Kerry McDuling has written a couple of fantastic articles for her column here at Entrepreneurs-Journey talking about the public relations industry and what it potentially can do for your business. I thanked her for what she has contributed so far, but felt she still hadn’t broken things down into the HOW of the process.

She’s responded by committing to write a four-part series on exactly how to get free publicity from the media for your business. Here begins part one…

In my first couple of articles have talked about the href="http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/3855/should-you-promote-your-personal-brand-or-your-product-brand/">importance of publicity in the media and the results it can have on your business. Yaro was particularly motivated having read my last post and asked me to talk about the how, now that we are clued up on the why.

So, welcome to the first of a four part series that focuses on exactly how to obtain media profile for yourself and/or your business. This posts deals with determining what to tell the media about, before you excitedly set off contacting them. Then, next week, we will look at contacting print media specifically – that is, newspapers and magazines, before exploring other channels, including radio, TV and online.

How I Learned PR

Firstly, I would like to point out that a lot of this I learned through trial and error. I am not actually a trained Publicist, or Public Relations practitioner. I have a degree and background in Journalism (with which you can officially work in the fields of PR and publicity), and entered the public relations and corporate communications sector straight out of University, around 10 years ago, so all of my knowledge was gained through experience. I strongly believe that my success in my field is because I think the way journalists think, and am therefore able to offer them material that they can use, in the format they prefer – rather than the same marketing rubbish that comes across their desks every day and subsequently ends up in the bin.

What you first need to be clear on is why you are contacting the media.

You can’t just contact them for the sake of it, and expect them to run an article on you. I firmly believe that the essence of publicity and public relations is being able to tell a story, because this is what readers are interested in – they don’t care about how good you think you are. Everyone has a story to tell. The real trick is identifying yours.

From my experience in working with business people, authors, athletes and entrepreneurs across various industries, generally people fall into two categories: either they enthusiastically think they need to contact the media every time they peel a potato, or otherwise they simply cannot find one single interesting thing about themselves or their business, despite winning awards and being busy with plenty of interesting events and occurrences.

So, how do you get past this stumbling block, when you cannot tell what is newsworthy within business and what is not? I would suggest that you need to think like a reader.

What would you like to read in your local newspaper or see on the TV about other businesses and industries that you normally would have no association with? You probably will find that you would like to read about something that has relevance to you and your life. Do you care that a new hardware superstore has just opened its doors around the corner from you? Maybe, but new stores open everywhere all the time. However, if the new hardware superstore held workshops especially for women who were keen to get involved in some DIY – now that may be of interest. Or, how about if the owner of the new hardware store was Oprah? Worldwide news, instantly.

Here are some other newsworthy ideas to get you thinking about how they might apply to your own business:

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• Have you recently won a customer service, industry or community award?
• Have you or others in your business taken part in a charity event?
• Has your business produced something different and unique to what is already on the market?
• Have you made a recent unique discovery about something in your industry?
• Have you added a new Manager to your business – someone with a story to tell (eg, the last three generations of their family were involved in the same industry?)

Consider that some of these ideas are more likely to appeal to local media, like your local newspaper, whereas others could have more significance to a national audience.

What Do Journalists Look For?

Before we look more in-depth at what makes the news, and how you can get involved, you need to understand the elements journalists look for, when determining what they should include in the news each day.

Journalists get to know what is going on in the world and the local community through their contacts, and their “nose for news”. Statistics suggest that more than 80% of the news comes from media releases sent to journalists by organisations and public relations consultancies. The other 20% of news, journalists will write about based on ideas they get from their contacts, or what is happening in the community.

Since journalists receive an incredible amount of media releases each and every day to choose between, and have only limited space, they look for certain elements that appeal to them, and these will determine what makes it into the news.

Timely – journalists usually only choose stories that are current, and not out of date. If you send them a media release about an award you won six months ago, or even six weeks ago, you have missed the boat. Nobody wants to read old news, unless there is some sort of new element to it, or it can stay newsworthy for a while. Bear in mind that daily newspapers will have a stricter time frame with regard to what is current. Weekly and monthly publications can look at stories that are a little older.

Relevance – is the story relevant to their readership? If you are a local business and have won a community award, there is no point sending it to your national newspaper, as they simply won’t be interested (unless you are already well known on a national scale). Similarly, if your business (a hardware store) won an award, and you send this media release to the health reporter, or the sports reporter, they are not going to be interested. And don’t assume they will pass it onto their colleague in the business department. They won’t – it will just go in the bin.

Prominence – prominent people and businesses are a lot more interesting to the public because of their high public profile. If you, for example, ended up in hospital with a broken leg, this would not really be of great interest to the media (assuming you are not famous, of course). If, however, the Queen broke her leg, that would make international news.

Uniqueness – what makes your store different from all the others, or others that are similar? There are many businesses holding exciting sales every single day – why is your sale so different and unique? Maybe you are donating most of the proceeds to charity?

Magnitude – the more people affected by a story, the more newsworthy it is. If your business has found a cure for cancer, this would be of huge magnitude, as opposed to an unknown illness or disease that does not affect many people in your country.

Of course, even if nothing extraordinary is happening within your business, you can learn to make the news. As I need to put out media releases and alerts for my clients every month, regardless of what’s happening in their business, I have become really good at prompting them to make a statement that makes the national news! Because, effectively, isn’t that what so many businesses and politicians are doing every single day? Somebody has to do it, so why not you? So, how do you do it?

Journalists are certainly not experts in any industry, apart from journalism. They tell the stories of others – other businesses, other industries, other people. After all, that’s where they get their name “the watch-dog of society.” This is why they rely on their contacts and industry professionals to tell them what’s going on, so they can report it to the public. This is why you have to stay on the ball as to what’s happening in your industry locally, nationally and internationally, and then involve your own business when reporting back to the media.

Here are some ideas:

Keep abreast of national and international news

If you know what is happening in the news, you can link what is topical to your business and make the news.

For example, you may have noticed through reading newspapers that there is a drought happening in your area of residence, and water restrictions have been put in place by council. A couple of years ago, I had a client who was a national swimming pool servicing company. We put out a media release to the media on the increase of clients who were having a pool cover fitted.

Another more recent example was political talk of the introduction of a mining super tax in Australia. The lucrative mining industry and business in general was up in arms, considering mining is the most significant source of income our country receives. I have a client who is a leading engineering and EPCM (project management) recruitment firm, Peopleconnexion Recruitment, specialising in the mining industry. Of course, seeing an opportunity, I asked her how this had affected the industry, from her point of view, and we put together a media release on how a number of her clients had pulled back on contract offerings and job openings since the news, indicating the effects of a lot of projects being put on hold. This made national news.

Find out your customers’ habits in your industry

You can provide the media with fresh statistics on customers and clients opinions and behaviour by producing a simple “check the box” survey (I like href="http://www.surveymonkey.com">SurveyMonkey – nice and anonymous, free and so easy to set up) for clients to complete. Don’t include too many questions, no more than ten, and remember to offer them an incentive for completing it, like a free eBook, a discount voucher for your products/ services or a lucky draw prize. The results are your news for the media. Remember, by organising the results into a percentage, it is still relevant and newsworthy even if only 40 or 50 people complete it.

Let’s brainstorm reasons to contact the media. How about you offer a couple of real–life ideas and/or examples, and together we can discuss whether or not it’s worth pitching to the media?

Kerry McDuling