If you or your company or organization has never received media coverage, trying to determine exactly how and where to start can be such a frightening prospect, that you're tempted to chuck the whole idea even before you begin.
Or perhaps you've been covered by a weekly newspaper and would like to catch the attention of the local daily.
Or maybe you simply want to build your professional expertise and start writing for a magazine that covers your industry. But you've never been published before and don't know how to get started.
In all three cases, it's best to take it one step at a time by becoming familiar with the media ladder--one rung at a time.
The ladder is nothing more than groupings of various media at different levels or "rungs," according to size and importance. The trick is to start somewhere on the ladder and, once you have penetrated the media on that particular rung, use the publicity to attract the attention of the media on the next highest rung, and so on.
Here's what the ladder looks like:
Top rung: National network news
Next-to-top rung: National newspapers, national magazines
Middle rung: Local Daily newspapers, radio and TV stations, business journals, city and regional magazines
Next-to-bottom rung: Trade publications, weekly newspapers, special interest publications, alumni publications
Bottom rung: Print and online newsletters, public access channel of cable TV station
Let's say you're an investment advisor who has never been published but would love a story printed about your business in the local metropolitan newspaper. That's an admirable goal, but it also could be a long shot.
Instead, start at the bottom of the ladder. Perhaps you know someone who publishes a monthly newsletter on parenting and would welcome a column written by you on how to get children interested in saving money so they can buy a share of stock. If your column is published, you can clip it out, and send it along with a pitchy letter to the editor of your local weekly newspaper. Suggest yourself as a source for stories about children and money, or other investment topics. See www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/marketing-tapes/morepowerfulpitchletter.html. If the weekly prints a story, you can send a clipping of that story to the business or features editor at the local daily newspaper, or to a local radio show host whose program you would like to appear on as a featured guest. See www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/reports.html.
Editors and news directors can't be everywhere at once. National TV programs such as "20/20" and "Dateline" get many of their story ideas from the next lowest rung--that is, national newspapers such as USA Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Those big newspapers, in turn, read smaller metropolitan newspapers. The metros check out local dailies, and the dailies keep track of stories that appear in the weeklies, and so on.
A word of caution: Don't send a story from one publication to the editor of a competing publication on the same rung of the ladder. Many media outlets want exclusivity. Just as you can climb up the media ladder to piggyback publicity, you can also climb down it. Say, for example, your local daily newspaper prints a story about your business. Write a news release about your appearance in the newspaper for your trade publications, alumni magazine and chamber of commerce newsletter, which are on the rungs below. See www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/marketing-tapes/doityourselfpressrelease.html.
