Has anyone ever told you that you’re “the best kept secret” in your field? It’s a compliment, but also a bit of feedback that you haven’t done a good job of promoting yourself. Let’s say you’re a business consultant, and you would be busier if more corporations knew about you. That would be nice, right?
Solving this problem means overcoming two challenges. The first is a basic lack of visibility. Not enough people have heard of you. The other, perhaps more serious issue is that people may not see you as credible. A lot of people can call themselves business consultants. What would it take to have prospects see you as credible?
Public relations offers a solution on both fronts. By getting you profiled or featured in the news media, a PR firm facilitates valuable third-party validation of your professional skills. Media coverage confers credibility. This article explores how this process works and offers some suggestions on how to achieve success in the pursuit of credibility through press exposure.
If you’re wondering, “How does getting profiled in the news help make me more credible?” it pays to go beyond the obvious. Yes, common sense would dictate that having the media run a profile on you would bolster your credibility. If CNN profiles you, then you must be credible, right? What’s actually happening is that CNN’s brand aura, their reputation as a trusted source of information, now extends to you. It’s a serious third-party endorsement. CNN has no commercial reason to validate your knowledge and skills. By turning to you for expert insights, they’re showing their audience that they trust you.
This formula relies on certain assumptions, however, and it’s wise to understand them. The first is that the profile will be positive and meaningful. Profiles and media exposure can be shallow and off-topic, or even negative. Additionally, the media outlet itself must have credibility in order to confer credibility. Being profiled on Joe’s Basement Podcast may not cut it.
It’s also useful to understand the various ways you can get featured in the news. The reality is that a full profile is pretty rare for people who do not have some significant achievement to discuss. If you’ve just won an Oscar for best cinematography, a major newspaper may run a profile that features your story and career highlights. If you’re a wedding videographer, such a profile would be a real longshot.
Even if you don’t get a profile, you can still get media coverage that helps enhance your credibility. Opportunities include:
How do you get profiled on a news site? The basic mechanics of the process are simple. A publicist like me, or perhaps even you, yourself, contacts the reporter, editor, or producer and suggests doing a profile. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to figure out what you want to say when you reach them.
While a PR firm cannot guarantee you a profile in the news, there is a fairly well-established path to success. The key challenge is to figure out what reporters and producers need to attract an audience. You need to be part of the story they want to tell. For example, if you are a doctor, you could offer unique insights to reporters who cover healthcare. The potential for a media profile increases when you find the fit between the media’s audience and your story.
How do you figure out your story for the press? This is about specificity and understanding your potential “media hook.” What’s unique about you? Pitching yourself to the press as a “business consultant,” for example, is too generic. It won’t get you very far. If you can say that you are a business consultant who has successfully advised CEOs on how to achieve double-digit share price growth through strategic mergers, that’s the kind of profile that might get you noticed.
Impressive as that may sound, however, being the strategic merger consultant isn’t enough to get media attention. You have to provide the media outlet with a specific reason to cover you—a hook, as we say. This might be a pitch like, “Meet the consultant who helped five companies double their share price,” or “What CEOs need to understand about share price growth.” The hook turns your expertise into a compelling case for covering you in the press.
Over the years, I’ve learned that not every client is a good candidate for a media profile. This can be a touchy issue, because people who are serious and accomplished often assume that they will be interesting to the press. This is not always the case. The press tends to look for truly distinguished and differentiated people to profile. Unfortunately, there are usually many people with similar skills and credentials in any given field, so it can be quite difficult to stand out enough to get media attention.
Topics also matter. As a colleague who has spent her career booking TV “guestperts” can tell you, on-air guests who can discuss weight loss, beauty, personal wealth creation, and romance are a lot easier to get on TV than people who can discuss more esoteric topics. There has to be a fit with the media outlet’s format, as well. Local news isn’t going to feature you if your expertise is metallurgy, for example, unless they need someone to explain why a bridge collapsed.
Which brings me to “newsjacking,” which is the process of inserting yourself into a breaking story. It’s important to remember that most reporters and producers work on assignment. Breaking stories dominate their workloads. Thus, if you can offer interesting commentary on a breaking story, that’s a great moment to suggest an interview. Alternatively, you can send a quote for reporters to use in reporting with the hope that they’ll include it in their coverage. This happens all the time.
A PR firm can help you establish credibility through media coverage. You have options, though. What’s amazing is that today, it is possible to do media pitching by yourself. A decade ago, this was seen as a big no-no. Not anymore. You can look up radio and TV station contact emails and pitch away.
A PR firm or PR freelancer can be a big help in this process, just the same. A PR freelancer, also known as a publicist, can help you figure out your story and the best hooks to capture press interest. You can find a publicist online at sites like Fiverr and Upwork.
One critical reality to recognize when pitching yourself to the media is that you have limited control over how you are presented in the final article or newscast. For example, I recently got coverage in a major newspaper for a non-profit that was doing a cancer screening. The problem was that the coverage questioned whether the screening was worth doing, suggesting that it was a waste of resources.
You cannot control what reporters and producers will do. Yet, you can set some rules for the process. For instance, if you had a negative experience in your career, you can say that you will not be answering any questions on that topic. If you’ve established that up front, the reporter will usually respect the boundary.
You may have heard that PR firms are expensive. Is this true? Yes and no. It’s a great example of “you get what you pay for.” That said, it is possible to overpay. High-end PR firms that work on retainer can charge anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 per month or more. (When I worked at Microsoft in 2007, the Microsoft Office PR budget was over $22 million a year, and that was just one business unit. The overall Microsoft PR budget was probably in the $100 million range.) Good publicists may charge hundreds of dollars an hour.
Can you get media exposure on a low budget? Yes, it is possible to get covered in the media without spending a lot of money. To repeat, success has a lot to do with the appeal of your story and the cleverness of your hook. In our case, Comms Factory can pitch you to the media on a flat rate basis, which makes for economical PR outreach.
Getting profiled or featured in the media can help improve your credibility with your peers and potential customers. Not everyone has the same potential for a profile, however, as media outlets want to feature experts and guests who cater to their audiences. The key to success is to have a compelling story to tell and a differentiated “hook” to intrigue reporters. A PR firm is useful, but no longer absolutely essential in the process.
To learn about our media pitching services, visit commsfactory.net
Photo by Yusuf Çelik: https://www.pexels.com/photo/professional-podcast-recording-session-in-studio-32213246/
Comms Factory is a new kind of public relations firm. We serve the unique publicity needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses, medical practices, non-profits, artists, authors, and musicians. Unlike retainer-based PR firms, we work on a pay-as-you-go basis, with fixed-price gigs for press release writing, distribution, and media outreach.
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