Publicity is a nutty business

You never know what is going to be sticky to the media — until you try it. Sometimes it’s the first thing you send out, sometimes it’s the hundredth. I know people don’t like to hear that, but this is the truth. Consistency is one key. Trying new ideas and angles and finding current trends are others. I often think that the most nutritious newsworthy things get ignored for the snack of the moment. But also one of my favorite sayings is, “Perseverance leads to truth.” It may not be your time, for whatever crazy reason. And then there is pure luck or fate. Combine that with some smarts and skill and you have a huge boon to your business.

Which happened to two people I know. One is a colleague, the other a new client.

For Randy Peyser it was the mention of her book Crappy to Happy in the movie Eat Pray Love starring Julia Roberts and (pitter patter) Javier Bardem. I saw the movie just for him. For those of you who missed this wild trend Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir touched a nerve among women craving deep emotional and spiritual connection to themselves as well as with their husbands. The zeitgeist is still going on. It tapped into women with an empty place inside.

Imagine what a surprise it was for Peyser, who had no idea her book would be in one of the opening scenes of the blockbuster movie, now seen by millions. This stroke of luck set her in motion to find a new publisher for her book which had gone out of print. See how one simple random act can change the course of your personal or professional history?

For Halle Eavelyn, director of Spirit Quest Tours, it was the whole Eat Pray Love phenomenon. Eavelyn leads tours to exotic locales like Egypt, Europe, South Africa, and Bali. What an opportunity for her company to expand their profile into the world of luxury travel for personal and spiritual realization.

Eavelyn jumped fast in order to ride the crest of the buzz surrounding the movie as the box office topped $50 million gross. According to CBS news “Nielsen says 94,000 books were sold in the week ending in August 1, the same number as for all of 2006, when the book was first published. “So far, in 2010, the book has sold more than twice as many copies as all of 2009.” The sales, according to the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 14, 2007, totaled 1,400,000 for the paperback and 127,035 for the hardback. According to the New York Times the book spent 57 weeks at the No. 1 spot on the New York Times paperback nonfiction best-seller list and has remained on the list. Eavelyn had to move quickly because in a week or so the crest will most likely crash and the media will have moved on to the next new new thing.

She called me up to help her maximize the great publicity she’s gotten and to expand it in her short window. The day we had our consult she had just gotten another media placement with Frommers, a great placement for her as people who are looking to travel search there.

I thought you’d like to see how we revised her press release to keep her publicity opportunities going. Take a look at the before and after. I’ll be reporting in on her results soon.

Do you have a press release that worked well for you? Please link to it so others can learn from your example and give us a one line teaser to entice us to read it.