7 Ways to Get the Press Coverage You Want
Illustrations by Dongyun Lee
As journalists, we hear this question from entrepreneurs all the time: "How can I convince you to write a story about my business?" The simple answer: Get our attention.
In 1939, a pastry company hired a man to eat 13 donuts while hanging upside-down on a plank extended from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper. Given American litigiousness, a stunt like that wouldn't work today--but we'd want to write about it if it did.
Think of the press as your audience and as a market. Just as you tailor your message to reach different segments of your customer base, you need to customize your story to appeal to each publication you pitch.
We've put together a starter kit of methods to make your pitch stand out from the deluge that swamps journalists' e-mail inboxes daily.
1. Give us a Narrative
"My hangover-prevention pill keeps you from getting a hangover!" is not a story--it's an advertisement. As such, it's not interesting to a journalist (unless said journalist happens to be heading to Vegas for a bachelor party). Stories have a beginning, middle and end. They have tension. They have a personal element: "I used to wake up after a night out at the bars and think, I want to climb out of my own brain. Why hasn't anyone found a way to fix this?"
Identify an event that got the ball rolling on your business idea: "When I woke up with the worst headache of my life, and my friends just shook their heads and offered me aspirin, I realized that if I wanted someone to eradicate hangovers, that someone would have to be me."
The action comes next. That's the part of the story where the protagonist--that would be the business founder--struggles to reach his or her goal, navigating obstacles along the way. Maybe after you decided to create a hangover-prevention pill, you talked to scientists who told you it was impossible--that if hangovers were curable, someone would have done so already.
And of course, in a compelling story, the protagonist must change by the end. Training for a race can make a weak person strong. Raising a child can make an irresponsible person responsible. Think about the story of your business. How did it change you? Take us on your journey, beginning to end.
2. Make it New
Explain how your business is disruptive. Five-and-dime stores had been around for decades when the first Wal-Mart opened in 1962. Nothing new there. But the logistics Sam Walton used to expand into the largest retail chain in the world were novel: stores in small towns, not cities; warehouses nearby to keep shelves constantly stocked; discounts on not just specialty items but on all merchandise, including name brands. What is your version of those Waltonian innovations? You don't have to share all your secrets, nor should you oversell them.