One of the biggest mistakes growing entrepreneurs and brands make is failing to think about their press strategy. While every business owner has a long to-do list, this is one item that should be prioritized for every single entrepreneur.
Simply put, a press strategy is your roadmap to getting into the news and taking advantage of press opportunities to grow your audience. If you own a heath brand you may aim for health-related podcasts and columns, but if you're positioning your CEO as a thought leader you'll go with business outlets and coaching platforms. As you grow, more journalists will want to interview you anyway so it's a good idea to already have a plan for how you want your brand to look in headlines. This will guide your answers to interview questions, help you figure out what aspects of your brand to spotlight and clarify your call-to-action/ask.
However, too many brands fail to think about this, losing potential customers, revenue and clicks/views. If you're only focusing on ads, you're missing out on a more profitable audience growth strategy. And your press strategy doesn't have to be complicated. Even taking a few minutes to think about pitching your story and where it should go can exponentially increase your revenue, audience/customer base and even improve your rankings on search engines.
Every brand needs to think about their press strategy. Here are three reasons why:
Builds credibility: We already know you think your brand is great but hearing it from a third-party trusted news outlet, lends you more credibility and builds trust much quicker than even reviews and advertisements can. Placements in a major gift guide for example can give you a quick highlight and immediate sales while an entire feature can showcase your journey, what makes your product unique and why readers should care, ultimately getting you larger funding opportunities and partnerships. In addition to credibility, after you secure the interview, you actually do less work. The reporter takes care of everything: packaging the story, making it look nice and distributing it so that enough people see it. All you have to do is wait for the story to air or print and for the customers to come in.
Bigger reach: Most brands also benefit from the larger audiences that news outlets have. Overnight, you can be placed in front of millions of people. In addition to a larger direct audience, most news outlets, particularly long-standing ones, usually have great search engine optimization, which means your feature also has a great chance of being easily found on major search engines – kicking even more people your way. This helps since news outlets' homepages are constantly changing, meaning your feature may not even be on the front page after a few hours. However, Google's formula makes it easy for your link to be found for years to come!
Related: Are you struggling to get media coverage for your brand? The holidays is a great time to change your strategy and get the coverage of your dreams! Our Full Press Strategy includes a unique strategy to get you in headlines, 3 FREE press alerts (written just for your brand)– and more than 50 dozen tips and tricks to help you stand out!
It's free: Getting in the news is free! No real hard news outlet will ever charge you for an interview and if you hear a reporter ask for a fee, run! There's a major journalistic principle to never take money. This means your press strategy isn't just the biggest opportunity for audience/customer growth, it's also the cheapest. At this point, you can't afford to not take a few minutes to brainstorm how to get this free audience growth.
A press strategy is critical for any growing business because a great interview places you right in front of your target audience. However, between ads and products, it's easy to forget about. So next, we'll discuss what goes into a basic press strategy so you can get started at home. If you're ready to take the leap now, you can also book with us for a consultation!