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The Tip Sheet
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issue of : March 2005
- QUOTATION OF THE MONTH
- PTA - Satellite Synergy Tour Opportunities
- PTA's Upcoming March TeleSeminars
- Surfin' - A source for websites - Maps, Maps and Blogs
- Tips From the Top - Our monthly advice column: Make It Personal
- Look What's Coming Up - A calendar of upcoming events
- Getting to Know You - An interview with the media
- Upcoming Publishing Events
QUOTATION OF THE MONTH
"My 20 minutes on 'The Tonight Show' did more for my career
than speaking for two days at the Democratic National Convention."
—Former President Bill Clinton
If you've got a great quote you want to share, send it to us at kohand@plannedtvarts.com. Thanks!
PTA
Co-op Satellite Media Tours/Synergy Tours (SMTs) provide stations with newsworthy segments offering viewers valuable consumer tips while seamlessly integrating your product or service into the story. This is one of the most impactful ways to deliver a brand message because it is delivered by a credible third party spokesperson, who is an expert on the topic. The cost to participate is lower than a stand alone satellite media tour, because you are one of three (3) or four (4) features mentioned. However, each participant will maintain category exclusivity to avoid competitive message delivery in any given segment. These segments are the most timely, efficient and cost-effective way to relay your brand message to your consumer audience as well as the news outlets. As well, you are not responsible for developing a newsworthy event to generate television placement, these segments are developed by the topic of interest selected by the time of year or what's "hot" in the media.
Please contact Michelle Marcus at 212/593-5869 or marcusm@plannedtvarts.com
PTA's Upcoming March TeleSeminars
All of our Free TeleSeminars are on Wednesdays, from 2:00-3:00pm ET
Moderator Rick Frishman is the author of three books, including Networking Magic, and has served as the president of one of the nation's largest and oldest book promotions company for 28 years. He will be interviewing the following experts throughout the month of March.
- March 16th - Guest Alex Carroll, one of the world's leading experts on radio publicity.
- March 23rd -- Guest Dr. Paul Hartunian who will show you how to get mountains of free internet publicity.
- March 30th - Guest Eric Kampmann co-founder of Midpoint Trade Books, a distribution company based on a new sales and distribution model designed to maximize flexibility and effectiveness while minimizing unnecessary costs to the publishers.
Here's how to participate:
Please call 580-474-3600
Then press in the code: 222089 and hit #.
Remember, our TeleSminars are free, costing you only the price of the phone call. If you missed our last Teleseminar, you can dial the replay line at 580-431-2837 (Press the # after you dial in) or go to our website www.plannedtvarts.com.
Surfin'
Here's the dilemma. Your author just informed you that they've decided on their California road tour. They want to go to San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Tahoe and San Diego. You need to not only map out the tour and the dates but also to figure out what the possibilities are for media outside of those particular cities. An easy way to source out those smaller towns while checking out where everything is geographically is by using http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/usstates.htm. The maps are easy to read and the site offers links to various travel services as well.
If you are in need of the yellow pages, we have the site for you, www.switchboard.com. This is one of the easiest sites to navigate. You can search for a business via geography (helpful when booking hotels for the above mentioned California author tour), an individual, an area code, and more. It has links to the web and also maps and directions.
Crawling the living web at least once a day to bring you the latest information relevant to your searches, www.daypop.com is a current events search engine. Currently, Daypop indexes over 59,000 of the best news sites including newspapers, online magazines and weblogs. There are some fun portions of the site that list for example, the top 40 links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the world or if you want to follow the conversations happening specifically in the blogging world, try Daypop Top Posts.
Tips From the Top
Find Your Uniqueness and Capitalize on It
Each of us is unique. Even those of us who do the same things go about them differently. Look at yourself and identify how you differ from the norm. Take inventory. Find out what's unique about you and what special ingredients distinguish you and your product or service from the crowd. Then come up with clever, interesting, and unusual ways to tell the world about it.
To identify your unique characteristics:
- Discard all your preconceptions about who you are, they're probably invalid.
- Zero in on your uniqueness by asking yourself what about you do people find intriguing? What do they want to know? What questions do they ask?
After you've identified both your own and your business's uniqueness, get creative. Find a hook, a link or a device to capitalize on that specialness, something that will capture the media's interest.
Remember though, that reporters care only about items that will benefit their audiences. What you're promoting may be inventive. It may even be groundbreaking or earth shattering, but if it doesn't relate to their audience, they won't give it any play. Reporters want to tell their audience that you can help them because you do have something unique.
An excerpt from the National Best-Seller GUERRILLA PUBLICITY: Hundreds of Sure-fire Tactics to Get Maximum Sales for Minimum Dollars by Rick Frishman, Jill Lublin and Jay Conrad Levinson.
