Become A Super Promoter - Lesson 5

Study the Markets

Once you’ve compiled the names of potential media outlets, get to know at least a few of the most promising first hand.  If they’re available locally, buy a few on newsstands, or you can call the editorial offices and request a sample copy and an editorial calendar, which lists the themes of upcoming issues.  Create a file area for publications and related media materials, and keep it up to date.

Once you’ve identified the media outlets that seem appropriate for your business, get the names of key people at each.  These are the people on the editorial/news side of the media, the reporters, editors, producers, and writers not the advertising sales reps or publishers who deal with the business side of a media organization.  Look up articles written in the past year or so by their top reporters to learn the specific subject areas they cover, and to better understand their interests and special angles.  Pay special attention to those that cover your industry on a regular basis.

Press Kits and Media Materials

Before approaching the media for any kind of story, you should assemble an introductory package about your business – in other words, a press kit.

Depending on your business and the image you want to convey, the kit can range in elaborateness from a folder with expensive color materials to a simple sheaf of materials paper clipped together.  In any case, it should include the following:

· Company background information
· News releases with current information about your business
· Biographies of company principals
· A simple, one-page summary “fact sheet” about the business
· A sheet of FACS – sample questions and answers to a mock interview
· Photos of you or your business
· Articles that you have written
· Client references and testimonials
· A list of past media coverage with samples

A good rule is to keep press kits simple, including just enough information to introduce the media to you and your business, provide necessary background, and make a good impression.  Keep in mind that you’ll be sending your press kit only on request; a kit sent to a reporter or editor whose interest hasn’t already been aroused will probably wind up in the wastebasket.
Online press kits are becoming more and more popular.  An online kit contains the same items you’d find in a traditional press kit, but one that can be easily browsed, in an area of your Web site called an online pressroom.

Because journalists have the freedom to help themselves in an online press room at their own pace, you should include all kinds of additional material; articles about your company that have run in the media; white papers; company position papers and statements to the press; industry statistics; a company directory with contact information.  It’s common practice to make many of the extra materials available in an easily printable format.

Positioning Yourself as an Expert Resource

Journalists rely on good quotes from experts to make their stories lively and interesting.  Quotes lend authority to their discussion, and provide a real-world connection to audiences.  Being quoted in once story increases the chances that other reporters will recognize your expertise and call you for similar stories.  Quotes beget more quotes.  Once a reporter is convinced that you have knowledge that can help him write a better story, your name will come up whenever he’s looking for a certain kind of information.

The more you develop a reputation as a great interview source, the more journalists will seek you out.  The more you get your name out there, the more you begin to establish a reputation within the press as a subject-area expert.  Because journalists are under severe times restrictions, they value great interview sources, and will seek you out when you prove that you are one of those people.

Introduce Yourself

Writers, reporters, and producers cultivate relationships with outside experts.  You can become one of these experts by letting the right people know that you exist and making a compelling case for your expertise.

The process begins with your identifying the media professionals most likely to need your expertise – for instance, journalists who regularly write about your industry, or consumer action reporters who might want information on products like yourself.  Introduce yourself and your qualifications as an expert, and offer to be of help when they write articles in your subject area.  You can mention that you’d like to alert them from time to time to potential news stories about your industry.

Approach them as you would a new client, conveying the message, “I am here to solve one of your problems; your readers need this specific kind of information, and I have it.”  Send that message repeatedly.

Above all, editors and reporters must find you credible.  If a reporter is receptive, send a press kit that shows you have the knowledge you say you do, and that you have a reputation for doing outstanding work.

Pitching Your Story

Editors are gatekeepers charged with allowing only newsworthy stories, meaning those of interest to their readers, to pass through the gate.  They hate public relations efforts that simply seek to promote companies and have no inherent news value.  On the other hand, if you can offer reader-centered information and a unique story angle, your public relations efforts will be successful.

To repeat, pitching stories to the media begins by seeing your business from the media’s perspective.  Only when you learn to align your business interests with the media’s interests—typically, by coming up with a new angle on your subject – will the media want to consult you, quote you, and write about your business.

There are plenty of ways to prove to the media that your business deserves their coverage, but all of them begin by answering the simple question, ”What makes this news?”

Studies, Surveys and Statistics

The media love stories supported by studies, surveys and statistics.  If you can provide this kind of information about your industry, you can easily get attention.

A Strong Hook

Make the first sentences of your pitch letter so interesting, and so relevant to the needs of the media outlet, that a busy editor will give your letter his full attention and read it from beginning to end.  Start with the strongest material and make it irresistible.

A Clear Statement of Purpose

Say exactly what you’re offering.  Are you pitching yourself as an expert interview source?  Proposing a feature story about your business, products, or services?  Don’t make the reader guess why you’re writing to him; state the purpose of your pitch letter in the first few sentences.

Relevance

After presenting your strongest material in your opening sentences, your pitch letter must go on to explain why your idea is of interest to the publication’s or program’s audience.  Highlight broader themes that relate to your story idea.  A pitch letter must make a convincing case that your idea matters and has relevance to the media outlet in question. 

A press release is a formal announcement of something new and newsworthy – a company launch, new or enhanced products or services, or a client milestone. 

Editors have a love-hate relationship with press releases.  Press releases can serve as valuable sources for story ideas.  A good press release can be a lifesaver when it arrives at the right time.

On the downside, press releases are often poorly written or useless.  Editors complain about having to slog through piles of misdirected press releases that have nothing to do with their publications.  They also complain about press releases that arrive en masse, having been sent to thousands of media outlets in one swoop, or that are blatantly promotion pieces with no obvious news value.