Raleigh Pinskey's Promote Yourself - Branding, PR, Publicity

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 4

Why the media says no to your pitch.

· Treating the media as second-class citizens

· Assuming they are there to do your PR bidding

· You don’t take into consideration that they are busy with all the branding and publicity pitches

· You don’t care if they are on the other line talking to another public relations person

· You take them off your mailing list when they are unemployed. Not media savvy

· You think you are their best friend and that they are yours

· You think that just because they wrote on your PR, marketing and branding ideas before that they will do it again

· You think that because you have to offer them public relations strategic relationships you are just the best thing next to sliced bread

Remember, successful PR begins and ends with you understanding the media, appreciating them, and pleasing them. Be respectful of the media. Give them what they need so they can give their audience what it wants. Be a good resource. It will come back to you some time, some day, some way.

The next blog post, #5 in this series of Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media is about “How do I learn how to please them and give them what they want?”

Do what Raleigh Pinskey says:

“Go for it…Promote & Prosper!”®

Raleigh Pinskey

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 3

What PR, marketing, and branding media savvy topics will make the media open their arms and say yes to giving you publicity coverage?

· Timely / Current events or tie-ins

· Crisis of any kind, animal vegetable or mineral

· Emotional subjects

· Controversial subjects

· Entertaining subjects

· Problem solving topics

· Subjects that fill a need

· Subjects that fill a void

· Subjects that educate

· Subjects that empower and enlighten

· Subjects that heal

· Something the audience doesn’t already know

What makes you media savvy? It’s by understanding the media and pleasing the media. This is accomplished by dealing in wants, not needs. How? By pitching a story that draws from the readers wants, not their needs, from their agenda not their needs.

And remember. The total overview to get your branding, marketing, PR, publicity and public relations needs met is to satisfy the needs of the advertising department and the publisher. Their needs, wants and desires include media savvy stories that will interest their audience, sell papers or TV advertising time, which brings in a readership and
an audience.

My next blog installment is #4 in this series of Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media. It will answer the question, “What makes the media say no to coverage?”

Branding, Public Relations, PR, Marketing and Publicity successes can be yours at www.promoteyourself.com

Do what Raleigh Pinskey says:

“Go for it…Promote & Prosper!”®

Raleigh Pinskey

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 2

Sharing media savvy secrets of the inner lives of the media to give you a leg up for Successful PR campaigns. The quote sums up for me this matter of understanding the media. (Not including the tabloids and shock broadcasting in this picture.)

“I am not in the business of providing a free ad or promotional service for anyone whether I know them or not. My job is to write a balanced, compelling story with news value for my readers. I am more interested in issues of impact than image, and if you give me that, then and only then can we strike a deal."

Question: Do the media like to form relationships with people who are pitching them?

Answer: What I have learned from my 28 years of successful PR, branding, marketing and public relations is that the media’s definition of a relationship is, that they are interested in you playing your part. This “part” is about understanding the media and pleasing the media. Doing it professionally, with dignity, and with competency. In short, media people are not interested in being your friend.

Question: What’s the rule of thumb for inviting the media out to a meal or a drink?

Answer: This policy rests solely on the personal preference of the individual
media person.

The sign above the desk of a media person I interviewed says: “Lunch Yes. Lunch with the media, NO.”

And on the other side of this is the very widely known fact of how you get the some media to an interview, a performance, a media junket or a media conference, is to paraphrase a famous movie, “If you feed them they will come.”

I have known media who prefer to do the interview over a meal because it takes them away from office and its interruptions. Conversely I have known media who shudder at any thought that involves having a face to face…with anyone.

And there are those that will always refuse your request to share the dining experience when you have an intent of getting an article or a decision in your favor on a controversial matter, or to attempt to change their already stated position. Doing this can severely inhibit the formation of an otherwise fruitful relationship.

So what’s the bottom line to understanding the media?

What you need to know is that the media are there to please their audience and their editorial bosses, not you. The ultimate concern of any media outlet is advertising dollars. Advertisers want to be where there are numbers / dollars – which translates to readership. Readership comes from great editorial.

Understanding the media, pleasing the media is giving them what their audience, editor, and advertisers want. If you do this you are the ultimate in being media savvy, and the decision makers will embrace you with open arms. Open arms means successful PR. Successful PR contributes to branding success, lots of publicity and marketing and ultimately makes you a star at relating to the public, or as we say, doing public relations.

