At Flux.LA, we specialize in press marketing. From getting you on niche blogs to getting featured on Forbes, Techcrunch, Mashable, Business Insider, Fox, and more, we have developed a process to get our clients covered by major news sites.
Since a lot of our questions on social media were about how to get press, we found it quite pressing to write this step-by-step formula to getting more media coverage. In this blog post, we uncover our entire strategy for getting press and various resources to help you achieve your media goals.
If you find this post useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who might benefit.
1) Use HARO
Help a Reporter Out (or HARO for short) is a very useful resource to get quoted in leading publications.
In a nutshell, reporters (usually working with tight deadlines) are looking for sources (i.e. founders, experts, etc) to quote on their articles to make them more valuable.
HARO sends you 3 emails a day with a digest of stories and articles that need experts. You reply to them and hope to get quoted on sites like Inc, Huffington Post, Business Insider, etc.
- Sign up for HARO
- Answer at least a few HARO queries a week until you’ve gotten 5-10 quotes published. Replying to a HARO request shouldn’t take you more than 20 min.
2) Start with some smaller blogs
The smaller blogs are nice because they are generally more available and interested in featuring you, which makes the pitching process a lot easier.
- Find blogs in your niche by google “NicheName blog” or “NicheName entrepreneur interviews” for instance if your company is in ecommerce, you could search for “ecommerce entrepreneur interviews”
- If you’re an entrepreneur, you can get featured for free on our partner site Future Sharks by completing this interview questionnaire.
3) Leverage your small media features to get featured on larger publications
Once you’ve gotten coverage by some smaller blogs, use that to make a case and to provide credibility about your startup when pitching to larger media sites.
4) Build relationships with reporters
Forging a friendship or partnership with a reporter will take time but it will be well worth it because they will be more willing to cover you in the future once you release new products, offer new services or have any other announcement that needs to be broadcasted.
- Find articles in publications that you would like to be featured in
- Comment on them and share genuine feedback with the writer either via their Twitter or email.
- Offer to collaborate on a future article if the opportunity arises
Here’s some more info about how to effectively engage with contributors.
A few tips to have a higher chance of getting featured on the news
Be interesting
Most people fail in getting featured because their story is not “newsworthy”. Make sure you are creating something that will catch the attention of the writers you’re pitching to.
- Run your story by a couple of people and ask for honest feedback and whether or not they see your article getting featured on the publication you’re targeting.
- Provide a unique angle or create a compelling story
Play the numbers game
We actually collected over 12,000+ emails and social media information of various reporters at different publications and we use this list every time we want to blow up a project. Sometimes, reaching to media outlets is just a numbers game. Keep at it until you reach the exposure level that you want.
- A/B test different subject lines and body texts in your emails when you pitch
- Use Streak to track whether or not your email was opened
- Persist until you get that “yes”.
