PR Pros to Answer 2007’s Biggest Publicity Questions

Here’s a press release we sent out today . . .  

PR Pros to Answer 2007’s Biggest Publicity Questions 

Business owners and entrepreneurs everywhere can jumpstart their 2007 publicity plans by getting the expert advice they need from eight leading publicity pros in an upcoming virtual seminar called Ultimate PR Secrets set to launch in mid-January.   

Accepting questions through January 2, http://www.ultimateprsecrets.com allows professional speakers, independent consultants, Internet marketers and small business owners to ask their biggest PR questions about how to dramatically improve their visibility with the power of publicity in 2007. 

Anyone who visits Ultimate PR Secrets may enter their name and email address to be added to the Ultimate PR Secrets VIP list, which gives them priority access to fee-free live interviews with million dollar publicity experts. 

Over the course of 8 live interviews, Ultimate PR Secrets students will uncover each expert’s secrets about how to use the power of publicity to exponentially propel their name brand visibility to prospects, clients and target audiences.  

Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media, will interview the experts and will host a live question and answer session open only to registered Ultimate PR Secret students. 

Presented and produced by CoryWest Media, Ultimate PR Secrets is one of the first live distance learning events to focus on public relations and is the only event ever to bring these eight experts together in a virtual seminar format. Registration is open through mid-January at http://www.ultimateprsecrets.com.  

For more information about the virtual seminar, advertising, sponsorships or affiliate marketing opportunities, contact CoryWest Media at 630.942.9542 or connect AT corywestmedia.com. 

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Turn on your own Internet TV station

Affiliate marketing for churches – how to monetize partnerships

Church Marketing Sucks, the place to go to check into what’s happening [and not happening] in church marketing, comments on messaging to the pews in a post called, “Your church sponsored by Crest White Strips.”

Presenting statistics that support selective strategic partnerships, it’s an overall look into how businesses, political parties and ad agencies are promoting from or on the church platform. The post references an article by Knowledge @ Wharton called Product Placement in the Pews? Microtargeting Meets Megachurches.

Megachurches are onto something – raising money by promoting products. While it’s difficult for me to imagine my church setting up a Chrysler expo in our adjacent parking lot, I can see the benefits selective affiliate marketing brings churches.

As one top affiliate marketing expert once explained to me, “Affiliate marketing is not selling, it’s recommending products or services you believe in.” Often, I lead people to resources they wouldn’t have found without me. They’re free to delete my affiliate link [and commission] at the end of the URL and buy direct from the vendor, if they prefer.

We recommend that our business clients find a match with a non-profit whose mission matches theirs. Then we build communication tools for the business to share with the non-profit to help them co-promote an event or a campaign to maximize visability and fundraising potential.

As a marketer, I love the idea of connecting funds to missions. As a church member, I’m conscious of the competition for messages: mission, prayer, ministry, meeting, outreach giving, stewardship, service, youth, suppers, festivals, etc.

Here’s an affiliate marketing idea to test out . . .

Church members who own businesses can start their own version of affiliate marketing by rewarding referrals with a donation to their church and then expand the offer to other churches within the community.

And one more that takes only a click . . .

GoodSearch pays organizations for every search from their members. At a penny per search with 500 members searching 5 times per day, that’s $750 extra per month – certainly worth testing out. Who says donations can only come in through pledges and the offering plate?

Share your ideas on how churches can set up affiliate income streams . . .

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Turn on your own Internet TV station

Name the Domain: Search Over

Yesterday the subject of domain names in a mastermind call. One of our mastermind members owns over 600 domain name addresses. Another member was trying to decide on a new name. Me? I’m always in the “buy it when you think of it” mode.

Buying domain names can become an affordable marketing indulgence with services like www.godaddy.com charging only $8.95 per name. But actually settling on the name can be somewhat confounding.

Here’s service that can help you . . .

Need to name a domain? Want to bid on an expired domain with existing traffic? Have an urge to check out your competition’s traffic?

PC Names Domain Search gives you plenty of tools like these to use all in one place. Check domain availability. Search by name, traffic, 3 and 4-characters. Find all domains left by common first and last names. Ask the site to suggest a domain. Gather a bunch of possibilities and search the whole group at once for availability. Then, buy them up while they’re still available.

Links to Yahoo and IBM OmniFind Free Search Tool

Links:

IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition
IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Datasheet
Forum
Blog
Product Information
Download
Infoworld Test Center review

As a compulsive researcher, I’m compelled to stop and browse stories about search tools.

I found this story on Yahoo! news, Yahoo and IBM team up to offer businesses free data search tool.

Intrigued by the prospects, I looked for a link to OmniFind in this article and in several others as well.

It took some digging and searching to find a link.

Thanks to this Infoworld Test Center review, I found the site as well as read about how the search tool works – they love it, by the way.

According to the OmniFind site, “IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition is a no-charge, entry-level enterprise search software solution that enables rapid deployment of intranet and file system search for both employees and customers.”