My message to you as you try understanding the media, pleasing the media and appearing media savvy is, “You don’t know until you ask. And when you do ask…, Caveat Emptor… Buyer Beware.

…..Here’s to your many PR, Branding, Publicity, Public Relations, and Marketing successes. Sign up for my Branding Possibilities Newsletter, at http://www.promoteyourself.com filled with events, news and views to help show you the way.

My next thread, #3 in this series of Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media will answer the question, “What PR, marketing, and branding media savvy topics will make the media open their arms and say yes to giving you publicity coverage?”

Do what Raleigh Pinskey says:

“Go for it…Promote & Prosper!”®

Raleigh Pinskey

How Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 1B

More Intro Tips to Pleasing the Media

My second Intro Tip on understanding the media and pleasing the media to obtain successful PR is to apply media savvy logic to this situation I described above. The more you know about someone, about their expectations, needs and requirements, the better your interaction will be. The more successful PR you will experience. The more exposure you’ll get for your branding, marketing and public relations efforts.

My advice, learn everything you can about the inner workings of the media mind. In other words, heed the saying, “when in Rome do as the Romans do.”

Knowing exactly what is the media’s job is critical for getting done what you need them to do. Understanding this will keep you out of the fire and off the list. The “I will never talk to them again” list.

I know a lot about this subject. I asked 100 media what they DIDN’T want, and what they wouldn’t stand for from a seemingly media savvy person who was pitching a story. The information It is available on 8 audio CDs titled Your Ph.D in PR, at www.promoteyourself.com While you’re there, sign up for my newsletter.

So, that’s how intricate the subject is on pleasing the media. How fascinating understanding the media is. The next several blog postings will address this information.

My next blog post installment, #2 in this series of Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media will discuss, “Sharing some media savvy secrets of the inner lives of the media to give you a leg up for Successful PR campaigns.”

Do what Raleigh Pinskey says:

“Go for it…Promote & Prosper!”®

Raleigh Pinskey

How Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 1A

Intro Tips to Understanding the Media

Occasionally a rumor surfaces around the notion that members of the media are not human. I am here to say, that in 28 years, I have very rarely experienced this. The reason I have managed to please the media and therefore experience successful PR, branding, publicity, marketing and public relations, is that I take the time for understanding the media. For pleasing the media by honoring their wants, needs, desires and emotions.

I find it amazing that even from media savvy people I am questioned often with “Why should we spend time understanding the media? Or learning about pleasing the media? ”

Often the media savvy person on the other side of the discussion usually feels that the media is there to please them. “After all, we are always being told that the media has lots of empty space and air time, and they need lots of copy to fill it. And, if we provide them with branding, marketing and publicity material they will report on it. And if this is so, then they should understand and please us.”

Tune in for more Intro Tips in my next thread.

This information is taken from “Your Ph.D. in PR” available http://tinyurl.com/3alonc

Do what Raleigh Pinskey says:

“Go for it…Promote & Prosper!”®

Raleigh Pinskey

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 3

More hooks for building your pitch.

In 101 Ways to Write Dynamic Media Releases, I list up with twenty – six meaningful hooks to use in your media releases. In Part 1, we learned about the delicious and far reaching Survey. In Part 2, we discussed how to use the hook of Lists for Pitching.

In this entry, let’s talk about the hook of Case Studies for pitching. They can be successes or chronicles that didn’t work out as well as expected.

Case studies are always a welcome PR and marketing pitch for publicity. This category’s accomplishments are best presented in bullet points or in a brief paragraph with the salient points to be made. Then send your audience to your OnLine Media Room or to your Case Studies section for the full-blown story.

Here’s a branding case study I did for one of my PR and marketing clients that I put
on my “Case Studies” section of PromoteYourself.com/ This section gets me
good publicity.

“A fluke mixture of ingredients started Phil, Mike and Mark Maddox in a profitable business and on a heartwarming adventure.

Arthritis Relief Cream, was initially test marketed out of Phil's Campton Discount Drug Store in Campton, KY. This one product has expanded to a fifteen-product catalog in less than a year. To learn how they did it and what they learned from their Arthritis Relief Cream adventure, visit www.natureshealthconnection.com

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

P. S. One way you can insure effective participation with the media and erase the fear of promotion is to have the tools that will help you promote yourself available. http://www.promoteyourself.com/store/index.html

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 2

We are continuing our discussion on the tiny word with a mighty punch, drum roll please… the hook! Remember. Hooks help build and pitch your case.

