For most startups, building an initial reputation is one of the toughest jobs. How to let your prospective customer know about your brand?
During the initial phase you have zero customers, zero followers on social media, zero recognition and very little capital to invest in acquiring new customers. During the initial phase you have to find inexpensive options to create a name for yourself in the market.
One of the best ways to spread your brand name across your niche market is by getting yourself covered in media.
There are plenty of benefits of getting your brand covered in a popular media publication, some of which are: –
- Increase in brand visibility
- Easy user acquisition
- Interest of partners and investors
- Easier recruitment
Below we have mentioned some tactics to get your startup featured in media/press. Follow the point which align with your business and get your brand recognition.
Throw an Event
Everyone loves to attend a party, Right? Same is the case with reporters. Do not do anything quietly, like a product release, store opening or something big, just throw a party. Invite all the reporters you know of, tell them why attending your event would be helpful – A small investment can result in a big ROI.
The event does not have to be a huge event but just make sure the reporters have a great time. If they do enjoy your event you have reserved yourself a permanent seat in the publications. After the completion, create a press release with details like who, what, where and why. Sent the press release to the reporters who attended the event and otherwise for reference while publishing the post.
Focus on Relation Building
Getting yourself published in the media is a time consuming task. The company should first focus on building relations with the reporters. Do not just randomly build relation with any reporter; make sure they are covering your niche. Once you build a relation with the reporter of your niche, it will help you at a later time. Relation building does not always means giving gifts, talking about their latest vacation or giving them passes for an event can also do the trick.
Remember to be tactful when using this approach as you do not want the reporters to feel you are offering them a bribe. Do not make the relation feel like a transaction. Understand the common interest point and connect with it.
Piggyback on trends
Reporters usually do not cover a brand in their news as it mostly looks like an advertisement. Journalists and media houses prefer to cover news related to latest news or trends. To be covered by media publications make sure that you fit your strategy into the latest theme.
You need to find an empty space in the market and create strategies how your company can fill in the void. Also keep a tab on the latest content marketing trends that will yield your business success.
For example – An ecommerce company that sells beard-related products for men, breadbrand, was able to get themselves featured in New York Times article which was regarding the renaissance of barber shops.
Offer an Exclusive
Like every other sector, media publications also competes among them striving to be the top media house. If you are trying to be published on renowned publications like Wall Street journal, New York Times, Etc., helping them cover an exclusive story.
An exclusive makes sure the publication you are partnering with will break the story before any other publication does. When you offer an exclusive to the publication, make sure you make the most out of it otherwise you will hinder all future opportunities with the publication.
Once the media house you partnered with has released the exclusive, offer a press release to other publications who would be interested in releasing your story.
Get involved in local events
If you want to get yourself published, you need to keep an eye on the local events that you know for sure will catch media attention. Get you brand involved in the event deliberately.
If you want the attention to be towards your brand on the local event make sure you do something different like keeping the staff wearing similar color or making a formal announcement about your presence by a press release. You can also host a local event and invite media personalities to it. This will bring more attention to your brand and help in making your debut in media.
For example- Sign up for a speaker of an industry event or volunteer your staff for charity event.
Further read: Improve your business’s search engine visibility with these local SEO Tips
Sponsorship
If you want to spend less money and want to market your brand and generate exposure, then one of the best ways is to sponsor events happening in your niche market. This will help you in getting your name out in the market.
If your business is a lead sponsor on a given place, you will get mention in every media channel of that place. For example: – “The Christmas celebration event is brought to you by [Business name]”. Every place where the event is covered, your brand name must tag along; this positive mention will help in gathering attention of potential customers.
Viral Marketing
Till now we were using the approach where when a news is covered by media it will gain the attention of many others. However if a brand uses viral marketing approach they do not have to approach the media – the media house will want to cover the brand.
Brand has to put in a lot of thought when deciding what their approach is to market their brand. As huge number of people connect and engage with the viral content, the media will want to cover the news automatically.
Paid PR
If you are want yourself to be featured in a media channel but do not have the time or resources to plan the above mentioned points the best thing is to resort to outsourcing the work to a PR firm.
A PR firm has good relations with journalist and media houses and has clearer idea of how to craft your content so that it catches the attention of media.
Manage your Online Reputation with experts
Over to you
After you have gone through the entire article, you must have understood that getting yourself published in the media is not a daunting task. It just requires understanding of who you are preaching; building relations and analyzing the demographic you are trying to reach.
Keep your focus on your end motive, whether it is selling a product, trying to get investors for your startup or simply grabbing media attention for your business.
P.S: You cannot take a back seat and let press do the wonders and engage people. It is very important that your business is purposeful.