In the late 90s, I unexpectedly landed the role as the orchestrating manager for the launch of Sears first intranet site. Coordinating a cross-departmental team into an unpopulated foreign territory was a challenging adventure. Knowing that we’d have a tool like this to search and navigate our new empire would’ve given us added confidence and incentive to build out faster and better.

MediaPost Notes Comment on Email

My comment on Online Spin’s blog post about Expanding the Google Empire wound up in the cover of an email from Online SPIN, a MediaPost blog. I used Snag-it to capture the image. Thank you to the editors ~ for the call-out and for the steady stream of relevant content like this guide to what’s cooking in MSN’s AdLabs.

Social Media Release: Give Whoever Whatever They Want

Edelman, a leading global PR firm, unveiled its entry into the social media release format evolution with StoryCrafter, a web-based tool for creating and publishing social media press releases for their clients, this week.

SHIFT communications paved the way with their social media format structure released in May 2006. To build and distribute a social media release, check out the as-of-now free service at PRX Builder, a straight-forward approach that lets you fill in the blanks and release.

But, you have to know how to fill in the blanks before you begin.

And, that’s the catch with the social media release. Before we beging working in this template, we research keywords and then stack the release to get high ranking press releases.

As an aside, SHIFT seems to be a generous group, freely sharing their secrets in the well-written and researched 30 page downloadable PR2.0 Essentials, a necessarily living document. Thanks guys.

All this social media release stuff is way cool . . . but, uhhhhhhhhh, is this what journalists want?

Maybe it’s just us, but our media contacts don’t get it – yet. When we get too woo-hoo techno-fancy we get emails back asking, “Do you have a press release on this?” [Tip: Always good to have an old-school style release in your creative archive at times like these.]

Never mind all the links to images, logos and even YouTube videos. They want the traditional stuff: a well-crafted story with research completed and quotes already written.

Almost three years ago, we came up with a hybrid version and tested it out with our local media contacts. All of them got it and surprisingly, they all like it. Probably because of its simplicity: a prelude parade of important details, complete with links and an “of note” section (i.e., here’s why you’ll love this story) – followed by a traditional release.

At first they said, “We’ve never seen a release like this before.” That’s the point. That’s why we love evolutionaries like Edelman and SHIFT who keep the game fresh and interesting.

We save the social release formatting stuff for submission to sites like PR Web’s social media release integration platform.

For bigger stories or major events, we often post a single page, continually updated, social media release site as a companion piece to our traditional campaign. Who loves this approach? Our clients and their communities – not the media. Yet, anyway.

Writing and publishing both ways offers a range of options for our clients – having their very own social media website positions them as being edgy, aware and current. Who cares that the journalists still ask for emails with attachments?

Here’s a list of 10 giveaways that the social media format won’t work from my September 27 post Killer PR: Is Social Media the Suspect?

If the [media contact] news receiver:

1. suffers from technophobia – like many writers I know
2. doesn’t know how to read blogs or search for Technorati tags
3. has no clue how to open up multi-media files
4. doesn’t know about You Tube
5. thinks an iPod is for teenagers and mp3 is a motor oil
6. actually spell checks and follows a style guide
7. works from a computer that has no speakers
8. might be techo-savvy but needs to be trained on how to interpret the social media format
9. appreciates stories written in a traditional news format
10. prefers to receive plain text email or faxes

. . . then there’s no point in going all out to fit your news into a format that doesn’t fit their preferred style. They’ll tune out before they ever tune in.

One last point, we recently joint promoted a story with an anonymous leading PR firm. When we showed our rep a video press release prototype, the response we got was, “Really exciting stuff, but we’ll wait until it’s more mainstream.” While social media may not catch on right away with journalists [or PR agencies], the edgy techies like bloggers will love it.

How’s the social media release format working for you? Share your experience with a comment below . . .

Blogarama | Blog Directory and Blog Resources

Search. Read. Submit. With over 36,600 blogs in its database, Blogarama is a site you want to bookmark. Listing your blog gets you in front of over 116,000 readers. Submit your blog to Blogarama. Blog resources include add-ons, guides and tools. Like this blog? Search for Wired PR Works and rate us while you’re there.

Blogarama | Blog Directory and Blog Resources

Search. Read. Submit. With over 36,600 blogs in its database, Blogarama is a site you want to bookmark. Listing your blog gets you in front of over 116,000 readers. Submit your blog to Blogarama. Blog resources include add-ons, guides and tools. Like this blog? Search for Wired PR Works and rate us while you’re there.

Teleseminar Secrets: $500 Scholarships

12/8 Update: Registration for the course is closed.

Want to receive offers like this in your emailbox? Subscribe to Marketing Transformations Network News. 

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Because I feel so strongly about the Teleseminar
Secrets program, I’m giving everyone who registers
through my affiliate link a $500 scholarship.

Want to be one of them? Here’s how. . .

1. register for the Teleseminar Secrets preview call at
http://www.teleseminar-secrets-revealed.com

2. decide you want to enroll in the program

3. purchase the product

That’s it!

I’ll send you a check for $500 as soon as I receive my affiliate commission.

New-List Ezine Directory Features MTN News

 Just got the approval email from New-List.com  that our ezine, Markeing Transformations Network News is now included in their ezine database directory.