How To Get My Business Featured In Top Newspapers And Magazines? 

Media coverage plays a crucial role in building public relations, letting everyone know about your brand. The main aim of media coverage is to approach the target audience and influence them to buy your products. Media coverage is highly valued when you need to promote a new product, shape people’s opinions, or make the public aware of certain issues.

Benefits of media coverage:

• It is helpful in getting a business noticed by more and more people. Media coverage enables you to reach a larger audience. Through a proper platform, businesses can increase their brand exposure and influence interest in potential customers, who might be unaware of your brand before. 
• When a business is headlined in media, as a brand better than others in that particular industry. It helps build trust and credibility among customers. Airing on television, or on news increases the trustworthiness of a business.
• Media coverage plays a very important role in building and maintaining one’s brand identity in the market. Media coverage influences brand awareness, it makes people aware of your brand. By getting featured in major publications, brands become more recognizable to customers. An increased brand awareness can result in more preference and loyalty among customers.
• Media coverage works as a free advertising tool. When people hear about you from trusted media sources, they are likely to consider buying your product next time.
• Optimistic media coverage has the ability to attract potential investors, venture capitalists, partners, or collaborators. A positive media coverage displays the growth potential of the business. Which acts as a signal to investors to consider investing in them.

Develop a newsworthy story:

Now we know how important it is for a business or a brand to be covered in news, and media. 

Media coverage plays a major part in

• Influencing customers’ behaviour.
• Getting attention.
• Building trust.
• Attracting investors.
• Media coverage of your business also saves your advertising expenses, as being on the news is free of cost.

But, you might have a question. How can you as a business develop a newsworthy story that journalists and media are interested in?

• Look for something that makes your business unique and that is important about your business. Whether it’s a new product launch, business events, or how your brand or business positively helped society, etc.
• Your brand story must have relevancy. Think how your story can affect people, and why they will be interested to know you. But make sure, it is something they will be interested in knowing and will care about.
• Keep your story lightweight, and narrate your story in the simplest terms possible, i.e. in short and to the point. It should be in simple language and avoid any kind of technical jargon. 
• We people love to hear other people’s stories. So, tell how your brand story has affected people, whether it’s your customers, employees, or society.
• You can add some catchy angles (masala) to your story. This attracts people very fast, grabs their attention, and makes people want to know more about you.
• It is super important to target and stream your story on the right media platform with the right outlet. Shape or personalise your story to fit that particular media platform audience. Whether it’s TV news channels, social media, websites, etc.
• And then, contact news channels, journalists, and interviewers who cover similar stories like yours. Explain to them how interesting your story is and why their audience will love it.
• If the news channels and journalists get interested in your story. Then be free for interviews and render any information that they might need from you.

Remember how important and beneficiary media coverage can be for your business and brand identity. So, if you don’t hear back from the journalists, don’t lose hope, follow up politely as they might be busy. 

Build Relationships with Journalists:

1.  Do your homework:

Before approaching a journalist, make sure you know what kind of stories they cover their target audience, and the type of news they prefer. By customizing your story as per the journalist’s interest and preference, you get the edge and are more likely to catch their attention.

 And can get featured in news articles, and digital PR. 

2.  Tailor your pitch:

After you have done your research about your preferred journalist. The next step is to tailor your pitch according to the journalist’s interest and preference. Build a familiar bubble, and appreciate their work. Talk about the recent articles and news they have covered, this showcases that you have researched about them and you are familiar with their work.

After that explain how your story has the spark and will be liked by their audience.

3.  Be responsive:

Once you have given your pitch, you need to be available if the journalists want any kind of extra information or need to verify the information that you have provided. 

Journalists are more likely to work with people who provide genuine information and are easy to work with. Being responsive helps in building long-term relationships with them.

4.  Follow up, but don’t persist:

After you have sent your pitch, follow up by sending a polite email to check the status of your pitch. But make sure you don’t persist by sending emails or messaging them daily. 

If they are interested in your story, they will let you know with a quick reply. 

But if you get no response after two or three emails, prefer cutting connections with them.

Building relationships with journalists is a bit hard work and takes a lot of time and effort but the benefits that you get in return are worth the effort. By building yourself as a great source of information, and an expert in your field. You can increase your presence and can make your brand stay ahead in the stiff competition. 

Craft a Compelling Press Release:

Crafting a compelling press release is very important in building public relations for any business. Whether it’s a small, large, or a medium size business. 

A press release is a written announcement that is provided to different media members to share the news, events, or information about a particular company.

Press releases have their own share of advantages and beneficiaries for businesses.  

Some advantages of press releases are mentioned below:

1. Grabs media attention

2. Ensures brand awareness and helps achieve publicity
3. Provides a competitive edge
4. Helps in strong marketing and promotion of your business

Create a Targeted Media List:

A media list is like a directory that helps brands and businesses reach out to media, journalists, TV, reporters, bloggers, etc. who might be interested in your press release. And where you can share news and information related to their business.

A media list includes all contact information about your target media. 

Creating the right media list is an essential component of getting the best media coverage for your press or pitch release. A good media list ensures that you get the desired amount of coverage.

Once you have made a list of your target media, you can pitch your story to them or can approach them for your press release. 

Leverage Existing Media Coverage:

After your business gets its press release, you need to think forward on how you can maximise the media coverage of your brand. 

Here are some ways that will help you leverage existing media coverage:

• The easiest yet most effective way of maximising media coverage is to post it on your social media page. And share with your followers, on various social platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. 

Seeing the company aired on various platforms will give your clients and customers more confidence and trust in you. 

• Maybe the story covered by the media was short. In that case posting a blog that dives deeper into the subject, providing more genuine information to the clients and customers would help.  
• Work with your public relations (PR) team to get fresh angles and stories based on your recent media coverage. You can write blog posts, design infographics, or reach out for more follow-up opportunities. 
• After your press release is done, always consider sending a personal note to the journalist. This will make your relationship long-lasting and they will consider you for any future opportunities. 

Remember the main purpose of media coverage is to be more visible to the public. And this process does not end after press releases.  

Conclusion:

Business featured in top newspapers, and media enjoys loads of benefits. This includes increased visibility, credibility, trustworthiness, and better client relationships. But, for this, you need to have newsworthy content and have to reach the right journalists. 

With valuable content and the right editors who are interested in your story, you have more chances of getting media coverage of your business. 

And then enjoy the benefits that come with it.