Nearly everyone wants media coverage of their company, but few receive it. Why?
Below are five reasons your company may not be receiving the attention you want from the media.
1) You are not doing anything new.
If you are saying the same thing, doing the same thing and going in the same direction as everyone else, you are unlikely to get media exposure. Journalists want to cover companies that are pushing boundaries, setting new standards and forging new roads. It is ok if you want to just do a good job at what you do, but if you want media coverage, you will have to put some new ideas and thoughts into the market.
2) Your branding is not clear or distinct.
If you are not clear about your key message or vision, do not expect someone else to be able to articulate it for you in an article or interview. The time to develop a key message for your company is NOT when you are sitting in front of a journalist during an interview. You need to have your key messaging, point of differentiation, and visual branding in place before you can reach out to the media.
3) You are not going through the right channels. Many companies do not get media exposure because they only focus on a handful of top-tier publications that are hard to get into. Start small with local media outlets, podcasts, and industry trade publications. The more media coverage you get in small media outlets, the more likely you are to get media coverage in top-tier media outlets.
4) You are not being proactive about pitching your story. If you are waiting around for the media to knock on your door and want to write a story about you, you will likely be waiting for a very long time. Possibly forever. You have to push content to the media. You often have to actively email dozens of pitches to get a placement. Even if you post a news release online, you often only get media coverage by pitching the news release directly to individual editors.
5) Your content is overly self-promotional.
When you pitch story ideas to editors and journalists, you have to consider what is in it for the reader / viewer. It may be a big deal to you that you revamped your website or celebrated 13 years in business, but that does not offer much for your audience. Also, the advertising model has changed and media outlets are more savvy about requiring brands to pay for exposure now. To earn media coverage, offer content that is educational and informational, not an infomercial.
Public relations is a long game. It is similar to exercise in that you only benefit from it or as long as you do it. Just as you would not expect to be healthy by walking only a few times a year, you cannot expect to increase visibility with scattered news releases here and there. The best public relations results come from steady consistent coverage over time. The payoff is increasing the visibility and credibility of your company over time.