Slow News Days are Ahead, This Could Be Your Chance

For most newsrooms, the holidays typically bring a dry spell. Newspaper editors start planning way ahead of time for stories just to fill the pages leading up to and after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. 

So what does that mean for you? It means that your chances of getting news coverage are very high between now and January 2nd, so it’s time to start contacting the assignment editors at your local TV stations and the editors at your local newspaper. 

I can tell you  from experience that anyone who called me around the holidays with a story that was halfway decent, back when I was an assignment editor responsible for providing content for newscasts, got more of my time than they would have gotten any other time of the year. AND if you could sell me something on the day AFTER either of the big three, you were golden. 

So, here’s what you need to do.

Think about ways that your business ties in to the holidays. Is your company doing anything special? Are you feeding the elderly, collecting toys for children, giving away free goods or services?

Those are important questions to answer, but also keep in mind there can be an overabundance of holiday stories, (as many folks may be feeding the elderly, collecting toys for children, or giving away free goods or services) so don’t think you HAVE to find a holiday peg. It’s just a suggestion and can be an easy get, but please note that anything unrelated AND newsworthy can be music to an editors ears.  

Now, dust off those press releases, better yet REWRITE them and send them to your local media contacts. And if you don’t have any contacts, get some. Call the newspapers and TV stations directly and find out who is planning holiday coverage. If that doesn’t get  you a specific person, ask for the photo desk at the newspapers and the assignment desk at the TV stations. 

Get a name, and e-mail address, and don’t count on the formalities of the press release to get you what you want. Preface your e-mail with a quick, actively written sentence about what you’re pitching and why it’s a must-cover.

Despite pipular belief, they WANT your information. They just want it fast and they want it complete. Figure out how to give them waht they want, and you could very well end up getting the coverage you know you deserve.

Should I Hire A PR Firm?

The answer to this question will vary for most people. The best answer today, may not be the best answer a year from now. As a small start-up you may not have the funds readily available for a firm and I firmly believe that you don’t need one.  There are many ways to write a press release, but the information news organizations need is pretty standard. The sad part is that information is often buried in the third or fourth paragraph, and many assigning editors never get to it. I’m sure I’ve missed a few juicy stories here and there simply because I couldn’t make it past all the unnecessary gunk. 

The most important information, however is what makes your company/event/product worthy of news coverage. IF you want to write an effective press release, ask yourself this question: “Why should anyone care?”

That’s the information you have to provide. THAT is the selling point, nothing else. And who is better equipped to provide that information? You, or a PR firm? Who will sound more sincere and passionate when relaying that information to an assignment editor over the phone? You or the PR professional? I think you know the answer to that.

So I say save that money upfront. Contact every single local media outlet you can think of and find out who you need to contact. Try to reach them by phone and see if you can spark their interest in the first 30 seconds. If you do, you’ll likely get another 30 seconds and maybe even a few questions and a request for additional information.

This isn’t rocket science, and that’s what I want you to get from this blog entry if nothing else. You can do this.

You’re good at what you do and you deserve media coverage, right? So go tell them why they should care!

Finding Your Hook: The Road to Pitching a Better Story

Before you can effectively pitch your business to a media outlet to consider for coverage, you have to fully understand what it is that you do down to the core, determine what makes it interesting and find your hook. In other words: What makes you special or unique? I’m sure you think you know exactly what that is, but believe me, chances are you don’t. If you still disagree, then I’ll just say that you likely haven’t thought it completely through and there’s much more to you and your business than you think, and certainly more avenues you can take in your quest for media coverage.

Yes, you’ve lived and breathed nothing but the business for the last year or the last ten years even, and you know it inside and out. That may be true, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ve thought of your company or the service or services you offer in more than one way or more specifically, in ways that would make you interesting or newsworthy to a news organization. One-dimensional thinking simply will not cut it. It isn’t until you go beyond the five W’s (who, what, when, where and why) that you begin to see the possibilities. For many businesses those possibilities are endless, but you’ll never find them without a little self-analysis.

What I’m telling you here is that going beyond the five W’s or sometimes simply laying them out in front of you allows you to see your business in a new light. It gives you a different perspective and a fresh look at what it is you have to offer. Hopefully it will result in new ideas and a new marketing strategy. It could also show you that you’re a lot more interesting than you may have thought!So how do you go beyond the five W’s and gain this new perspective? It’s as simple as asking yourself a few key questions and taking the time to answer them. Honestly.  

1. What services do I offer?
2. Who is my target audience?
3. What specific groups (ethnic, religious, age, etc.) might be interested in my product or service?
4. Am I more relevant at a certain time of year? (Tax season, New Years, Veteran’s Day)
5. Am I cutting edge or using new technology?
6. What makes my business different? AM I the only one in the area, the city?
7. What’s NEW about my business or in my industry?
8. Does my business somehow relate to a current trend?
9. Am I doing anything special to help the community or offering any free services?
10. Have I noticed any changes in clientele?

 Answers to the above questions will prove to be a huge help as you look for your pitch.  (For more information or a personal consultation, see the About the Author section and send me an e-mail.)

Five Things I Hate About Press Releases

I think it’s a real shame how so many business owners agonize over the proper format of a press release. What’s important about a document that is supposed to be both informative and persuasive is the content, not the layout.

Should it have some semblance of order? Absolutely. But that should not be the author’s first priority, particularly when the great majority of them end up in one of two places: The recycling bin or an editor’s deleted items folder.  

It’s not that assigning editors don’t want news or that press releases aren’t effective. They can be very effective when done right.  But most are formatted in such a way that’s counterintuitive to the sender’s end goal. 

That leads me to my list. Here are five things I hate about press releases. 

1. They are too long.

2. They bury the lead, or put the most crucial information in the middle of the document. 

3. They provide too many details.

4. They don’t provide context or tell me why the event/subject is significant.

5. They can be too formal.

if you’re guitly of even “one” of the above, you could be your own worst enemy.

What’s Your “Real” Story?

The owner of a Yoga studio once asked me why we wouldn’t do a story about the opening of his business after he’d sent numerous news releases to the assignment desk at the TV station where I worked. I asked him if there was anything unique about the studio or if he offered a class that made his studio more popular than others. This was an attempt to find an angle, or something more than a “grand-opening” which doesn’t hold much news value.

He proceeded to tell me about a weekly class for patients with Multiple Sclerosis and how it’s changing the lives of people who had previously been bedridden by this debilitating disease. Stunned and intrigued, I asked him if he’d included that in his news release and he said he hadn’t. “That’s the story,” I all but screamed at him. “That’s what you needed to tell us,” I said. “We would have covered that in a heartbeat.”

Needless to say I sent a news crew two weeks later, and the news coverage he’d been seeking for months was finally a reality after having a conversation that lasted less than five minutes.

What’s Your Story? The REAL story. The INTERESTING story? Figure that out, and you’ll be closer to getting media coverage than you could possibly know.