Accelerate Your Reputation
Take your reputation to the next level
So, you’ve kicked off your media relations programme:
- You’ve had an initial burst of media coverage
- People are starting to notice and comment on your enhanced public profile
- You are feeling positive and motivated to do more
What do you need to do now to enhance your newly-won media profile?
Build, improve, intensify
The good news is that you are already in a great place to start building on what you’ve achieved.
You’ve already:
- Agreed a strategy that supports your school’s goals
- Focused on the journalists and media that will achieve the most impact
- Achieved clarity on your messages
- Started to develop a strong thought-leadership position
- Gained an understanding of how the media operates
- Had guidance on what journalists do and don’t want from a story
- Started to spot a pipeline of newsworthy stories within your organisation
- Used your media coverage as powerful content across your channels
Our secrets to media relations success:
- Frequency – journalists are extremely busy and without regular contact and ideas they will soon move onto using other contacts. You need to make a commitment to regular, sustained activity if you want to build a long-term, sustainable reputation.
- Focus – as in your first few months, it is critical that you continue to focus on the activities that will have the most impact for you commercially – not all PR is good PR.
- Consistency – now that you’ve got clarity on your messages, it’s essential to continue being laser-focused on the areas that you want to be known for, so there is no ambiguity about what you do and why you do it.
- Creativity – in some months you will have plenty to talk to the media about, less so in other months. In order to maintain a consistent drip feed of activity, you need to be constantly on the look-out for new opportunities, new angles, new topics to comment on – even when things are quiet.
- Relevance – what journalists want more than anything from PR content is that it shows, clearly, how it is relevant for their reader. If you don’t research what their reader wants, you risk rejection from the start.
- Topicality – newspapers are driven by news events – work out how your story fits into the news agenda and the problems you are addressing to increase your chance of success.
- Speed – journalists work at a different pace to many of us. Some have to write several stories a day and deadlines are short. By anticipating what they might need and responding quickly to their enquiries, your story is more likely to be covered and they won’t need to speak to your competitors.
- Systems – boring as it may sound, it is essential to establish good back-end processes to maximise your media relations efforts. This will create a flow of newsworthy story ideas, and help you develop materials and respond to requests more quickly.
- Flexibility – media relations is not all about press releases – although they have their place. The opportunities are so much wider than that. Blogs, thought-leadership articles, profiles, Q&As, case studies, broadcast news, podcasts, picture stories – the list goes on. Knowing where the opportunities are and how they can be used gives you much more options to boost your profile.
- Personality – great stories usually have a human element – either from interviewees, case studies, or simply because they are unusual or controversial. Captivating quotes, irresistible sounds-bites, exciting photography – the point is to be memorable.
If you’ve decided that you want to take your reputation to the next level, there is a proven and easy way to boost your media profile:
Accelerate Your Reputation (AYR) Programme
A 12-month programme, that will:
- Get you results – regular monthly media coverage and an increase in media enquiries
- Lead to greater awareness amongst your target audience, supporting new leads, partnerships and expansion
- Secure your reputation as a significant commentator in the industry, leading to more opportunities
- Deliver new and valuable content to be shared and re-purposed across your channels
- Drive people to your website and increase engagement across social media
- Take the weight off your shoulders, letting you get on with growing your business.