Spin it your way – how to generate news stories for your business

The following is a guest post from Maria Kennedy a director at cremePR. Today she talks about how you can create your own news and spin it your way. cremePR is a company dedicated to creating buzz for its clients on- and offline – you can find out more about Maria and her work at www.cremepr.com

Ever wondered how your competitor managed to get in the news? It’s highly likely that they didn’t have a genuine news story. By that, I mean that they probably created the news themselves rather than a journalist accidentally finding them and writing about them.

Here’s a quick list with 10 tactics to get you thinking about creating your own news (not all will apply to everyone, but will hopefully get you thinking):

1. React to news events of the day. You can pass comment on your blog, Facebook or Twitter, or you can respond with a letter to the editor.  This is a great way to start positioning yourself as an expert rather than simply flogging your product or service.
2. Create a mutual project with a newspaper or other media outlet. You could sponsor a local sports team together, or help a charity, or work with local schools by setting up an initiative. I helped to set a road safety initiative with a number of schools in one area and a logistics company I was working with. There were lots of photo opportunities for the local media, as lorries were taken on site and the children were allowed in the cab and were shown what the driver could see when they were on the road.
3. Conduct a poll or a survey. You only need to pick up a newspaper – any paper will do – to find a story with stats. I’d say you need a poll based on a minimum of 200 people for local news or radio and trade magazines, or over 2,000 if you’re targeting national broadcast or newspapers. Remember, there needs to be a reason to connect it with your business.  I used to conduct a monthly poll on a leading recruitment company’s website, and we found out things like Tuesday is the most productive day in the office; the majority of people would like a job interview conducted by Jonathan Ross; and that only one in five take a whole week off for Christmas.
4. Announce an appointment.  Pretty much every industry has its own trade publication.  Next time you hire somebody of relative importance to your business, let people know.  Local business publications may also take interest.  It just needs to be a short email telling the right journalist, along with the offer of a photograph of your new recruit.
5. Celebrate an anniversary. Every time your business reaches a landmark year, do something to celebrate.  It doesn’t need to be big. It could as simple as offering the press a photograph of your team with a birthday cake. One client recently celebrated its seventh anniversary with a James Bond themed 007^th anniversary ball for charity.  Over 150 people bought tickets and attended and it was hosted by a local radio station.   Another client had a member of staff who had put in 21 years’ service.  She was taken to London for the day and a photograph of her wearing a big 21 badge was sent to the local press with a press release detailing what she’d achieved and why she’d stayed with the company so long.
6. Issue a summary of facts. Every year I used to issue the Top 100 Groceries for a data company and a magazine.  The data was taken from a huge number of checkouts and the report was issued to the media. It used to achieve national coverage – newspapers, TV, radio, and magazines. This can be scaled down, for example if you own a shoe shop, it could be something along the lines of 20 percent of women buy stilettos, 10 percent buy peep toes, but 50 percent buy flat shoes.   Then you would back this up with your rationale as to why that might be the case with your expert opinion.
7. Tie in with a special date. There are key dates in the year that most businesses can relate to and create their own news.  Christmas is a great example.  Do you sell or manufacture items that can be sold as Christmas presents?  You could target magazines or newspapers with your predicted best sellers, or you could do a story about your Christmas supply chain, such as Christmas in September and what your company does to prepare for getting products on shelf. You could talk about staff holidays, or something special you’re doing as a business.  One year I got BBC Breakfast News to do a story about the way different cultures celebrated Christmas in Bedford, all part of my remit of promoting Bedford as a place to live, work and visit. Another time, I invited them to a landmark hotel in Bedford to film how to make the perfect pancake on Shrove Tuesday.
8. Enter industry awards. It’s amazing how many member organisations and publishers run awards.  Look at the magazines and websites relating to your industry. This is the easiest way to find them. Also, your local Chambers of Commerce, or Federation of Small Businesses, and academic institutions often hold their own awards. Once you have found the entry form and read through the award categories on offer, make a list of what your business does differently, well, innovatively, expertly, as well as the messages you’d like to communicate about your business. If you go on to win them, tell your local media, your industry publications, or if the awards are tied to a national newspaper, make the most of their coverage and puts links on your website, Twitter, and your blog.
9. Run a competition. This is a great way to tie in to your local media. Last year one of my clients ran a competition to find the face of its salon. The story ran several times, as the competition was announced, people were shortlisted and the public were invited to text in and vote, and then the winners were announced.  The salon then used the winners and some of the runners up to run its own awards for the stylists and trainees. The winners were announced in the newspaper and entered into national awards. One of the winners became a regional finalist, which was also covered in the newspaper.  This achieved fantastic coverage and raised awareness of the salon locally.
10. Showcase your work.  Most businesses have customers who love them enough to say fantastic things about them.  Make a list of the customers you feel you can ask, along with the work you’ve done for them.  Ensure they’re happy for you to talk to the media about them and ask if they wouldn’t mind speaking to the media if necessary. When they started working with you, what were they looking to achieve? What did you do for them that impacted their business?  What did you put in place for them? What did they like about working with you? Look at their sector media and see if there is a home for case studies in it. Put it on your website and speak to your trade press.  If it’s something completely different or outstanding there may even be a home for the story on programmes such as BBC2’s Working Lunch, or The Mail on Sunday’s Enterprise section!

There are many more ways to create buzz about your business but hopefully I’ve given you a good taste here.  It can be time consuming and it can mean taking time to research and put together your news but before you start, think about the audience you want to reach, what they read, watch and listen to, and how you can put yourself under their noses.