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Don Crowther’s
GreatPR Newsletter
Published by 101PublicRelations.com
Issue #112
In this issue:
What's Your Backstory?
One commonly overlooked tool in the publicity-seeker's toolbox is the backstory.
Backstories are the "story behind the headline", the history, the background, or even the anecdotes that give life to an otherwise dry story.
They're a staple of prime time news shows and they're what you see in almost any sporting event, when the camera cuts from the game into the story of the life and history of one of the players.
And they can be a powerful tool for getting publicity for your company!
The key is to recognize that every company, product or situation has a backstory. Your challenge is to convey your backstory in an interesting way.
And backstories can be multi-level, each the source of another article.
For a doctor, a backstory could be created around:
- The experience that made her want to enter medicine
- Experiences from her medical school training and residencies (filled with Grey's Anatomy-type experiences)
- The story of the most difficult case she's ever faced
- Interviews with patients who's life she has changed
- Humorous situations she's encountered in her practice
- The story of a resident or intern she's mentored
- Stories of her staff, lab, and other co-workers
- How this busy doctor is also a gourmet cook (how about a Thanksgiving story about how the skills she uses in surgery can be used by the average homemaker to prepare the world's most succulent turkey?)
- Her daily life description, written diary style (4:36 am: Pager goes off)
Can you see how these types of stories could add to the public persona of a doctor much better than another press release about how she's added yet another doctor to her team?
For a manufacturer, it could be:
- How their business got started
- Tracing a product the consumer commonly knows, and how their firm plays a part in making it, making a machine that makes it, or makes a part that is used in it
- Profiling one of the key people working in the business both professionally and personally (this can be repeated over and over again using different people)
- The unique stores behind the machines they use in their plant (where they come from, why they're perfect for this company)
- The economic impact this company has on the community
- How they are working to preserve/improve the environment
- Humorous incidents they've faced in the workplace
- How they are caring for their people (childcare, education, healthcare)
- How insurance rates or gas prices are affecting their business
Again, these types of stories can nicely flesh out a publicity program normally focused on regular news release type announcements.
How do you get backstories published?
Usually it's not through sending out a standard press release.
In our experience it comes from calling a reporter and pitching a specific backstory to them. Be very prepared as you make the call - you're now in quick story-telling mode, and you're trying to show how your story will be of interest to their audience.
Recognize that the normal reporter who reports on your "beat" may not be the right one in this particular story. Your story on childcare in the workplace may need to go to the lifestyles beat rather than the business beat. But if it doesn't get picked up there, pitch it to the business reporter too!
Another way to get backstories run is to write them up and send the finished article to the reporter. That way they see the full story and can judge whether it will be of worth. They may run it as is, or they may get involved and research their own story.
But the best way we've found to get backstories run is to pitch the reporter while they are in the middle of working with you on a main story. Imagine that you're in an interview with a reporter. A logical line may be "you know, I was just thinking about some really fascinating stories from my residency days. With the popularity of Grey's Anatomy, they may be a great backstory you could do in a month or so. Should we put a date on the calendar to interview again?"
One key tip, never let a reporter, (especially one who initiated the contact), out of your office, or off the phone, without pitching another angle they may want to purse at some point in the future.
And finally - keep in mind that backstories are even less promotional than normal stories (which can only be minimally so.) These are opportunities for you to build your recognition level with the community. But, even though they may not be promotional, they can often be even more valuable to you, because they will usually get better placement, longer story length, better photo coverage, and better readership. They're worth pursuing and are definitely should be added to your PR strategy this month!
And, for more information on pitching stories to reporters, check out Secrets of Perfect Pitching to Reporters
Are Press Releases More Powerful Than Trade Magazines?
Yes, according to a study by Outsell of 7,000 knowledge workers. Previous studies showed that trade magazines were the most relied upon source of business information. But this most recent study showed that press releases now reign as the preferred source of business information.
Why? Perhaps because they're easily and quickly retrievable, they're less likely to be dated, and they fit into the daily lifestyle of today's knowledge worker, who, according to the study, now average 12 hours a week online, up by 1.1 hours from just a year ago.
What does this mean to publicity seekers?
- The rumors that press releases are dead are far from accurate. Press releases still play a major role in communicating information.
- Press releases need to be posted to online distribution sources, in addition to being sent directly to your targeted list of key media contacts.
- When in doubt, (some may debate this) go ahead and submit a release to the online media, even if it's not significant enough to send to your key media contacts. By doing this, you at least put yet another piece of information on the web, containing facts about your company, and links into your website.
That said - make sure that these releases contain news content. There's nothing worse than receiving news releases which contain no news at all!
- Consider sending out full articles through the online press release distribution sources, in addition to standard releases. While these articles may never actually get run in ink on paper, they will become part of the search engine archives. Tip sheets, quizzes, survey results, how-to's and reviews all have significant value to knowledge workers searching for more information.
