Archive | September, 2022

How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story And Generate Tons of Media Coverage

There’s a book out with the above title, and I highly recommend you grab a copy. It’s only available as a digital download and it’s less than 6 bucks at Amazon. I’ll try to summarize here in my own words, but this is no substitute for getting the book, reading it and above all using it to generate free publicity for you and your business.

News breaks every second of every day, providing you with literally endless opportunities to get your business free publicity. And I don’t have to tell you that publicity is worth far, far more than advertising, and yet it costs you NOTHING.

If you’re in the U.S., does the Donald Trump presidential campaign ring any bells for you?

Look at it from a reporter’s point of view – they already have the who, what, when and where – what they need is the “why,” and that’s where you come in. Journalists need original content, and they need it fast. And if you play your cards right, you can be as high as the second paragraph of that breaking news story. Just think of what that can mean in terms of free exposure!

What is essential is SPEED. You’ve got to hit when the story is hot to have a shot at getting the publicity. Wait even a day and it may be too late.

Always use your good judgment. Your business is NOT a great fit for the majority of news stories, so be careful and only go with those that you can honestly, truly relate to your business.

Now then, how do you find news to “jack?” Keep your eyes and ears open, because you never know when the perfect story is going to slap you across the face. Monitor keywords, phrases and trending word clouds. Track journalists in your field and monitor media outlets. And perhaps the best tip of all – follow Twitter hashtags, since this will often be the very first reporting of any story.

When you hear of a story that’s a good fit for your business, immediately formulate your strategy. This is happening in real time and so you’ve got to act in real time, as in NOW and not tomorrow. Speed is crucial to your success in hijacking the news.

Ask yourself – how are you and / or your business related to the breaking news? What’s your angle or hook? Why should the media care?

When you’ve got your take on what’s happening – or your angle or hook – here are possible moves you can make next:

• Blog about your take on the news
• Tweet it using an established hashtag (this is not the time to start a new hashtag)
• Send a real-time media alert (press release)
• Talk about it in a speech, or make a video and post it online
• Hold a live or a virtual news conference
• Directly contact individual journalists who might be interested

Now if you’re thinking this article is just the tip of what you need to know, you’re right. It’s enough to get you started, but by all means grab the book so you can fill in the blanks.

And think about this: Linking yourself to one news story can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of free publicity, creating a boon for your business and perhaps even making you a mini-celebrity in the process.

Yes, you can sing while taking a shower, and you can listen to music while walking and planning your day. But when it comes to the really important stuff, forget multitasking because it’s costing you time and money.

Let’s say you’re answering emails while talking on the phone. A great example of multitasking, right? Wrong.

In this case you’re not doing two things at once – rather, you’re alternating your attention between the two tasks. You can’t listen to the person on the phone while you’re forming your email response. And you can’t formulate your thoughts to speak back to the person on the phone while you’re reading the next email.

So what you end up doing is a little bit of task A, then a little bit of task B, and back and forth. And neither task is done well. The person on the phone can tell you’re not listening, and the email response you write misses the mark.

This goes for any task that you can’t put on autopilot. You can shower, walk, run, drive, make coffee and many other tasks without thinking about them because they’re routine and you’ve performed them many times before. But when you’re doing anything that takes real thinking, it’s best to focus just on that task and nothing else.

And avoid distractions. Checking your email, answering the phone and even getting up to get a cup of coffee can take you off track. You lose momentum and you have to backtrack to see where you left off. A recent study of office employees demonstrated that when their work was interrupted, it took them 25 minutes on average to get back into it.

Anything that requires engaged thinking – writing, reading, speaking, etc., is not something you should try to juggle because it will actually cost you MORE time and provide less than stellar results.

So even if you have to lock yourself in a room, disable your email and turn off your cell phone to keep from getting distracted, I suggest you do it. You can answer those emails and return those phone calls later when your work is completed.

We’ve all seen the mega launches of super expensive products that boast about how heavy the packing box is.

As marketers we suspect that bigger is better, even when it’s not. After all, more of anything seems like a better deal to the customer than less of something, right?

But thanks to a new study, we now know that “more” of a product not only sounds better – it can also be a status symbol for the customer.

Take for example the Big Gulp drink – 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage. Does anyone on the planet NEED 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage? While some might say they do, the fact is it’s a flood of empty calories with a bevy of negative health effects, yet they sell like gangbusters.

And believe it or not, they can actually make the purchasers feel BETTER about themselves.

No, I am NOT advocating you run out and buy one of these things – rather, I’m suggesting you SELL these things, in digital form.

Follow closely – This is from the Journal of Consumer Research and it concerns a series of experiments carried out by Derek Rucker of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In the first experiment, volunteers looked at photos of people holding different sized drinks and then were asked to rate the STATUS of the people they saw in the photos. Tabulated results showed that the bigger the drink, the higher the status score each photo rated. No, I’m not kidding, and it gets weirder.

In the second experiment, half of the volunteers were asked to remember a time when they were bossed around. The other half were asked to remember a time when they were in a position to boss others around. No surprise here – the volunteers who remember being bossed around felt the least powerful. (Yet another example of how the thoughts you choose determine how you feel.)

Okay, here comes the surprise – next those same volunteers were offered a drink in 3 different sizes. There was no choice on what KIND of drink, only of what SIZE drink they could have.

Those who felt the least powerful CHOSE THE BIGGEST DRINK. In other words, even in something as ordinary as choosing a drink, the decision is not based solely on how thirsty the person is, but rather on how much power they feel they have.

And in the worldwide economy, it’s a reasonable conclusion that as people feel powerless to control what’s happening, more and more super sizing will be taking place, and not just in food.

Now then, here’s how to use this in your marketing…

First, when you can make your product appear larger, do so. For example, you might take each chapter of an ebook and separate it into a report – 12 reports look like more than one ebook. If you are shipping audios or videos, place them on 12 discs rather than 4. And so forth.

Second, offer a super size version of your product. That is, you might have your regular product and a second version that offers more information, more promises, more benefits, etc.

Third, offer them power and prestige. For example, if you’re creating a membership, don’t make it just any old membership. Give it a name like The Exclusive Gold Club for Star Class Members or something that conveys the power and prestige so many people are lacking in these uncertain times.

Fourth, don’t forget to add an OTO to your offer. OTO’s are like supersizing the fries – they’ve already decided to order, now it’s just a matter of offering them more, and many times they will jump at the chance to upgrade to that virtual Big Gulp.

One more thing… Don’t feel guilty about up-selling your customers. People want to feel they are in control, that they have power, that they do matter. And if it’s a choice between buying a few Big Gulps that are going to rot their bones and pack on the fat, or your new product that can actually HELP them, you’ve got a duty to offer them that product and let them decide for themselves.