This weekend I participated in a Healing Touch practice group in Frederick, MD, and ended up photographed for a story that a local health reporter wrote for Frederick News Post.
(Yes, that's me in the picture, so you can consider this post to be shameless self-promotion - or just an illustration of a point I make below.)
The story happened unexpectedly, and it reminded me of something that entrepreneurs frequently forget. Getting the press to write about you is a fantastic, free way to promote your business.
Getting local press coverage does several things:
- It raises everyone knowledge and awareness of what you are doing
- It raises your profile in the community
- It gives you more credibility with potential clients
- It adds to your marketing capabilities (you can link to the story from your website, distribute the article at your workshops, email it to clients and prospects, etc.)
- It may lead to bigger and better coverage in the future. (As they say in PR, press begets press. To get on Oprah, you need to start somewhere.)
Getting the local press to write about you is not as hard as you may think. The key to remember is that local reporters are often actively looking for something interesting to write about. Many will be grateful to hear from you if you just give them a call and make what you do sound relevant to their readers' interests.
In our case, the reporter found us through the Frederick News Post's community calendar (another idea for free advertisement) - most likely because she had a story to file that Saturday and was looking for ideas. Our Healing Touch group sounded intriguing enough for her to come and check us out - and voila, we now have online and offline press coverage.
If you want to get more press for your business, you don't have to wait for a reporter to discover you. You can - and should - be more proactive about it. Here are a few things to remember:
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Start with the local press. Local reporters are more hungry for news and are more oriented toward community events than the Washington Posts and the New York Times's of the world. Their job is to write stories, and on a slow news day they will likely be grateful for your call, especially if it leads to a story for them.
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Make your story sound relevant and intriguing. You are more likely to attract attention if you are putting together an interesting event, a workshop or a presentation. But if your business concept is unusual in and of itself, if you yourself have an interesting personal story that you can share (How did you get to do what you're doing? Did you have some exceptionally difficult obstacles to overcome?), if you are targeting populations that tend to get overlooked, or are doing something different in other ways, you are likely to attract attention.
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Make your story sound relevant. When pitching your story, try to put yourself in the reporter's shoes. What do her readers want to read about? How is your story relevant to their concerns? Why would the reporter want to attend?
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Make things as convenient for the reporter as possible. Reporters are busy people. Their job is to collect enough information, then go home and write their story. Most likely they won't stick around for your entire event or workshop. Make sure you understand what the reporter's deadline is and how much time she will have with you. Find a few satisfied customers she could interview who would testify to all the great things you're doing - and make sure they are right there for her to speak with. Give the reporter a chance to experience what you do. Prepare a package of facts about your business that the reporter may refer to when she sits down to write her story. Above all, make sure she has a positive experience from interacting with you and finds you credible. In other words, treat this as any other business relationship
Once you've accumulated enough local press clippings, you can go to the bigger guys, and they'll be more open to hearing from you.
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