Push back the furniture: The party has grown

Mi gente, please welcome the readers from Parenting.com, where I am now a blogera. Blogeando?

I'll be writing over there once a week, so go see. Comment, send the link to friends, suggest topics.

More about this when I don't have a belly full of fish tacos and beer. (I love Southern California...)

Are you a Jersey blogger mama?

Consider this a public service announcement:

A media friend in Jersey is looking for Jersey blogger moms willing to write for a state-wide publication. Pass the word.

E-mail me and I'll forward the contact.

Fame awaits you.

Free tips: How to send a celebrity a gift basket

When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt introduced their youngest daughter to the world wearing a Kingsley t-shirt, the garment went into immediate back order.

Celebrities are mighty powerful, we all know that. Their wearing, or using, an item can mean instant sales and forever cool.

A few months ago when celebrity news was full of stories about gorgeously pregnant Latina stars, Los Pollitos Dicen and three other fabulous Latina-owned businesses put together gift baskets for Salma Hayek, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez.

We participated because of their star power, of course, but also because the mom in us recognized the mom in them. All Latinas, all on adventures – business and mothering. I had resisted sending gifts to celebrities because it felt kinda funny, you know? But, with these three it just felt right. (I particularly have empathized with Hayek and Lopez who, like me, came to mothering a little later in life.)

Anyway, the point of this post is not really to tell you about our gift baskets, (which really were very cool), but to tell you, small business owner with little dinero, how to send them yourself.

If you’ve ever looked into giving “swag,’’ as they call it, through a gifting company or at a celebrity event like the Grammy’s, you know it isn’t cheap. Participation can run from $50 to hundreds or thousands of dollars. It could pay off. Or it may not.

So, while you grow your business and ponder whether to pay mucho to send gifts via a swag company, I’m going to tell you how we did it. It will cost you more than $50, but not much more than that and some time. So...

HOW TO SEND A CELEBRITY A GIFT BASKET:
THE CRIB SHEET

• Head over to Who Represents and search the Celebrity of Choice.
  I like to start with the publicist. (You can register for the service if you need to).
  
• If no publicist is listed, look for manager or management company.
  
• Then, Google the name of the publicist and the star to see if that spokesman or spokeswoman has been speaking for the Celebrity of Choice lately. (Databases can be out of date.)
  
• If you can’t find free information, Google your Celebrity of Choice and words like “publicist’’ and “spokesman’’ and “spokeswoman.’’ Make sure any results are current. You also can hang out over at Perez Hilton or any celebrity site of choice – People, TMZ, etc. and keep track of whose talking for whom. And sometimes, celebrities have contact information on their personal web pages.
  
• So, once you’ve pretty much got it that this particular publicist still indeed does speak for Celebrity of Choice, Google the publicist to find his, or her, address and company name.
  
• Call the company and ask for the publicist’s office. Don’t bother asking to speak to the publicist herself. Tell the receptionist – which we all know, knows everything – you would like to send a gift basket to the Celebrity and need the best address. Speak kindly and confidently. (You can puke from nerves later.)
  
• Now, the PR person’s office might refer you to the agent’s office or the star’s personal office. Call, don’t e-mail.
• Say "Thank You Very Much'' and head to the post office.
  

We sent baskets to three celebrities. I got addresses very quickly for two. For the third, the receptionist gave me a publicist’s e-mail address. Of course, she never answered. So, I called back and got the management office name and address. After a quick call and an address, off the basket went in all its colorful glory.

The baskets arrived at their destinations and they were not sent back, which always is a possibility. Then, we posted this press release on PRWeb. (See the release to read about my partners.)

Cost to upload release: $80, split by four. Because I wrote it, there was no additional release-writing cost, but if you need someone to write it, you'll be looking at $100 to $300.

What did our businesses get out of it? I can’t speak for the other vendors, but the Pollitos got exposure and sales. The Web pages and message boards that featured us will hang around for a long time, so we’ll continue to get some exposure.

And I know you want to know: Did we get a Gracias?
No. Not yet. I am not sure one was expected.

