Earning media attention is no easy task, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Huge companies and corporations dominate the news cycle globally and nationally, while local media outlets have fewer resources to cover news from innovative startups, mom and pop businesses and local institutions.
Many public relations and marketing professionals are being asked to serve in hybrid roles while taking on more responsibility than ever before, and at a variety of different skill levels. Businesses and organizations are asking their teams to get more attention for their brands and products, often with little to no budget and more noise and clutter to cut through.
Does that sound familiar?
The good news is that there are more platforms, distribution opportunities and content creators available to help get the word out, but developing a strategic plan is time-consuming and often expensive to do.
So, instead of taking time to put together a plan that will build awareness over time, public relations (PR) and marketing people often look for the lowest hanging fruit and easy wins in order to please company leadership and buy themselves more time until the next piece of news or company announcement. The problem with that approach is that it ends up taking more time, effort and frustration than actually putting together a comprehensive earned media and marketing strategy.
I know about these frustrations all too well, because I was in those shoes at several companies and organizations throughout my career. Now, I talk to dozens of clients each day who are dealing with the same challenges, many of whom do not have the budget to hire an agency to create a plan for them or a staff large enough to do it internally.
The clients we work with at Newswire, as part of our Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour, are primarily small and medium-sized businesses that are spending thousands of dollars on the distribution of one-off press releases and media monitoring tools that show how little impact their work is having on their business or organization’s bottom line.
Ultimately, all businesses and organizations can use the same simple format and questions to build a comprehensive earned media and marketing strategy that cuts through the noise, earns media attention and delivers on key performance indicators at a fraction of the cost of expensive agencies.
Develop the right message.
Before you can effectively tell your story to the media and potential customers and audiences, you have to fully understand and comprehend your message.
• What is your elevator pitch? What do you do, and why do you do it?
• Who are your competitors? What do they do well, and what do they do poorly?
• How are you different from your competitors? What do you do better than them?
Identify the right audience.
Telling your story or selling your products to the wrong audience is a waste of time, energy and resources. Once you know your message, find the right targeted audience to share it with.
• Who are you trying to reach? Are they interested in what you have to offer? What is their demand for your product or service?
• Which are the right media outlets to tell your story to? Who are the right reporters and editors for your story? What are their areas of coverage?
• How can you segment your audience into smaller, more similar groups? What segments of your audience are going to have the largest impact on your business?
Choose the right time.
Finding the right time for an announcement is more of an art than a science. Finding the right time to pitch your target media outlets and contacts depends on a variety of factors that determine the success of your campaign.
• Are your contacts on vacation? Do they have other major breaking news happening? Are they buried with other more pressing stories?
• When is the best time to catch their attention? What is their reporting cycle? How do they get approval to cover stories?
• What does your sales cycle look like? When is your audience most likely to convert? What marketing or sales campaigns are you running, and when?
Use the right mediums.
You’ve developed your story and identified the right audience. All of that is worthless unless you have the right strategy and mediums to distribute your message.
• Should you use a news wire service or a distribution platform? Where are wire releases distributed? Are they going to the right people?
• Should you send a mass email pitch? Should you send an individual pitch? Should you use a platform or your email?
• Are you offering an exclusive or utilizing an embargo? Should you call a reporter?
These questions and simple format are used by distribution platforms and agencies to put together earned media, public relations and marketing strategies each and every day. By asking these questions, you give yourself an advantage for a successful campaign to land the right coverage, maximize the return on your paid media spend and win the attention of the media focused on covering larger, better-funded competitors in the space.
