some of the questions you can ask yourself when trying to do your own PR. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. PR Strategy – Start with an effective PR strategy that involves brainstorming a relevant PR hook or media angle; determining your ultimate customer/client; and researching and targeting media publications that are in line with your audience.

2. Pitch Notes – Media pitch notes are short, concise and relevant email notes written for a journalist with a specific media outlet section/column in mind. Journalists are receiving hundreds of email pitches a day so it’s important to really nail your pitch in 4-5 sentences.

3. Press Release – Press releases are an excellent tool to share news about a product or service in a central document with the media. However, these days a press release isn’t only reserved for the media. Today, press releases are also for your customers since they can easily access your press release online. Plus, your release should be search engine optimized so it appears in Google searches.

4. Media Contact Lists – A media list is a list of journalists or producers from newspapers, magazines, blogs, radio or TV shows with contact information. Select the media outlets and contacts based on your PR media strategy.

All of the above items are included in my fully customized DIY PR Pack. Click here to learn about some of Pesce PR’s DIY PR Pack Alumni who have taken advantage of this affordable PR option.

Do you think you can do your own PR? Yes? No? Why?

When to start thinking about PR? NOW! Read on to learn about deadlines you don't want to miss!

Outreach to the media takes a great dealing of planning, which is why I usually suggest to my small business public relations clients to start thinking about their PR strategy as early as possible. There are may reasons to start planning early, but one of the most important is to make sure you don’t miss any media deadlines, especially if your product is seasonal.

Lead times for various media outlets can vary quite a bit, which is why it’s a good idea to have a media execution timeline in place that reflects the timing of when you’ll start your outreach.

There are always some exceptions, but you can follow the below timing as a general guideline as to when you should start pitching your product/service.

General Consumer Magazines (e.g. InStyle): three-five months
Blogs/Web Sites (e.g. ivillage.com): one – four weeks
Newspapers (e.g. Washington Post): two – six weeks
Trade Magazines (Gourmet Retailer): two months
Regional Magazines (e.g. New York Magazine): two months
Bridal Magazines (Brides): six months

For example, if your product is launching in January, you’ll want to start your media outreach to magazines as early as July or August. If you’re offering a media exclusive, then that publication should be pitched in June since the publication will want to write about the product/service first. Exclusives are another topic, but I recently did a DIY PR post called The Art of the Media Exclusive if you’re interested in learning more on this topic.

Are you Ready for Your Close-Up? The Importance of Good Photography and Public Relations.

One of the most easily overlooked tasks with my small business public relations clients is the importance of really great photography. While you’ll need some fantastic shots for your Web site, I’m only going to address photos as it relates to public relations for this post.

First up, the primary media outlets that will use your photos as part of an editorial piece will be blogs, Web sites, local newspapers, regional magazines and trade publications. The big national magazines and/or newspapers will more than likely be doing their own photo shoots with your products. However, you’ll still use your photographs in the early pitching stages regardless if they do their own photo shoots.

Good photography is a very important tool to have in your PR arsenal as it helps to bring to life your story while highlighting the unique attributes about your products. For example, I work with a fantastic company that makes cookies that are meant to be paired with wine. In a recent photo shoot they captured the following:

photos of the outer packaging (including a close-up of the wine pairing guide on the side of the box) photos of the cookies individually (up close for texture and further away) highly styled shots with cookies and wine (to show the uniqueness that these cookies were made to go with wine!)

For PR purposes, I’d recommend having about four really great shots that beautifully and professionally capture the product. Of course, this is relative to the PR program and the number of products you’re pitching, etc.

I know this all sounds fine and dandy until you have to buck up for a photo shoot. While I can’t magically turn you into a professional photographer, I will say good photography is one of the most important PR tools that you will need. Skip the big fancy press kits and folders. Besides media samples, almost all correspondence is done electronically anyway.

Here are some thoughts on how to find an affordable yet decent photographer:

1. Etsy: Etsy has a feature called Alchemy where you can post what you’re looking for with your budget and members can bid on the project. This also gives you a chance to preview some of their work in advance.

2. Interns: When I was looking for graphic designers with my last business, I did a post at some of the art schools and received some responses from students who were trying to build their portfolio. Many will do it for free, but who really likes to work for free? That being said, the cost would probably be quite minimal and you’ll probably get more qualified students by offering to pay.

