A few years ago, coauthor, Jill Lublin pitched an idea to a producer for a nationally syndicated cooking show, but the producer didn’t buy Jill’s idea.

After the rejection, Jill continued to call the producer every month, even though she didn’t have anything to pitch…

She simply called to say hello and find out what the producer was working on. Most of the time, Jill got the producer’s voice mail and just said “Hi, this is Jill Lublin of Promising Promotion. I’m just calling to say hello. Hope all is well.”

About a year and a half later, a client hired Jill to promote a video called “Cooking for Busy People.” Jill immediately contacted the producer who loved the idea and booked Jill’s client on the spot. After Jill’s client appeared on the show, the orders for her video poured in.

Sales went through the roof and her single appearance launched a thriving business . . . all because of Jill’s persistence and repeated calls to develop an invaluable media contact.

The Rules

You can’t win the small business public relations game if you don’t know the rules. Yet that’s precisely what you’re doing when you don’t know the rules that govern relationships with the media. Since the media holds all the cards, they make the rules. If you want to play at their table, you have to adhere to their rules. Ironically, there are only three rules and they’re alarmingly simple:

1. You are a resource for the media.

2. It’s never personal. It’s always about the story and its impact.

3. The media can always change its mind, but you can’t. At any time, it can revise, cut, postpone or even kill a story it agreed to run.

The best way to generate buzz—to get more articles and blog entries written about you or to be invited on more programs and podcasts—is to help your targets reach their goals. If a journalist or a producer is working on a story about nursing homes, give him or her the name of the last nursing home director you met at a seminar and offer to set up an interview.

Be a resource by asking contacts for a list of the projects on their editorial calendars for the next 30, 60, or 90 days. Inquire into and be sure you understand exactly what they need to complete their story. Then try to get it for them. Become their researcher, investigator, contact person, and colleague.

Stay on Their Radar

With the media, the saying “out of sight is out of mind” is a truism. So remain in their minds. Besides helping them with other projects, make sure you remain a constant presence in your media contacts’ professional lives.

Few things are appreciated more than small considerate gestures that aren’t required or even expected. These can be as basic as a thank-you or congratulatory telephone call, e-mail, note, post card, or even a small gift. Before you give gifts, check with the organization to see if they have rules that prohibit or limit gifts. Remember, it actually is the thought that counts . . . so keep it simple.

After making a new contact, send a handwritten “nice-to-meet you” note – something small and memorable. Don’t go overboard. Small efforts usually pay big dividends by:

Keeping you and your product or service in your contact’s mind

Portraying you as pleasant, considerate, and smart

Producing more referrals

Tightening your relationship

Remaining in contact with your various associates in the media industry will help you in the long run. By doing just a few of these simple things, your chances for publicity for your small business will grow.

Handle Rejection Properly

Even if you’ve helped your media contact, rejections are inevitable. You may be trying to sell flounder to a chef who needs turnips. So, make the most of them. Rejections can be opportunities. They can form the basis for future successes and can be building blocks for long-term relationships; use them to make a favorable impression. If you do, those who turned you down may remember your name, your courtesy, and professionalism. They may even remember where to turn if they need flounder.

Remember – Although media relationships should be mutually beneficial, they aren’t equal: the media holds the upper hand. Even if you have been rejected, stay in touch with that contact and remain on his or her radar.

Try to turn even your rejections into solid, long-term relationships and make your small business public relations efforts work for you.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

For years, Debra Holtzman kept wishing and hoping that she’d generate publicity in top-tier newspapers and magazines and on the big morning TV shows like “Good Morning, America” because of her expertise in child safety.

But the wishing and hoping got her a media hit here and there. Then Debra found the key that not only unlocked the door to publicity, but had the media practically tripping over themselves to interview her. Even the bloggers loved her.Her secret? She ties her expertise to the celebrities– sometimes several times a month. It all depends on how much press material the stars feed her. And feed her they do.

