Monday: Lots of newly published content this morning! Also: What I'm working on this week + a refresher on best practices when sending perishable deliveries
Also: There's still a few seats left for next week's Mother's Day Gift Guide Zoom AMA Event!
Good morning!
I’m packing and prepping today - tomorrow I head to Phoenix for my long-awaited reunion with Jill and Alice (and wait till you see how much fun…er…I mean…deeply important work research… we have scheduled!).
A few new pieces to share this morning - including one that hits rather close to home — because it’s about my home! For RetailMeNot, I wrote about how I eat and cook in NYC while sticking to a food budget (and share some of my favorite money-saving food shopping tips!).
These are some mighty lean times for a lot of people in our industry, and hopefully some of these tips will help you live and eat well - frugally but while maintaining some of life’s best little luxuries.
Also new today, for Forbes I created a massive roundup gallery of 50 cocktails to enjoy nationwide in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and also a guide to some great nightcaps to check out this month in honor of March being National Sleep Awareness Month. All these cocktails or mocktails include ingredients known for encouraging rest and relaxation. Also, for Best Life: 11 Things You Should Put Away When Guests Come Over, Experts Say.
This weekend’s industry insights edition of this newsletter was all about those phrases to avoid using in your pitches and emails — because they make journalists skin crawl!
Lots of newly pending stories - but be sure to send me all the details on your upcoming Easter sales (more info on pitching format in the section below) - I’ll be wrapping up that one soon1
Register for our AMA Mother’s Day Gift Guide Zoom Event Now!
You may remember that during the most recent gift guide season, Alice Dubin and I teamed up for a AMA Zoom session covering all things Valentine’s gift guide pitching — and so much more. That AMA registration list reached capacity in just a few hours and ended up being great fun — and a packed house.
We teased at the time we’d want to do it again soon and now we are! We’re teaming up on March 13, 2024 at 11 am PT/2 pm ET via Zoom for our next AMA session (focused on pitching for Mother’s Day gift guides!) and we’d love to invite anyone who is a paid subscriber of either of our newsletters. While this session will focus on all aspects of gift guide pitching, you are also welcome to ask questions about anything else — the sky’s the limit!
Want to take part? Find the registration link under the paywall at the very bottom of this email!
Gift guide season is almost upon us again - we hope we can help each other be as prepared as possible!
Check out my appearance last week on the Behind The Media podcast, with my gal Juliana Martins. We chat about A BUNCH of stuff, such as how brands can stick out to editors in a saturated market, how I decide which events I will attend vs decline, what startups, new venues, or brands with minimal budgets can do to get media attention, PR/pitching do’s and don’ts and more…including our mutual celeb crush and some of our favorite places to eat and drink!
So honored to see Muck Rack included me in their 2024 list of top ten most popular freelance journalists. Check out the list here.
A quick refresher on sending perishable deliveries
I have a few group texts that are ongoing with various journalist friend circles. We chat about industry stuff a lot, and one topic that comes up often is unexpected perishable mailings or courier deliveries — often that these friends or myself had received when not home or even in the country.
Maybe they were away for the weekend, maybe they were on a press trip, maybe they just were out and about for the day at meetings and appointments and did not have someone home to receive an unexpected messenger delivery of seafood or cheese and so it sat in the street all day unrefrigerated. (Sound wild? It happens. All the time.)
If you send someone a package that contains anything perishable -- meat, fish, dairy, even something like produce, it's really important to coordinate with them a time and date that they will be home and able to receive.
It's also important to check in about potential allergies or sensitivities, or even aversions. Maybe they are vegetarian, kosher, dairy-free, gluten-free, or maybe they are allergic to nuts. Sending food packages with no warning or advance discussion can lead to a whole lot of potential risks.
But even if none of those are the case...if they are not home to receive your package, that means the costs associated with sending it go to waste. Products go to waste. If it's for a virtual cookalong? (Yes, those are still very much a thing, especially in food/cocktail writer circles.) Those ingredients are no longer usable and those people can no longer participate.
Now, these are usually press samples related to product launches, restaurant new menu additions, or story consideration. However, it became even more a thing a few years ago (can we believe it’s just about four years now?!) when we all started to enter the world of virtual events.
Always provide ingredient lists for upcoming virtual cookalongs. Don’t let a plant-based person discover a recipe involves lamb and three kinds of dairy after the Instacart delivery or mailing has already arrived at their front door when you could have offered modifications that work for their dietary needs and would also present a variation of the recipe. Present a list of ingredients and ask if there’s any modifications necessary before arranging a delivery — at a mutually agreed upon time.
This is a soap box I've often found myself on, and to longtime readers, this may sound a tad redundant. But it's a topic that has come up in my consulting calls often (and I do consult on virtual event planning and also effective media mailers! Email me!). The best course of action is to always drop an email and ask people:
Do they want to receive....? (Tell them exactly what’s coming, and how much of it…you may all recall my 50-pounds-of-unexpected bacon story from last year.)
Will they be home to receive...?
Is there a preferred day/time window TO receive?
And give options. If you are doing a virtual pasta making class, present a plant-based option. If you are doing a cocktail class, present a mocktail option. The more we communicate on these matters, the better the results and more effective the mailer or event.
Thanks for attending my TED talk.
