Media coverage – being featured on TV, radio and podcasts or in magazines and online media – is an important part of any brand marketing strategy. Not everyone can hire a publicist to get coverage – and you don’t need to! Today, I’m sharing how to get media coverage using a great resource that you can sign-up for, that’s FREE, and that will help you find reporters and journalists looking for your expertise or to feature your products!
Media coverage is free and can be far more effective in driving leads than expensive advertising ? you just have to start pitching! HelpAReporterOut.com is a great place to start.? HelpAReporterOut (aka HARO) is a widely-used resource by journalists who are looking for sources or information for their stories. While there are various strategies on how to get media coverage, this is a great first step that can generate rapid results. On the HelpAReporter website, you can register as a source and start receiving emails immediately from journalists who are looking for information and experts. Once you sign up for their free plan, you can then customize your alerts and more.
My experience has been the free plan works great for pretty much anybody. Once you sign up and select the categories you’re interested in, like high tech, lifestyle, etc., you’ll start to see the emails pour in. Depending on the categories you’ve chosen, you’ll get two or three emails a day with listings of the various queries from journalists. At the top of each email, you’ll see the topic and the media outlet. And if you see one that interests you that you might be a good resource for, you can scroll down and get further information about the query deadline and more. As you can see from the examples in my video above, from the high tech and business and finance categories, a lot of journalists are looking for experts on a variety of topics. In addition to opportunities for you to showcase your expertise, a lot of journalists are also looking for products to feature so if you sell a product, this is a great opportunity to find places to get them reviewed.
Once you’ve identified any opportunities that you’re a good match for expertise wise or that you’d like to have your product considered for, send the journalist a very concise, brief email. If they have any requirements in their query, make sure you address those but don’t be too long winded in this initial email. Just answer their questions or showcase why you are the right expert or you have the right product for them to consider. If they’re interested, they’ll get back to you. And if not, don’t worry, as you’ll see, you’ll have tons of opportunities pouring in every single day.
