TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO SPEND A DAY WITH A NATIONAL JOURNALIST! 

This is the last time chance to  book for my PR Planning and Brainstorming day which takes place on Wednesday June 26 in the Cotswolds.  I’m not doing another one this year and the early bird price is now gone, it’s £350 plus VAT to be part of this workshop.

This day-long event is designed to help business owners, fellow PRs, marketing executives or those involved in the third sector to plan their PR and their media outreach for the rest of 2024 and beyond.  I’m going to be working with Liz Perkins who is a working national journalist and between us we have around 70 years’ experience of being part of the media. 

The aim of the day is to understand that the best way to get good media outreach is to meet and engage with journalists and understand their agenda. You can gain amazing opportunities from meeting and engaging with journalists, whatever the size and scope of your business or organisation.

If you are in regular contact with a journalist, and have worked with them before, then if you have proved to be a reliable source of information, then they are very likely to return to you again.

Journalists are often looking for people to fit their stories, and if you regularly follow my social media, you’ll see me put ‘shout outs’ for comments, experiences and experts which the media are asking for. 

5 opportunities where people have had PR through the national press?

*Last year I was talking to a journalist working with Woman’s Weekly who wanted to talk to a woman in her 50s starting a YouTube Channel.  That’s me!  I’ve started my Reel PR YouTube Channel, so I’m just the sort of person she is looking for and I’ve got a five-year-old channel with my husband following our holiday adventures.  And some people after reading the article will search out my YouTube channel, which will give me more subscribers. This is another strand of my PR alongside all of my other posts, my podcast and my workshops etc – all about my business.

*My bestie Lis McDermott has recently had conversations with a journalist about the fact she is in an age-gap relationship. It has nothing to do with her business, but she knows that by being happy to share her story with journalists, it gets her name ‘out there’.  And, as part of the interview, they asked her about her latest book – which she just happens to have published. And even more helpful and completely unexpectedly, they added a direct link to her book in the article.  The article was in Metro Online, which gets a massive readership. That is an incredible piece of PR which would otherwise have been hard to get, because just writing a book alone is often not of interest to a national journalist. There are simply too many books being written. 

Then off the back of that, she was also interviewed on BBC London Radio on a phone-in, on the same topic (age-gap relationships), and yet again, they asked her about her book, and she was able to give out her links to the book.

*Many clients of mine have answered the call from journalists, and have been interviewed on TV or the radio about important issues of the day, where they have either expert knowledge, or personal knowledge.  The PR in that is good because, again, they’ll be seen or heard in a wider audience than their social media will probably take them. And on following occasions when an issue arises within that subject again, the journalists know someone they can call on again and again.

*Sometimes, journalists are looking for helpful tips from someone in a particular business sector. Again, if you can write to specifically what they are asking for – not what you think they should be asking for – then, they’ll come back to you again.  And you become known as an expert in that field.

*There are occasions where a particular story resonates with what is going on in the world. As we approach the Paris Olympics & Paralympics 2024, one of my clients, appeared in a national newspaper talking about how coin collectors might be wanting to get their hands on coins that the Royal Mint have made for past Olympics.  There were only 29 styles of 50p coins that went into circulation to mark the 2012 London Olympics, and some are rare. 

Having an article in a national newspaper means that they will be likely to get many requests to buy coins, having shared their expertise on this very specialised subject. 

Once your story is out there,  you can continue the PR opportunity by sharing your experiences on your social media, in newsletters and blogs etc, spreading the word to your own audience that you have had national coverage.

The thing to remember with all of these is:

• You have to fit into the timetable of the journalist – you answer their calls when they want to ring you, not when you can fit it into your timetable. If you do the latter, they’ll use someone else.

• Sometimes you might contact a journalist and suggest an idea for an article on subject A, but they come back saying, that isn’t quite what they need at the moment, but could you write about subject B instead?  Write the article about B, because when you do a good job writing about what they want, they may well come back to you at a later date when they do want to have something written about subject A.

• Don’t think that all PR has to be about your business, remember how I’m always saying that personal backstories are of interest to people too, and they can bring you unexpected PR, as Lis’ article did for her.

If you’d like to know if you have a story that could be shared, then my PR day in June is a great opportunity to learn more. Click here to learn more and book a place: https://scottmedia.uk/product/pr-planning-and-pitching-day-june/