Media Relations: Reach out to Small Media for Big Results

By Scot Kersgaard, JVA

When you are pitching stories to the media, unless you have an over-the-top story or you are an over-the-top pitchman/-woman you will hear “not interested” a lot more often than “That’s a great story; can we meet in 15 minutes?”

How do you get reporters to move from not interested to very interested? One way is to aim a little lower. No matter what field you are in, there are probably websites and/or bloggers who cover what you do. If you aren’t getting through to the major media, start pitching your stories to the reporters who are interested.

If you don’t already know what reporters and news organizations are covering events and issues that are pertinent to you, you can find them by setting up Google Alerts on the key words related to the work your organization does. Whenever someone writes about your issues, Google will send you a link.

“No one reads those sites,” you’re thinking, and you might be right. It doesn’t matter. If you can get some ink on specialty websites or in community newspapers, you can post links to those stories on your website. The next time you talk to the reporter you want covering your stories, you can mention the ink you’ve already gotten and send the reporter links to those stories.

Building momentum

It could be that one of the reasons you have not gotten much interest in your story is that your lack of coverage is deafening. One reason the reporter you want writing about you hasn’t bitten might be because you won’t seem real until someone else writes about you. If you can build some momentum with smaller media, you may become more interesting to major media.

Also, before almost any journalist will write about you, he or she will visit your website and/or your Facebook page and/or Google you. What they find or don’t find will go a long way toward determining whether they write about you and your good work.

By generating some press, however minor, you pass the first screen. Another thing is that a lot of reporters writing for “minor” publications or websites are actually very good. If they are niche reporters covering an area important to you, they may be opinion makers on their own, people your funders or other supporters follow. A website with 500 regular readers can have a huge influence on a particular area.

Finally, you need to turn your story ideas into blog posts or feature articles on your own website. If something isn’t worth you writing about it yourself, why would someone else write about it?