by Felicity Cowie, The Media Relations Coach
In my earlier blog for LoA, 'What Exactly is Media Relations?', I said there are at least eight mega benefits of media relations for any business to consider:
Gain exposure with zero to low financial investment
Build credibility
Build pipeline faster
Get highly valuable shareable content
Find product-market fit
Become a thought leader and ‘category queen’
Get funding and more funding
Gain external validation
In this series of blogs, I give you more detail and tools to gain each of these benefits. Let’s look now at the second one - how you can build credibility for your business using media relations.
Third-party media coverage serves as outside validation and helps establish credibility for a business. Journalists know how to find holes in a story and can choose anybody to work with, so when your business is featured in a Financial Times or Bloomberg news story, this is proof you’ve stood up to their scrutiny and selection.
Investors need a reason to believe in your business, and media coverage can give them this, particularly if you can demonstrate the growth of your business, from your first big contract win to partnerships signed and awards won, to transformations delivered in the real world.
When you publish content on your own channels this is always viewed as self-promotional, no matter how valuable. However, if a third party selects and includes you in their content this carries greater trustworthiness.
What you need to do is research and then target journalists and outlets most likely to be valued by the people you want your business to reach. In focusing on these targets, you also increase your chances of becoming their go-to sources for news.
You can read more about all of this and gain tools to do it all in my new book Exposure: Insider Secrets to Make Your Business a Go-To Authority for Journalists Get Exposure
Felicity Cowie has worked as a media relations trouble-shooter for some of the world’s leading organisations and is a former BBC News and Panorama journalist. She’s worked on 100,000 story pitches from both sides. She now makes her insights and tactics available to the founders and leaders of today’s early-stage businesses, helping them gain exposure and competitive advantage. She is the author of Exposure: Insider Secrets to Make Your Business a Go-To Authority for Journalists. More information www.themediarelationscoach.com
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