In the past week one of my 1-2-1 clients, Michelle Elman, has hit the headlines all over the world with her inspiring story.
Since we’ve been working together she’s had coverage in the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, People Magazine in the US, The Today Show’s website, Dutch media, Belgian media and more – it’s actually been difficult keeping up with it all!
She truly is an inspiration. And I know that so many of you would LOVE the kind of amazing coverage that she’s had. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you about two simple things you can do right now to get on track for worldwide publicity like Michelle.
Ready? *Plays Eye Of The Tiger Theme Tune* Let’s go!
1. Commit to it
If you’re serious about getting publicity for your business, you need to commit to it. The harsh truth is that without the right guidance it’s not always easy to get media coverage. I speak to women every day who say ‘I tried to get my business into X magazine, but I never heard back from them, so I gave up trying.’ No, no, no! If you really want to get media coverage, you need to commit to it 100%
It might not be easy at first, buuuuut when you do get those first couple of bites, they can lead to BIG things. Often it only takes a few strategic moves before the opportunities start rolling in.
You do, however, need to be committed to getting coverage.
If at first you don’t succeed… keep calm and keep trying!
Seriously, so many of my clients have had amazing results simply because they bothered to follow-up with a journalist. Just because you don’t get an immediate response doesn’t mean it’s a definite no.
And if you do get a ‘thanks but no thanks’, that doesn’t mean it’s a no forever – far from it!
It’s just an opportunity to come up with the killer pitch that will win them over next time.
Last week I used a dating analogy when I was talking about How To Make Journalists Fall In Love With You, and I’m gonna roll it out again. Imagine you’re single and looking for a new beau. If it doesn’t work out with the first guy you meet, that doesn’t mean you give up? You get back out there and try a new approach.
The clients I work with have all committed to getting media coverage, so they know not to let set-backs steer them off track. If you’re serious about doing PR, you’ve got to do the same.
2. Make a plan
If you do happen to have a story that goes viral, things can start to happen really quickly – you’re featured in one magazine, and then a TV show picks up on it, and then a foreign newspapers picks up on that, and before you know it you’re being invited to be interviewed via Satellite link whist simultaneously responding to requests for an all-expenses-paid magazine photo shoot…
But before any of that can happen, you need to have a plan. I’ve spoken to women in the past who have been lucky enough to have landed some media coverage almost by accident. They randomly had a publication get in touch with them and then they were interviewed. Which was great. Except they weren’t prepared for it. So they didn’t make the most of the opportunity.
And there haven’t been any opportunities since then, because they’re not being pro-active about it.
If you’re serious about getting some quality media coverage, you need to have a strategy.
The best way to start is by planning out what you’d like to achieve, and how you might be able to get there.
- Which publications do you want to target
- What can you find out about these publications – e.g. how often is it published, what kinds of articles do they feature, what are their deadlines?
- What PR activities will you do? e.g. send a press release, offer a guest blog post, offer yourself as a guest on the radio
- When will you get in touch with them?
- When will you follow-up with them?
If you’re ready to start planning out your PR campaign now, I’ve got a free monthly PR planner you can download here. Use it to plan out what your next moves will be. Don’t forget to drop me a line and let me know how you get on.
Got any questions or comments? Post them below….