Many startup company founders confuse the two statements above. As per getting press is concerned, the two statements actually exist in that order. Without credibility, your company/campaign will not get visibility. The reason why founders often confuse the two is because they’re focused on the goal (the end-result), and they forget the process.
Credibility is why a reporter will consider your story. No reporter wants to publish a lame campaign/product. Think about it for a second, if you continue to recommend crappy restaurants to your friends, would they continue to heed your suggestions? Of course not.
The goal of a reporter is actually fairly straightforward:
- Journal news or content people want to continue to read
- Get as many people to read their article as possible
After all, this is how they move up the ladder in their career. Nearly all the tips in this post below are a reflection of acknowledging the paragraphs above. So without further ado, below are 33 tips to get press for your next RocketClub campaign:
- Sharing ownership with your community is an interesting story in its own right. Make it double as interesting with another story within the story. This could be something about your product, team, campaign..
- Align your story with local or regional news, events, or concerns. National news will come with enough momentum behind local news.
- Identify quirky components of your product (special feature), founders (hobby), or idea (vision).
- Keep track of all the reporters you have pitched (time and date). Don’t look silly by re-pitching the wrong person.
- Google and research the individual reporters, not just the articles they’ve reported.
- Read a reporter’s articles, blogs, and tweets. Mention their work and find ways to relate and add context to your initial contact.
- Comment on a reporter’s articles and tweets.
- Hire a writer or PR person to review and revise your emails. Let those who know how its done show you how to do it.
- A/B test the subject line of the email. Track email open rates and pitch with another subject line.
- Don’t use attachments. Email text, images, or links only.
- Set notifications for reporters to be alerted of their new articles.
- Use an interesting and informative email signature. Your contact info is a must.
- Be ready to communicate over the phone. Some reporters prefer phone others will prefer email. Do whatever they want.
- Be humble and authentic. Admit what you don’t know and recoup by trying to turn around and get them the answer they are looking for afterwards.
- Send a follow-up to thank you them for their time.
- Stick to your opinions. You can’t make everyone happy, stick to what you believe in.
- Templates are for people who can’t be bothered to put in the effort. Work with a team like pressfriendly.com to create a successful email formula, but make sure the email sent to each editor/reporter is unique.
- Reporters will google you, your company, and your cofounders. Update your ‘about’ page and social media profiles.
- Provide multiple opportunities for contact — include work email, cell phone, business phone, Twitter handle, etc.
- Use testimonials to build credibility on your linkedin or ‘about’ page.
- Be active and nice in forums and other platforms. It adds credible evidence regarding your knowledge and helpful nature.
- Use social media ads to ‘target’ reporters and editors. Make them aware of your product and expertise, etc.
- Collect useful and interesting stats about your business. At times, reporters can’t use quotes or direct information and will need stat graphics to supplement articles.
- Conduct industry surveys and create infographics. It will build your credibility as source of knowledge and data.
- Create a ‘Media’ section on your website, show reporters other articles have been published before.
- Add speaking engagements, news, event, and big announcements to your media page.
- Link to the reporter’s story in future guest posts, building links to their article and story.
- Be helpful to a the journalist. Pull in your own contacts, knowledge, or expertise regardless of whether it directly helps you or not.
- Regularly link to journalists’ stories in your businesses posts, maintaining indirect relationships and expressing interest in their craft.
- Mention previous coverage from other media outlets in your initial email. Reporters want to know you’ve done it before.
- Mention how you the reporter’s ‘audience’ will find your story helpful or interesting.
- Deliver your story in an interesting way. Don’t sound like a robot or generic press release. Journalists are people too.
- Have a professional writer edit your emails, check for grammatical errors and awkward phrases.
Originally published at blog.rocketclub.co on May 21, 2015.
