No matter how interesting, important and newsworthy your company, organization or event is, you'll need to do some work to get publicity from the media. People who work in the media are very busy, so the burden to prove newsworthiness often falls on individuals outside the media.
Instructions
1. Determine why your company, organization or event is newsworthy. Something is newsworthy if it's unusual, involves the local community, involves an upcoming event, will make an impact soon, has a human interest component or deals with conflict. To get publicity from the media, you must meet at least one and preferably several of these criteria.
2. Write a news release. A news release tells media personnel all they need to know about your newsworthiness. Include the who, what, when, where, why and how of the story as well as a couple quotes from key people. The press release should provide the contact information of the person in charge of publicity.
3. Call media personnel to pitch them your story. Prior to making the call, organize your thoughts and be ready to provide a quick one or two minute summary of the newsworthiness of your story. After pitching your story, ask the media contact if she would like you to send further information. If she says yes, ask her how she would like to receive it and send your news release.
4. Follow up with your media contact. Because people in the media are so busy, they often need to be reminded of your news release for you to get any publicity. A week after you send your news release, call your media contact to confirm he received your news release and ask if he has any further questions.
5. Be a good interviewee. If the news release interests your media contact, she'll probably ask you a few more questions in order to start working on a story. In order to get publicity, it's important to give some prior thought to your answers. Work on coming up with meaningful, pithy responses to possible questions.
