I may have an MBA in marketing from Wharton, but it took the local Girl Scouts to teach me the basics of great local PR. That's right, the Girl Scouts of Southwestern Connecticut didn't care squat about my MBA. If I wanted to be the Public Relations volunteer for the Darien Girl Scouts, I had to take a one-day workshop.
Guess what? The workshop was really worthwhile because it taught me how to deal with local media. And I've taken what I learned from the Girl Scouts, plus my marketing training and corporate advertising experience, and used them to do great campaigns for my clients and for local nonprofits. Recently, I've been expending my energy on the PR for the Darien Antiques Show, which opens today. My church (The First Congregational Church of Darien) runs the show to support local charities. I've had a great partner to work with who understands PR and does it for a living. That made the job a pleasure -- even fun!
We've used traditional and new media to get the word out about the show. And we've applied a few tricks of the trade.
1. We had a hook -- we highlighted something uniquely special about the show.
2. We wrote up the facts in an interesting way - who, what, where, when, why
3. We used interesting opening sentences
4. We tailored the copy to the needs of the media.
5. We sent in eye-catching photos that we either took ourselves or got from our antiques dealers.
6. We worked with the show chairs to make sure their needs were being met, too. Were we targeting the right audiences and communicating specifics that needed to be communicated?
You, too, can develop and execute a PR plan like ours. Take a look at the result:
www.facebook.com/TheDarienAntiquesShow
www.thedarienantiqueshow.org
http://darien.patch.com/articles/mar-4-6-antiques-sex-and-the-irs
http://www.newstimes.com/entertainment/article/Darien-Antiques-Show-features-eclectic-group-of-1041015.php
http://www.thedailystamford.com/events/treasure-hunt-darien-antiques-show
http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/arts/features/86867-darien-antiques-show-opens-friday-march-4.html
http://www.darientimes.com/local-events-calendar/events-arts-fun/5000480-darien-antique-show-opens-with-preview-party-friday.html
http://www.darientimes.com/home-ns/
You can try this at home! Or contact me, if you want some professional help.
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