3. Craigslist: This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Craigslist for photographers. When I had my cookie company, I was working on a bare bones budget and I found a photographer on Craigslist who was reasonably priced and she had an attractive portfolio. I had to bring the cookies to her apartment but she had most of the props (and did the food styling herself).

For the DIY PR peeps out there, another affordable public relations option is to take your own photographs, however, I don’t recommend this unless you have some good skills and can guarantee the photos look professional.

For service-based companies, a head shot is necessary and you’ll use it over and over again for much more than simply PR efforts. I’ve included mine above, which was taken by the incredibly talented LWL member Tanzie Johnson.

Any other thoughts on photography, leave them in the comments. I’d also love to hear tips from self-taught or professional photographers as well.

DIY PR: Making Media List Magic!

I met with a small business public relations client this morning and she told me she didn’t know what a media list was when she first started her business. So glad she mentioned this…an easy way to start this week’s post…

What is a media list? A media list is a list of journalists or producers from newspapers, magazines, blogs, radio or TV shows. This list includes their contact information and, in some cases, a bit of information on the outlet and journalist. This list is used when “pitching” the media. For example, if you want to get your product in the editorial pages of Real Simple magazine about a new food product, your media list would probably include the Food Editor at Real Simple. But, wait, maybe the Food Editor only handles recipes. What now? Well, you’ll need to find someone who handles new products, or a holiday gift guide, perhaps? You won’t know until you do the RESEARCH (muy importante). More on that to come. Just keep in mind, a solid media list is about quality and not about quantity.

PR professionals like me typically subscribe to a database, which provides contact information and profile information for journalists. However, even with a database, you need to create a media strategy and research is required in order to choose the correct journalist and the column/beat. A subscription for a database is a big expense for the DIY PR peeps who are looking for affordable public relations solutions so here are a few tips if you are going to go it alone…

If you still need help, you can also tap into moi (hey, a girl’s gotta do…) and I can create lists for you as well. Any other ideas out there on how to do some research on finding journalists to pitch? Leave ‘em in the comments.

Target Outlets & Shows - Create a list of target publications (blogs, magazines, newspapers, etc.) based on your target audience. (A quick note about blogs – there are freaking TONS of them. Not all of them are going to impact sales or give you the 3rd party credibility you’re looking for in a blog. Stick to picking the top 10-15 in your category) Read up & Research! - Read these publications online or in-person (why, hello, Barnes & Noble. no I don’t mind if I do stay for awhile. Not endorsing but I’m just sayin…). It’s best of course to regularly read the publications you are going to pitch. However, it’s a tad unrealistic to think you can read all of the publications you want to pitch. Here’s what I recommend. Use Google Reader to follow your top blogs and do a quick scan of them daily. Choose your top 3-5 magazines that are your dream publications and subscribe to them. The rest can be researched on your own time as I mentioned above. Contact Information – Once you have found the right section and journalist to add to your list, it’s time to find the contact information. For blogs, it’s usually one person writing the blog and you can retrieve their contact information from the blog itself. For magazines and newspapers, it requires some online digging. Do some searching on the publication’s Web site, try LinkedIn or just a general Google search. Another trick is to find the email formula of the publication and give that a whirl. Putting it all together - Suppose you are launching a kid’s clothing store in NYC. The target lists I’d recommend are: NYC online outlets and NYC print publications. Look online for the top Web sites in this category and visit a book store to see what local publications you could be pitching. Soon, you’ll start to develop your target list: Daily Candy Kids, Stroller Traffic, Time Out New York Kids, etc. You get the idea. Once this NYC-targeted list is in order, look online and flip through the magazine to see which writer is covering any of the following beats: kid’s fashion, store openings, events (if you’re having one), etc. Then start your hunt for the contact information. Many small business public relations clients ask me about “blasting” out a press release to a list they bought of 200+ names. No No No!! I don’t even like getting a mass email from my friends, never mind a stranger so you can imagine how a journalist might feel. I’d rather use a small list of five key target publications and journalists than a list of hundreds of random journalists. If you still need help, you can also tap into moi (hey, a girl’s gotta do…) and I can create lists for you as well.

