What Works.
Your story has three parts: The messenger. The message. The recipient. Let’s get the most out of each part.
1) The messenger.
Reporters love hearing from two groups of people: Their audience and/or people in authority who actually know what they are talking about.
So let’s send them something from you as company president. Or from one of your customers.
THE SECRET. I’M GOING TO BURY THE SECRET RIGHT HERE. I’LL EXPLAIN IT IF YOU WANT. READY? HERE IT IS:
Imagine the ideal. Then Create It.
Now back to the regularly scheduled portion of this site.
2) The message.
You must show whatever you are talking about is new, unique and different. Not just say it. Show it.
In this respect, reporters are not much different than your customers.
So if you are selling widgets and say that you are ‘very enthusiastic about your world class widgets and why, Mr. Reporter, don’t you do a positive story on widgets for a change.’
That sucks. But don’t feel too bad. That is what most of your competitors do.
How about this instead:
For the first time, our widgets are collecting 37 percent more carbon dioxide from home furnaces and this will reduce homeowners energy bill by 25 percent. That’s more than any other widget in America.
New, unique, different.
Whether you know it or not, that is what you are doing to sell your product.
And that is what you have to make clear to a reporter.
3) The recipient.
I am constantly astonished by how many otherwise smart and worldly people think they can send a reporter something called a press release. And expect something to happen.
Most press releases have headlines and contact info and all sorts of things except the single most important thing you need in every piece of personal communication: The name of the person receiving it.
A press release sends the following message: You are just one on a list of reporters and I am sending the same thing to everyone else.
That by definition is not news.
(There is a time and place for a press release but that is so far from where you are now let’s just ignore it.)
So instead of sending out a press release, why not send out a personal letter to a reporter with his name on it. And yours too.
Just a few paragraphs. Tell him something new. And interesting. Don’t tell him how to write it.