How to Get Covered by Offline Media
July 20, 2011 Leave a comment
by: NEIL PATEL
Who wouldn’t like to get their picture in a newspaper? In most cases it is just going to build up your name and provide the perception that you are successful. Most people do this by paying a PR company, but if you don’t have much money here is how you can get covered in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Wired Magazine:
> Figure out who is in the limelight.
In my industry (Internet marketing) I noticed that sites like Digg and a lot of contributors on Digg were getting covered by online and offline media. The way I figured this out was by browsing through all the trade publications in my industry. Once I figured out who was getting the buzz I started to get to know some of those people. Some of the people who were getting interviewed listed their emails and AIM screen names publicly. I simply created a list and started contacting these individuals.
> Start asking questions
Once you get to know the people who are getting interviewed ask them on how they got contacted by the media. In most cases they will tell you that journalists just contact them because they found them on XYZ.com. What you want to do is try to replicate the effect they created as well as ask them if they can drop your name to the journalist because usually at the end of an interview a journalist will ask “do you know anyone else that I could potentially interview”. This should help increase the number of journalists that contact you.
> Build relationships
When you get interviewed by a journalist make sure you are very friendly. You want to build a relationship with the journalist so that the next time they need to interview someone in your industry they think of you. One of the things you should always do is give them more than they require because that will definitely improve the chances of them interviewing you in the future.
> Rinse and repeat
After you do this with a few people you need to keep the wheels in motion and not stop there. The thing with media is that one minute one thing maybe hot and the next minute something else is hot. You have to keep on finding the people who are getting interviewed as well as build relationships with journalists because the window for you to get in there is very small.
Good Luck!
