A key service that Phiness PR provides is monitoring editorial requests to identify opportunities for clients to share their expertise. By quickly providing journalists with a comment from an entrepreneur, CTO, or CEO, we can help them to season their articles with practical advice, real-world experience, and case study examples, that provide added value for their readers.
Sometimes this monitoring process can generate personal opportunities too. This was the case one Friday evening, when I spotted a request from a journalist at The Times.
The journalist was reporting on recent high-profile cases where celebrities have bequeathed huge fortunes to their pets. He was seeking examples of ordinary people who have also made provision for their pets in their wills, albeit with more modest sums involved.
I sent a brief paragraph explaining why I left my two tortoises to my nephew in my will. He responded ten minutes later to request a picture of the tortoises, which I immediately sent.
Putting media advice into practice:
The journalist then asked for a picture of me with the tortoises. This is where my training with freelance journalist, Jon Card, came in very useful. Jon regularly writes for The Guardian, The Times, and The Daily Telegraph and shares the following tips with entrepreneurs who are trying to raise their profiles in the media:
1. Have high-resolution photographs ready to send with any press release, or media comment, which are taken against an interesting background that helps to tell the story
2. Wear red, or include a red prop in the background. This helps to make the image ‘pop’ on the screen, or newspaper, drawing readers’ attention to the story.
3. Keep responding to those media requests and make sure you meet the journalists’ deadlines
Armed with this knowledge, I put on a red T-shirt, went out into the garden, and asked my husband to take a photograph with my mobile phone, while I held a tortoise in each hand.
Meeting the editorial brief:
Twenty minutes later, the journalist had a picture that told the story he needed to tell: an ordinary person holding two pets that are renowned for their longevity, hence needing to be passed on in a will, set against a row of garden fences that show that we live in a very ordinary terraced house in Southern England.
Two days later, the story was published on page 3 of The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/more-people-leaving-money-for-pets-in-their-will-t30h9mvwj
Media appearances create more opportunities:
Two weeks later, a BBC producer contacted me via LinkedIn and asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed about leaving my tortoises in my will. I spoke to her over the phone a few days later and the following week a camera crew arrived to film our tortoises, Elton and David, in the back garden.
BBC TV licence-holders can view the segment which aired on 12th November 2024 on BBC iPlayer at [34 minutes, 50 seconds]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024xx4/morning-live-series-6-12112024?seriesId=unsliced&page=1
Key takeways:
• Be alert to media opportunities and ready to respond immediately with real-life examples, advice, case study facts and figures, or industry expertise
• Provide journalists with a high-resolution photograph that helps to tell the story
• Be ready to respond to other media requests that stem from the first story
• Make key spokespeople available to journalists who want to gain additional information for their readers or viewers
• Always meet the journalists’ deadlines
If you’d like to discuss how we can help with your media monitoring and responses, please contact us here