News & The Media Industry
News & Media Information
Nov
29

Media exposure. When it comes to launching a new business or product, some marketing consultants might say that every product is appropriate for a publicity or media exposure campaign. When starting a successful business venture or launching a new product, most entrepreneurs or business owners conduct some type of marketing research to determine the extent of their prospective customer base.

These are the business owners who know their product and market inside and out, but, they have never thought about launching a publicity/media exposure campaign before now
When providing market sensitive media training, trainers should explain to the spokesperson, the importance and role media play, how the training can benefit them.

If you have a new or under-publicized product, the media could be a good friend to you. It would help if you can get a quality targeted press release written or have your press release distributed to targeted media contacts.. Make sure you send your press release to the appropriate department at whichever media outlets you select.

Don't make the mistake of sending a press release to a group of general media sources in hopes that someone will pick up the story. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that even a well-written press release will work on the first go-around since a lot depends upon whether the media thinks it’s newsworthy. This includes archived press releases, full biographies of you and your management team, publication-ready logos and photography, a history of your firm, and anything else that will grease the wheels of media coverage.

One of the first steps in defining a public relations strategy is to understand how you and your competition stack up in terms of media coverage. Once you’re comfortable talking to the media you should take a proactive approach to your media relations. Although the host agreed not to charge my client, it made me wonder how pervasive this practice is, and whether media relations professionals should ever take advantage of this type of pay for play.

Once you’ve proved yourself as a useful and dependable information source, you’ll realise it can; help to get your story into a news cycle, and provide opportunities for the media to approach you for comment on appropriate stories which in turn helps a journalist add depth, by filling gaps or backing up information, to their story. The media take the huge mass and swirl of information out there every day and spin it, by a process that seems magical but isn’t, into what we all call news.

The media take a raw ingredient – information – and condense, distill, sort, and package it into a product called news. So if you don't like the idea of being a million entries down on a web search, or even 60 entries down, consider a low-cost, effective alternative – the media. Your word about a new trend in investing or the latest tip for retirement planning might be enough to get a media person interested, but it usually won't be enough information for them to write a whole article or create a television segment.

There is one exception to the previous tip: if you personally know a reporter, or you have a mutual friend, it’s fine to call that person even if you know they aren't the right reporter. Sometimes, when you are doing a great job of keeping on topic, the reporter is leading to you talk about different topics, some of which you aren't as knowledgeable about. You might think a solution is just to avoid the reporter – but remember – a reporter will show up when you don’t expect him, and if you refuse to talk to him, he will play the videotape of your hand covering the camera for weeks.

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