If you are an entrepreneur seeking publicity for your small to medium size business, but without the deep pockets to afford a publicist or PR firm, not to worry! With a little ingenuity, and one or two players from the creative talent pool of web designers, content writers, and blog writers for hire, you can become your own publicist and create a cost-effective online media (a.k.a “social media”) kit for your small enterprise.
A media kit is essentially a gift bag of news and information about your business that is targeted for the press, and aimed at exciting those in the media to turn around and spread the word on your company to the public. A media kit can also be directed at, and attract, potential new customers. A media kit consists of a press release, which is a cutting-edge report of what’s happening right now with your business or product, and a backgrounder, which provides a history of your business and bios of all the principal players. A list of your products and services, and their benefits, is also essential, and any recent news stories or photographs should be included to paint a broader picture and increase “buzz.”
Historically, media kits were, and still are, hard copy packages inside a heavy, pocketed folder. But the digital age has created the electronic media kit which is driven by websites and enhanced by audio/visual, email, and social media. (Hence my term, the “social media” kit for said undertaking!) Create a link at your company website for your media kit, and working with your artist and writer, fully flesh out your presentation with an eye on singularity and salesmanship.
Once your media kit is ready to go, that’s when you really start playing publicist and orchestrate a strategy to get it in front of the press. Do some detective work and find out what media is most popular with the target customer market for your business, be it television, radio, print magazines, internet, any or all. Find out what reporters work that media, and then target them as the pied pipers who will lure business your way through the power of their voice or their pen.
Send this press your media kit via email and social media, then follow-up with a personal phone call. Remember, the idea is to get that reporter so excited about your business that he or she will turn around and excite the public. Your objective here is promotion and success. With a little luck, you’ll get it. Not bad for free publicity!
For more information on creating a media kit, visit StartupNation.
Michael V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
