You’re waiting in line at the grocery store, impatiently tapping your foot as the line you “thought” would be quickest turns out to be slower than dirt.

Then, like a beacon of light, you turn and see a glossy stack of magazines shouting:

• “Who is the dad of January Jones’ unborn baby?”
• “Exclusive First Look! Breaking Dawn”
• “I’m Lucky to Be Alive”

You quietly pull the magazine from its holder, hoping…praying…no one is watching you, judging you. You peel open the page.

You devour a story on how the Kardashian sisters lost 20lbs in 5 days….slam it shut….and put the magazine back in its holder.

“Hmpph,” you grunt to yourself. “I can’t believe people read this trash.”

So, how did this “filthy” magazine still entice you to sneak a peek in the most public of places?

Because tabloid writers are GENIUS at capturing your attention.

And it would be super savvy of you to rip a page out of their playbook. Here’s how to do it.

Learn WHAT People Want and HOW they Want It Delivered

You might personally frown upon tabloids, but it doesn’t matter. They are popular and successful with a knack for giving readers what they want – news written in a compact and peppy style with popping, eye-catching photographs.

If you’re struggling with making sales, take a step back. Do people really want what you’re selling AND do they want it in the method that you’re delivering?

A client of mine, a life coach with an audio information product, wasn’t quite making the sales he desired. After some marketing research, we changed the name of the product and revised the sales copy, broke the audio into three parts so people could listen for 15 minutes each instead of a full 45, and added a transcript to each audio.

This made all the difference with sales – understanding WHAT his audience wanted and HOW they wanted it delivered.

Use Celebrity Trends to Sell your Customers

People want what celebrities have. Period. So even if you don’t have a celebrity clientele, you can still capitalize on the trends that celebrities set that are featured in the tabloids. Just a simple sweep through a recent magazine taught me:

• That Reese Witherspoon and Leann Rhimes are really happy with their second marriages. If I were a Relationship Therapist, I might write a blog or host a teleseminar on Secrets to a Successful Second Marriage.

• Celebs are jazzing up outfits with silk scarves. A fashion stylist or designer might offer several ways to work a scarf into your outfit, or provide a celebrity “look for less” feature.

• Stars are snapped at lots of events, giving event planners lots to work with. Maybe dog birthday parties are the new trend. Or celebrities asking guests to donate to charity in lieu of gifts at weddings and baby showers is the hip thing to do. Plenty of good stuff for content as well as possible new party themes to offer.

Write Killer Headlines and Copy

Having trouble writing headlines for blog posts, media pitches, or marketing materials? A stack full of tabloids will cure even the fiercest writer’s block. Seriously, tons of big-time copywriters use tabloids as fodder for sales copy.

The trick is learning how to spin tabloid headlines into something that works for your business.

Here are some examples:

Tabloid Headline: Sarah Palin’s Dark Secrets
Your Headline: The Deep Dark Secrets to _______ Every Time (example: The Deep Dark Secrets to Feel Loved Every Time)

Tabloid Headline: Britney’s Secret Struggles
Your Headline: Solve your Secret __________ Struggles (example: Solve your Secret Dressing-Slim Struggles)

Tabloid Headline: How I Did It! Jennifer Lopez talks baby weight battles and her stay-sexy secrets
Your Headline: How I Did It! <your name> talks _______ battles and ________ secrets (example: How I Did It! Melissa talks big debt battles and financial freedom secrets)

Tabloid Headline: Too Thin for TV: Costars Plan Intervention
Your Headline: Too _____ for ________: A ________ Intervention (example: Too Tired for Fun? A Happiness Intervention)

Simultaneously, tabloids convey a story in a simple, easy to digest style. How complex is your own message? Is your customer grasping your message? Are they taking action?

Or, are you jumbling up your copy with too much industry-speak gobbledygook that only your peers understand (and not your customers)?

Test out some of these tabloid-inspired strategies and see how they work for you.

What do you think about using tabloids for marketing inspiration? Do you have any sample tabloid-worthy headlines? Questions about the advice above? Post a comment below!

As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time second-guessing ourselves.

We try a host of different things to publicize our business. We tweet. We blog. We send endless pitches to the media. We plow through even the most boring networking events.

Inevitably there will come a day when you look at everything you’ve done to promote your business and want to throw it all in the trash can and start over.

Your blog sounds lame. And the fact that no one is commenting makes you feel even more lame.

You just spent hours crafting new pitches for the media and following up on old pitches and now are waiting breathlessly for someone to call or email you back. And then…nothing.

You scour your Twitter feed and try desperately to think of something intelligent or pithy to say in 140 characters. And then no one responds except someone named “xxxstaciexo”

Somehow all of your hard work now looks like a pile of poo.

However, when we go crazy trying to change everything in a desperate attempt to make something…anything…work, we can often make it worse. We stop doing things without knowing if they really ARE working. We pick new ways to market our business just because someone else told us we “have” to try it.

And while we navigate deeper into this mess, we aren’t putting any more money in our pocket.

So, what do you do when your publicity efforts are in the sewer?

Create a Plan that Sticks

I get it. You’d rather stick needles into your eyeballs than have to sit down and plan.

But hear me out.

Planning can actually be fun. But you have to create a plan that you can stick to.

I hear from many folks that they wish they had more time to pitch, or to write a book, or to blog, or to attend events. A good first step is to identify where you are spending your time and if you’re spending it efficiently. I like to make a list of all the tasks I do during the day. Do it for one day, or for a full week.

Then you’ll start to identify pockets of time that you might be wasting, or specific tasks you can outsource to free up more of your time.

Now make a plan of action – which marketing and publicity activities will you try in the next three months and how much time do you want to devote to each? This way you can chart out ahead of time how much time you’d like to invest for specific tasks (example: 5 hours per month for blogging, 10 hours per month for media pitching, etc)

Find Out What Really Works

You should have some formal process to measure all of your marketing and publicity efforts. At its most basic, you should ask where your customers heard about you – whether they are buying online or if you have your sales staff asking in person or on the phone. Also, check your website analytics monthly. Where is your traffic coming from? Which pages of your website are they reading (and which page are they leaving your website from)?

Having a measurement system in place to align with your individual marketing strategies will help keep you on track.

Get Help

It sucks doing it all alone. And it can be tough to run things by family and friends (who love your business, but can’t be your only customers).

Plenty of well-intentioned fellow entrepreneurs will share their success strategies, but that doesn’t mean those strategies will work for YOUR individual business.

That said, I’d love to help get you out of the weeds.

WORK WITH ME FOR FREE

I LOVE working with small business owners and get all giddy hearing about your business. As soon as I hear your challenges, my brain starts popping out ideas like fresh-buttered popcorn.

So, this week, I’m hosting a deliciously-awesome contest where you can win a 45-minute phone consultation with me (a $250 value).

All you need to do is post a comment below describing your biggest publicity or marketing challenge. Please also share your business name and website link (if you have one).

I’ll pick FIVE lucky winners by next Tuesday, May 3rd. WE HAVE CHOSEN OUR WINNERS! THANK YOU ALL FOR ENTERING!

Ready to try your luck at a private coaching session with yours truly? Post your comment below for a chance to win!