5 tips on creating content for the media

In producing content to be pitched to media and influencers ask yourself one question: would this help them gain and retain eyeballs, that is, would someone click on the photo or heading to read more, and is it interesting enough that they would read it when they have the article in front of them?

Here are five PR tips that will help you win valuable publicity for you and your business, plus a bonus tip at the end.

I’d also encourage you to think visually. Photos can help sell a story and you can see how a photo (clean) used in the banner of this article helped gain coverage on page 5 of the Herald Sun last week (see below).

1. Add a human interest angle to the press release and create a story around it. With your news to communicate, incorporate a human interest aspect. Perhaps yours is a third or fourth generation family business with different generations working together and the challenges or joys this brings; perhaps it’s the reason why you have a policy of employing people with a disability; it might an interesting story about what inspired you to create the business. People love reading about something that they can relate to or be amazed at, so work on finding a human interest angle.
2. Use special days or the season to link to your product or service. For example, if you are involved in cleaning, then spring a good time to generate a story on the best ways to spring clean a home. Or if you are into home security, December is a good time when people go on holidays. Father’s Day is an obvious one, and likewise the Spring Racing Carnival. Check a calendar to find out when there are special awareness days. For example on 27 September it is World Tourism Day, Hug a Vegan Day, Save the Koala Day and the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning.
3. Conduct some research or find some relevant stats. What facts can you garner that relates to your product or service. If you can highlight a problem or issue that you are solving, this makes what you are conveying in the press release that much more important to the editor and their readers.
4. Milestones carry weight. Significant anniversaries of a business can be a good opportunity to contact an editor to let me know about your story. Make sure you tick a few other boxes before you pick up the phone and generate some other newsworthy content. For example, perhaps you’ve reached an employee milestone of 100 employees or have just achieved 100 products in your range or have just passed $20M turnover.
5. Write a case study. Customers or clients who are happy can usually be persuaded to participate in a case study. This involves getting some good quotes from the customer along with some photos. These are of particular interest to the industry media as it shows their readers problems that others in their industry are facing, what solutions they investigated and what the successful result was.

After the story has been published, it can be placed on your website and promoted in social media.

A bonus tip is to use cute animals. This article in the Herald Sun last week (page 5) was as a result of our media outreach to promote an open day at the new Kew East Ka-Pooch! Doggy Day Care centre. We provided a sample photo (refer to banner above) that gave them the desire to proceed with a story.

If you need any help with your press releases and case studies, please get in touch. You can send us a message here.