Media coverage : 7 tips
Media coverage : double your media coverage in less than a year ?
Media coverage
Multiplying the media coverage of your business is one of the main objectives of press relations. But what strategies should be put in place to achieve such results?
To answer it, we went to meet Tarak Aoufi, Communication Manager of Ankama, an independent French digital creation group specializing in the field of entertainment and video games, at the origin of world famous licenses such as Dofus and Wakfu.
Since taking charge of the group’s communications and PR, Tarak has managed to increase the group’s media coverage by 261% in less than a year.
Here are the top tips that came out of our interview with him today.
Discover new opportunities for media coverage
Watch to discover new opportunites
Sometimes your brand can get talked about without your work being the source of it. It is important to keep a watch on your brand name and your products to stay abreast of these new PR opportunities (media coverage).
Ankama uses the day before to track everything he says about the various brands of the group in the international press and on social media. “I can easily call back journalists who talk about us naturally, say thank you and talk to them about the next topics they will cover,” says Tarak Aoufi.
Recently, the YouTuber Squeezie spoke about our game Dofus in a video which had more than 6 million views. We were able to react quickly thanks to our monitoring, by contacting him to thank him and by analyzing all the discussions generated by this video.
In this article we may use different words to designate comparable concepts, here-under some examples :
- pr clipping
- benefits of media monitoring
- pr clippings
- pr coverage report
- online press clipping service
- media coverage report pr
- media monitoring benefits
- media clipping report
- clipping tool
Sectoral watch
Competitive and sectoral watch :
Keeping abreast of your competitors will allow you to identify effective strategies for your market.
- Which journalists and influencers are talking about them?
- What kind of news are they highlighting?
- In which media?
If an influencer is talking about one of our competitors and not us, we can reach out to them to introduce ourselves and think of ways to collaborate.
You can also make sure that there is conversation around the topic of your next campaign. You will be able to detect the relevant angles for the press at the moment and the actors who speak about them.
When our Wakfu series came out on Netflix, research allowed us to see who was talking about Netflix at that time. We were able to enrich our database with these contacts with which I am in contact on a daily basis.
Mailing lists
Prepare your mailing lists well
Depending on its nature, not all journalists will be interested in your information, even those with whom you are used to being in contact.
For each campaign, it’s important to create a new list of journalists to target, making sure that your news will be genuinely interesting to them.
Tarak sends an average of two press releases per week. This may sound like a lot, but it is explained by the diversity of the Ankama Group brands, each involving a different type of media to target. Between animation, board games, video games and publishing, he has to appeal to a multitude of different media.
But for the same subject, it is also necessary to target according to the typology and the country of the targeted media (media coverage).
How to prepare your list ?
When sending out his statements, Tarak targets both reporters in his address book, and seeks new reporters.
Usually we do a rather rough first filter. I am looking for journalists by country and by interest with the filters corresponding to video games. It happens that we have up to 400 journalists who meet our criteria. We will therefore do a second filtering, where we will look at each journalist in detail to add the most relevant to our lists. With this type of targeted mailing, we have an open rate rather close to 40%.
Sometimes we don’t have time to do this filtering. If a news item has just fallen, we should send press releases to journalists filtered only by interests. When you do these kinds of less targeted mailings, you might expect relatively low open rates, when in fact it’s quite the opposite. We manage to have openness rates that are around 20 to 28%.
Analyse of your mailings
Target your reminders by analyzing the performance of your mailings
To ensure qualified media coverage, reminders are essential.
But effective reminders take time: researching each journalist so that you can personalize the approach, find added value that will be of interest to everyone, take the time to call them or write them again.
That’s why it’s recommended that you prioritize focusing on journalists who showed interest when you first sent out: those who spent time reading your email or clicked on your links, for example.
After each sending
Always analyze our open rates. If a journalist has spent time reading our press releases, I include them in the list of my most qualified contacts.
These analyzes then allow him to optimize his reminders. If I send a statement to 100 journalists and 30 of them spent more than 20 seconds in front of my email, I will call them back first, or I contact them on Twitter or by email.
We must consider the press release as a primer on the relationship with journalists. It lets us see who’s interested, in relation to reading time, and it’s with the reminders that we can really start to create something.
Lists of journalists
Maintain yours lists of journalists
As your relationship with journalists evolves, so does their interest in you.
Maintaining your journalist lists is an important step in optimising your press relations. Do it regularly, after each campaign or each month.
Journalists with whom your relationship is evolving positively can be integrated into a more qualified list of journalists to whom you will offer exclusivities or privileged experiences (product shipments, visits to the premises, interviews, etc.)
This will also allow you to identify journalists who have never replied to you or who do not open your emails, in order to remove them from your mailing lists (media coverage).
Finally, if a journalist tells you about their preferences in terms of subject matter or contacts, this is a good time to update this information in your list.
“We always try to requalify and segment our databases, so that they don’t get old. This way our open rates improve day by day.”
Measure your success with media coverage
Measuring the success of your campaigns is essential to value your work, identify the resonance of your messages and detect new opportunities to optimise your next campaigns.
It is important to choose the performance indicators that define the success of your campaign according to your objective: number of hits, potential audience, geographical reach, traffic generated…
Press review and media coverage
Set up a press review
Successes are meant to be shared!
Communication professionals are often challenged on the impact and return on investment of their actions and must constantly prove their added value to their management and colleagues.
For this, there is another effective tool: the internal press review.