In 101 Ways to Write Dynamic Media Releases, I list up with twenty – six meaningful hooks to use in your media releases. In Part 1, we learned about the delicious and far reaching Survey. In Part 2, we are discussing how to use the hook of Lists for Pitching.

Lists. Best / Worst, Biggest / Smallest, Winners / Losers, Etc.

Lists can encompass numbers. Top Five. Top Ten.

Lists can use timing. This year’s…. Last decade’s….

Each year the famous fashion expert Mr. Blackwell’s Worst Dressed ensnares and attracts great attention.

Magazine covers shout out lists from hundreds of publications. From Clothing Magazine’s “30 Summer Style Secrets”, Family and Parenting’s “10 Steps to a Greener Christmas” to Golf’s “How to Play the 10 Toughest Wedge Shots”.

Lists for pitching, one of the 26 best kept hooks and pitch secrets.

I’d love to hear what lists you come up with.

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 1

“ Ya gotta have a gimmick,” is the battle cry, also known as the pitch, for audience attention from Ms. Mezzeppa, a vaudeville performer in the legendary theater presentation Gypsy. Her gimmick? Her pitch to the audience was to capture and hopefully keep their attention. Her wardrobe - a pair of pasties, strategically placed on her Trojan armor, enthusiastically twirling to a bump and grind, while lustily trumpeting of her rendition of the flag raisings Call to Colors.

Her gimmick is planned to hopefully set her pitch apart from the other scantily clad Vaudeville performers.

In media speak, Ms. Mezeppa’s gimmick is what as referred to as “the hook” or the razzmatazz, also called the sizzle of the steak, the ultimate wow.

I’m Raleigh R. Pinskey, and we are here to talk about the Hook. We are addressing the noun. Merriam -Webster says the word hook originates from before the 12th century. Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hōc; and means something intended to attract and ensnare. Used then by the town crier, now in media releases (aka press releases) to get your point across.

My blog deals with PR, Marketing, Publicity and Public Relations, so we are going to discuss how to apply the hook in various applications in your media releases (press releases) to attract and ensnare your audience into believing or doing what you want.

In 101 Ways to Write Dynamic Media Releases, I list up with twenty – six meaningful hooks to use in your media releases. For the next several blog entries, I will discuss these hooks and how they can be used to pitch your media target. Here’s a hook to begin ensnaring and attracting your reader’s attention: Surveys. Surveys rock. People love surveys. Surveys offer you an opportunity to connect with your existing list and add to your list building. Offer surveys in your blog, your ezine, your podcast. On MySpace, on LinkedIn or FaceBook. Create your own format or use the free tool SurveyMonkey.com

Hooks help build and pitch your case. When you read the following examples, imagine how you can adapt each hook to your subject matter.

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

One way you can insure effective participation with the media and erase the fear of promotion is to have the tools that will help you promote yourself. 101 Ways to Promote Yourself, available at http://www.promoteyourself.com/store/index.html

Conquering the Fear of Promoting Yourself: Part 3

This is the third and last installment of So Do You Talk to Strangers?… Conquering the fear of promotion, of promoting yourself.

Who told you “don’t talk to strangers?” Who told you “not to blow your own horn?” Your parents? Your teachers?

Where you taught, “that people who do that promotion thing are crass, rude, crude,
and they probably have something that they’re trying to hide in that product they
are promoting?”

Did they tell you that self-promotion reeked of old time snake oil salesman and
con artists?

There are all kinds of spin that has been spun on this topic of PR, branding,
marketing, public relations, getting on talk shows, all leading in a straight path to
the fear of promotion.

And on top of this, were you told you weren’t smart enough to have a business and not clever enough to be able to promote it? Or, “Who wants to talk to you? Who wants to buy what you have to sell? Who said you should be successful before your brother or your father? You on Talk Shows? You in Print? Don’t waste your money on media coaching, no one cares what you have to say?

I was told, “Do not to tell anybody how bright you are because no man will want to marry you and you’ll end up an old maid.” I carried that with me for a very long time.

Early in my career I stopped taking media coaching because of not being able to overcome my fears.

What have you carried with you for a long time that keeps you from promoting youself?

