When starting a successful business venture or launching a fresh product, most business owners or business owners conduct some type of marketing research to determine the level of their prospective customer base. So when getting the term out compared to that customer bottom, many business owners may turn to the mass media to help create a hype for them.
One of my favorite things to do is to inform my clients about their press market. Consider this, in THE UNITED STATES there are more than 75, 000 mass media stores, and almost one million reporters, editors & producers in the whole media market. However, only a small percentage of those may be appropriate and applicable to your business/product. Unfortunately, way too many well-intentioned entrepreneurs are either uninformed or misinformed regarding what it takes to attract media attention for his or her business. Not long ago I surveyed 100 business owners and business owners who contacted my business about a promotion/media exposure advertising campaign. These are the business owners who know their product and market inside and out, BUT they have never thought about launching a publicity/media exposure campaign before now.
They know very little about their potential mass media market or how to create publicity therein. The Lesson: For these types of business owners I would recommend asking for help from a smaller PR agency or promotion specialist who is willing to hands keep to get the client educated. Research to find a person who doesn’t brain spending enough time to teach you in what should be included in your specific press market and the pitch.
Make sure the company or publicist knows the product/business as well as you do and can subsequently teach you about your press market one that can advantage your business for a long time to come. They are the business owners who think that EVERY newspapers, consumer interest mag, and Television show will run an attribute on their new products when they release a publicity marketing campaign.
The Lesson: No product or business, no matter how big or great can rest assured press coverage in every store in a media market. But you can get coverage in a great number of them given the right media tending. Every mass-media pitch will be weighed against the press outlet stores editorial lead-time, it’s available editorial space, and option of an editorial employee to cover your pitch.
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It is totally up to the discretion of every media outlet as to whether your pitch makes it to the pages or on air. It can be an uphill battle if you target the wrong mass media with the wrong message. But you can greatly raise the chances generating those media placements with little media and market expertise know-how. LOCAL, as you might imagine, means the media outlets in their city or surrounding geographic region — the local newspaper, a regional business magazine or two, a few shows at local radio/TV stations. LARGE, on the other hands, are media outlet stores like The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Morning America Good, Oprah, or your other favorite large circulation, trade-specific mass-media outlet.
The Lesson: The reality is local and large are indeed part of your mass-media market, but not the only ones. The best mass media market opportunities may be a large number of other smaller size papers, magazines, updates, or TV/radio/cable shows that may generate more customer interest and sales when compared to a placement in the big mass media might.