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Having journalists in your brand’s corner can help keep you visible and relevant. Here are 7 steps to learn and leverage your relationships with them to stay on top.
Building a strong brand takes more than just your own team–you’ll need an engaged community, a team of reliable influencers, and journalists to verify and strengthen your image. But with journalists being highly busy people, it could be difficult getting their attention.
With the right planning and messaging, you can leverage journalist support for your brand. Here are 7 steps PR experts swear by for catching and keeping a journalist’s attention.
Your PR plan will be the foundation of how you build a campaign, or even your entire brand. Having it will determine the people you need to contact, what you need, and how long your campaign needs to be.
Your PR plan has to answer the following questions:
Ensure that everyone on your team is looped in on every update and task. This way, you can integrate team feedback into your PR strategy and share notes on what your next actions might be.
Create a shared calendar and task tracker. Staying on track can help you make more time to communicate with journalists that already have your brand in their radar, so it’s best practice to do check-ins with your team.
When making a press release, your brand has to stand out in a good way. A common mistake when it comes to press release writing is the usage of vague statements, such as “revolutionary” or “groundbreaking”, without providing a reason why. Journalists click away from these messages.
When writing, be enticing and concise. If possible, add a “tweetable” phrase, or a hashtag. This can give your potential journalist an idea that your story will be easy to circulate on different online platforms.
When sending pitches, your team has to be intentional. Sending a pitch about a fashion campaign to a journalist who covers healthcare news events would seem silly and out of touch. This sends the message that your team didn’t do research, and for some journalists that could come off as disrespectful.
For PR pitches, it pays to do research beforehand. Research counts as effort, and effort always amounts to respect. It could put you in journalists’ good graces!
When your team starts forming a media list, industry professionals recommend including notes with the contact information. This can help you categorize your list, and help craft communications to them better. If your contact is tagged as a journalist, this can remind your team of specific ways to communicate with them.
Journalists are accommodating people, but their schedules are mostly packed. Bringing more focus to how your team reaches out to them can earn your brand brownie points.
With every campaign, tracking goals and achievements is necessary. The gap between the two will indicate where your original plan was successful, and which parts needed a bit more work. Statistics are a vital part of any brand campaign, so make sure to track them.
Good results can be used to leverage not only your brand’s relationships to stakeholders, but also to journalists. People that work in the media have a better chance of staying interested when a campaign ends on a high note and with some fanfare.
Just because a brand campaign has ended does not mean your relationship with your journalists does! Thank them for giving your brand coverage and let them know you appreciate their consideration. If allowed, send a complementary PR package!
Brands that make good impressions on journalists and media partners are most likely to secure better relationships, and can leverage these relationships when crises arise. Representatives become the face and voice of a brand–make sure what you present is cooperative and polite!
Journalists can be a great asset to building brand visibility, especially with a fast-paced social media landscape. Having their word on your side could do wonders for you through exposure, opportunities for crowd engagements, and even brand verification. Remember: be intentional, be polite, and always keep your plan in mind. Happy marketing!
