The question that every PR agency or company needs to ask themselves prior to sending out a media release or a pitch is simply ‘why?’
Why should journalists, editors or your audience care about your media release and the information that you are sending out? Members of the media receive numerous amounts of media releases, alerts and pitches on a daily basis and will more than likely skip over, ignore or even delete your email if your ‘news’ is something that offers no value or news worthiness.
Beckerman Voices have provided several questions to ask before sending out a media release to ensure that when your contact receives it, they will be engaged enough to read it (and maybe even use it!).
- Who cares?
Who does the news impact? Think about who your target audience is and what type of publications they would most likely read, and pitch or send your media release to these. Editors will never be interested in news that does not interest their readers. - What do they care about?
It’s all about the inverted pyramid. Place the most interesting, news worthy information at the top and end with the least interesting news. Your target audience will be more interested in reading an article that starts with something they care about. - When will they care?
Think about the timing of your news. Is it time sensitive? When will the product be available? For some products or services the timing of the media release or pitch must coincide with the release or launch. Unless there is something tangible to use or see people won’t care.
Next time, before you click send, sit back and think about what your target audience would think about this or better yet, get an outsider to do the ‘so what’ test. Being honest is the most important thing. If you can’t with 100% certainty say that your target audience will care about what you’ve written then it may not be valuable news.
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Sydney Public Relations Agency, CP Communications provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that get amazing results. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.