In the form of a monthly or weekly newsletter
This press review gathers all your press coverage, or only the most qualitative ones if you have too many, in order to share them with your teams. This will demonstrate the scope of your work and generate excitement for your campaigns.
You can even include share buttons in your newsletter to encourage your colleagues to share your results on social networks.
Tarak has set up a monthly press review, where he and his team share Ankama’s press coverage, broken down into different categories according to brand, and the most impactful social media posts.
Event marketing
How to create the ideal media coverage for your event
Tarak has set up a monthly press review, where he and his team share Ankama’s press coverage
Have you ever thought about its media coverage ?
But apart from planning a few promotions, have you ever thought aboutits media coverage?
And I’m not talking about convincing a micro-influencer to share the link to your event on their Facebook page. I’m referring to real media sites that have a large audience and are opinion leaders in your field.
Have you already created a PR campaign or media strategy for your (upcoming) events? Do you know what results you could achieve if you had media coverage?
What is media coverage, and why does it matter?
Powerful communication with media coverage
Main criteria
From popular blogs to traditional media channels (radio or magazines) to podcasts and web platforms, almost anything can be considered a medium these days. However, the main criteria to consider when talking about media are: an audience (preferably a large one) and an effective way of getting your messages across.
If you can get media coverage, you can also access a powerful communication method that could help you influence a specific target group.
Media coverage
If you haven’t yet decided to get media coverage, think again: It could give you the impetus to increase your influence considerably.
As Ryan Holiday, a famous marketer, said in his book “Eternal Salesman: The Art of Building and Running Marketing that Lasts”: “One reality we see in our culture is that if you or your product has never been published in the press, there is a risk that people will not consider you. Unless it’s something new, it’s very rare that a person or thing is both irrevocable and unknown. Hence the importance of the press and why it is a prerequisite for the most successful marketing plans.”
Bad reason
Two bad reasons to get media coverage for your event
Before you go any further, you need to know a few things. Most people try to get media coverage for the wrong reasons. Here are some of them:
Wrong reason #1. To increase attendance
You’ve probably said to yourself, “Wait, what?”
“Isn’t that the main reason for getting media coverage? The press can help me get more prospects, consumers, and in this case attendees.”
I understand your confusion, but this is a misconception.
Getting media coverage does not automatically mean more clients or guests. According to Holiday, “Media outlets have difficulty charging for their own product-what makes you think they will be able to convince readers and viewers to buy yours?”
Bad reason 2. To be more popular
As Holiday noted, “We tend to take for granted that press is an essential condition for success because very often it either results from the popularity of something or it causes it. The number of overexposed box-office failures that most people could name should already discourage us from this idea permanently. “
If you want to get media coverage for your event, remember one thing: It’s not a way to achieve success, it doesn’t guarantee success-it’s just a step you have to take if you want to increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.
Why sould you have your media coverage
For one reason and one reason only: to gather social proof.
With the promotion of your event (in other words your brand) via the media, and backed up by credibility and status, you will gain more visibility and remain imprinted in people’s minds.
Think about it for a minute: Let’s say you represent a pharmaceutical cosmetics company and organise events to promote the brand experience. You focus on different stakeholders: potential prospects, loyal customers, investors, to name a few.
If you get media coverage
You can establish your position as an industry leader and this will reinforce the trust that is placed in you.
As Holiday said, “Although the media may not persuade consumers, it certainly helps in recruiting investors and employees, and impresses other important officials.”
For example, you can display the logos of media outlets that represent you on your event website.
Obviously, as mentioned above, this will not guarantee you a larger number of participants. However, it will be seen as a powerful message that will confirm your position and reinforce your brand story and identity.
Tips for media coverage of your event
Generate marketing buzz
Just because you are planning a large event or your brand is producing quality articles, it will not attract the attention of media outlets. To get media coverage, you will need to come out with a marketing campaign or a good media story.
For example, when Jay Z launched his book, Jay-Z Decoded, he came up with the idea of a novelty game for his fans. The rapper turned reading into a treasure hunt.
Working with a creative agency, Jay-Z “burst the 320 pages of Decoded into various formats in unexpected places: a rooftop in New Orleans, a pool bottom in Miami, cheeseburger wrappers in New York City, a pool table in Jay’s 40/40 club, and more.”
His fans had to search for the 32 hidden images.
Just because you are planning a large event or your brand is producing quality articles, it will not attract the attention of media outlets. To get media coverage, you will need to come out with a marketing campaign or a good media story.
For example, when Jay Z launched his book, Jay-Z Decoded, he came up with the idea of a novelty game for his fans. The rapper turned reading into a treasure hunt.
Working with a creative agency, Jay-Z “burst the 320 pages of Decoded into various formats in unexpected places: a rooftop in New Orleans, a pool bottom in Miami, cheeseburger wrappers in New York City, a pool table in Jay’s 40/40 club, and more.”
His fans had to search for the 32 hidden images.
Media consumers
This marketing stunt earned him a lot of media coverage that went beyond a basic description of his book release. It was a pretty interesting idea to fire up the imagination of media consumers.
Media coverage : tips
Start with micro outlets
Practice the art of newsjacking
As I write this, it does not yet exist. However, that was never the point. Amazon hijacked the news to its advantage.
Everyone accepted it-including “60 Minutes”, where the ad started-because the company did it right.
Conclusion
That’s why you need to spend some time developing media buzz marketing or campaigns, aspiring to be represented by small outlets or blogs, and finally including yourself in a conversation. Get the word out about your event!