- Make sure you include your website URL in every release you send. While you're at it, you need to clearly understand how to make your website address into a clickable hyperlink for your favorite online press release distribution source. (They all seem to have their own little rules, so do some exploration on their site or give them a call to understand exactly how to do it on their specific service so you don't get it wrong!)
- Create a goal to send out at least one release or article per month throughout the rest of the year. Ideally, send out one per week, each full to the brim with valuable information. That alone should help to get more traffic to your site, get you found by more reporters researching stories (because you're higher in the search engines), and land some stories in some major publications.
For more information on how to create a press release, check out our Creating Powerful Press Releases
Plus, watch this newsletter, as our next issue will contain an exciting announcement!
Getting Publicity For Alternative Product Uses
I'll never forget the day that someone taught me the exploding balloon trick.
Now this can be dangerous because it involves a caustic substance and fire. Consider yourself warned.
Basically, you put a couple of inches of water in a glass pop bottle (note the word "glass"), add a quarter cup or so of lye, crumple up a piece of aluminum foil and drop it in. Then take a large balloon and carefully fit it over the mouth of the pop bottle.
Over the next 20 minutes or so, the balloon should fill up with the gas generated by the mix. When full nigh to bursting, take the balloon off, and close it off with a clothespin. It should not only float in the air but rise. If it doesn't, stick another piece of tinfoil in the bottle and put it back onto the bottle to fill some more.
If it does rise, tie it closed, and add a 3 foot long fuse made of toilet paper by taping one end to the balloon.
You now have the makings of a very effective prank. Our favorite trick was to go upwind from a campfire surrounded by young impressionable girls (teenage boys are so stupid), light the fuse, and set it aloft (making sure there was nothing between us and the campfire that would catch fire from the burning fuse). If the fuse was measured correctly, the balloon would erupt into a ball of flames over the campfire, just after you were able to sneak back into the group.
It was always good for a 20 minutes of laughter.
Then there was the time that I did the demonstration (with his permission by the way), over my science teacher's desk; the resulting burst setting his grade book on fire. I went home that night with a very sore rear end, him having broken his paddle on my posterior. (My community was late in prohibiting corporal punishment - my bony rear end actually was the cause of splitting two separate science teacher's paddles, and I was a *good* kid!)
There are many products out there that have an alternative use, one for which it is probably not designed.
Don't think your product has any? Talk to the folks in the factory, you may be very surprised.
Why am I talking about these pranks in a publicity newsletter?
Because the popularity of funny videos on the Internet has turned simple teenage pranks into a great opportunity to actually increase your publicity and sales.
Consider the favorite Mentos and Diet Coke trick. Stick several Mentos into a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke, (I suggest you do this outside...) and you'll get a 3-5 second geyser of Diet Coke erupting into the air.
This experiment has suddenly taken on a whole new life with a very entertaining video done by EepyBird.com, which you can see below: 
They took 101 bottles of Diet Coke, combined them with 523 Mentos, and created a short video. Seriously, if have broadband, and you're at all interested in publicity and the power of viral marketing, I recommend you check it out.
You'll probably show it to your kids too, just like I did.
So what's the net publicity effect of something like this?
To Diet Coke, not much at all. In fact, they have such a huge business that Coke probably doesn't even care.
But to Mentos, this may be a totally different story. This publicity is just the kind of thing that will cause tens of thousands of teens, college students and crazy fathers like me to pick up a few packages (cases) and create our own little Bellagio-like displays in backyards worldwide.
An entertaining online video can create a few extra points of market share and a few hundred thousand in sales.
Trust me, these things get attention. A quick search on Technorati shows that 1621 people have linked into this site, 20 in the last 3 hours; 120 people have tagged it in del.icio.us, and there are a bunch of tags on Digg.com. Yes, people notice, write about it, and send traffic to sites with entertaining videos?
Is there something you could do to create a crazy video using your product?
What other viral techniques can you use to create underground publicity for your product?
Great PR Tips
If you haven't been over to www.PublicRelationsIdeas.com lately, you've been missing some excellent two-minute tips that can help you to get more publicity. Recent posts have included:
Plus, we've added a very cool new feature. The top right corner of every page features a signup box where you can register to get alerted by email each time a new tip gets published. It's a great way to stay up to date and to ensure that you never miss a tip.
Of course, if you wish, we also have an RSS feed built in, so you can read it in your newsreader.
To read these tips and others, visit www.PublicRelationsIdeas.com
And of course, there are over 250 different public relations articles, tips and informative products at 101PublicRelations.com
Let's go get some more publicity!
Until next time,
Keep promoting!
Don Crowther
President
101PublicRelations.com
See articles from a recent issue of this newsletter:
And from the one before that:
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