Aly's Newsletter: Tuesday Edition

Hi, friends!

Happy Tuesday :)

It's an incredibly busy week with tons of new content I'm working on -- and I also have travel coming up both later this week and next week, so things are feeling a little bit frenzied right now. If it’s OK with everyone, I'm going to just get right into it!

But, quickly: Is anyone watching The First Lady on Showtime? It's SO good and in recent weeks has become my post-Outlander palate cleanser when I need to recover from all that soul-crushing drama this rather dark season.

Newly published:

Food Network: Once Limited Edition, Flamin’ Hot Mountain Dew Returns Nationwide

As always, if you or your client are featured in any of these stories, I super appreciate any social shares.

Here's what I'm working on:

Clean Plates

I'm working on another decluttering story (this is not the same as the one from last week but related in subject matter,  obviously) : Surprisingly Effective Ways to Organize Your Life In 10 Minutes A Day - I'd LOVE if some experts can weigh in over email asap on this one (ideally in the next 24 hours or so!). Please email me if you have an expert who can weigh in and won't ghost on me, as this is a quick-turnaround one and I do not have time to play that game.

HerMoney:

I'm working on the following 3 stories for May for HerMoney:

•  Affordable Father's Day gifts...I'm looking to roundup 10 or so affordable (so under $100 or thereabouts

• Travel expert tips on how to plan our summer vacay (on a budget) - like money-saving tips every step of the way, from getting to the airport to flights to hotel to saving money while we're on the trip. Would love travel experts and fellow travel writers to weigh in!

• Budget tips for how to plan a summer backyard cookout/happy hour/bbq on a budget (we get how exciting it is to finally be reunited with our friends, but how do we entertain without blowing a fortune? but STILL show people a good time? Would love experts in party planning/personal finance to weigh in.)

RetailMeNot

For RetailMeNot, I'm rounding up Father's Day gifts for every type of dad. 

I'm looking for great gifts that's affordable ("affordable" obviously varies by budget, but I'm trying to stay under $200 and have a wide range of prices) for a variety of categories. I'm hoping to include picks for the following categories:

• Foodie dad

• Techy dad

• The dad who has everything

• For the fashionable dad

• For the outdoorsy dad

• For the indoorsy dad

• For the bookworm dad

• For the handy dad

• The Dad who's trying to downsize and doesn't want clutter

• For the fitness-obsessed dad

For RetailMeNot, I'm also doing Memorial Day store hours for 2022. This is the Memorial Day version of the Easter store hours story I JUST did for them, so take a look at that one for format, but I'll have 3 sections - Stores Open on Memorial Day + Store Hours, Stores Closed on Memorial Day, Restaurants Open on Memorial Day + Hours. This Memorial Day story is an update of this piece from last year. So if you represent a store or restaurant in that story, it'd be so helpful if you can reach out with your Memorial Day info if you have it handy.

Today.com

• I'm rounding up restaurant/food chain deals  for MOTHER'S DAY.  Please be sure to send the name of the chain, what the deal is, and how customers can claim it. (Do they need a promo code? A rewards app? A QR code? etc)

To pitch me for ANY of these stories, please email me at alywalansky@gmail.com (and start a new thread, please!).

Are you confused about affiliate marketing?

If you are having trouble learning how to navigate issues of affiliate marketing (trust me, we've all been there!), you may want to try out my friend Sarah Karger, a publicist, and former editor Dana Baardsen (and all-around fab girl!)'s Ultimate Masterclass and Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Publicists. It's a brilliant course and it'll answer all your questions (including some you didn't know you had!)

Virtual consulting sessions...

Over the last six months or so, I've popped into a fair amount of PR team meetings and made myself available to answer all sorts of questions about pitching, events, and trips from a media perspective.  If you are interested in setting anything up for your own team in the coming months, please email me and we'll get something on the books!

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<3

aly