Frankly, I’d like to throw Khloe, Snooki and the desperate Housewives of New Jersey under a bus.

But it seems like everyone wants to be a Reality TV star. If that’s in your plan, consider these look-good/feel-good tips from Billy Lowe, celebrity hairstylist and longtime PR LEADS client who is now offering beauty services to Reality TV wannabees:

1: Lighten up. You’ve got to know your content, and you have to be comfortable in your own shoes. I remember my first reality auditions and I was like “Ok, tell me about your hair.” Today I look back at the innocence and sweetheart personality I had going into reality television and while that works for some segments, reality loves drama. Nice may cut it for an ensemble cast but if you want to carry your own segments, you have to be sharp, quick witted, and have a sense of humor (even if it’s making fun of yourself). People that are their true, authentic selves are truly the most beautiful. It shows in their confidence, the way they carry themselves, and their overall look.

2: Have your own identity. What sets you apart? Do you have a hairstyle that’s your own? Do you accessorize a certain way that no one else does? No one can mistake the blonde ambition of Tabatha or the 6-foot something RuPaul. These are identity pieces that set you apart from the crowd; a saying, a look, a color, a sense of self. Too many people believe casting directors know what they are looking for, when in fact most of them don’t. It’s what casting calls are all about. They’ll know the role – when they meet YOU. So be yourself, bring your identity, and look the role.

3: Get a good night’s sleep. When you’re tired, it shows. Skin is lifeless, discolored, and you’re often running frantic with no time or energy to perfect your hair or make-up. Furthermore, you’ll get to the audition or meeting and feel tired or exhausted from not having had enough sleep and you simply won’t be your best. Or if you’ve already booked the gig, there’s nothing worse than getting on camera with dark circles or puffiness under the eyes and all the Preparation H in the world won’t shrink that swelling in time. With thousands of potentials watching your show or your segment – you have to be on your game.

Billy knows what he’s talking about. His celebrity clients have included Ellen DeGeneres, Katherine McPhee and many, many others. If you’re in LA, be sure to get styled by Billy before your audition! If you think you have what it takes for reality television and are looking for a seasoned expert to show you the way,

visit www.billylowe.com or call 310-430-4045 for more information.

PR LEADS, the only publicity leads service to provide hands-on training and support, helped business author and speaker TC North land a monthly guest column in a prestigious publication, CORP! Magazine.

TC North

“One of the leads I responded to was for a guest column in CORP! Magazine. They were interested in my article and a year later I continue to write for them and enjoy a strong relationship with the editor,” said North, a high-performance executive coach, speaker and radio host (http://www.tcnorth.com/). “What’s that worth? A lot.”

The articles are indexed on the magazine’s website and can be found via Google, which increase’s North’s publicity exposure.

“One of my articles is currently number one on their top five most opened list. The benefits of these articles is not only the PR, I also learn what readers best respond to through the most-opened list. This feedback is helping me design the book I’m writing. “I use the most popular articles as the basis for my chapters,” he said.

“We help our clients do more than just get publicity. We teach them how to turn publicity into profits,” said Dan Janal, founder of PR LEADS and an acknowledged publicity expert who also offers publicity coaching and speaking at conferences.

PR LEADS has helped thousands of small businesses, authors, speakers, consultants and professionals get publicity in top media outlets for more than a decade. Clients also have received speaking engagements, consulting contracts and book deals from major publishers thanks to the publicity they received from PR LEADS and training directly from Dan Janal. PR LEADS also writes seo optimized press releases and distributes press releases.

PR LEADS receives many requests for sources from reporters at the biggest and best newspapers, magazines and blogs each month. Subscribers get access to leads that are targeted to their special interests. Sources respond directly to reporters. If reporters like the information, they use it and quote the source. For information, please go to http://www.PRLEADS.com

“I love that PR leads is targeted and I don’t need to spend time sorting out relevant topics,” North said. “PR LEADS rocks.”

Maria Perez

Dan Janal’s Publicity and PR LEADS Blog was named a “must read” blog about publicity tactics by the editorial team of ProfNet Connect.

