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magine you’re in the breakfast cereal business. You make the best corn flakes. So do you just back a truck-load of them up to every supermarket, then wait for the customers to buy?
Of course not. Because you understand that packaging smartly – the right size
boxes, the right look – is integral to selling your product. It’s the same with
the key technique to publicity success we’ve been discussing in this
column: marketing your knowledge and
expertise to the news media for free exposure.
Your knowledge
and expertise are just like those corn flakes. Your “box”—what you sell to the
media—is your story. Learn how to
package, present and deliver your story and you’ll become a publicity success.
This month and next, we’ll lay out the ten basic steps to turning your
knowledge and expertise into stories that the media can use—giving you free
publicity in the bargain.
Remember,
everything you know about your profession is what’s going to make the media
give you free publicity. If you’re a CPA, you know how to save on taxes. You
know how to fund a college education….how to buy a house. You know about
starting a business. These are things the media, and their audiences, want to
know! You just have to slice, dice, and package all this knowledge into boxes
of the right size and look, and the media will buy. Here’s how we start:
1) Dissect your knowledge (your corn
flakes) into many different stories (your boxes). You figure out how it helps
single moms, young couples, retired veterans, the recently laid-off—and you
develop a different “box” for each one and sell them to the media
separately. In this case, less is
more—you maximize your visibility by selling a smaller box to more reporters,
more often.
2) Connect the world—and the media’s—to
your story. The media—and the reading
public—love trends. If
you can fit an otherwise dull story into a hot trend—you’ve manufactured
publicity gold. That’s why Wheaties puts those flash-in-the-pan Olympic medalists on
their cereal boxes—it’s been the same darn Wheaties
for 80 years, but they keep it seeming new by making the face on the front of
the box the Olympian that everyone’s talking about. Think about how the everyday things you are
doing for clients fit into the great story of the day. As I write, the big trend is the sinking
stock market. Anything you do that you
can conceivably package as story and slap “sinking stock market” on the front
is something the media will be interested in.
3) Establish the trend. You don’t have to go along with the media
trends—every once in a while, you’ll spot a trend of your own. If you see or hear something you never have
before—say, paid leave for people with sick pets—investigate it. Find out what companies are doing it, who’s
advocating it, what professional association has accepted it. Find some people who are taking off work to
care for Fido.
You are like a secret agent for reporters—who are too wrapped up in
their next deadline to discover things like this.
4) Assemble
the pieces. Bring it all to the
reporter—the less work she has to do, the more likely it is that she will use
your story. Here’s what you need:
·
You—your basic bio and your credentials
·
Your story
·
The trend, whether new or old, that the story illuminates
·
Another expert (academic, not a competitor, obviously) or a study
·
A real life example
·
Human beings—they will be the conduit for telling the story
5) Reach the media. This is really two steps. First:
What publications do you want to be in?
A better question is, what audience do you want
to be in front of? Would you rather be
telling your story to the readers of the local business publication or to the
readers of Highlights For
Children? The
local business publication, of course, and whatever else your potential
customers read. Once you target a
few publications, read them religiously.
Pay special attention to the “bylines”—the names of the reporters
writing each story. Soon you will have
an idea of what reporter writes about what industry or sector. And when you are ready with your story, you
will know who to go to. You’ll be
working with a small number of reporters, so you’ll be able to form
relationships. And if you prove yourself
as a great interview and resource, that reporter will use you as a source her
whole career.
Next week: the top ten “dont’s” that could derail
your media efforts.
Ned Steele
works with people in professional services who want to create a business
development initiative and build their business. The president of Ned Steele’s MediaImpact, he
is the author of “102 Publicity Tips To Grow a Business or
Practice.” To learn more, visit www.mediaimpact.biz, call
212-243-8383, or e-mail him at: info@mediaimpact.biz.