I of course love to do speaking engagements (so please do feel free to spread the word), but most of the time, when I get up in front of a group to talk, it’s a private event. So, when I’m scheduled to do a public event, I am always eager to try and maximize promotional effect. I am engaged in just such a process at this very moment.
This coming October 7 (2010), I’ll be doing a talk under the auspices of the Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series in Lowell, Massachusetts. (7 p.m., Pollard Library in downtown Lowell) Most of my “public” talks of late have been about Real Men Don’t Rehearse, so this is somewhat unusual, and I’m very excited about it.
Just FYI, Moses Greeley Parker was a doctor who graduated from Harvard in 1864. He invested with Alexander Graham Bell and did very well for himself, so one of his heirs took some money from the estate and funded a lecture series named after him. So here we are. I appeared on the series about three years ago, talking about “Real Men Don’t Rehearse,” so it’s really nice of the folks who run the series to have invited me back.
Anyway, for those of you who might be thinking about doing speaking engagements yourself or are just curious about the promotional aspect of events, over the coming two weeks I’m going to try and give you a blow by blow account of what goes into it.
When promoting a public free event, of course you immediately want to get as much free press as you can. For example, today I listed the event on the Boston.com web site. I have e-mailed requests for listings and possible articles to the local Waltham paper, the Boston Globe’s MetroWest edition, and the Lowell Sun. In the realm of social media, I have listed it on my facebook fan page, I have “tweeted” it as much as I dare, and of course I’m talking it up here on my blog.
Then there’s the e-mail campaign… I do something with e-mail the is probably much less efficient, but then again, who knows… I write individual e-mails to dozens of people on my list. This includes past clients, people I’m trying to sell to, fans, or anyone else that might be on at all vaguely interested, or who might have a “platform” with which to help promote. Promoting an event is a great way to get in touch with people that I don’t talk to a regular basis. It's time consuming, but writing personal notes is much more effective than bulk mailings which can even backfire by making people feel like they're not special to you.
The one rule about getting articles in newspapers or on radio talk shows that one must always remember is that you must have a quid pro quo. The local newspaper will be happy to include a little three line listing of your event, but to get an article written or to be a guest on a show, you have to offer some kind of engaging content that will draw their customers in and thereby help them sell their advertising. A lot of it is not very scientific, you just have to “catch the eye” of a given columnist or radio talkshow host. I sometimes get a little despondent when these people don’t respond to e-mail requests, but then I have to constantly remind myself of the world is not a rational place, and just because they’re not responding doesn’t mean that I have done anything wrong or that my content is not worthwhile. It’s a game of percentages. Look at all the people who succeed with absolutely nothing to offer.
This process does make one conscious of just how much of the public airwaves are concerned with political conflict. If your book does not fan the flames of political strife one will have a much tougher go of getting promotional airtime.
Anyway, in the book business and the speaking business, there is a very simple formula which is, “promotion = sales.” I confess, this process is all too reminiscent of my youthful days is a bass player, where I would spend hours and hours in a stuffy little practice room in a semi comatose state just playing C-major scales over and over again. The payoff is not immediate, so it can get rather vexing at times.
The other thing about promotion and appearances is that you just never know what kind of word of mouth concatenation is going to occur completely out of sight. People you’ve never heard of will see some mention of you someplace, and they will pass this along to a friend that they think will be interested. I have had a fair number of interesting successes in show business in my life, but I will tell you that none of them ever resulted from direct action of me making a cold call to someone asking for a gig. It has always been someone talking, completely unbeknownst to me, to someone else. The phone rings, and it’s already a done deal. What a life I lead.
©) Justin Locke