“If you’re in PR, you’ve likely heard of Dan Janal, founder of PR Leads, (http://www.PRLEADS.com) a service that helps authors, experts and speakers get publicity. Dan’s a smart guy – his book, ‘Dan Janal’s Guide to Marketing on the Internet’ was my textbook in grad school — and his insight into PR issues is often spot-on,” said Maria Perez, editor-in-chief of ProfNet Connect.

In the blog, publicity consultant Dan Janal regularly shares publicity strategy tips, successful publicity tactics and publicity thought leadership ideas.

Other blogs cited include: Ragan’s PR Daily, PR Newser, PR Breakfast Club, PR News Blog, Beyond PR and PRSA’s ComPRhension.

There’s no denying that Oprah can make a company successful overnight. The stories of her successful imprint radiate from the pages of Forbes, Business Week and many others to attest to the kingmaker position Oprah has played.

Now that her show is off the air, what are authors, marketers and PR people to do?

First of all, realize that Oprah was a lottery ticket. Like a lottery, many people buy tickets but only a handful win. The game isn’t rigged and the cards aren’t stacked. Oprah picks what she likes and we are all grateful she has exceptionally good taste!

For the people who didn’t win the lottery, there’s a lesson. It’s okay to play the lottery once in a while, but don’t put all your hopes and dreams in that one basket.

You need to have several marketing tactics in place that you perform month after month. While Oprah can point to hundreds of instant hits and best sellers, there are millions of success stories that got there the old-fashioned way: they busted their butts by doing a few things every day. Every day.

The authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books talk about how they were rejected by more than 100 publishers before they found one who would print their book. Then they had to create demand for the book, which they did by doing 5 things a day, every day, for a very long time until the idea caught fire.

While we all want to take the easy road, there’s no denying that slow and steady wins the race; and those that do several marketing tactics consistently will always outperform the person who does nothing or who jumps from one bright, shiny marketing tactic to another.

To create your own Oprah effect, I’d suggest you stick to the Chicken Soup effect: do five things a day. Find the five that work and never let up.

Recently, I got a voicemail from a Realtor named Louie. I won’t use his last name since I didn’t speak to him or ask his permission. But don’t worry. This is not an embarrassing story. In fact, it is the story of a hero and a person I think I admire. Here’s the story.

Louie leaves a message on my voicemail saying he is a Realtor, and has appeared on HGTV. He wants to sell my house. My first thought was I don’t want to sell my house. My second thought was that he had a nice voice and a winning persona on the phone. But I decided to check him out anyway. After all, he’s on HGTV. He must be a star.
I went to his web site and saw his credentials. He’s one of top 20 salespeople in his nationwide company of hundreds or thousands of Realtors. He has a zillion video clips of him appearing on a local TV news show as their real estate expert. He’s a pro through and through.

You know what impressed me most about Louie?

Two things, actually.

First, he makes good use of his media. I always preach that to my clients. He’s a stud!

Second, as successful as he is, he still makes cold calls!

Mind you, I’ll never make a cold call in my life. I hate them. You probably do as well. That’s okay. I’m not about to say you should do cold calls. I do other marketing tactics, like ezines, blogs, articles and press releases.

But he found a marketing tactic that worked for him and he did it again and again and again. He even left a similar message on my wife’s voice mail.

The point is, he didn’t delegate marketing to a flunky. He didn’t rest on his laurels. Instead, he dug in his heels and he kept marketing, every darned day without fail.

You might have noticed that the Real Estate industry is on the ropes and has been for several years. Does that sound like your business?

I have two questions for you.

Are you like Louie? Do you want to be like Louie?

Then pick a few marketing tasks that you like to do and that are effective. Then do them over and over and over again.

I’d suggest you write press releases that contain info about what’s new in your business, or “how to” information that you might have written as an article. Or even an opinion piece that you might have written for your blog. All those are good fodder for a press release that can help your web site be found in the search engines.

For information about this, please go to http://www.PressReleaseSender.com and read about my guaranteed publicity program. It really works!

It’s been a year since I resumed writing this weekly newsletter and I thought you’d benefit from what I’ve learned.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Should I Write an Ezine?” or “Is it worth writing an ezine?” then read on.

I started writing my ezine last year when the economy was bad, business was getting harder and I realized I needed to do more outreach to prospects. I also needed to strengthen my ties with current clients so they wouldn’t leave and also have the opportunity to buy more services, like press releases and media databases.

