Whatever your brand may be—a multinational conglomerate or a small business you run out of your garage—you need to connect with the media to tell your story. Media relations are integral to reaching new customers and developing advocates for your brand.
Kathy Grannis, senior director of media relations for the National Retail Federation and a featured speaker at PR News’ Dec. 11 Media Relations Next Practices Conference in Washington, D.C., shares thoughts here on the principle elements of any media relations strategy.
- Relationships are essential to media relations success. A personal note to select reporters about your organization’s news–even prior to announcement–will go much further than throwing the pot of spaghetti noodles on the wall and hoping a few stick.
- Understanding leadership’s objectives. It’s easy to put the wheels in motion when executing your media relations strategy. However, if leadership is more focused on specific results, it would be wise to develop a strategy around that instead of spinning your wheels and wasting precious time and resources.
- Leveraging digital content. The press release is not dead, but it has had a facelift. In order to keep that facelift visible to the public and looking fresh, oftentimes it makes sense to consider additional channels to get the most out of your hard work. A blog or news article on a company website, a bylined article submitted to a trade publication, or a letter to the editor/op-ed are all excellent channels that continue the conversation around your message and very likely get more eyes than a press release ever will.
- Confirm measurement objectives. If broad circulation is the desired outcome of a media strategy, then Business Wire and national publications would be the best way to go. However, if a more targeted result is expected, such as a local hit in a select outlet or specific trade magazine, it will be easier to measure “success” in the end.
Join PR News for the Media Relations Next Practices Conference, taking place on Dec. 11 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Follow Kathy Grannis on Twitter: @NRFKathy
Follow Richard Brownell on Twitter: @RickBrownell
4 Great tips – but there is possible one vital one missing… you can only have a great media relations strategy if you know your story… is it new, is it newsworthy!?!