Remember what Cher said in Moonstruck…. Snap out of it!

Here’s an exercise I created to help with the visualization and an affirmation you can use that will help you “snap out” of the fear of promotion.

I would like everybody to please turn to your right shoulder and say, “Hi Ma,” or your favorite name for that family member. Turn to your left shoulder and say, “Hi Dad,” or your favorite name for him.

I want you to look above and I want you to say, “Hi ya’ll.” This is for all of the your teachers, clergy, all the neighbors, nannies, babysitters, all of the relatives, and anyone I haven’t mentioned who has brought you this far.

Then, when you’ve addressed everyone including your animals that kept you company when you were not feeling up to par, I unless they are supporting you 1,822 % in your PR, branding, marketing, public relations and fear of promotion efforts, I want you to ask them to please ask them to get off your shoulder, out of your pockets, away from your computer, out of your closet and drawers and tell to go make popcorn, go shopping, pay bills, watch TV, go to a movie, and most of all…, never say any of those derogative things to you about your ability to succeed again!

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

Conquering the Fear of Promotion, Marketing, Branding PR and appearing on Radio Talk Shows and TV Talk Shows: Part 2

It’s Raleigh Pinskey, author of the international best selling book 101 Ways to Talk Your Way Onto Talk Shows and let’s talk about believing in ourselves. Here’s the scenario. People get excited about the idea of doing self-promotion. Whether you call it PR, Branding Marketing, Public Relations, or Publicity, it is all about putting your name in front of your target market.

The Radio Talk Show or TV Talk Show contacts you and asks you to talk about your business for two or three minutes, for a six or twenty minute segment, or, even better, for the whole hour. Then you start to feel a little strange. It is the fear of promotion creeping in. Up comes… “Oh no, maybe I’m not articulate, and maybe what I have to talk about is not innovative or informative. “

After all, while I was growing up I was constantly told that “what I had to say was not that important, that why would anyone want to listen to what I had to say? I barely got through school, what do I know that would be unique and interesting?”

Most of the people who hire me for Media Coaching for appearances on radio talk shows or TV talk show appearances tell me the fear of promotion is a secret they’ve carried inside for a long time.

It’s amazing. What I found out is that once they talked about that attitude of fear, got it out in the open, they felt they were in control, that they were winning 99% of the battle.

It’s a fact. When you own that you have a fear of promotion, of doing PR, branding, marketing and Public Relations, when you own it as opposed to denying it with thoughts like, “Oh, that’s not me. No, I can’t do that; I just don’t want to,” or, “I would rather have somebody else do it,” you will see almost immediately how your attitude and your success level does change.

The best part of fear of promotion is that it doesn’t have to stay with you forever.
And that I can help you put aside that attitude of fear with four powerful affirmations
or sayings…

1) Forget what others say, usually it’s their stuff they were told and they are trying to project that stuff onto you

2) Fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real

3) What is revealed is Healed

And the classic words that Cher’s character Loretta Castorini uttered to the Nicolas Cage character Ronny Cammareri in Moonstruck ….

4) Snap out of it!!!

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

P. S. One way you can insure effective participation with the media and erase the fear of promotion is to have the tools available that will help you promote yourself. Visit http://www.promoteyourself.com/store/index.html

Conquering the Fear of Promotion, Marketing, Branding and PR. Part 1

In this three part series, we’re going to talk about a common fear with many faces, faces that wear the terminology of PR, Branding, Marketing, Public Relations, Publicity, Promoting Yourself, and Self-promotion.

Fear of Promotion, Fear of Self-Promotion or Fear of Promoting Yourself … no matter what you call it, it is an attitude. And this attitude makes up a large percentage of the underlying discussions around the failure for you to succeed in your business.

The Small Business Association reports that the top two reasons businesses fail in the first two years are poor management and lack of promotion. I would make it three, adding attitude to this critical measurement.

I founded my PR, Branding, Marketing and Publicity Company The Raleigh Group, in 1980. Through my best selling books, seminars and information products I’ve mentored millions of people who are just entering the business arena, seasoned veterans, and the scale markers in between.

There is no doubt in my mind that the difference in why some succeed at self-promotion while others don’t ultimately comes down to the attitude they create around and about self-promotion. It’s all about marketing yourself. About branding your name and message. About doing publicity and public relations about yourself, your business and your message.