Here’s what she did for more publicity:

• When the celebrity magazines printed a photograph showing Britney Spears driving her convertible, her son in the back, sitting in a car seat facing forward and slumped over to one side, Debra wrote a press release titled “Britney Spears Needs Baby Safety Training!” She posted it at Expertclick.com, the subscription-based website that serves as a database of experts for the media and lets subscribers post up to 52 press releases a year. The story was picked up by celebrity gossip bloggers and top-tier media

• That same month, when Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt welcomed their baby girl, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, Debra swung into action and issued a press release with the headline “Angelina and Brad’s Perfect Baby Room for Shiloh.” It described some of the dangers of a baby’s nursery and included a checklist of 11 tips on how to keep the baby safe.

• Also that month, the paparazzi got a photo of Pitt during a bike ride in Namibia with his 4-year-old son and 16-month-old daughter. His son wore a helmet and rode his tricycle. The baby rode in a blue papoose strapped to Pitt’s back. Debra wrote another press release about the dangers of riding with babies on a bike, submitted it through Expertclick, and was quoted in Us magazine, among others.

• Just after Mel Gibson’s drunken-driving arrest, Debra issued another release titled “Top 10 Tips to Drive Like a Star, but not Mel Gibson.”

• A few weeks later, while law enforcement officials were investigating John Mark Karr, the suspect who claimed he murdered JonBenet Ramsey in 1996, Debra wrote another release headlined “A Focus in the JonBenet Ramsey Case No One is Talking About.” It included a list of 21 things parents can do to keep their children safe from child abduction, molestation and other dangers.

Just after Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray while diving, Debra posted another press release on Expertclick.com, this one titled “Teach Children How to be Safe Around Pets and Wild Animals.”

She didn’t name Irwin or mention his death in the release. But journalists and anyone else who searched online for information on that news story probably would have found her press release in the list of organic search results.

All those releases and all that publicity helped her sell more of her books, the title of which she mentioned in every release.

She has been interviewed by papers like USA Today and the New York Times and has a list of media hits a mile long at her website.

Half the work in getting publicity is just keeping your ears open for opportunities.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Whenever I send a news release about something I’ve done to my local newspapers or trade journals, I hardly ever hear feedback from my neighbors or peers, even when I know it’s been printed.

But when I send my photo with the release and it’s printed, I hear a chorus that sounds like this:

“I saw your picture in the paper!”

“Did you know you’re in the most recent issue of PR Tactics?”

“Hey, I was Googling you last week and your photo showed up on a website for writers. I thought your article was terrific.”

That’s music to The Publicity Hound’s ears. That’s because in the majority of cases, a photo attracts readers’ attention and draws them to the news item.

Yet journalists remain continually frustrated by the inability of publicists and others who pitch to understand the incredible power of photos. Freelance writer Pat Luebke, who writes for the restaurant and aviation industries, says a lack of photos is one of her top pet peeves.

“People keep trying to get into more and more newspapers and magazines,” she says. “If they’d only understand that especially with the digital cameras that are available today, making photos available to editors automatically DOUBLES the space you receive.”

Gina Spadofori, who writes a syndicated pet page for Universal Press Syndicate, says she has a continual problem finding good images to fill a small hole on a page.

“The availability of high-quality, high-resolution art can tip a ‘maybe’ item into the ‘yes’ category,” she says.

In fact, one good-quality photo that accompanies your story pitch can automatically move a story from Page 21 to Pages 1, 2 or 3 in a newspaper or magazine. Craig Saunders, editor of Prism, Canada’s magazine for eye care, echoes what many other magazine editors say:

“In the front section of our magazine, nothing gets in without good photos–nothing!”

I have my own pet peeves regarding photos. A man in a photo looks as though he has a plant growing out of the top of his head. One woman gave me a photo of her in a sleeveless blouse, with her bra strap showing. One person gave me a snapshot of him and his dog. The dog had the dreaded “red eye” problem that we see so frequently, leading us to wonder if all dogs and even people have red eyes.

I became so frustrated with these problems that I wrote “How to Use Photos & Graphics in Your Publicity Campaign,” a 138-page ebook that walks you step by step through the entire process of how to take your own photos and create your own graphics. The ebook includes everything from a thorough explanation of camera equipment and the elements of great photos to things such as the pros and cons of prints versus digital photos, how to optimize photos for your website so it loads quickly, how to take photos at your own special event if the media refuses to cover it, and how to use creative photos for routine announcements like births, weddings and anniversaries.

Those of you who need to hire a professional photographer will find an entire chapter devoted to saving you time and money finding the best professional for the job. It also lists the important questions to ask photographers so you don’t find yourself in a legal battle over the use of photos years later.

