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PR Challenge
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Getting people interested in what you are doing can prove challenging,
even for the most PR-savvy company.
A quick and effective way to reach your community or clients is
through the media. Often people struggle to attract media attention
because they fail to do their homework before they dial the newsroom.
One way to increase your chances of media attention is to use a
"story bank". This
simple tool can save you time, get you on the front foot with media
inquiries and take
the anguish out of pitching a message to journalists and editors.
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| Banking
Your Stories |
Think of a story bank as being like a bank account where you deposit
and store valuable business information that can bring your message
alive.
A deposit could be newsworthy and compelling information like:
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- A story of someone using your product or service
in interesting or unusual ways.
- An individual who gives a human face to what
you want to say.
- Evidence such as international, national or
local statistics.
- A testimonial or quote from an expert, celebrity
or other authority figure.
- A summary of a report that shows future trends.
- Details of someone who can talk about an issue.
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You make a withdrawal, when after packaging this
information, you provide it to a journalist so they can quickly
see the value of your offer.
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| Approaching
the Media |
Using a story bank makes talking to the media a simple three-step
process.
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- You assemble information in your storybank and
summarize each story into two or three paragraphs.
- You call a suitable media outlet and present
an outline of a story.
- And if they like your idea, you email supporting
material within a matter of minutes.
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| Starting
Your Account? |
You probably already have stories and snippets of information
that would interest the media. Perhaps you have not documented
them because until now you lacked a system for storing them.
Start collecting all that material together into your story bank.
Then keep an eye out for new material so you can watch your story
bank grow. Just as adding money regularly to your bank account
increases your financial confidence, regularly adding material
to your story bank increases your confidence to put a together
a winning package for a media prospect.
What should a story bank look like? A simple table layout in Word
document format is a good way to begin to organize information
so you can record and retrieve it easily.
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| Cutting
Costs and Saving Time |
A story bank can make your dealings with the media much more productive
and, because it shows that you are well organized, it can boost
your credibility with journalists.
If you need to hire a PR consultant, a story bank helps to keep
costs down. It saves time briefing the consultant and, if you
can hand over a full story bank, much of the preliminary groundwork
for your next media campaign is already done.
Maine Street Marketing specializes in reaching your clients
and your community.
Contact Maine Street Marketing at info@mainestreet.com.au
for a free consultation on how to set up your story bank.
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