7 minutes read
By: A Juliastri Syafruddin
Summary: Journalists are brands’ best opportunity to promote their products in a trustworthy way. However, in this information-saturated world, getting a journalist’s attention is not as easy as firing off a pitch and hoping it’ll land on the first page. It’s something more than having the right story and the best-calculated PR strategy. It is rather making sure that the key message that you want to relay holds truth, relevance and value.
Overview: Building a brand means building a reputation. A combination of amazing products, user-friendly website and great customer service need to be rounded up with playing the part of becoming the source of information that provides knowledge about your products’ features and company values. This way, your customers or prospects can make a better-informed buying decision and thus, voluntarily build a genuine, long-lasting relationship with your brand. You can achieve the goal of creating the so-called brand loyalty by deploying marketing PR tactics that suits your brand at best. However, we are not here to discuss which marketing PR tactics that will guarantee your story to land on the front page. We bet you know that already. Besides, there have been many articles that are written to cover the given topic. We are here to discuss something more substantial and practical. Something that you can try out as soon as you finish reading and that is; the key ingredients that make your story worth-reading, worth-remembering and therefore, move journalists to pick up your story.
- Make Your Story Real
First and foremost, you need to create a real story not something made up to simply attract attention like a clickbait. We are sure that some of you have had the experience where you felt in love with a product you saw online, did your research, bought the product, waited anxiously for the parcel to arrive, but only to find that the product you bought doesn’t mirror the virtue described on the website or other marketing channels that you have visited? Well, that’s the moment when a brand loses its potential revenue from a returning customer, which according to the research done by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company are valued higher and bringing more profit than a new customer. The same case applies to journalists. We can write a bombastic headline and amazing rhetoric to attract the attention of our targeted journalists but then put them off when they find out that all the amazing lines are not verifiable. A journalist writes not only for a living but also for reputation. So, if you wish a journalist to cover your story, you need to ensure that the story is well-equipped with data, figures or records of important milestones that wows others as these types of information doesn’t not only add credibility to their writings but also proves that your company is real and worth-discussing. If you are a new brand that is still lacking whooping achievements, try not to overmarketing your brand or sugarcoat your value proposition. Instead, utilise the power of experiential marketing by inviting them to try out your signature product to better understand the value of your brand. In essence, if the ads about your product say “A”, then the product has to be a plain “A”. We should never try to position a rock as a piece of diamond.
2. Ensure That Your Story is Relatable to The Target Readers
As we move to the second point of this article, we all need to be aware of the statistics that forty-four percent of journalists get pitched a minimum of twenty times per day. That said, you need to be strategic when reaching out to a journalist. Firstly, ensure that the ones you want to be in contact with write publications that are relevant with your brand, be it your product, mission statement or values. Secondly, and this is the most crucial part of this section, acknowledge who the journalists’ readers are. Ask this very question before you make your pitch: Are their readers in the same niche as my target customers? If you are not sure, do your homework..
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Grit 