You’ll find tips for pitching “stand-alone” photos, ideas on how to get an entire page of pre-event coverage, and 18 ways to stay on a photographer’s good side. Learn about dozens of bonehead mistakes you shouldn’t be making. You can download the ebook and be reading it in just a few minutes at www.publicityhound.com.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Filling up your gas tank doesn’t get more fun than this.

When Don Rogers picked up a Cocker Spaniel named honey six years ago at the dog pound, he could never have guessed…

the fame she would bring to his gas station — Crazy D’s All American Fireworks at the El Cheapo Gas Station just off I-95 in South Carolina.

It’s a family business. So Honey comes to work each day with Don and his wife, Joyce, and their daughter or granddaughter.

One slow day, Don decided to teach the dog to take money (bills only) from customers and bring it to his wife at the cash register.

“Honey, go get the money!” he would command.

Soon everyone in town wanted to gas up at Don’s pumps so they could watch Honey grab their money between her teeth and run back to Joyce at the cash register. Honey can even tell real money from fake Monopoly money or even foreign currency. If it’s not real, she’ll just drop it on the floor.

She gets a treat each time she comes back to the cash register. And because she’s been so successful, she’s not on diet treats. The story is in the spiral-bound book Drive I-95, a collection of maps, history, trivia and fun facts about the heavily traveled interstate from Boston to the Florida border. Authors Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner, who are also Publicity Hounds, have had lots of media attention for the book. Now they’ve thought of yet another way to get reporters interested.

They piggyback onto the high gasoline prices. While everybody else is grumbling about the cost of fuel they’re telling the media about Honey and her antics and how much fun motorists are having filling up their tanks at El Cheapo Gas Station.

I met the Posners at the Book ExpoAmrica convention over the weekend in New York City. They walked the convention floor dressed in their giant I-95 signs that they wore like sandwich boards.

Other Publicity Hounds can learn a valuable lesson from the Posners.

If you can offer a humorous story or tidbit for an otherwise serious story, publicity is almost yours for the asking.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Writers, editors, and producers seldom have time to talk with you on the phone. Usually, they’re so busy that even the briefest conversation takes them away from pressing projects. So every second counts!

In the first ten seconds, seasoned news people know……whether they’re interested in your pitch. You have to grab their interest, appeal to their needs, and make them want more.

When you pitch a busy editor or producer, it’s not a social occasion, so don’t waste their time. Minimize the pleasantries and introductions. Hit them hard and hit them fast—or they’ll turn you off.

Communicate Forcefully and Fast.

Delivering your message forcefully makes your pitch convincing and conveys your enthusiasm. Conviction and enthusiasm are contagious. If others believe you are stirred up with passion, they’ll follow you and work their butts off to help you, which is exactly what you want. Come off lukewarm about your product or service and expect the media to do the same.

The media is impatient and won’t waste time drawing out information or promoting weak spokespersons. Your objective is to get your message across, to be fully understood. So, speak plain English—unless you’re dealing with a special subculture and must prove that you know the lingo—and say it simply, clearly, and fast.

You only have ten seconds—that’s it.

If you can’t deliver a convincing message in ten seconds, the media won’t listen. The first ten seconds will buy you another twenty seconds, so your follow-up must also be strong. Think of your opening as your ace pitcher and your follow-up as your star closer.

If you can’t interest the media after thirty seconds, they’ll either think your story’s weak, you don’t know it well enough, or you’re not prepared. Whichever way, you’re out.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Sometimes a crazy idea isn’t so crazy after all. Here’s how some members of the National Speakers Association have generated ongoing publicity for their businesses — and in one case, started a whole new career. 

If you haven’t created your own holiday, or your own day, week or month of the year, you’re missing out on the chance to generate tons of print, broadcast and online publicity.

• Laura Stack created “National Leave the Office Earlier Day” on June 2 to promote her book, Leave the Office Earlier. It coincides with her birthday. Problem is, so many media outlets want to interview her that she ends up working 12 hours on her birthday just to accommodate them all.