The Two Things you are C-R-A-Z-Y Not to do to your Press Release

Press releases are a useful tool for small business public relations clients to share news about a product or service in a central document. However, these days a press release isn’t only reserved for the media. It’s also for your customers. In fact, a well-written search optimized press release does triple duty! In addition to a communications tool, a search optimized release can give your Web site a bump and potential customers/clients can locate you via your release on an online search. Below are two very easy tips to follow to create a search optimized press release. If you need more information on WHY you should optimize your release, open up Google and search DIY PR – you’ll see my press release come up on the first page. (At the time of this writing).

Before you begin to optimize a release, you need to determine your top 2-3 key words. This can be done by reviewing your Google Analytics and selecting your top words with low bounce rates. The Google Adwords tool is also an excellent resource to gather data. While I am not an SEO expert (and this is not a post about determining key words), there are many articles online about selecting key words. You should dedicate some time to this task, as it’s very important. In addition to your press releases, key words should be included in Web site copy, blog posts, and other online content. Following are the two steps I recommend once you have selected your key words.

1. Incorporate key words into the release. Key words should be included in the primary headline of the release as well as the first paragraph of your release. Only use 2-3 key words in total. Don’t be discouraged if this takes a little time. Incorporating key words into copy is a bit of an art. The article should flow nicely and shouldn’t be awkward and confusing to read. At the end of the day, a press release is still an important communication tool.

2. Link Key words. For the key words in the first paragraph, link those words back to your Web site. So, for example, in my release the word “small business pr” links back to my Web site. This same key word, “small business pr,” is also included on my Web site (on the same page that the key words are linking to).

Once your release is optimized, you should distribute it over the wire using an online distribution service, which will allow your release to appear in Google searches. I used PR Web and was happy with their service, but there are a lot of companies that offer wire distribution online. Distributing a release over the wire is an excellent layer to a targeted PR campaign and an affordable public relations tactic. I recently did a post on wire distribution if you would like to read more on this topic.

As I mentioned above, press releases are not just for journalists anymore. With the internet anyone can find your press release, which is an excellent way to continue to reach customers. I’d recommend distributing search engine optimized releases over the wire regularly whenever you have relevant news to share.

I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone, especially from any SEO experts who have any valuable tips when it comes to finding key words.

Outstanding Pitch Notes! Right here. Right now.

Today, I'd like to throw out a question to my small business public relations friends. Imagine Friend A sends you a short and straightforward email about getting together for dinner. At the same time, Friend B sends you a long, three paragraph lengthy email also requesting dinner plans. Which friend are you more likely to answer first? More than likely, you'll respond back to Friend A first. You should think about pitch notes in the exact same way.

While I know you're anxious to share the news about your new product/service, it's important to keep your pitch notes tight, concise and, most importantly, relevant. Journalists are receiving tons (I mean TONS) of email pitches a day. So when you're onto your next DIY PR adventure, follow these simple steps to get your media pitching started on the right foot.

1. Relevancy: I'll assume you've done your research and you've confirmed your pitch is relevant to the publication, column and journalist you're pitching. Back to our friend A&B example above for a minute. If you email a friend in California to go to the movies with you in NY, you're probably not going to have much success, right? In fact, your friend might be wondering if there's something seriously wrong with you. Sending a pitch note about a new food product to someone who covers technology is equally as not-so-brilliant!

2. Length: The less is more rule applies here. Email pitches should be contained to less than eight to ten sentences if possible. I know it's challenging especially if your product might take a little explaining. Even seasoned PR folks can find writing pitch notes to be a time investment.

3. Is your product/service newsworthy? A pitch note gives you an opportunity to include a media angle as to why a journalist would want to write about your product/service. It also gives you a chance to tie your business to a recent trend. Is your product a new game-changing technology? Do you offer really clever gift ideas that are perfect for a Mother's Day gift guide?

4. Structure. Here's how I suggestion pulling it all together:

- Introduction

- Product Info

- Media Angle/Hook (why is your product/service newsworthy? does it fit into a trend?)

- Offer more information - press release, photography, samples, etc.

- Contact Info

If there's any other pitch note questions or tips on your mind, post them in the comments!

Dont Hate Me Because...I'm a PR Person

In my first public relations job after college, I was fortunate to work in a media relations department at a large agency where I spent three years honing my PR skills and pitching media. I learned some very valuable lessons during this time that have helped me throughout my career.