Look What's Coming Up
These are dates that just might relate to a Morning Drive or Satellite TV Tour topic:
July 2005
| June 20th-July 3rd | Wimbledon (Tennis) |
| 1st | Birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales (1961) |
| 1st | Opening of the First US Zoo (1874) |
| 4th | Independence Day |
| 6th-14th | Running of the Bulls (Pamplona, Spain) |
| 10th | U.S. Lifts Sanctions Against South Africa (1991) |
| 12th | Major League Baseball All-Star Game |
| 19th | Release of Elvis Presley's First Single (1954) |
| 28th | WWI Begins (1914) |
| 30th | Paperback Books Introduced (1935) |
August 2005
| 1st | First US Census (1790) |
| 1st | Premier of MTV (1981) |
| 1st | Air Force Day |
| 2nd | Official Signing of the Declaration of Independence (1776) |
| 4th | Coast Guard Day |
| 7th | Friendship Day |
| 9th | Resignation of President Richard Nixon (1974) |
| 11th-14th | PGA Championship (Baltusrol Golf Club in N.J.) |
| 16th | Elvis Presley was declared dead (1977) |
| 19th | National Aviation Day |
| 26th | Women's Equality Day |
Getting to Know You
Based on the "Getting to Know Your Friends" E-mail that comes around every few months, here are some fun questions and some serious questions that the Tip Sheet posed to Jennifer Fuller, the morning radio producer at WSIU-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate in Carbondale, IL. Hope you get to know her a little better so next time you speak with her you can talk about something else besides whatever you are pitching.
Q: What was the last film you saw at the movies?
A: "The Phantom of the Opera"
Q: What is your favorite TV show?
A: Any of the "Law and Order" shows
Q: What is your favorite cuisine?
A: Probably pasta...
Q: What foods do you dislike?
A: I can't really think of anything.
Q: What is your favorite CD at the moment?
A: Billy Joel Greatest Hits volume I
Q: If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go?
A: Rome
Q: Where would you retire to?
A: Pacific Northwest or Smoky Mountains
Q: Where were you born?
A: Denver, CO
Q: Favorite sport to watch?
A: College Basketball
Q: Do you have any pets?
A: No.
Q: What did you want to be when you were little?
A: A lawyer or a writer.
Q: Who was your most memorable guest?
A: Dean Koontz
Q: What characteristic do you despise in a publicist? In a guest?
A: In a publicist: disorganization. In a guest: arrogance.
Q: What's the best characteristic in a guest? In a publicist?
A: In a publicist: being genuine. In a guest: being candid.
Q: Do you really read press kits?
A: Most of the time, yes I read the press kits. I don't always have time to read the books that come with them before the interview...so those kits help me get a feel for the information.
Q: What's the clincher for you when booking a guest?
A: Usually it has to do with the topic. I like things that are unique. I tend to shy away from self-help books, and rather focus on novels and non-fiction.
Q: E-mail or Phone - what's your preference?
A: E-mail is probably best... I'm pretty hard to catch at work.
Q: Does bribery work? (Just Kidding)
A: No. I want to do an interview based on my own interest in the topic, or on the interest of my listeners. Nothing should cloud that. Sorry... I'm pretty strict about my ethical lines.
Upcoming Publishing Events
PUBLISHING SEMINAR
May 31, June 1-2, 2005 in New York
Attention: Authors or Publishers (or aspiring authors or publishers) who want to make serious money in the publishing business. The vast majority (99%) of authors make less than $50,000 a year. This is the seminar to show you how to be in the other 1%! In Three Content-Packed Days Top Publishing And Marketing Experts Reveal a SYSTEM to Double or Triple Your Income as an Author or Publisher.
The experts include: Jerry Jenkins, Rick Frishman, Paul Hartunian, Alex Carroll, Dave Frees, Fred Gleeck, Phil Huff, Perry Marshall, Shawn Casey, Steven Schragis, Sean Roach and Pamela Brodowsky.
For more information and to register go to http://publishingseminar.com/.
Mark Victor Hansen's
MEGA BOOK MARKETING UNIVERISTY 2005
April 15-17, 2005 in Los Angeles, CA
What does Rick Frishman have in common with New York Times best-selling authors Mark Victor Hansen, Ken Blanchard, Jack Canfield, and Robert Allen? They all want to turn YOU into the world's next best-selling author ... starting April 15 at North America's #1 event for authors, speakers and experts: the MEGA Book Marketing University 2005.
As a member of the MEGA Book Marketing faculty, Rick will be presenting "Guerrilla Publicity Secrets of the World's Richest Authors" on Saturday, April 16th. That's why he wants to invite you to this extraordinary program.
For more information or to reserve your seat, please go to: http://www.megabookmarketing.com/rick.