• Michelle Nichols, a former BusinessWeek columnist, created a brand-new career for herself when she started a wildly successful nationwide campaign to promote National Hug Your Kids Day, the third Monday in July. She convinced Clear Channel Outdoor to donate 135 digital billboards, eight Gannett newspapers to run “Citymoms.com” contests, and three Major League baseball teams to announce it on their Jumbotrons.

Now she works full-time encouraging parents to hug their children with her website, http://www.hugyourkidstoday.com.

• Carole Copeland, a speaker and “personal empowerment” coach, has christened June as Student Safety Month. It’s put her website at the top of the Google charts.

• Marilee Driscoll, who specializes in Long-Term Care Planning has designated October (what else?) Long-Term Care Planning Month. It’s brought her book a ton of publicity.

• Steve Hughes, a speaking and communications consultant to businesses, created “Be Kind to Lawyers Day” the second Tuesday in April. It took off in a big way, and he’s guaranteed publicity every year when April rolls around.

What are you waiting for? Now it’s your turn to generate all the free publicity you can handle.

If you’re on LinkedIn, you can use that popular social networking site to actually promote your holiday, just like Michelle Nichols did. Scott Allen, an expert on LinkedIn, critiqued Michelle’s LinkedIn campaign and made several suggestions which she used. They resulted in instant feedback from the LinkedIn community within only 48 hours.

Scott explained how he helped her with her campaign when he was my guest during a teleseminar on How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully. It’s available as electronic transcripts and your choice of MP3s or CDs.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Now that you know what to do in order to solicit a positive response—here’s what to avoid:

1. Not Taking “No” for an Answer
Persistence is an admirable trait, but there comes a point when you must accept defeat. Most people won’t build relationships with insistent callers who phone 500 times after they’re told “No.” When someone says “No,” accept it. Walk away before you destroy a potentially valuable connection.

2. Long Press Releases
One killer page is all you need. If the media wants more, they’ll ask for it. Come up with a great headline, state the major points in a strong first paragraph, and bullet everything you want to stress. Include secondary information in a background or follow-up release.

3. Lying, Misrepresentation, and Hype
Don’t be dishonest or unreasonable. The truth will always emerge, and when stories aren’t based on facts, the media usually ends up holding the bag. Most people, especially those in the media, won’t forget who got them burned and will not give you the chance to do it again. Media pros know a good story when they see one and they can cut through the hype.

4. Pitches That Don’t Fit
Know exactly what the specific contact wants. Don’t approach reporters or producers with stories that fall outside their areas of interest. Pitching a story to the wrong outlet shows that you haven’t done your research. It wastes everyone’s time.

5. Small Talk
Get right to the point—be clear and brief. Don’t confuse chitchat with courtesy. Assume that the people you contact are busy and don’t have time for small talk. Needless chatting borders on rudeness, it holds people hostage and keeps them from attending to business. It’s thinly veiled manipulation that rarely works.

6. Links That Don’t Work
Little is more frustrating than to click on a link that doesn’t work. When people go to your site or blog, they don’t have time to waste on dead links. If they can’t easily access the information they want, they will probably exit your site and move on to something else.

7. Overkill
Media kits that weigh as much as your cocker spaniel are a turnoff. Less is more. When in doubt, leave it out. Most recipients resent bulging kits, consider them wasteful, and won’t read them. The last thing they want is more stuff. If you must send tomes, bound them securely because it’s maddening to watch papers falling out and scattering in every direction when an envelope is opened.

8. Cold Calls
Unsolicited phone calls are intrusions—verbal spam. They interrupt busy people while they’re working. E-mail first to warn them that you plan on calling. Similarly, don’t send unrequested attachments—they won’t be opened—and unsolicited videotapes won’t be watched. Unless you receive express permission, never call the media at home!

9. Bribes
Avoid offering free tickets to events and other bribes. Many media outlets prohibit gifts altogether, some bar presents over a fixed dollar amount (often $25) and others require gifts to be shared or donated to charity. Generally, the media wants good stories, not free T-shirts or coffee mugs.

Food is often welcome. Many who man late-night newsrooms and stations love receiving free food and will publicly express their appreciation. Clever packaging, such as your picture on a pizza box, can produce positive responses. While free food may build goodwill, it won’t guarantee you publicity.

10. Name-dropping
Nobody likes name-droppers. Name-dropping often indicates that a story is weak. In most cases, if connections to celebrated names are tenuous at best, they seldom change the story’s value. While name-dropping may work with friends, it will hurt you with media professionals.

