It’s a problem that PRs have been facing for several years, with a non-stop heavy (and gloom-laden) news agenda to battle with.
Here are our top three tips on helping you get cut through:
1. LIGHT BRIGHT STORIES:
The media is craving light and bright stories from PRs, to counterbalance all the doom and gloom. Think heartwarming, relatable stories that celebrate and comfort, rather than trying to newsjack a hard news story (unless your brand is already saying something in that space.) The media loves nostalgia, trends returning – and list based stories that are relatable and bring a smile to your face – for example, the Sky Stream research story about the most puzzling questions in life (how do you pronounce Worcestershire sauce being one of them), that got blanket coverage.
2. WEEKEND PAPERS:
If print is your primary goal, consider the weekend papers. There is more space in them for lifestyle stories, and we find that angles around food, travel and leisure do particularly well for weekend outlets. Also, if you’ve sent your release to daily news editors, and it’s not got the attention you expected, sending it to the weekend news desks means they’ll be seeing something new, and will give you a second bite of the cherry.
3. NEWS CONFERENCES:
The usual tactic for a sell in to national newspapers is to hit the news desks and wires early in the morning, before the daily news conference when stories will be discussed (usually the conference is around 9.30am). However, online and lifestyle outlets run their conferences at different times of day – for example the Mail Online has its picture conference at around 10am, then a lunchtime conference at 1.30pm ish – and another around 5pm. So knowing the time of the conferences for your target media is key for getting content to them at the right time (not too early, not too late – ideally about an hour before they go in).
To find out if we can help you drive national news coverage for your brand, get in touch.