I promised somewhere (in my newsletter or here on the blog – or maybe it was just in the recesses of my twisted mind) to reveal the secret of getting your news release run in the newspaper (or a magazine).
You’re probably not surprised to hear me say that it involves photography 🙂
Now, I’m no PR expert (although I’ll direct you to one in a minute), but I do know that journalists are desperate for interesting material (interesting being a key word – don’t bother sending a sales pitch disguised as a news story, it will most likely go straight in the bin). And, like anyone, they want their job to be as easy as possible.
So, which is more interesting: A news story, or a news story with a picture? The picture wins every time, of course. Have you ever noticed that items that are virtual ‘non-stories’ run in the paper (or on TV) because they happen to have interesting pictures or footage to go with them?
Well, the (by now) obvious way of taking advantage of this is by sending an interesting, reproduction-quality photograph in with your media release. This will dramatically increase the chance of your story being run.
"But don’t newspapers and magazines have their own photographers"?, I hear you asking. Of course the do. But there are at least three good reasons to send your own quality pictures with your news release:
- Capture the editor or journalist’s attention. When they pick up your release, it will immediately stand out from all the other boring pages of copy they receive. They will be able to see at a glance that it is something interesting that they may want to run.
- They may run it as is, with your pictures. – Saving you the inconvenience of having their photographer come and tell you what to do – which brings us to the third, possibly most important reason:
- You retain control of the content. Get your story portrayed the way you want. This makes your media release almost as good as good as running a free ad, probably worth thousands! Of course you can’t guarantee that the story will be run exactly the way you want – but the first thing readers see is the picture, and if that shows you in a favourable light, that’s a huge head start.
Of course there’s no guarantee that your story will get run at all. But if you consistently send news releases that follow the rules, the odds are very, very good. In fact, if you do the numbers on it, it’s a no-brainer. Think of how many news releases you could write and send for the cost of a single advertisement. Even if only one in five gets run, you’ll be ahead (and with your story having much more credibility than in an ad).
Anyway, like I said, I’m no PR expert. So don’t take my word for all of this. Listen to some experts. I have two favourite PR resources which I subscribe to:
Joan Stewart (The Publicity Hound) and Paul Hartunian.
Oh, and of course if you need help with that picture, you know who to call 🙂
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