One of the best ways to drive sales to your organization is to get high visbility in the news media. It's really quite easy and it is much much cheaper than advertising! Every organization, including yours, has newsworthy information. Sometimes you just have to dig a bit to get to it. As a public relations professional, I suggest these seven ways to find the stories within your organization that you can pitch to get positive press attention and boost your public relations:
1) Identify trends in your industry - use your organization/product/issue as an example of a trend -- and pitch them as story ideas to the magazines, newsletters and Web sites your customers and prospects read.
2) A milestone: does your organization have an accomplishment or anniversary to brag about that is of public interest - a new product, service, partnership, event, contract win or hire? Find a news hook for it. Here, for example, are some commemorations that might be good news hooks for your products or services: National School Success Month, National Preparedness Month, Self Improvement Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month.
1) Identify trends in your industry - use your organization/product/issue as an example of a trend -- and pitch them as story ideas to the magazines, newsletters and Web sites your customers and prospects read.
2) A milestone: does your organization have an accomplishment or anniversary to brag about that is of public interest - a new product, service, partnership, event, contract win or hire? Find a news hook for it. Here, for example, are some commemorations that might be good news hooks for your products or services: National School Success Month, National Preparedness Month, Self Improvement Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month.
3) Take note of a "First in a Series" article. Maybe your organization would be a good fit for the series, so call the reporter and give him or her reasons to include you.
4) Create a study or survey, and give the results to news outlets you most want to reach. Ask another organization in your industry to co-sponsor the survey to help you get more attention. Online companies let you create, send, and analyze surveys via the Web at very small cost. For inexpensive online polling, try
www.surveymonkey.com,
www.questionpro.com,
www.constantcontact.com, www.
freeonlinesurveys.com,
http://info.zoomerang.com, or
www.vovici.com.
5) Spotlight newsworthy people in your organization. For example, if a staffer is a gifted writer, musician or athlete, pitch the story to the appropriate editors of the newspaper. That way you'll also have a chance of getting your organization mentioned in the Arts, Sports and Local sections as well as Business.
6) Write a column yourself. Somewhere in your organization is a white paper or speech that you can cut to 800 words and submit as an Op-Ed or "expert" column to a trade publication or local business journal. Be sure to order reprints and make them part of your sales and marketing kits.
7) Send news releases. If they are tightly written and newsworthy, they do work. Keep out the fluff and spin. Place the most important information at the top - in the headline and first paragraph. Before you send a release, put yourself in a reporter's place. "Would this information make a good story?" A steady flow of releases (one or two a month) keeps your visibility high and makes it easy for reporters to find you when they do Internet searches to look for information. About 400-500 words is the optimum length.
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Robert Deigh the author of the much-anticipated public relations guide "How Come No One Knows About Us?" (WBusinessBooks, coming May 2008). If you would like to receive a free preview chapter, titled "16 Ways to Come Up With Story Ideas That Will Attract Press" go to
http://www.rdccommunication.com and sign up for his free newsletter or contact rdeigh1@aol.com
