Home Loans Help: Homebuyer Advice

Tips are Perennially Tempting

Techies love them. Young and old technology haters love
them. Most importantly, editors love them. Tips -- neatly
packaged, numbered nuggets of advice -- are always appealing
to those whose job it is to fill up publications with
entertaining and illuminating information. They can
therefore represent a lucrative route to publicity for you
or your organization.

The content of tips that earn you media coverage doesn't
have to be original, exclusive or startling. You can offer
up things most people in your position know. Their charm is
mainly in the writing and packaging.

Start with an irresistible title, usually including a
number, such as "Seven Steps to a Summer Without Bug Bites,"
"Four Secrets Real Estate Agents Don't Want Homebuyers to
Know" or "11 Ways Not to Ingratiate Yourself to The Boss."
Then brainstorm ideas and choose the best and second best
and so on, until you have the number you'd chosen.

Rewrite each item so that it begins with a brief phrase
summarizing the idea, which might appear in boldface in a
magazine or on the Web. For example, here's a crisp,
properly formatted item #1 for the first-mentioned set of
tips:

1. Inform yourself. Ask about buggy seasons and areas before
finalizing your vacation plans. For instance, some beaches
are more mosquito-infested than others. Your first-choice
time slot for a holiday might be black-fly season up at the
lakes.

A good way to set up a tips press release is to sandwich the
tips between a lead paragraph introducing the topic in a
timely way and a final paragraph about your organization.
Include the URL of your Web site, where people can go for
more information. If you have a longish set of tips, use the
press release as a tease, presenting only a few of your
items and specifying how readers can get the whole set, such
as by calling, faxing on their office letterhead, sending an
email request or visiting a certain Web address.

Tips can help you generate product orders or client leads or
targeted Web traffic when you associate the tips with a new
product, an ongoing service you provide or features at your
Web site. By mentioning a specific URL only in your press
releases, your traffic logs will reveal which traffic
arrived because of media publicity.

You can increase the timeliness and odds of getting tips
published when you tie them to holidays, particularly minor
ones. If you run a dieting program, why not gear some tips
to recovering from Fourth of July picnic binges rather than
Christmas dinners? Editors love tips the year round, but
they love them most when they need a holiday tie-in and
yours shows up.

Don't forget to post your tips at your Web site. Make sure
your text includes the phrases someone looking for advice on
that topic would type into a search engine. Easy-to-read
practical tips are some of the most popular pages on the
Internet. The catchy title you slaved over will help attract
search engine traffic, too!

Marcia Yudkin is the author of the classic guide to comprehensive PR, "6 Steps to Free Publicity," now for sale in an updated edition at Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere. She also spills the secrets on advanced tactics for today's publicity seekers in "Powerful, Painless Online Publicity," available from www.yudkin.com/powerpr.htm .

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