11. Lack of Appeal
Your discovery of a foolproof method of pickling pimentos may be the biggest thing in your life, but it’s probably of little or no interest to the rest of the world. If you want your story covered by the media, it must have audience appeal.

12. Unnecessary Confirmation Calls
Unrequested calls made simply to check on whether faxes or packages have arrived draw mixed responses at best. Some media pros see them as helpful reminders for keeping track of items on their plates. Others resent them as pestering. Your best bet is to send a quick e-mail, rather than call, to check on the delivery of faxes and packages.

13. Gimmicks
If you use a gimmick, it better be sensational and the reason you’re using it must be clear. That said, the vast majority falls flat. Never assume that the media will get the point you’re trying to make. Most media people prefer conventional approaches. A reporter for a big-city newspaper told us that a woman who appeared outside his office clad in a bikini and blowing a trumpet provided a good laugh, but she didn’t get the publicity she wanted because she never mentioned why she was there.

14. Not Following Up on Requests
Everybody hates people who send press releases, call, or fax, but then don’t follow up with additional information when it is requested. If you say, or even imply, that you’re going to do something, do it and do it promptly. Otherwise, you will be considered unreliable and unprofessional. If you don’t respond promptly it may be too late. You can’t expect folks to wait for you.

15. Recycling Ideas
Don’t repeatedly send the same idea no matter how cleverly you repackage it. Writers, producers, and bloggers recognize and resent old dogs dolled up in new duds. “A lump of coal is still a lump of coal and no matter how you package it, it’s not a diamond,” a producer once explained.

Remember
Stay on the media’s good side. When you’re aware of what the media loves and what it hates, it  will give you a great shot at staying in the media’s good graces. Feed the media what it wants because the more the media likes you, the more publicity it can generate for your product or service.

- Rick

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Google Alerts might well be the most valuable online tool you can use in your publicity campaign.

Just ask publicist Renee Young, whose client, Dr. Amiya Prasad, a New York City plastic surgeon, appeared on a two-minute segment on “Good Morning America” as a result.

Google Alerts is a nifty service that notifies you as soon as something appears online about your area of expertise.

Renee went to http://www.google.com/alerts and created a Google Alert for “plastic surgery” so she could pitch her client and piggyback off related breaking news events. Google scans news stories, blogs, websites, videos and even user groups to find information related to “plastic surgery” and emails her whenever it finds something.

Google alerted her that Donda West, mother and manager of hip-hop star Kanye West, had died, possibly of complications from cosmetic surgery.

“I dropped what I was doing and got on the phone to pitch my doctor as an expert to the national morning shows and local television news,” said Renee, of Renee Young & Associates in Scarsdale, New York. “Three hours later, I was in my client’s office with a crew from Good Morning America.”

Here are other ways to use Google Alerts:

• To find bloggers who are writing about your topic, so you can post comments at their blogs, or pitch them.

• To find journalists who cover your area of expertise.  Once you know the name of the journalist who wrote a particular story, you can do even more research on them before pitching. How? By creating a Google Alert for their name.

• To get up to speed quickly on hot topics.

If you haven’t created Google Alerts yet, get going!

- Joan

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

This post sets the record straight on what you can do to become friends with the media—and what will make you its enemy. Use this set of 15 points wisely. Do what they like, it is that simple.

What The Media Loves
Here are fifteen of its favorite things:

1. News
Above all else, the media wants newsworthy items. The first thing they ask is, “Will our audience care about this?” News is what affects people’s lives, what they discuss at the dinner table and around the water cooler. For the media, news is not just about delivering information; it’s about entertaining first and educating or selling second. So, provide your information in an entertaining fashion.

2. The Big Three: Sex, Money, and Health
Stories that involve sex, money, or health attract attention. The media believes that the public is obsessed with sex, money, and health, and if you link your story to one or more of them, it will increase its media appeal.

3. Brevity
Save everyone time and effort by sending short, concise messages, preferably by e-mail. Cut to the chase—be direct and without subterfuge. State what you’re pitching and how it will help the intended audience. Long missives often go unread.

