"Marketing Angel" column for Mainebiz,
How to Get on Oprah
By Kimberly L. McCall
If you witnessed the banshee-style wailing of The Oprah Winfrey Show audience when each member received a new car (Joan Stewart likened the sound to cicadas), you’ll have the barest indication of what it would sound like here in Durham if I made it to the Big O’s show. But getting booked on Oprah is the publicity equivalent of seeing the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes van in your driveway.
To understand the alchemy of talent and product it takes to make it to
Oprah, as well as other national television shows, I asked Susan
Harrow (prsecrets.com), author
of The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah, to share her
insider’s tips. Harrow is a media coach who works with Fortune 500
executives, entrepreneurs and best-selling authors. Based in Oakland,
Calif., Harrow has provided media coaching for clients who’ve appeared
on 60 Minutes, Oprah, Good Morning America, The Today Show,
Howard Stern and CNN.
Marketing Angel: You’ve been a media coach for people who’ve appeared on Oprah. Can you share details about a client who made it to the show?
Harrow: [An] author/seminar teacher/ businesswoman was booked on the
show. She and the producers discussed the angle of the show, and what
part she was to play in it. She got an entire show, as the theme [weight
loss for children and life balance] was close to Oprah’s heart. Most
often people [only] get one segment of a show.
She’d been on the show several times and it didn’t have much of an effect on her business, so she hired me to media coach her so she could sell her books and products and promote her services. We worked diligently to come up with sound bites that would inform and entertain Oprah’s audience as well as seamlessly promote her products.
She was flown to Chicago. A lovely gift basket was waiting in her room. A limo came to pick her up. They shot the show for 12-15 hours a day for three days. In the middle of the shoot, she called and said, “They’ve changed the angle of the show. We need to come up with different sound bites.” We then crafted more sound bites on the spot that fit into the new angle of the show. After the show aired she got a flood of orders for her products.
Getting on Oprah is the Holy Grail for many authors and business
innovators. What’s the biggest misconception people have about how
to get on the show?
Everyone thinks their product, service or cause is right for Oprah. Ninety-nine percent of them are wrong. It’s never about you or what you’re selling. It’s all about creating the right angle at the right time and pitching it to the right producer. The “right” angle is something that’s both newsworthy and appeals to Oprah’s very specific audience, which is stay-at-home or working moms with incomes of less than $20,000 a year.
What does media coaching involve and why is it important for company
spokespeople to get training?
We start with an intention: What do you want your audience to know [or] to do? Then we begin to craft six talking points that will move your audience to action.
It’s important for anyone who wants to be a media star and grow
their business to get training for four reasons: to get the results you
want — not just a lot of inquiries; to manage your own words and
behavior under any circumstances; to learn how to control the interview;
and to be natural, likable, credible and fascinating.
Click here
to learn more
about how to become a guest on the world's top talk show with
The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah: Training Kit
Susan Harrow's Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah, plus
a 2-CD set of Oprah Show tips from an exclusive interview with
Joan Stewart
|
Is it possible to be too polished
on television, and therefore less believable?
I listen to the way people naturally speak and preserve their uniqueness. Perfection isn’t part of the process, fluidity is. People hate you if you’re perfect. We love those who are like ourselves — human and vulnerable. There needs to be a balance [of] being a “man of the people” and an expert in your field.
So a producer from Oprah calls and says she wants one of your
clients on the show. Do you hyperventilate? High-five yourself? What’s
the proper “yippee” protocol?
Pray mightily. Don’t celebrate until after the show has aired [because] anything can happen.
One of my seminar participants had taped most of the Oprah show that was scheduled for the next week, except the studio portion of the segment. He was due to fly out to Chicago. Sept. 11 happened.
While Sept. 11 isn’t typical, other scenarios are: a news event makes the scheduled topic unimportant for that day. They find a better guest. The angle of the show changes at the last minute. They decide not to do the show. Even if the show is taped, it may never air.
Count your eggs once they’ve hatched, then go out and do the wild
thing under the moonlight. Get on the phone and get yourself booked on
all the other talk shows. Once you’ve done Oprah it’s
your calling card to national TV.
Kimberly L. McCall ("Marketing Angel") is president of McCall
Media & Marketing, Inc., a business communications and writing company
in Maine. She's the author of Sell it, Baby! Marketing Angel's 37 Down-to-Earth
& Practical How-To's on Marketing, Branding & Sales. Sign
up for the free Marketing Angel newsletter at
www.MarketingAngel.com.
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