It has always been amusing to me how many small to mid-size companies want “really, really great” media coverage, only want to pay relatively little to get it, don’t want to work too hard at it and then have absolutely no idea how to maximize their return-on-investment (ROI) once they do get it. This blog is about the last one. I have been helping companies get great media coverage for many years and below I outline how to maximize the immense value of a positive piece of coverage.
So your company has the joy/benefit/luck of a fabulous piece of media or blogger coverage that your PR team has negotiated. Now what? There are immediate and long-term steps to optimize the value. And this value can be extracted for about 2-3 years. One would be hard-pressed to think of other marketing pieces that have that kind of lifespan. Below is a checklist I developed at By the Sea Communications of what to do with that fabulous coverage.
Immediate Steps (within 1 to 8 hours)
- Email it to your employees with an upbeat “rah, rah” message. And remember to thank all the people involved in making the positive coverage happen.
- Post a link to the piece in the News Room of your company website. (How to create an excellent News Room on your website is a topic for another post.)
- Point to it from the home page of your company website. Consider extracting an especially strong sentence or two from the piece to highlight there. Don’t forget the media outlet’s logo as that will quickly draw people in and provide immediate credibility.
- Point to it on all of your social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Remember photos and all related hashtags, etc. to draw people in.
- Use your social media channels to openly thank the editor for the well-written news piece. They are human and will appreciate the public thank you.
- Email the editor to thank them and tell them how nice it was to work with them. This is usually true, most editors are pretty cool, and also helps build the relationship for the future.
- Email it to your Board of Directors and make sure to tell them how it was negotiated, all the work that went into it and how you are optimizing its value.
- Email it to any funding prospects with a reminder of the good work your company is doing.
- Email it to partners so they realize what a wonderful partner they have in your company.
- Email it with a thank you note to any third-parties who helped with the piece (for example, customers or partners who were quoted).
Within 2-3 Business Days
- Send it to your sales prospects with carefully drafted personalized messages.
- Add the logo, and possibly a quote, to all sales presentations.
Longer-Term
- Use a quote from the piece to add emphasis on a speaker presentation.
- Consider a framed version of the coverage in your lobby. This is very old school, but I still see it all the time. Or maybe a framed version of a great quote from it. Or have someone paint the great quote directly on the wall.
- Consider a binder in your lobby of the all the great coverage your company has generated.
- Use the media coverage to invigorate your trade show exhibits and materials. (Remember to work with the media outlet if you want to use printed copies of the entire piece. They will charge you for it, but it might be worth it.)
- Mention the coverage in any interactions discussing the company. “We recently talked to The New York Times about X and they wrote a piece that focuses on how well we are…”
- Name-drop it when talking with other media. “We just worked with X on a piece, about Y. What really needs to be written is…” Media have more of herd mentality than they would like to admit, plus so many media outlets are intertwined now.
- Mention the coverage in your regular newsletters to company stakeholders (internal, customer, partner, etc.)
- Write a short blog post about it.
- Mention it in a webinar that your company hosts.
- Add a quote or two to videos you are creating about the company.
- Tell your parents. They will be so proud. 🙂
I hope I have convinced you of the high ROI of a strong piece of media coverage. There is probably more to add to this list.
If you want to learn how your company can put strategic media relations to use, please contact me.
Copyright By the Sea Communications 2015-2018. Please do not reproduce any or all of this content without permission and attribution.
