You do not have to crash White House dinners or pretend to send your child hundreds of miles across a Western state alone in a balloon. You do not have to stage crazy stunts to get media coverage. You just have to know place ideas in the minds of local or national reporters -- you need a "hook." Once you have a hook, or the tidbit that is going to excite a professional reporter, you need to provide that reporter with all the tools and information he or she will need to write a story for newspaper, television, or on-line media. If the hook is good and the information is organized and pertinent, the world of professional and amateur reporting will publicize your story, your issue, or your cause.
Instructions
1. Identify broadcast, print, and web-based reporters and bloggers who might be interested in your subject. If you have just set up a small local factory to make your latest and greatest squirrel trap invention, contact the local newspaper's home and garden editor, for example. Don't forget to include contact information for yourself or your company's PR person, if you have one; a local address; a photo of the thing in action; an estimate for the number of traps you think you can sell in a year and the number of people, if any, you plan to employ. If you can take a stab at the number of squirrels you think it will catch in a week, that might provide a fun hook as well (do try to have some kind of facts or at least a decent rationale to back up your guesstimate.) If you have video of the thing actually catching a squirrel, send clips to local and regional TV affiliates. The point is, there are probably reporters who already cover your topic -- you just need to give them a reason to convert your idea into a story, and enough facts and contact information to allow them to flesh out their story with some meat and a quote or two.
2. Determine the audience you need to reach. If it is the entire country, seek out national reporters first and then move on to states and then to cities. The best coverage you can hope for is national. That way, a state or city, or even town-specific issue will be aired for everyone to see.
Sometimes, it may just be a local audience you need to reach. For example, if you are opening a new business in a small town, you might just need to reach the surrounding areas. Look for local hooks that can tie your event or project into a national issue. For example, if gasoline prices are sky high and you want to promote the reopening of a local grocery store that sells gas, consider offering gas for 50 cents a gallon for three hours on a weekday. Call it a Roll Back the Clock to 1972 event and call the local newspaper and TV stations to tell them you're hiring a few off-duty police officers to do traffic control. You might want to limit each purchaser to 10 gallons, or something, to keep the costs under control, but if gas prices are enough of a national issue to be in most people's minds and it's a slow news day, you might even draw some national coverage to your local sale -- particularly if you generate lines that back up into the street. Again, include all pertinent information in your press release: A contact person for your company; a contact number for the local police department's chief traffic officer; a contact number for AAA's national gas price watch; and a credible source that shows that gas prices were 50 cents a gallon on some date in 1972.
3. Prepare a press release or a "pitch." A pitch is a presentation that explains the issue and gives your side of the story. It can be written or oral. A press release is a statement that a reporter can quote and has information that reporters can use in their own stories. If any of your information comes from an independent source, be sure to not that in your press release -- and be sure that the information is accurate.
4. Compose talking points to go along with your press release and your pitch. Talking points are short simple sentences that explain the issue in succinct terms. They are usually written in a bullet point format. Include them in your press release as quotes from an individual, if you want: these are the points that you or your spokesperson will say when being interviewed.
5. Write a series of questions and answers covering anything you anticipate a reporter might ask about the issue.
6. Email your pitch, press release, and your package of talking points and questions and answers to the targeted media outlets you researched in step 1 and 2.
7. Follow up with a friendly phone call to the reporters you emailed.
8. Consider having a press event, either live on-site, teleconference call, online, or webcast to announce your news and take questions.
