The easiest way to approach this question is to think about the benefit your story has to the audience of the media you’re trying to place it in (i.e. your target audience).
Stories generally get published if the editorial team thinks there will be interest in them and thinks their inclusion will encourage people to buy their publications or spend more time on their websites.
Let’s look at some examples…
Example one
Your company is launching a new digital corporate brochure and your CEO thinks it’s the biggest innovation in years. You, however, know that news of a new brochure isn’t going to set the word alight, so what do you do?
– Could you package it up as part of a wider sustainability story e.g. Company X has introduced X new initiatives in a bid to go green, including a new digital brochure that will save X amount of paper/trees which, in turn, positively impacts the environment.
– Or could you team up with a local school or college and launch a competition for students to design the front cover or create a name for the new brochure, to add in a community and CSR angle?
Example two
Your company manufactures some amazing products (in particular an anti-wrinkle miracle cream) but none of them are new. Regardless of this, they want to keep pushing them out because competitors are launching new products and increasing market share, so how do you create a hook?
– Can you you find some case studies of customers who’ve used the cream, with before and after pictures, and sell them in alongside your press release, to visually demonstrate the benefits via a customer who’s still using the product today?
– Can you piggyback on any trends eg. recyclable packaging, en vogue ingredients to create relevancy for your product at this particular moment in time?
– Can you send samples of your product to influencers or key media targets? If they’re tried it out for themselves, they might not be able to resists writing about it!
It’s all about thinking more broadly than your specific news and packaging it up in a way that will strike a chord with the journalist you’re pitching to, and engage with your target audience.
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