Through a mixture of luck, bullshit and following a few good tips I have received over the last couple of years I have been lucky enough to get a large amount of press for the various projects I have been working on. Getting coverage can help you with everything from securing investment to increasing sales or creating valuable business partnerships and it should be a key part of your marketing strategy.There are various ways that you can go about it and the following tricks are only what have worked for me personally and may vary from what more traditional sources will teach you. Hopefully some of these will work for you too though…

Follow Journalists On Twitter

Journalism is one profession that has a massive representation on Twitter and you should tap in to this to build relationships with the people who are most likely to cover the story in your niche. Do a little research and you’ll easily find the journalists that are most relevant to you and you industry and start chatting to them. Don’t ever follow them and start bombarding them with links as this will work against you, simply start a conversation, share useful information and show them that you are a valuable member of the community. Once you have built a relationship you might want to send them a DM with your press release or even ask for their opinion on your product and ask if they would be interested in covering it.

Be Direct And Honest

A lot of us have a problem when looking for coverage in that we are not sure how to ask for it and we spend hours trying to find the right angles and beating around the bush. Journalists are busy people and a lot of them appreciate the direct approach. At the end of the day you are pitching to these guys to cover your story so throw in something like “would you be interested in covering this?” or “would this fit in to your weekly column?”. Pitching a journalist is exactly like pitching for investment or for clients in that it is a skill. It is a skill that you can improve on with practice but I would encourage brevity and the direct approach to save everybody’s time.

Kick Ass Press Release

I am not a huge fan of press releases myself but they are an essential part of the coverage process so you want to make sure that yours really stands out. Just imagine that every other company in the country is also out there being creative and trying to get their products covered so the 1 page email press release that you send to info@newspaper.com is really not going to stand out in the slightest. Use your imagination and make something that really stands out. I have used small personalized videos to journalists in the past (just a YouTube link) or send the press release in physically with some chocolates attached. Make them remember you.

Timing

Most newspapers finish writing news stories for the next day in the early evening and the weekend papers are mostly wrapped up on a Friday night. You’ll want to try and get coverage on quiet days and although you can’t predict when the next big natural disaster is going to happen you can check the local event guides and watch out for big stories that are happening that week and try and pitch your own story on a different day. Ideally send your story in to get coverage first thing in the morning (journalists will be flicking through their inbox looking for stuff to cover), on a quiet day, in the middle of the week and do it just as the journalist is looking for something in your niche (that last bit is the hard bit).

Bullshitting

You should never lie about what your product can and can’t do but you can certainly cherry pick the best parts of what you do and neglect to mention some of the info that you are not mad to show off. Journalists are not going to have time to look into every single number you provide them with so make sure you put your best foot forward. Be brave and don’t be scared to blow your own trumpet because nobody else will at all. Use the headlines to grab peoples’ attention like “Company X has 43% growth in Q2″ even if the figures only relate to one area of your product and others are struggling. Be creative with your numbers and facts but don’t ever lie as you will be found out and that will do way more damage.

Exclusives

Nothing will get a journalists creative juices flowing better than if they think they are getting an exclusive story that nobody else will have. These sort of stories will be rare enough for your company and may only come along once every couple of years but they are important to manage correctly. The word exclusive carries a lot of weight and don’t forget that you might want to give somebody a print exclusive, a radio exclusive and a TV exclusive. If you have good news on a regular basis you may want to spread the exclusives around to keep as many people happy as possible and so as people don’t think they are missing out.

Give Your Story An Angle

I listen to people every single day of the week with a new website telling me how amazing it is and how they think it would be great on X radio show or Y morning TV show. The big problem is that there are 1000s of new websites (or apply to whatever product or service you have) that launch every single day of the week. No matter how good you think your own website is it will never get coverage unless you give it a good angle. Lets say you own a golf website…you might want to run a survey on how golfers are using the Internet to drive down golf costs or show how your website is making golf a cheaper sport for people during the recession. You need to pitch something topical, newsworthy and with a nice angle other than “my new website is amazing”.

Use A PR company

If you do have the money and can afford to engage a professional to do it I would highly recommend it. As Bill Gates said “If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relations.””. You are never going to be able to build the sort of relationships with journalists that people in the PR industry have due to the fact that they are dealing with them day in day out. If you do have the resources to outsource your PR to the pros I would highly recommend it so as they can get you the most coverage and you can concentrate on what you do best, running your company.

Turn Yourself Into An Expert

The media are always looking for people to comment on stories and will often revert to the expert in the field. You need to make yourself that expert so as they come to you for comments and in return your business can benefit from the extra coverage. It doesn’t matter if your business is data backup or selling cars, you need to know everything you possibly can about your own business and let journalists know that you are willing to comment on stories relating to your topic of choice. One way to make yourself into an expert quickly is to establish your profile through a blog. This will give you the platform you need to build your profile and show people that you know your subject inside out.

Create The Story For The Journalist

Some journalists will kill me for saying this but I most often hear this from journalists themselves….Journalists are lazy bunch and you should do most of their work for them. What does that mean? Well you need to write a really good press release so as they can just copy and paste parts of their articles into their story. Have the right photos ready so as they don’t have to chase you. Get some good quotes ready and send them with your press release. Supply a high resolution logo. The more work that you can do for the journalist means the less that is left up in the air and the more chances you have of getting your story published.

A lot of these tips worked for me and you’ll find that it gets easier to get coverage as you get to know journalists and people within your industry a bit better. Have a go yourself and also share any tips or tricks that you have picked up yourself in the comments so as everybody can benefit. Good luck

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