Media relations strategy is what separates brands that consistently earn meaningful coverage from those that struggle to break through. In today’s noisy world, where the average person receives approximately 5,000 message points each day, effective media relations is all about breaking through with the right message targeted to the right audience. Whether a bootstrapped startup or one of the Fortune 500, your messaging needs to be compelling and differentiating, and to reflect a near-forensic knowledge of the wants and needs of those you are targeting.
Six Critical Success Strategies for an Effective Media Relations Strategy
How hard could it be to get media coverage for your product or service? Just call or email a journalist, tell them the story you’d like to see and they’ll get to it, right? Well, not exactly. It’s important to understand a journalist’s perspective today. Because many media companies have cut editorial staff, a journalist is often expected to write 2-3 stories per day. They are also expected to cover more industries (beats) than in the past. And, senior editors evaluate journalists based on the number of views their stories attract, not the quality of their investigative journalism. Some journalists are even paid based on views.
Earning consistent, high-quality media that drives lead generation and brand awareness results from optimizing the seven strategies below.
1. Define Clear Objectives
Set clear goals for what PR activity should achieve. For example, when distributing a funding announcement, the goals might include demonstrating to customers and prospects the viability of the young company, attracting top talent to bolster your team and attracting additional investors for future funding rounds. When determining your objectives for the public relations program, think SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely).
2. Understand Your Audience
There are two parts to this strategy: understand the journalist’s needs and the storylines that will motivate your final audiences to take the actions you’ve identified. Given the time and other constraints journalists operate under, make it easy for them to write by providing everything they need — clear, easy-to-digest content, graphics, supporting statistics, quotes from the company as well as from one or more customers, if possible.
For your ultimate target audiences, such as customers or investors, identify what interests them in purchasing from or investing in your organization. With investors, for example, it is important to know whether they are seeking a quick exit or plan to focus on your organization for the long term.
3. Develop Compelling Narratives
Create a specific narrative for each spokesperson so that over time, journalists will recognize the “swim lane” and consider them a resource. Each narrative must contain an opinion that differentiates the exec from other experts, represents a unique, predictive and prescriptive opinion, includes an element of human interest and is measurable. In addition to maximizing the number of media opportunities for the organization, this visibility sends the message to investors, employees and other important audiences that the organization has a deep bench of talent.
4. Choose the Right Channels Mix
Determine the channels that will most effectively deliver your narratives to key audiences. Keep in mind that each member of your audience consumes media differently. These will likely be a mix of print/online media, broadcast media, social media and online platforms such as Medium and Substack.
To ensure your bases are covered, think PESO (paid, earned, shared, owned). There is typically a role for each in the optimal campaign. Even a modest paid campaign through Google or LinkedIn Ads, for example, can motivate members of your audience that earned and the other forms of coverage might not. And don’t forget the importance of coordinating activity across channels, e.g., when announcing a new product, organize press release distribution, social media posts, website and blog content to maximize views and help fill and accelerate progress through the sales funnel.
5. Leverage Media Relations
Relationships with journalists won’t get the story written, but they do get the email or social media message opened, which is half the battle. And like a sale, especially in a crowded market, media coverage takes time and creativity. It’s rarely one shot and done.
Given that journalists receive several hundred emails and messages per day, put yourself in their shoes when you reach out. Always tailor your outreach to their beats and interests. Never blast emails indiscriminately. Tie your pitch back to other content they have written before, when possible, both to highlight the relevance of your topic and to demonstrate you have read their past content. And follow up carefully. Emailing or messaging every day, “Did you read it? Are you interested?” is more likely to annoy journalists than to get the story written. If your first topic fails, keep trying. Sending journalists new story ideas will eventually get their attention and position you as an idea person.
6. Monitor, Measure, Adjust
Track which narratives resonate with journalists and result in media coverage. Determine which journalists are interested in which topics. Measure the impact on your organization’s sales and marketing function. Over time, monitor for jumps in lead flow when coverage appears, spikes in social media activity, increases in blog views and related metrics. Adjust your media relations strategies based on this data.
Don’t forget the old adage, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