However, can’t say we’re not all hoping for a photo in People or US Weekly or on Perez, our favorite bad boy cubanito.

Personally, I am keeping fingers crossed Jennifer’s twins show up on her upcoming TLC reality show dressed in their “Gordito’’ and “Gordita’’ onesies.

Any questions?

I said "Los Pollitos Dicen" on Nashville television, y'all

Meryll Rose, lovely hostess and reporter, Talk of the Town, Channel 5

Want to hear my Miami/Jersey/Nashville accent?

Click over to the Talk of the Town site to see the segment on Mamamade, the amazing show we are participating in on Saturday and the event for which I have done the PR.

Look for the icon with the Pollitos and the headline: "Artistically Juggling the Demands of Motherhood and Jobs."

This one is for the small business owner. Tips.

As a small business with limited marketing and advertising dollars, I look regularly for ways to partner with people tarketing similar markets -- Latinos, new mothers, grandmothers, lovers of all things Spanish.

For the holidays of 2006, Los Pollitos partnered with two other businesses and pitched stories on bilingualism and bilingual goods to the media. A few bit. We've also joined hands with a couple of companies who sell Latin-themed goods and uploaded a press release to PR Web --hits, exposure, sales. It was through a Google search that led to a PR Web release that got one of the companies invited to insert goods into Latin Grammy gift bags. We at Los Pollitos got sales and public relations companies looking to represent us. (I do all my own PR. Thank goodness, for it isn't cheap.)

If you google around PR Web, you'll see what else we've done recently and with whom. I don't want to write too much about it right now, but I will. It's exciting stuff.

The cost is minimal. It costs as little as $80 to upload a press release to PR Web. (Now, you have to write a release, or pay someone to do it, which is around $300 to start.)

The benefit is unlimited though, as those releases stay up there forever and you can post them on your own web site and blog. Reporters and people in industries you target receive e-mailed copies. RSS feeds pick them up. My releases have gotten thousands of reads.

For three years, I've been part of a group called Mamamade. It started in my mom's group when several of us were making things and starting businesses and decided to group together to sell to each other and our friends and family. We set up in a private home two years and had amazing sales. We did it all through word of mouth. This past November, we rented a church basement and got some write-ups in the paper. This month we are having our first Spring Market.

I've been doing the public relations for it and today one of our members was on a popular morning TV program. Our group will be on another morning show the week of the sale and in a couple of local newspapers, not to mention community calendar listings.

This translates to thousands of dollars in free advertising. Thousands. If you're on camera, you can stream that video on your site for the next hundred years. It's the kind of advertising most small businesses cannot afford. All free.

The point: Sometimes, you sell better as part of a group. A good group. The media likes trends (any three things is a trend, they say) and they want some ready-made stories. Mamamade is a great story. It sells itself. I found good partners and will get great press. Good press often means excellent sales.

Who can you partner with?

Happy Weekend.

Los Pollitos in the news

It's media week over here at Los Pollitos Dicen.

Los Pollitos is featured in Find It! Source Book for Parents, published by the Meredith Corporation. It just hit bookstores. Inside, are lists and pictures of companies, big and small, hawking cute baby stuff. A lot of cute baby stuff. The book stays on the shelves for a year. Meredith, by the way, publishes Child, Parents, and Ser Padres, among many other great magazines.

The in-box also brought a nice surprise from the fine folks at Hispanic.com. They're featuring the Boonie Blog here and they have a running list of other Latino blogs worth a miradita.

I got back to my writer roots and wrote a column for the March/April issue of Multilingual Living magazine. If you are raising a child to speak more than one language, the magazine is a source of inspiration and the site, Bilingual/Bicultural Family, is wonderful.

Finally, the chicks are expected to be in the April issue of Tu Ciudad, the city mag in Los Angeles. You can read a great letter from the editor, Oscar Garza, here, and about the magazine as featured in the New York Times.

We will return to stories about my genius child after the break.

Gracias.

From one kind of Media Whore to another kind of Media Whore or “How to get press for your business.’’