Newly published or freshly updated
Since people are often asking about the status of stories from a while ago, and I only share stories in this newsletter that were published or updated in the current week, I have created a list of my author pages at various publications to which I contribute. Bookmark it and make your life a bit easier.
This list will live on my Substack URL and be updated as necessary. That way, you can see what I’m doing at any publication, at any time, from types of stories to general structure of stories to even volume and frequency of my content at that outlet.
This can also help you to target pitching a bit better. That makes your job easier, and mine too!
Forbes.com: The Pasta Queen’s Coveted Pasta Sauces Are Now A Grocery Jaunt Away
Forbes.com: 10 Relaxing Nightcaps To Enjoy In Honor Of National Sleep Awareness Month
Forbes.com: 50 Cocktails To Enjoy On St. Patrick’s Day
RetailMeNot: Savings Star Origin Story: How I Learned to Eat Well (In NY!) On a Shoestring Budget
Best Life: 11 Things You Should Put Away When Guests Come Over, Experts Say
RetailMeNot: How to Save on Groceries: Tips That Actually Work
RetailMeNot: Meal Prepping Products That Are Actually WORTH It
Food Network: How to get a free doughnut if you were impacted by the cellular network outage
Forbes.com: Wonder Brings Celebrity Chef Cooking To Home Dining Rooms
Travel & Leisure: I’m a Travel Writer, and This Is My Secret to Packing for a Week in a Single Carry-on Bag
Travel & Leisure: In-flight Theft Is Unfortunately a Thing, but These 12 Items Give Me Peace of Mind When I'm Traveling by Plane
RetailMeNot: 5 Superstar Ingredients for Your Meal-Stretching Pantry Starter Pack
Today.com: Say goodbye to wrinkles with these expert-approved drugstore creams — starting at $12
Clean Plates: The Healthy Trader Joe’s Sauce I Use in *Everything*
Martha Stewart: 8 Storage Mistakes That Are Keeping Your Home From Being Organized
Today.com: 27 healthy fast food items at popular US chains, according to dietitians and doctors
Clean Plates: 7 Mediterranean Diet Dinner Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less
If you or your client are featured in any of these stories, I super appreciate any social media shares! Please remember to tag @alywalansky and the outlet.
Here’s what I’m working on:
Be sure to read the below list carefully. Many are stories I posted about yesterday, but some of yesterday's stories are no longer listed and a few new ones have been added since yesterday. This (below) is everything that is still a currently open opportunity as of today.
Please remember when pitching me: Email me at alywalansky@gmail.com - do NOT just hit reply on this newsletter, or there’s a good shot your email will be lost in the heap. Give your email a subject line that makes it clear which story you are pitching me for — it’ll help you in the long run.
Please consult my industry insights guides on submitting expert commentary, sending emails that will catch a journalist’s attention, how to craft pitches journalists will say ‘yes’ to, and the right and wrong way to submit photos, if you need any extra guidance before sending your pitches.
RetailMeNot
I’m working on a story about my preference for growing fresh herbs in my home rather than spending grocery budget on herbs at the grocery store (which can get pricey and also have a short shelf life). The caveat here is that this is a story geared not towards those who have gardens or outdoor space but those maintaining herb gardens within small apartment kitchens - I’m writing this essay format, so my own experiences, but open to items shoppable online at major retailers to help make a small apartment herb garden prosper.
I’m rounding up the Best Easter Sales that Shouldn't Be Missed for 2024. I’m open to sales that aren’t necessarily billed as "Easter Sales" – there are going to be a ton of spring sales going on, too. So, really anything that helps you get Easter Basket stuffers, clothes, table decor, spring decor or whatever else for Easter is fair game. I’m trying to include these specific retailers - Target, CVS, Walmart, Michaels, Macy's, Kohl's, Carter's, but I’m open to others as well. Please remember to include the following in your pitch: When Do Easter Sales Start?, timing of Easter sales (when they begin, when the last-minute deals start, etc.), what is included in the sales, how to claim the deals, and so forth.
Budget shopping and cooking/eating smarter: As you all know, I write a lot of content for RMN related to budget shopping and cooking/eating smarter. I’m going to be working on a monthly column on the subject of cooking/eating well on a budget, and I’d love you to pitch me products/ideas to consider for it - maybe a new meal-stretching product that is a good deal at a grocery store, an awesome product to try that may cut my meal prep time in half, other themes as far as saving money on food/cooking/eating and doing it in a way that is smarter.
Forbes
Are any bars/restaurants planning a fun cocktail in honor of Purim? If you have something, please email me with the name of the cocktail, a description (not a recipe), a quote from the bartender or chef, and an image. (And please remember to consult my nifty photo guidelines here.) Please pitch me by March 10 for this one.
Looking to up your affiliate marketing game?
Affiliate marketing is complicated, and it seems that the landscape keeps changing. If you are looking to be prepared for gift guide season and all other shopping-related content, you may want to try the 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 (and now in-person!) consulting sessions...
Looking for a consult as you plan your next event or trip? Or just want someone to take a look at the pitches you’ve been sending and give some feedback? I’m available for PR team virtual meetings to answer questions about pitching, events, and trips from a media perspective. Note: I’m also available to travel for consulting sessions as long as travel expenses are covered. We can chat! This is available for entire agencies or smaller group lunch and learn type concepts.