I love this tip for small businesses who receive frequent requests for donations for silent auctions:

"Hunt uses auction donations to boost business. Instead of a gift card, she donates a private party for the auction winner and 40 friends. Party attendees enjoy a complimentary dessert and drink – and get 20 percent off any purchases they make that night."

It's brilliant! Get them into the store along with their friends to experience your shop personally!

This quote comes from an article in the Dallas Morning News about how "Locally owned shops innovate to compete with online stores." You can read it here.

This article also said if you don't want vacant retail strips, shop the local stores! Good reminder.

Using Special Events to Draw Publicity

Back in December, the Dallas Morning News ran a story from New York Times about small businesses using creative special events to draw publicity.

This is a brilliant and cost effective marketing technique to draw business.

Here's some things the store owners who were featured are doing to attract customers:

Deborah Reese, owner of Seventh Goddess lingerie shop in Albuquerque, NM:

• Opted not to increase her advertising budget this year for the first time since she opened the shop four years ago.
• She's developed a new Facebook page and is encouraging employee blogs.
• Coordinated a "Sex and the City pajama party" in which customers sat on pillows for manicures and facials.
• Erotic poetry reading on Valentine's Day.
• The owner says, "People who ordinarily wouldn't come, come. You just have to spring for the munchies and drinks."

The result? The parties boosted sales. Dozens of pajamas sold at the PJ event.

Mary Hughes, owner of Mary's Futons, San Rafael, Calif.

• Coordinated a comedy show, using her futons as the seating! "An Evening of Lie-Down Comedy"

The first show sold out. So they added another show and it sold out as well.

These are brilliant and effect publicity campaigns.

Need a creative mind to brainstorm some fun events to draw customers to your place of business? Contact me at lori at lb publicrelations dot com. I'd love to help!

You can read the entire story in the Dallas Morning News here.

Motivational PR Presentation

You know you're a WAHM, when you want to do something for yourself, it cuts into your sleep. I only had about 4 hours of sleep last night. I'm taking a writing class that gets me home around 10 p.m. and then I'm up at my normal time of 3:30. I had two meetings today that were rewarding. So, it has been a good day.

I started my day by attending the morning meeting of Success North Dallas. I wanted to hear Jeff Crilley speak. Jeff used to be a reporter at Fox News but 6 weeks ago he started his own PR firm, Real News PR. I wanted to make sure I reintroduced myself to him (we met two years ago), give him my card and let him know I'm available for freelance work.

At the meeting, Jeff was also supposed to talk about "How to take advantage of the social media (blogs, YouTube and Facebook)." Unfortunately, he opened his presentation up to the audience for questions and ran out of time to discuss this topic.

That's OK because I think Jeff is a brilliant guy and every time I hear him speak, I learn something I can apply to my business. It's like attending a motivational PR session.

Here are a few points I want to always keep in mind as I try to get my clients into the media:

• It's not about the press release, it's about the story.
• Stay away from self serving "commercial" press releases.
• What does the viewer need to know and why?
• What is the news value?
• Lead your story with the benefit to the viewers/readers.

Green Media Tour

In celebration of Earth Day, I wrote a "Green Babies" pitch letter for my client who sells organic, natural and eco-friendly baby products.

Well, my client will be interviewed twice tomorrow (Earth Day!) by two different media outlets. I don't know if I've ever had a client on the media twice in one day. Talk about a media rush!

Marni Matyus
Peppermint Baby Boutique

Tuesday, April 22
6:30 a.m.
Mix 102.9
Marni will be featured in the celebrity segment. The hostess, Victoria Snee will talk about the baby boom in Hollywood and and how celebrities love organic baby products. My client will bring a variety of organic baby products to talk about on air.

Later that morning at 9 a.m.
Good Morning Texas, channel 8
Marni will be interviewed by Paige McCoy Smith of the "Not So Perfect Parent" segment. Marni will be interviewed about the increase in organic baby products available to parents, the benefits of raising a green baby and she will once again be able to talk about a variety of products she sells in her store to keep babies healthy, safe and eco-friendly.

Help A Reporter

Sharing with you today a great resource. You'll want to tell the PR people, marketers, publicists, editors, and journalists you work with about it too, because it's all about them and their needs.

If you're not already using http://www.helpareporter.com/, check it out. It's a service much like that other one that connects PR people and journalists looking for sources, but this one is free. It used to be on Facebook, but grew too large for it. Once you subscribe, you receive about three (sometimes two, no more than four, ever) emails a day with reporter, editor and freelance writer queries, written so you can quickly and easily scan the topics for relevance.

If the topics do not apply to you or your clients, just hit delete. If they do, you may contact the reporter or editor directly, as instructed.

Note that Peter Shankman, the list facilitator, is very strict about helping out these reporters.

Respond only if your information (or your client's info) is relevant and on target.

If not, and you send non-relevant emails more than once, you'll get bumped off the list.

Quickly.

I've seen it happen.

He's a big believer in good Karma, and he's also quite funny, and tends to also include a link to a fun site, or a funny story about his day in the emails. It's a nice refreshing change from the boring, non-funny emails we usually deal with.

Reporters can post queries at www.helpareporter.com/press, and sources can sign up at www.helpareporter.com

As I said, it's free. Peter asks that if you find it useful, then you make a donation to any animal rescue charity or animal hospital. You can forward the queries to others who are a fit, but do not post any queries (or the editor/reporter contact info) on any blogs or public websites.

I received permission from Peter to send you this note, since this is a private group and I'm helping to spread the word to both subscribers and media to sign up. www.helpareporter.com -

The more people who use it, the better it becomes.

Contests for Publicity

I am finishing up a successful campaign using a contest to generate publicity.

For The Sling Station, I came up with the idea to host a "Beautiful Babywearing" photo contest. We chose four categories:

Most Artistic
Best Baby Smile (see the winning photo - isn't she cute?)
Most Creative Location
Cutest Child Wearer

For the contest announcement, one newspaper and four bloggers announced the contest.

We received more than 40 entries!

When the winners were selected, I sent all of their hometown papers a press release and the winning photo. Three of the four hometown papers ran the winning photo and press release! Papers from all over the country: North Carolina, Illinois and Hawaii! All three papers ran my client's websites.

I'm very thankful this was a successful publicity campaign!

Media Worthy Grand Opening

I love brainstorming publicity ideas for clients.

My client who owns The Sling Station and Peppermint.com is opening a retail location here in Dallas.

Instead of just doing a boring ribbon cutting grand opening celebration, I came up with something media worthy and fun!

We will host Dallas' Largest Baby Shower! There are three components:
1. A donation drive to support The Network of Community Ministries. We'll collect baby items including diapers, wipes, toiletries and baby food to support local infants in need. Peppermint will be located in Richardson and this is the social services agency for that city.
2. A baby fair with demonstration classes such as infant massage, baby sign language and sling demonstrations. Guests can also meet local pediatric health care professionals.
3. Peppermint Baby Mascot Contest – Guests are encouraged to get creative with dolls and/or craft supplies to create the Peppermint Baby. The top three most creative entries will win a $100 gift certificate.

This last one is going to be a lot of fun! Can't you just see a photo of homemade dolls making it into the local paper? Plus the donation drive ties it into the community which the media also love.

Of course my client has started to blog about these events. We'll use traditional media as well as social media to market this grand opening. Wish us luck!