Top 4 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2014 I love the fresh-scrubbed feel of a new year. It’s a great time to set goals for myself and my company, which always fires me up and inspires me to charge ahead. I do more looking forward this time of year than looking back, but it is […]
Category: Featured
A Crash Course in Crafting Press Releases
People often express confusion about press releases – when to use them and what information to include. They can be a helpful tool, and they’re not difficult to write once you know how. So I thought I’d offer PR Insider readers a little Christmas gift today: tips from a veteran journalist on writing effective press […]
How YouTube Videos Can Boost Your Website Traffic
When I’m asked great questions about marketing, I enjoy sharing them – and the answers – here. I figure if one person asks the question, there are probably a lot more who’ve thought of asking the same thing! Here are two recent ones: What is the best way to use YouTube – have a channel […]
Tips for Overcoming a Fear of Public Speaking
Recently, I was asked to be a panelist for a webinar about using the power of publicity to achieve your goals. The participants asked great questions. The first: “How do you step into the spotlight when you don’t like the spotlight?” Getting media attention and speaking engagements – the spotlight – goes right to the […]
Which Social Media Platforms are Right for You
If you want to be visible in today’s marketplace, you absolutely must have a presence on social media. But there are so many from which to choose nowadays! In addition to the biggies like Facebook and Twitter, we have lots of newcomers, including Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Additionally, some of the older platforms have undergone […]
7 Ways to Get the Most from Publicity
Too often, I talk to prospective clients who’ve gotten publicity in the past and say, “I got calls the day the TV interview aired, but after that, nothing.” Or, “Yeah, my local paper ran a great article about me, but except for a few people who still find it on the paper’s website, it hasn’t […]
NYT Editor’s Tips for Publishing Your Op-Ed
Did you know that New York Times news assistants read every single op-ed piece submitted to its website by readers? That’s amazing – they must get hundreds every day! I learned that and so much more from an article published recently by the paper’s op-ed editor, Trish Hall. She takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour […]
How to Hire a Ghostwriter
No Time to Write a Book to Market Your Business? Ghostwriters Can Help. When I speak at conferences, I’m continually surprised by the concerns I hear from attendees who realize that writing a book will help grow their business: “How would I know where to begin?” “Don’t I need to be a writer to write a book?” […]
What’s Your Holiday Angle? 9 Ideas
I say it every year and I’ll say it again this year because it’s that important: The weeks ahead are a great time to promote your business, product, service or book because the media are hungry for fresh new holiday-related material. To take advantage, you should start pulling together your articles or talk show pitches […]
Tips for Getting Recipients to Open Your Email
Email has become one of the world’s favorite marketing tools, but it’s a big flop if you can’t get your recipients to open the mail! People decide in seconds whether or not to click, quickly weighing a number of factors based on what the subject line says and, secondarily, who sent the mail. A recently […]
The Challenges of Working with Family
A couple of weeks ago, I agreed to be a guest on a radio talk show that I thought would focus on marketing tips. But – as I always warn people preparing for their first talk radio interviews – the host can sometimes take the conversation in a completely different direction. In this case, the […]
Journalists Share 6 Ways You’ll Kill Their Interest
It’s always nice to receive emails from journalists thanking us for the content we send them. EMSI has a different approach to publicity than most other PR firms – for one thing, we don’t believe in press releases as a primary tool for pitching the media. Hearing from journalists who appreciate our ready-to-publish articles is […]
How To Get Your Own Articles Published
An often overlooked means of getting yourself great publicity is contributing articles to publications. Not only does your published byline boost your visibility, it provides an excellent credential. While many of the big, national publications do not accept unsolicited articles, some do. The Huffington Post, for instance, has published many articles and blog posts written […]
How 3 Non-Celebrities Got Big Publicity
Like most companies, at the end of each month we step back and assess how we’ve done, with an eye toward identifying the most successful strategies. When we took a look at September, I was blown away. Our clients appeared in many top-tier media including Better Homes & Gardens, Barron’s, Cosmopolitan, The Hollywood Reporter, Washington […]
Marketing Your Book or Product for the Holidays
With the holidays fast approaching, a wonderful window of opportunity is open for people with products, books and even services to promote. How can you best take advantage? An ideal person to ask is “America’s foremost gift expert,” Robyn Spizman, the national media go-to advisor on gift-giving and New York Times bestselling author. As part […]
3 Changes to Twitter and How They Affect You
About two months ago, our lead social media strategist started noticing interesting changes involving the Twitter accounts we manage for clients. Tools she and our team routinely used were suddenly disabled. Twitter’s technical support, which hadn’t been good, improved. So, when news broke on Tuesday that Twitter had formally taken steps toward going public back […]
5 Tips for Pitching Your Product to Holiday Gift Guides
Fall has only just arrived, but if you’ve got a product you’re promoting, you’re probably thinking ahead to the holidays. The holiday gift guides offered by so many print and online publications provide great opportunities for publicity, especially for products that are unique, very new, or have some other quality that makes them novel. There […]
How to Get Publicity for Your Product
Many entrepreneurs with a new product to promote have a hard time envisioning helpful publicity beyond news stories about how fabulous their Great New Thing is. While that kind of coverage is like hitting the jackpot, it’s not easy to get and it’s impossible to sustain. And sustenance is crucial: to stand out in a […]