So, you want to get media coverage...
Here are 3 tips to start effectively communicating with the media.
Getting positive media coverage for yourself, an event, company or product can feel like an uphill battle if you’ve never done it before. And while it can be challenging, it’s one of the most effective ways to advance your message to a large audience and build credibility and authority within your industry and community.
Here are three tips to take some of the guess work out of media pitching, build your confidence and help you secure positive media coverage.
1. Do your research
The most important thing you can do before reaching out to media is research. It’s critical that you understand who to reach out to with your news, so it can hit the right people at the right time.
Reporters receive hundreds, if not thousands, of press releases, media advisories and pitches every day, so breaking through the noise requires a thoughtful and targeted approach.
Begin by identifying the publication or outlet you want to be featured in and research who is currently covering that topic. There’s not much you can’t find on a media outlet’s website, so don’t think you need to pay for access to media monitoring services like Cision (which in my experience are usually out-of-date).
Once you’ve identified a reporter who might be interested, read/watch/listen to their past work. Check out their social media accounts (especially X/Twitter) and follow them. If they have a website, visit it. Get to know them as much as possible through online spaces in order to identify their beat (aka what topic(s) they cover for their job), their hobbies and interests, and personal information like where they live or went to college.
This information can provide you with a great deal of insight into the best way to craft a compelling pitch that gets noticed by your target reporter(s).
And speaking of research, you’ll also need to dive into the related topics currently being covered by the media within the industry. Get to know what the hot topics are and what messages are already being disseminated, so you can craft a pitch that is timely and relevant to the larger conversation taking place.
2. Get organized
In all this research you’ve likely come across the reporter’s beat, email address, phone number and their social media handles. Create a spreadsheet with this information as a way to organize your outreach and track your communication with them.
For any pitch, you’ll likely have multiple targets, and a detailed spreadsheet can help keep you organized and ensure you’re communicating appropriately and effectively.
Here’s an example of how I organize my reporter contact spreadsheets:
*The information in the table above is made up, so please don’t try to reach out to the fake reporter from USA Today.
3. Craft a compelling pitch
This part matters, a lot. All the research and organization in the world can’t overcome a poorly written pitch.
Can I tell you exactly how to write a compelling pitch that gets a reporter’s attention? Not really. Drafting effective pitches are a case-by-case situation that, in my experience, takes some time to learn and perfect.
That said, here are a couple tips to get you moving in the right direction:
Keep it brief and succinct. Remember those 1000s of emails reporters receive each day? They simply don’t have time to read paragraphs of information from you, no matter how important you may think it all is.
You’ll need to capture their attention immediately and convey the most important information in about a paragraph. Provide your contact information if they want to learn more, and attach a press release or supporting documents if there really is more that needs to be said.
Be clear about why they should care. This is where your research comes in. Not just of the reporter, their past coverage and their interests, but also of the topic.
How is what you have to say contributing to the conversation already happening within the industry? How is it different, new, controversial or compelling? Why would the reporter (and their audience) care about this news? How does it move the needle, break new ground or challenge assumptions?
Just because your news is interesting or important to you, doesn’t mean it will be to them. Your job is to help the reporter understand the relevance of your news to the larger conversation taking place.
Alright, that’s it for today’s PR lesson. In a future post I’ll dive into the difference between pitches, press releases and media advisories, and when to use each of them.
If you have any questions about what you read in this post, or if there’s a topic you’d like me to address in a future post, let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!