I thought I had a good customer communication system going by offering teleseminars several times a month for free. But as business continued to slow, I realized that tactic wasn’t working very well.

So I thought it was time to start a newsletter. I had done one years ago, but since it was a lot of work and business was easy, it fell by the wayside. Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’ve learned in the past year.

1. Consistency. In the past year, I’ve written 98 articles. I never would have written that many articles if I hadn’t faced a deadline every Monday.

2. Flow. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, you have no doubt figured out that some weeks I wrote 2 or more articles. I think the act of starting to write one article leads you to write another article. In other words, the creative juices start to flow.

3. Reprints and Reach. Nearly every week, something happened because I sent out the newsletter. Ariel Ford took two of my articles and reworked them for printing in the Huffington Post. Other readers reprinted my articles on their websites with links back to my site. All that link juice adds up in better search engine rankings. And the reprints expose my name to more potential clients.

4. Sales. Some small percentage of readers paid me to coach them or they bought additional services, like my Guaranteed Press Release service.

5. Returning Clients. Some larger number of former PR LEADS subscribers signed up again. It just shows that you have to be in front of people so when they are ready to buy, they think of you. We’ve faced some competition in the last year or two, so it is important for former clients to realize we are still in business and stronger than ever. So when they get disillusioned with other services, they come back and are grateful we still maintained our high standards.

6. Relationships. Several readers began corresponding with me on a regular basis. It’s always nice to build relationships. You know who you are, Marcie, Roberta and Jeff!

7. Get More Leverage from Content. I posted the newsletter articles on my blog and on eZineArticles.com so I got more mileage out of each message. If I had it to do over again, I’m not too sure I’d post to eZineArticles since it seems that Google ranks their links to the articles higher than my links (or not at all if they consider it to be duplicate content.) I am asking myself if it is worth the tradeoff: Exposing my articles to a new audience through EZA, or getting more links on Google. I think the latter might work best for me. What do you think?

8. Speaking Opportunities. I’m still waiting for a speaking opportunity to come in through this method. Any ideas?

9. Publishing Opportunities. I’m still waiting for a publisher to call me. Actually, no, I’m not. I just wanted to show you that while good things happen with an ezine, you can’t always get what you want. You have to keep plugging away.

10. Branding. Each week, more than 10,000 people see my name on the email that contains the newsletter. Some people open it (about 12.5 percent) and the others don’t. But they see my name and branding each week. As master marker and speaker Patricia Fripp told me, “It is not your client’s responsibility to remember you are still in business.” This newsletter lets people know I’m here when they need me.

What’s ahead of the next year?

1. Consistency. Keeping up with writing an article a week.
2. Keywords. Focusing on using more keywords so more people find articles on Google.
3. Videos. Putting more content in video format since it helps with search engines and it helps people who have a visual and auditory learning style.

If you need coaching, publicity tools (media lists, press release writing, press release distribution) or publicity consulting, call me. For a free 15-minute evaluation to see if we’d be a good fit, send an email to me at dan@prleads.com. Unlike other gurus, my rates are actually reasonable!

The News Interview You See Might Actually Be a Paid-for-Promo

Beware.

The person you are seeing interviewed on TV might have paid for that spot.

It’s true.

There seems to be a new trend going on among local TV shows as well as cable news shows to sell interview spots to authors, speakers and business people for fees ranging from $900 to $4,500.

While this isn’t illegal, the practice is disturbing.

As a viewer, I expect the news directors and producers and reporters to carefully decide who they want to interview for their spot segments. These people should be interesting, newsworthy, and controversial or pass the general litmus test of “news.”

It could be hard news like a politician defending her views. It could be the head of a charity group talking about some feel-good event he is promoting, or anything in between.

They all have one thing in common: a news person felt they passed the test.

But there appears to be a pay-for-play element creeping into the news biz. Producers are actually asking potential guests to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars to appear on their shows.

The spots are labeled as news, not advertising.

One of my clients says the producer told her this was part of a new trend called “branded entertainment.” There’s even a Wikipedia entry about this!

The producer said that infomercials aren’t working any longer, so this form of 5-minute interview tied to a news show is the new, bright shiny object that people are chasing after.

