Garner local media attention for your business: Part One
And, positive media attention leads to increased awareness of your business. And that leads to more business opportunities. And those lead to business growth and increased sales. And, who wouldn’t want that? If you are like most community businesses, you likely hire and promote people, sponsor a local school’s sports team, donate to community charities (food banks, disaster relief, cancer support groups, etc.), celebrate business and employee milestone anniversaries and have employees who have exciting extracurricular activities (marathon running, world travel, tiger-taming, etc.). Here are four tips for turning these everyday occurrences into positive, and lucrative, media attention for your business. Create a template for press releases. Create a general press release template, to make it efficient and easy for crafting an announcement about your company. You may want multiple templates, such as a “new hire” announcement, a “charity support” announcement, etc. Press releases have general guidelines you should follow. Creating a template assures you’re following those guidelines without re-creating the wheel each time you make an announcement. And, bonus! Your team at Alliant National can guide you in creating templates. Know your local reporters and build relationships with them. Make it a point to know the editors and reporters of your local news media team. Depending on the size of your community, this team may include a news or radio station, small community/neighborhood paper, or your area’s main publication. Get to know this team, send all press releases to them and invite them to cover your company’s special events, such as celebrations and charity fundraisers. Send them pictures, too. Reporters love pictures. Be mindful of opportunities. Be mindful in your daily activities by always thinking, “Is this something of interest in my community that the media would cover, and would it help portray my business in a good light, potentially creating more opportunities for my company?” Make these practices a habit. Don’t be a “one and done” press release company. Designate a responsible and detail-oriented person on your team to manage press releases/media relations (it’s not as complicated as it sounds) for your business. You should be sending press releases for newly-hired employees, milestone events, charitable endeavors and other newsworthy events. One additional note: Keep in mind Alliant National can be a tremendous resource to you in getting started and staying active with your local media relations.We’re here to help our agents grow. To schedule a digital marketing consultation, please email us.
Tags: brand, public relations, reputation
Jennifer Shermer
Capital City Public Relations Senior Writer + Publicist Jennifer Shermer creates and manages marketing programs for businesses to raise their brand awareness.