One of the most important lessons I like to share with my small business PR clients is the relationship between PR professionals and the media. In many cases, the relationship can be beneficial for both parties. For the PR professional, it's an opportunity to get their clients product/services in the press, and hopefully the journalist receives some sound expert advice or the perfect product to round out their article. On the flip side, we PR folks can be perceived as a bit of a bother given the large number of emails that the media receives from us. Since my DIY PR clients are often naïve to this little fact, I’ve put together some advice for my clients on how NOT to be hated by the media.

1. DO NOT SPAM! – I can’t emphasize this enough. Spammers blast out press releases to 100+ random reporters on a list. Spamming shows you haven’t bothered to read the reporter’s articles so it’s likely that the information isn’t relevant if the release has also gone out to 100+ other people. It’s a waste of their time and your time.

2. Quality not Quantity – Focus on a highly targeted list of media that is relevant for your business. Spend time researching the appropriate contacts and read up on past articles. This upfront research will help you to build a quality list of reporters who will be more open to hearing your pitch.

3. Read up! – Keep abreast of recent articles from your key media outlets. With so much information online, there is little excuse to not be following some of your priority journalists. I use Google Reader and it’s a fantastic tool to keep your favorite online media outlets in one place. That being said, it’s impossible to read every outlet that you want to pitch. If you're pitching a publication you're not very familiar with, do some online research, pick up the magazine or watch the show to ensure your pitch is relevant.

4. Email Pitch – Do not send out press releases as a first method of communication. Craft a tailored short pitch note as to why your product/service is relevant to the media outlet and the writer’s column. If there’s interest, then send the press release. (Pitch notes can be a bit of a science. I’ll dedicate a post in the next week about a well-crafted pitch note).

5. Follow up – This one can be tricky. As PR people, it’s in our blood (and our job) to follow up. First of all, no is no. If a journalist has declined your pitch, do not argue! It’s OK to go back with a different idea/angle, but don’t try to convince them on the same pitch. Following up is part of the process, but it’s important to walk a fine line between being effective and too aggressive.

Any advice you would like to share? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Need a Press Release for your biz? No more excuses! Read on for DIY Press Release Tips and a Press Release Sample

Many of my small business PR clients come to me with questions about press releases. How long should a release be? What information should the release include? Do I need my logo on the release? In response to these questions, I thought I would share some basic press release writing tips.

Thanks to Google Analytics, I can see many of the visitors to my Web site are searching for a press release template so I’ll provide you with a sample release as well. So for those of you doing your PR on a budget, here's a quick DIY PR lesson including the components of putting together a press release.

Length – As a general rule, a press release should not be longer than one page. Rarely, do I find that my clients need more than one page to share their story.

Logo - Graphic mark of your company. This is typically placed in the upper left hand corner of the release.

Contact Information – Contact information should include name, email and phone number of the contact handling communication with the media.

Dateline – The dateline includes the month and year as well as the location of where the release originated.

Headline – The headline is a short, clever and concise statement about your company announcement. The headline should include a media “hook” that is unique, newsworthy and attractive to journalists.

Opening Paragraph – The first paragraph should contain the most essential information of the story. Some journalists may not get past the first paragraph so it’s important that the release includes the who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Secondary Headline – The secondary headline allows you to expand on your announcement with a little more information that will hopefully entice a journalist to keep reading.

Hyperlinked KeyWords for SEO – Choose 2-3 of your company’s keywords to hyperlink back to your Web site page. The Web site page you link to must include the same keyword or phrase linked in the release. The first key word I’ve linked in the sample press release is “affordable public relations.” These words link to my homepage, www.pescepr.com, which also includes the words “affordable public relations.”

Body – The body contains more detailed and supporting information relating to the announcement.

Quote - One or two quotes can be included in the release. The quote should be strategic, insightful and offer a relevant perspective as it relates to the announcement. The person quoted could be a representative from the company and/or a third party expert.

Boilerplate – The boilerplate is one paragraph at the end of the release with basic background facts on the company – company launch date, private vs. public, Web site, etc.

Here's a link to download the PDF of the press release sample I promised: Press Release Sample. As you'll see, I've highlighted the above terms in the release.