Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Bart Baggett
Bart Baggett is an expert on handwriting analysis. He's been featured on a number of radio and TV shows like The View, Howard Stern, CNN and many others. During 2001's anthrax scare, he appeared regularly on CNN commenting on the handwriting on envelopes containing the anthrax.
For The Big Seminar, Bart's topic was 'how to get free publicity. In addition to being a featured guest on many shows, Bart has also hosted a radio talk show himself. He knows what it takes to get on the air and attracts many self-published authors (often trying to sell a garage full of books) as coaching clients.
After giving us some personal background, Bart described the impact free publicity can have in terms of instant traffic, instant sales and credibility.
Your goal should be become an interesting guest and make the host's job easy by providing them with everything they need. Also, you need to find the news or entertainment angle in your product or service and use that in your pitch to the show's bookers. In radio, that's usually the show's producer.
Bart would pitch a radio producer or DJ by saying he would come on the air and tell the DJ if their boss was sexually frustrated or a pathological liar by looking at their handwriting. Humor helps when trying to get on morning drive radio.
One good suggestion Bart offered was hiring someone like himself or a local DJ to interview you on tape. Then, put the interview on your website. You could then refer the media to your site to listen and see you'll make a good guest. And your site's visitors can listen and get to know you better.
You also need to decide which is more profitable, generating leads or direct sales. One way to get lots of traffic is to offer a free ebook to listeners (or viewers or readers). To get the ebook, they go to your site and provide their name and email address.
Another possibility Bart mentioned was radio infomercials. You can put together an hour long program very inexpensively. You can buy time on small and medium market radio stations for as little as $200. If it's profitable, you can repeat this in other markets. There aren't many listeners on these shows but if you have a high ticket item, just a few sales makes it profitable.
Bart gives details on how to actually get booked on air, how to:
*Find and contact the stations.
*Create your 60 second pitch.
*Assemble a press kit.
He gives you a lot of information not only on the process but on the mindset of the person booking the shows so you're well prepared to pitch them.
You can also hire pros to help you with some or all of this process and Bart recommends several reliable publicists. Some of those publicists were in the audience. I spoke with them afterwards and they definitely know their stuff.
At the end, Bart took questions from the audience. There were some radio and TV people in the crowd like my buddy JD Houston and they asked good questions as well as offering tips from their perspectives as members of the media.
Bart Baggett is an expert on handwriting analysis. He's been featured on a number of radio and TV shows like The View, Howard Stern, CNN and many others. During 2001's anthrax scare, he appeared regularly on CNN commenting on the handwriting on envelopes containing the anthrax.
For The Big Seminar, Bart's topic was 'how to get free publicity. In addition to being a featured guest on many shows, Bart has also hosted a radio talk show himself. He knows what it takes to get on the air and attracts many self-published authors (often trying to sell a garage full of books) as coaching clients.
After giving us some personal background, Bart described the impact free publicity can have in terms of instant traffic, instant sales and credibility.
Your goal should be become an interesting guest and make the host's job easy by providing them with everything they need. Also, you need to find the news or entertainment angle in your product or service and use that in your pitch to the show's bookers. In radio, that's usually the show's producer.
Bart would pitch a radio producer or DJ by saying he would come on the air and tell the DJ if their boss was sexually frustrated or a pathological liar by looking at their handwriting. Humor helps when trying to get on morning drive radio.
One good suggestion Bart offered was hiring someone like himself or a local DJ to interview you on tape. Then, put the interview on your website. You could then refer the media to your site to listen and see you'll make a good guest. And your site's visitors can listen and get to know you better.
You also need to decide which is more profitable, generating leads or direct sales. One way to get lots of traffic is to offer a free ebook to listeners (or viewers or readers). To get the ebook, they go to your site and provide their name and email address.
Another possibility Bart mentioned was radio infomercials. You can put together an hour long program very inexpensively. You can buy time on small and medium market radio stations for as little as $200. If it's profitable, you can repeat this in other markets. There aren't many listeners on these shows but if you have a high ticket item, just a few sales makes it profitable.
Bart gives details on how to actually get booked on air, how to:
*Find and contact the stations.
*Create your 60 second pitch.
*Assemble a press kit.
He gives you a lot of information not only on the process but on the mindset of the person booking the shows so you're well prepared to pitch them.
You can also hire pros to help you with some or all of this process and Bart recommends several reliable publicists. Some of those publicists were in the audience. I spoke with them afterwards and they definitely know their stuff.
At the end, Bart took questions from the audience. There were some radio and TV people in the crowd like my buddy JD Houston and they asked good questions as well as offering tips from their perspectives as members of the media.
