07 May How to Make Your Company’s Announcement POP and Actually Get Picked Up By the News

Exploring NEW Ways to Showcase Your Organization’s Announcement

So you’ve tried sending press releases to media about your new hire or product and are frustrated by the dreaded no response. We hear this frustration every day from companies coming to us for help. That’s why we’re here to explore unique, different, and out-of-the-box thinking to generate greater awareness for your business while achieving your goal of generating news around your company’s milestones.

Your organization might be running a special promotion, having a groundbreaking, or participating in research, and you really want to achieve awareness for that. The only problem is, the news media might not be interested in the topics you are so heavily invested in. So what are you to do? Let’s talk about simple ideas that still tie into your main message, but will actually land your business some coveted media coverage.

1. New staff: new employees, especially in leadership roles, are exciting and showcase positive opportunity for growth, change, and direction for business. We often hear how CEO’s want to shout from the rooftops the news about their new CFO or COO. They send the information to local business journals, but the announcement falls flat after that. Solution: We recommend finding opportunities to showcase the new employee in a light that demonstrates their story, what they have had to overcome (struggles and triumphs) to be in their new role, and finding their emotional story for others to relate. Also, highlighting why this new person is important to helping others will be key for the news to want to share such information.
2. Groundbreakings: the story itself isn’t typically something you’ll hear about on your prime-time news. Solution: Elements within this story need to be strong, showcase how jobs are being brought to your market, new services will be available to help people and have some unique factor to it. We additionally like to follow up with groundbreaking stories with experts who can talk about the latest trend, survey, study, research in their field with that as the lead and then tie it back to the groundbreaking.
3. Anniversaries: we know how important it is for an organization to share their anniversary with the world; especially milestone marks of 25 or 50 year business anniversaries. The problem with this is that it isn’t especially newsworthy unless there are elements that benefit the community, share a special (and even emotional) story, or have a different angle associated. Solution: Consider tying in your organization’s anniversary to something unique and benefitting others and watch how much improvement there will be in publicizing your special day.
4. New product launch: there are new products, marketing ploys, and things for people to buy every single day. A new product launch is big news for your organization. You’ve probably spent months working internally on the details to make sure everything is just right. But what do you do when the news just doesn’t pick up on it? Solution: Find ways to take the product and tie it into a timely event or occurrence, figure out the founders or developer’s unique story on why it was created, showcase the way it will help others, and find real stories of people able to talk about how it’s made a difference in their lives.

These are standard business achievements that happen every day, but to your business, is happening once a year – or even once in a lifetime. We understand how important it is to you to gain awareness for the things that are important to your organization and we hope these tips help position your news in a new way that can help you actually achieve the media mentions you deserve.

For more information or help with your company’s announcements, contact us at (813) 865-3093.