If one looks at the press page over at Los Pollitos, one finds a whole lot of articles in impressive publications. Given the portfolio, I get e-mails, and some calls, from other small business owners who want press and are trying to figure out how to get it.
How have we gotten so much press? Well, a lot of trees were killed sending out releases and the bigger reason: I am a media whore.
I called everyone I have ever known in the business and I also asked media friends to call their friends and so, voila.
In this last year, I have found new respect for people who do public relations. It is not easy and mi gente in newsrooms are not always the friendliest to deal with – that’s if they even pick up their phones. Plah on voicemail.
But, you don’t need to know a reporter personally to get a newspaper or magazine to write about you. I can’t tell you how many great stories I landed when I was a daily newspaper reporter just because somebody picked up the phone and, in 25 words or less, said: “Hey, let me tell you about this so-and-so.’’
So given the questions – and the requests for help writing press releases -- I figured I would share a few tips and tricks. These are nothing that will win me a position as a media and public relations expert but what the hey, they’re free:

• Press releases are important, but not totally necessary. A simple telephone call, or a quick e-mail, with some basic information might be all you need to hook a reporter.
• If you do write a release, keep it short. Try no more than a page to a page-and-a-half. Keep it simple: Who, What, When, Where, Why.
  
• Don’t call at 10 a.m. and don’t call at 4 p.m. Reporters haven’t had enough coffee at 10 and they’re cranky and on deadline by 4, or they're headed for Happy Hour.
• If you call, ask if “now is a good time.’’ Muy importante.
• If you e-mail, try “suggested story idea’’ in the subject line. (“I think you are the best writer ever!’’ can work well too.)
• Don’t tell anyone you are “the first,” “the best,” “the only.” Reporters will hang up on you or make paper airplanes out of your release.
• Did you see an article about a product or service similar to yours? Check out the byline. Call or write that person and tell them about fabulous you.
• Read the publication you are pitching. Tell the person you are talking to that you saw the article about blah-blah that he or she wrote. Google the writer, know what kinds of stories she writes. Don't pitch lawn ornament trends to the guy who writes about hot tech.
  
• Are you shy? Can’t sell yourself? Have your boldest and most direct and polite friend call for you.
• Want to hire a public relations firm? Budget $1,500 to $5,000 and more a month. (Cost of doing it yourself: Minor anxiety).
  
• Does your product have a seasonal angle? For example, the Pollitos are a big hit in the Spring, the whole chick/Easter link. Media looks for timeliness. Be warned: Fewer and fewer papers care about the “National Whatever Month’’ angle.
• Called or wrote and heard nada back? Try again in a week or two. A simple “just checking in’’ will work. It could be your information got swallowed by the gigantic pile of caca on a desk, or got a Starbucks latte spilled on it. (Check out my trashed out, dusty desk, above, on my last day of work. Note free donut.)
• Checked in and still nothing? Maybe it’s time to move on, or you could be labeled an annoying media whore. (Who, me?)
• Doesn’t work too well to call The Editor or section editor directly. Those poor people are busy, busy. Best to contact them via a packet or e-mail that can be passed on to the right reporter or assistant editor.
• “Three is a trend’’ – common thinking in newsrooms. Do you know of other people doing the same thing, or close to the same thing as you? Tell the reporter what you know. Don’t be greedy and you’ll have a better chance of getting a hit.
• Don’t disregard the small weekly community paper. Press is press.
• Save your money and don’t send samples of your product unless you’re asked and most papers won’t ask unless they’re actually doing a story. Magazines are a different story and most large magazines will send your product back. (I personally don’t send samples to shopping blogs, but that’s just me. Your choice there.)
• If you’ve written and called and not heard back, but you still really believe the local paper is missing out on you, then send food. Reporters love free food. (See donut above). It could be month-old wheat wafers, but by gosh, it’s still free and free food is the way into many a scribe’s notebook. That, and a free round at Happy Hour.
  

(Check out the links section soon, as I'll be adding links to helpful media and public relations sites to the Boonie blog)