Nine steps to make your media strategy work - Guest Blog by Rough House Media
Our thanks to Ann Wright of Rough House Media for her advice on making a media strategy work
Does your charity have a press department? Does it have a public relations strategy? There’s no doubt that charities which are good at PR make more money for their own particular good cause. And if you can become the media’s favourite expert in the field in which you work, that can also do wonders for the profile of your charity – you only have to look at Camilla Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company (http://www.kidsco.org.uk/) to see that.
So public and media relations are extremely valuable to charities - and it is important to get them right.
But before you even think about contacting editors and journalists to secure coverage, you need to have laid the groundwork and established a realistic media strategy. This is best done with media consultants or PR experts who can help identify stories, potential outlets and who will provide you with a realistic assessment of how to make your strategy succeed.
Here are nine steps you should take when planning your media strategy:
1. Identifying why you want more media coverage and who your key audiences are:
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to have a far more targeted approach to securing coverage, which is likely to yield far more coverage than a ‘scattergun’ approach. Key audiences may be potential fundraisers and volunteers, people who you would like to donate money, those in need of your help or influential people in your field and politicians.
2. Identify key publications and programmes to target
Once the initial aims and key audiences have been identified, draw up a contact list containing the names, numbers and emails of key and relevant journalists on every potential outlet for stories. This might include national and regional media, local newspapers and magazines plus specialist press.
3. Developing consistent key messages for the organisation
It is important that your charity has a clear identity and brand, and established ‘key messages’ which are consistently presented whenever media opportunities arise. This helps build up recognition and awareness of the charity and what it stands for, and ensures that these values are reinforced every time a story is released. If there are particular issues on which you need to take a view, then work on key messages for each of these – particularly if they are political or contentious. Test them with working journalists or media consultants.
4. Establish a clearance procedure for press material and press releases
This is important, since opportunities for coverage can easily be missed if the process of approval is unclear or protracted. The PR team needs to the ability to be as nimble, proactive and reactive as possible, especially nowadays when social media is so influential.
5. Produce a ‘media toolkit’
This would include short biographies of key figures within the charity, a history of the charity, case studies of people who you have helped, or who need help, and interesting photos to demonstrate your work. These should all be ready to send out with each news release, although every element may not always be used, and new case studies and photos may be necessary for individual stories. It is important you obtain the permission of anyone who is the subject of a case study, and if appropriate their agreement to be interviewed. Having case studies (or ‘victims’ as the media often rather callously describes them) available for interview can be the make or break factor in whether you get the coverage you seek.
In addition, aim to establish contact with potential local celebrities (even MPs get lots of coverage in the local media) to ensure that if you are holding an event you have a list of people you can invite who might attract coverage.
6. Establish a social media policy
Social media is becoming increasingly integrated into the mainstream media, so make sure your PR or media strategy recognises this and incorporates it. It is important that whoever manages your social media is part of the PR team, and knows all the latest issues and messages that you need to deliver.
7. Story Brainstorm Session
Brainstorm potential story ideas and for each one, establish the key elements needed to them attractive to the media and your target audience. Produce an action plan to make sure the stories happen! Again it helps to do this with working journalists or media consultants who can tell you what the press are looking for.
8. Identify potential spokespeople
It is important that you have several spokespeople who are prepared to do interviews on your behalf. Each one needs to be credible, happy to make themselves available at odd hours, and comfortable doing interviews with the media. Oh, and able to make your case effectively! They must be clear what your key messages are and, if necessary, receive media training to ensure they are able to make the most of each interview.
9. Produce promotional film
A promotional film and some stock shots which are made available to the media help tell your story in a vivid and compelling way. Often the availability of footage can make the difference between a TV programme deciding to cover a story or not. For example, if someone has raised money for you by trekking to the South Pole, you’re far more like to get coverage if you’ve got footage of them battling through blizzards and doing video blogs as they try to reach the spot than if you can offer is a photo of them handing over a big cheque.
This might all sound like a lot of work, but once you have all these elements in place, it will be far easier to then go out and make sure you attract the kind of coverage that will have the donations flooding in. So it’s well worth investing the time at the outset, rather than sending out press releases and email pitches to journalists which just end up being deleted and don’t ever secure the coverage they deserve.
Ann Wright
