How To Connect With Media & Get Publicity For Your Product
You have a new product or service getting ready to launch. Or you have a new and improved product. Media coverage is one of the best ways to draw attention to your new product, increase awareness and boost sales.
Create your angle. What is it about the product that offers a benefit to your customers? Presumably, your product offers a number of benefits. Dig deep into those benefits and understand your customers’ buying process. What leads them to make a purchase? What problem are you solving for them? Also, take a look at your existing product funnel. What do they buy before and after they buy the product you’re promoting? This is important because this is the information that will help you find the best newsworthy angle. Once you’ve identified your angle or hook, you can pitch that story to the media. For example, if your product helps people lose weight naturally, then you might pitch the science behind natural weight loss to the media. Leverage the science with the understanding that the “natural” benefit is what drives your sales.
Leverage name recognition. Having testimonials, endorsements, and partnerships with notable names and companies can help you get a faster connection with the media and a more positive response. Here’s why. Let’s say that your natural weight loss product is endorsed by a celebrity trainer. The journalist will get more readers for their piece, and for their publication, with that celebrity name in their article. They will be more interested in writing a story about your product. You still have to focus on the right angle or hook, but name dropping can help you connect.
Demonstrate results. Track and measure the results that your customers experience with your product. Talk with them and compile the data. The media love and appreciate hard facts. When you can cite those facts in your pitch, and provide them with more data (proving results from your product or service), they’ll be more likely to cover your story.
Issue a press release. A press release generally contains the three components we’ve already discussed. It has an angle, and it ideally leverages name recognition when you include awards, recognitions, and endorsements in your content. It should also provide a few facts that demonstrate the results of your product. Send the press release to your hand-picked media representatives a week before you plan on issuing the release so they have time to cover the story first.
Finally, keep in mind that anytime you have a new promotion or product launch, it’s an opportunity to pitch a story idea to the media and/or to issue a press release. Connecting with the media is usually a relationship-building process. Take every opportunity to build and strengthen that relationship.
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