Attitude is a crucial part of self-promotion. Specifically, whether the player, you, comes into the arena with a preconceived attitude of fear of promotion. If so, this attitude will definitely influence the win, lose or draw.

If your chosen profession depends on promotion, I would like you think about the following statements. If you are in business to revenge a teacher or relative who told
you that you would never succeed; if you are not a people pleaser by nature; if you would rather not deal with people and their needs, well then, I would say that you can count on having a difficult time succeeding in your PR, marketing, branding and public relations efforts.

Do you harbor a fear of promotion?

We are taught from birth not to talk to strangers. How in the world can you promote yourself if you can’t or won’t talk to strangers?

We’re taught not to blow our own horn, to keep our thoughts to ourselves. There is a saying, “the poppy that grows the tallest gets its head chopped off the fastest.”

It doesn’t matter if your business is in the planning stages, established a short time or long time, I suggest that you take a moment to look deep into yourself and define what your view of promotion truly is.

People who come to me for Media Training and Media Coaching for Talk Show appearances ask me all the time if you have to be brassy and shameless to excel at self-promotion? And I tell them absolutely not. But what does help is an unbridled enthusiasm, passion, and belief in what you do, in what you offer. That will make your PR, branding and public relations efforts easier.

Most of all, I suggest you develop an attitude and a belief that the media is there to joint venture with you, to do business with you, to help you make money and be successful.

Here’s to your many successes.

Promote & Prosper!

Raleigh Pinskey

P.S. One way you can insure effective participation with the media and erase the fear of promotion is to have the tools that will help you promote yourself. The international best selling book 101 Ways to Promote Yourself is available at http://www.promoteyourself.com/store/index.html

About Raleigh Pinskey

Raleigh Pinskey is CEO of Raleigh Communications, a division of The Raleigh Group, a Visibility Marketing, Branding and PR Company, founded in New York City in 1980. Raleigh Pinskey has close to thirty years of helping people, places and products to maximize their biz-ability with viz-ability®.

Her publicity client history includes Sting, KISS, Paul McCartney and Blondie, Chicken Soup for the Soul, the original Singing Telegrams, the $5000 Marilyn Monroe Doll, hundreds of small businesses, and The Bronx Zoo’s a Great Snake named Jake, to name a few.

Raleigh Rudy Pinskey is the creator and on-air personality for Pipeline to Profits® on Success Talk Internet Radio. She is a frequent guest on television and radio business news shows, and interviewed for magazines and newspapers.

Raleigh Pinskey is founder of The Strategic Alliances World Wide Round Table, an information based subscription site where she interviews the movers and shakers of the world as they share their life and business lessons.

Raleigh Pinskey is an internationally known professional speaker. Her topics include “Creating An Attitude of Gladitude®”, “The Forgiveness Factor®”, “Personal and
Business Branding”, “Powerful PR”, “Business Networking for Profit and Prestige®”, “How to Build Strategic Relationships” and “How to Create Your Results Producing
8-Second Power Pitch®.”

Raleigh Pinskey is the author of the international best selling 101 Ways to Promote Yourself: Tricks of the Trade for Taking Charge of Yourself, with 150,000 in print, in several languages and available in nine countries. Raleigh is the author of eight books
and 48 information products designed to help you succeed in business and in life.

Raleigh estimates that over half a million people — from sole providers to corporations — attribute their expanding bottom lines and media visibility to Raleigh Pinskey’s consulting, seminars, teleseminars, books and information products.

Sign up for her Branding Possibilities Newsletter, free articles and case studies on PR, branding, business best practices, publicity and visibility marketing, and view her event schedule at www.PromoteYourself.com.

© 1980-2008 by Raleigh Communications, a division of The Raleigh Group
PO BOX 701, Carefree, AZ 85377
Phone: 480-488-4840

Disclaimers Privacy Policy

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 5

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 4

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 3

Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 2

How Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 1B

How Understanding the Media and Pleasing the Media Leads to Successful PR, Branding, Publicity, Marketing and Public Relations Part 1A

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 3

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 2

Creating Results Producing Hooks for Your Pitch: Part 1

Conquering the Fear of Promoting Yourself: Part 3

Conquering the Fear of Promotion, Marketing, Branding PR and appearing on Radio Talk Shows and TV Talk Shows: Part 2

Conquering the Fear of Promotion, Marketing, Branding and PR. Part 1

About Raleigh Pinskey