Your Press Release is Breaking My Heart notes
Notes from the book
What is PR about? Telling stories. Telling the right stories to the right people at the right time.
Make it as easy as possible for the journalist to give you what you want. So true across all domains.
Need to read the publications of the journalists you're pitching too. So you can tailor to them. And build relationships with them: the aim is to build relationships not just get a one-off press release (which is very hard anyway).
If emailing with a pitch, the subject line should say 'Pitch for X' so it's unambiguous what the ask is. More in the book on specifics to do this well.
The more specific you can make your pitch the better. It gives the journalist much less work to do to decide whether you're worth their time or not.
Lists types of articles you might pitch. Says for small operations the most likely to succeed are Op-Eds, Confessionals & tales of personal experience, and How-Tos
Recommends researching publications you want to be appear in. Suggests her website has templates for this, tho looks more like she's selling you stuff now: http://janetmurray.co.uk/books
Look for #journorequest and related hashtags on twitter to find active asks from journalists: respond helpfully where you have the expertise. This builds you network.
Want to be easily findable online, inc up to date linkedIn profile. Recommends posting a number you can be reached 24/7. As with start up users, you want your people to be able to find you extremely easily.
On LinkedIn, include examples of your work, and have a video of you talking somewhere, so it's clear you know your stuff and can talk well
There are sites journalists post asks to, which I can trawl and offer help on. Inc Gorkana, 'Help a Reporter Out', Sourcebottle, Journolink
Newsjacking = finding a new angle on a hot news story. Often involves a human interest story (eg how the Autumn Statement impacts this man with 30 cats)
There are 'on' and 'off' diary events, both of which can be newsjacked. Off diary are unexpected, for which you might need alerts set up to ensure you can react fast enough. On diary are calendar events and tend to have a lead in time (Christmas, spring budget, national awareness days) so you can prep for them
Write the stories people want to read, not the ones you want to tell
People might not be interested in your business, but there may well be interested in "in the areas of your life which intersect with your business"
"A press release is not a media story. It is a form of communication the helps the journo decide whether to cover the story or not"
Suggests daily journalling to improve one's writing. I back it.
Methods of outreach:
- Invite journos to review your service
- Share something interesting or personal
- Teach something
- Say or do something interesting or controversial
Give out your mobile number to journos and be available evenings and weekends. The idea is to be an expert who knows their things and is also logistically on it.
Strongly recommends getting on podcasts. Focus on how you can help the podcast host rather than yourself.
The get on podcasts demonstrate:
- other people value your content
- how you can help hosts grow their audience
- how you can add value to their audience
Business networking events are often looking for speakers. This is something you can do even in early stages.
Having 2-3 talks as a portfolio can be helpful for getting public speaking gigs. So people can see how you talk and if they'd like to hire you.