From enhancing a brand’s reputation in the media spotlight to driving a surge in website traffic and sales, media coverage can provide the launchpad for lift-off many businesses require.
But whilst media from a consumer perspective has never been easier to consume, the competition to secure regional, trade or national media coverage has never been fiercer, with journalists receiving hundreds of pitches a day via multiple mediums including email, phone and social media.
Here are our top tips on how to get media coverage for your company or product.
Understand what makes your product unique
In order for your product to stand out in a crowded market it is vital to know and to understand your brand’s unique selling points. Defining your USPs will help you engage with journalists better.
For example, when we began working with Therabody the market leader in recovery technology, there were no other brands in the space that were discussing the benefits percussive therapy can provide to athletes and the everyday health and fitness-conscious consumer.
This meant we had an opportunity to position Therabody as the leader in percussive therapy and given this was a new and exciting topic area, it meant high-profile journalists from respected publications were engaged and wanted to cover it.
Provide them with an opportunity to get hands-on
Offering journalists the opportunity to try out new and exciting products, experiences or services for themselves is an effective way of securing media coverage, not because you’re simply offering them a freebie but because this provides them with an in-real-life experience of your business and its value.
But before you begin pitching out to journalists the opportunity to review your latest product, you need to consider who it is your reaching out to. This is where working with a specialist PR agency can be key, as PRs spend a lot of time building and maintain relationships with journalists, learning what they want in terms of news, topics, and products, and delivering it to them in the right way.
For example, when we were appointed by interactive fitness mirror, VAHA, to launch their revolutionary new product into the UK market, we decided ahead of the launch moment, we would coordinate a series of exclusive features with key journalists across the technology, fitness, health and lifestyle sectors to ensure that a number of top-tier titles would publish detailed reviews at launch.
Be culturally relevant
Journalists will be more inspired to write about your business if they can see how it relates to current trends, the news agenda and consumer demand.
To spot opportunities to highlight this you can work with a PR agency to monitor the news landscape, conduct social listening and research your target audience to find relevant hooks and insights that relate to your business. These can then be utilised to create an impact communications campaign that will not only appeal to journalists but to your customers too.
You can also create the news too rather than reacting to it by developing meaningful, creative and relevant campaigns for your brand.
Create experiences
Creating a unique experiential campaign for your business is a great way to get directly in front of relevant journalists and educate them on your key messages. This can be achieved in many different ways including intimate dinners, large-scale pop-ups and even virtual events.
For example, for leading consumer tech brand Shark, our strategy has been centred around creative product showcase events during which the media are briefed on the latest products, provided with one-on-one demonstrations, and given an opportunity to speak to the Shark engineers and product teams.
These events which often influencers are also invited to attend alongside journalists, work as they create buzz around a company’s new product launches, educate media on the brand’s journey and key messages whilst also allowing journalists and influencers to experience the quality and superior functionality of the company’s ranges for themselves. They are also brilliant opportunities to capture content for your owned channels and to deliver UGC too.
Make it as easy as possible for the journalist
When planning an article most journalists don’t already have all the information they are looking for – what they do have is looming deadlines and column inches to fill. You can increase your chances of coverage by helping them get what they need, when they need it.
For starters, make sure you’re approaching a journalist that writes about your area of expertise. This is vital – if you continuously approach a journalist with irrelevant stories they won’t read your emails anymore. Not a good way to achieve media coverage!
Where possible always provide images as they help the media illustrate their articles. If you don’t have them, usually stock images will be used, or a different company with good visuals may get covered instead. For online publications a video is a useful asset to have – according to DemandSage, video content in 2023 will represent 82.5% of all online traffic now.
If you would like to speak to one of our experts on how we could achieve more media coverage for your business, get in touch with us today.