WARNING: Faxes can be unreliable. Some newsrooms, stations, and offices have only one fax machine, or one per floor, and it may be operated by an intern or a clerk. In large organizations, faxes are often undelivered or delivered to the wrong person. If you send a fax, follow up with an e-mail to be sure it is received.

4. Targeted Pitches
Every story isn’t for every outlet. Research the audience you wish to reach and identify which outlets best target that audience. Before making your pitch, study each media outlet: read its articles, watch and listen to its programs, and visit its Web sites. Customize your pitch to stress how it will benefit each outlet’s specific audience. Send business stories to business reporters, not to lifestyle reporters, unless the story has a lifestyle angle.

5. Relationships
Media people like to deal with people who build relationships rather than merely try to sell a story. Although individual stories are important, people in the media know that careers are built by forging strong relationships. To the media, professionals build relationships and they prefer to work with professionals in their network rather than one-shot wonders.

6. Preparation
Do your homework. The media likes to work with people who have their acts together and can deliver what is needed. Focus on making the media’s job easier. Know your subject inside and out and have written materials completed and on hand to send upon request. With products, send three copies of the product to the media. Being prepared shows commitment and that you’re a dedicated professional.

7. Broad Appeal
The story behind your product or service should be able to reach a wide variety of individuals. You want something that makes audiences say, “I know someone who could use that.” The media looks for stories that people will identify with. Search for broad themes that deliver some punch.

8. Tie-ins
The media wants stories that feed into larger items such as breaking news or trends. It looks for topics that will spawn families of stories. For example, during mining disasters they go for stories about safety, corporate greed, the closeness and tradition of mining communities, handling grief, treating trauma, technical and scientific advances, and the environment.

9. Experience
Reporters, editors, and bloggers like to see how others have covered your story; send articles that others have written about you or your product or service. Producers and podcasters want to know how you came off on camera or radio; give them a list of shows you’ve appeared on and offer to supply tapes for their review.

10. Visualization
The media loves stories that they can picture. In your written materials, use visual terms to create images and tell stories that illustrate your main points. The better the media can visualize your story, the better it can visualize its audience visualizing your story.

11. Celebrity Connections
Explain how your product or service is linked to well-known personalities. The public craves information about celebrities and products related to them get plenty of ink.

12. Prompt Response
Since the media works tight deadlines, time is always of the essence. Respond promptly to requests. Send requested material by the fastest route: hand delivery or overnight express. Delays can cause postponements or cancellations. You’re always in a race with the clock.

13. Courtesy
Be respectful to everyone you come in contact with, especially those who answer the phones. Before speaking with media contacts, learn the proper pronunciation of their names. Butchering a media contact’s name will get you off to a rocky start; it will put you in a hole before you begin.

14. Visual Aids
A picture is worth 10,000 words. Send charts, graphs, photographs, illustrations, and other graphic aids that reporters can stick under their editors’ noses to show why your story merits telling.

15. Send Warnings
Before sending unsolicited material, you should notify your media contacts that it is coming with a quick call or e-mail. If they tell you not to send it, respect their wishes.

- Rick

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Here’s an easy way to meet lots of journalists face-to-face in a relaxed social setting.

Join your local press club. Press clubs promote journalism excellence through a variety of programs, activities and monthly meetings. Most members are from the working press, but plenty of PR people also belong.

David Niles, former editor of the Small Business Times in Milwaukee and a former president of the Milwaukee Press Club, says press club membership is a no-brainer for Publicity Hounds. Here’s why:

• Anybody can join. The only requirement is that you “have an interest in the media.”

• Dues won’t break the budget. In Milwaukee, non-journalists pay just $75 a year.  Students pursuing a communications degree pay only $10.

• You can meet journalists in your community numerous times throughout the year at major events and monthly meetings.

• About one-fourth of the members are PR people, which mean you won’t feel out of place.

• You can pitch the journalists in a relaxed setting, often over lunch or dinner. But be diplomatic. David recommends you say, “I’ve got some great things going on. Is it OK if I talk to you now?”

• Press club membership in your local chapter means you can have access to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

David says press clubs in Atlanta, New Orleans, Cleveland and Denver are particularly strong. The Milwaukee Press Club has one of the most comprehensive lists of press clubs in the U.S. and Canada at its website at http://www.milwaukeepressclub.org/resources/links.php

- Joan

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..