Another client said that he can get a contract to appear on a local TV show for 50 segments for $900 a pop.

Apparently, I’m the last person to know about this (or maybe you are). But the cat is out of the bag. TV stations want to make money and they are looking to guests to foot the bill.

What should you do?

First, remember that there still are legitimate TV shows that will be horrified to hear about this trend. I don’t think Oprah or Regis or Ellen or Piers will allow pay-for-play.

Second, I’m sure there are late-night talk shows that have always operated on a quid-pro-quo basis that allowed celebrities to come on to a show to promote their movies or their books. That’s where the commercial line begins to blur. But it’s been going on for a zillion years and isn’t about to stop.

That puts us back on point. What should you do if a producer from a real TV shows asks for money?

First, determine if this is a real show or not. There are lots of companies that claim to be TV shows that will film you for a fee and say they will air the episode. But they are frauds. Either they don’t air the show, or the show is viewed by a very small audience. It’s a scam.

Second, if the show is legit (as the above two cases with my clients show), then determine if you can win. Ask yourself: “Will the money I invest make me as much or more money?”

For example, if I pay $900 to appear on this show, will I sell $900 of books, consulting, coaching, speaking or products?

If the answer is “Yes,” then go for it. That’s what advertising is supposed to do.

But beware:
1. Don’t commit yourself to a long-term contract you can’t get out of. You might have good success in the beginning. But if the sales start to diminish, you could lose your shirt.
2. Make sure the show actually does reach your target audience. It is nice to be asked to be on a TV show in Sweden, but will that reach the people who can buy my your services?

3. Make sure the show airs at the prime time to reach your audience. Does your audience watch TV as they eat breakfast, or at 2 in the morning when they can’t sleep?

4. Make sure you get copies of the video to use in any way you want. You will want to get the most value you can out of this video. In addition, it will be much higher quality than anything you can do with your Mac and a green screen.

Once the interview airs, make sure you make the most of segments. For example:

1. Link to the videos from your website.

2. Publicize the fact you were on TV, especially if you signed a long-term contract and you are now the expert correspondent for the show on your specific topic.

Remember, not everyone sees every minute of every episode of every TV show (or newspaper for that matter). You must promote your appearances to the people who don’t watch TV or read newspapers or who happened to be working at the time the show aired.

The old newspaper editor in me cringes at the thought of paying to be on TV and the station not labeling this as a pay-for-play event. But they didn’t ask me for my opinion. I’m just showing you how to maximize your opportunities in this new age of media when all the rules seem to be changing.

If I were trapped in a mine, thousands of feet underground for more than two months, I don’t think my first thought would be “How can I get media training.”

Then, again, I wasn’t trapped in a mine with the world looking on with wonder and pathos. The miners who were living in horror, apparently, were thinking several media steps ahead of me.

Chile

According to the Toronto Star, the miners asked for and received media training so they can sell their story – er should I have written “tell” their story instead? Ooops. Freudian slip.

“With as many as 2,000 journalists waiting for them on the surface, the first thing they asked for was media training,” the paper reported.

Movie deals, book deals, TV interviews and the like are all in the offing for these tragic heroes. I wish them the best. No one should have to through the troubles they’ve seen.

I guess this shows how media-centric the entire world has become. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, make a killing and ride off to the sunset. New thought. No one wants 15 minutes of fame any more. They want their entire lives broadcast on TV or YouTube or Facebook for the world to see and for them to monetize.

I just hope no TV producer thinks of a Realty TV show where 33 people are forced to live in a collapsed mine and vote one person off each week. There’s a saying about life imitating art.

If you need media training to turn your big disaster into a winning moment, send me an email and I’ll put you in touch with one of my many friends who do this work.

The most effective way to get your message to the media is to target the most interested reporters and avoid the ones who aren’t interested.

Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how often small businesses blast press releases and pitch letters to any and every reporter

BullsEye Publicity.com has the best press lists I've found

they happen to find on a generic media list. Reporters hate this. If you can personalize a pitch or target a press release, you’ll stand a much better chance of being quoted.

To make the best use of your time – and not waste a reporter’s time, here are 10 tips to selecting an effective media list.

