How To Get Positive Publicity For Your Company
Be the Local Connection to a National Story
Why wait and hope for media coverage? Don’t wait — create!
Most companies and organizations send news releases to the media only when they want to publicize an event, a new product, a stock offering, an expansion or a groundbreaking. But since these things don’t happen too often, your contact with the media is limited.
So instead of waiting for something to happen at your company that you can publicize, look for national stories that pertain to your company and offer yourself as the local expert. News organizations love local angles to national stories! The following excerpt from an Associated Press story serves as a perfect example.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — In his younger days, Jason Heiman used to play a little hoops for Edgewood College in Madison. Today he still knows his way around the basketball court but in a far different way. As president of the Waukesha-based Jason-Thomas Flooring, Heiman’s company recently completed fabricating and finishing three of the sixteen portable basketball floors the NCAA has commissioned for this year’s national men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
This story was gold for local media outlets in Wisconsin — a local company with a direct connection to what is arguably the most watched sporting event in America.
When wildfires, floods or tornados bring death and destruction to parts of our nation, did the local bottled-water company ramp up production and send emergency supplies thousands of miles away? Did the paper products company you own get the contract to make the napkins for the President’s inaugural ball? Are there one or more people at your company training to run the Boston Marathon — a national event millions of people are certainly interested in.
Don’t miss out on these opportunities. The reason many companies and organizations do miss out is because they don’t normally think of this stuff. They’re too busy doing what they do! Few people think in terms of the national impact of their everyday mundane jobs. Turn the mundane into media coverage. Don’t wait — create!
Be The ‘Kicker’
Another great way to garner publicity is to be the ‘kicker’. The ‘kicker’ in television news parlance, is that cute, funny, heartwarming, unusual or bizarre story that is delivered at the end of almost every television newscast. Television newscast producers are constantly asking, “What do we have for a kicker — anything?”
So what qualifies as a ‘kicker’? Here are a few examples — A groundbreaking, a health fair at your company, when your company holds a penny-collecting competition to benefit the American Heart Association, when the CEO or principal gets his head shaved to raise money for the American Cancer Society, when a mother duck and her ducklings have taken up residence in your company’s outdoor fountain or pool or when your company is holding a bake sale for Toys For Tots. You get the idea. Lighthearted, fun stuff that leaves the newscast and your organization on a high note.
If you think you’ve got a kicker, tell the media. It’s free and positive publicity.
