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Media Coverage
notes taken from a
seminar presented by Bill Winter
at Success '97 (notes taken by
Stacy Van Oast)
The best way
to get media coverage is to be successful.
5 rules of media
success:
- Maintain an accurate, up-to-date
list of targeted people. The targeted person's name must be on the press
release.
- have someone call and get names,
titles, phone and fax numbers
- keep list up to date: there's
typically a 25% turnover rate per year in media personnel
- keep a separate sub-list of
people who have been good to us and send them everything
- Mix up the type of press
releases you send out
- News Release - tells real
news
- Issues Release - tells our
perspective on issues; 2 criteria for getting attention:
- Do you have clout and influence
in the political system? or are you invisible?
- How interesting are
you?
- Useful Information Release -
provides a service to a media person by giving them factual, interesting info
(helps make radio host sound like an expert)
- Strategy Release - the press
sees politics as a sporting event so they like to know the strategy ("candidate
goes for gun x voters")
- Use objective facts and figures
to prove your credibility (use hard numbers to brag about more members, more
candidates, etc.)
- Make press releases professional
and interesting - we're competing with thousands of other releases
- have a punchy, lively
headline
- keep it short - never more than
one page
- write it in standard news style,
with the lead paragraph summarizing the story
- put opinions in
quotes
- write lively; be colorful and
entertaining
- have a name and phone # for
media people to contact for more info (make sure spokesperson is effective and
easy to reach)
-
Put out more press releases
- keeps your name in front of
media
- cumulative effect - eventually
they may notice that you're up to something
- the more releases you issue, the
better your chances of getting lucky and having something covered
Remember: Press Releases are not
a substitute for action and success!
Recommended reading: Ain't Nobody's
Business What You Do" by Flynn.
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