1. Is it correct? Make sure the information is correct. It won’t help you to find that there are misspellings, wrong phone numbers or other errors.
2. Is it up to date? Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised at how many sites on the Internet sell outdated information. Ensure that the information is updated at least every quarter. There’s a lot of turnover in the media. An old list is a worthless list.
3. Does it contain complete information? A list should have name, title, publication or media outlet, email, phone and street address at a bare minimum. Give bonus points if the list shows you what topics the reporter covers in detail. For example, buying a list of reporters interested in women’s issues is a start, but how will you know if the reporter is interested in women’s politics, women’s health issues or women’s family and relationship issues? There’s a big difference! Give bonus points to a list that has relevant data, such as links to articles the reporter has written. A good list provider would have personal information about the reporter’s focus and slant so you know what angle to take. You won’t get this from a bare-bones list. You want a full-featured database.
4. Sortable. Ask for the list on a spreadsheet so you can sort on any number of fields, such as city and state, or type of publication. This can be useful if you are going to be in a new city and want to target the media there.
5. Informs you of the type of media outlet. You’d pitch a TV station differently than a print reporter, so make sure the list has this kind of information available. Today, you’d want a list that identifies print, TV, Radio and online media.
6. Contains website address. Every media outlet has a website today. You can research the reporters and the media by going to the website so you know exactly what they cover and how they cover it. Doing this research will help you pitch your story more effectively.
7. Circulation figures for print publications. This number will help you identify the market leaders ands the smaller players.
8. International contacts. The world is shrinking today. If your product or service can be of use to people around the world, then you should contact reporters at other countries.
9. Language spoken. If you stick to the U.S. media, this won’t be as important, but if you pitch international reporters, some will speak English and some will not. In fact, some international media do have correspondents in the US who speak English. Those would be the ones you might want to target.
10. Preferred contact method. How does a reporter want to be contacted? By email? By phone? By fax? By regular mail? Knowing this answer will help you get on their good side!

If you ask these questions before you buy a media list, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and confusion. And you will have a better chance to get the coverage you seek.

I’ve created a new business unit that sells media lists. You can find great lists at BullsEyePublicity.com

Want to learn how to pitch reporters effectively? Download my special report “REVEALED: The Quick And Easy Way To Get Publicity From Reporters And Bloggers Through Social Media And Press Releases!” http://www.bullseyepublicity.com/reporters/ For the most up-to-date, full-featured media database available, please visit www.BullsEyePublicity.com

This article can be reprinted on your webiste or ezine.

Reporters are always looking for news. A new report shows they want to receive press releases by email.

The new report by Bulldog Reporter and TEKGROUP International shows an overwhelming majority of journalists—79.4%—prefer to receive information about corporate, not-for-profit and government news by e-mail.

Here are five ways to make your press release stand out.

1. Target the media carefully. Reporters love press releases that are in their subject area. They go bonkers when they receive press releases that are not targeted for them. So before you send a press release, make sure it is suitable for that reporter.
2. Use a headline that indicates the press release is targeted. If the headline isn’t arresting, the reporter might not read the rest.
3. Put all the good information up front. Remember, this isn’t a mystery novel. Reporters don’t want to find out who-done-it on the last page. Put the important information in the first two paragraphs.
4. Put relevant links back to your website. A press release should be only 400-700 words. That means it is hard to tell the whole story. You have to omit secondary information. Put that info on your website so reporters can get as much info as the need.
5. Put links to photos, line art and surveys. Reporters might need this info. But artwork can take up a lot of space in email and some email systems might reject large files. That means you can’t put those art elements in the press release. Put them on your website instead and include links so reporters can find the information easily.

If you follow this advice, you’ll stand a better chance of having reporters read your press releases.

Do you need a list of reporters in your subject area? BullsEyePublicity.com maintains the most comprehensive and up-to-date media data bases for the US and International Reporters. For information, go to www.BullsEyePublicity.com For a special report on “The Quick And Easy Way To Get Publicity From Reporters And Bloggers Through Social Media And Press Releases!” go to http://www.bullseyepublicity.com/reporters/ Dan Janal is a thought leader, speaker coach and consultant on the topics of publicity and Internet Marketing.

This article can be reprinted on your blog, ezine or website.