Submitted by Sabina Hitchen on | 0 Comments
Telling your story to your local press is key to your company's publicity campaign plan. Whether you live in New York City or San Diego, pitching your local news has multiple benefits:
It's less competitive than your national news stations, and a local story with an interesting, trendy angle which both female entrepreneurship and small business are:
Is easier to land than a coveted spot on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
It can convert to quick sales and perhaps local retail interest, local partnerships, and allows you to create
relationships with the press for future stories.
Local press allows you to practice for the "big leagues" and get footage for a reel, necessary for national
television press
You can severage your local and regional media hits! Local press often turns into more local press of different mediums such as newspaper and radio.
That said there are specific ways you should go about pitching your local television stations:
Watch the station you wish to pitch and decide what time slots and segments you fit into the best.
Call at an opportune time, ie, know when not to call...If you are reaching out to a producer or even the news desk during there larger news hours (drive time before or after work, lunch news, evening news) your chances of having a useful and unrushed pitch are slim to none. Reach out after the morning news or after the lunch news break when things have slowed down.
Don't forget weekends and holidays: Just because most of the working world has weekends off doesn't mean the news desks close down. Reaching out to producers and assignment desks is actually much easier on weekends and after hours. You are competing with fewer callers (including go get 'em publicists) and it's also a great time to find the producers who cover weekends segments, which tend to be lighter and not heavy news, what many of your stories most likely will be.
Create a reputation as a local expert in your area of expertise. This way when a breaking national news story that you can address occurs, you will be the first they call, or when you reach out to them after seeing a story you can bring a new angle to (which you should) you will be a familiar and trustworthy source.
Reach out and get your company active in your community - another great way to raise visibility.
Let them know you have great: visuals, facts, food, drinks....all great ways to lure in the press.
Finally, when you do a segment, be easy to work with, organized, and always send a thank you note.
Great first impressions often lead to second and third opportunities!
**Core Members: Can't find the number for a local news station? Email us and we'll put it into our media database asap!
