My startup got mentioned on live TV! Here's how you can do it, too.
Getting mentioned on TV can be either a very big achievement for your PR department, a very expensive endeavor of buying a feature/ad, or a lucky fluke for your business.
One thing is clear - it will result in your name getting noticed, you receiving more users or selling more of your product. And exponentially expand your authority and credibility as a brand and voice in your industry.
Recently, my travel-tech startup Ratepunk got mentioned on CNBC TV, which resulted in extensive media coverage and probably our biggest breakthrough in the US market, PR-wise!
And the best part was that it was free and organic.
This is how we at Ratepunk did it.
Finding the right journalist.
Hunt for relevant headlines and keep up with the news.
At Ratepunk, we're all about travel, so we regularly review travel news and look where we can add our input, use our data to provide value for the journalist we want to reach out to
When we find an angle we can pursue, we look at what we have and what we can provide and reach to that journalist with an idea and an open-ended email to contact us live for a comment or any further details to ensure the best for the article if there is even a slight sign of interest towards the topic we chose to pursue.
To get the contact information of the journalist, you can use various methods.
- find their personal page by googling their name
- use muckrack (expensive)
- or use contactout - basically, a muckrack that is cheaper with a flexible free trial. This is our preferred method
okay, easy
It is very important to provide value with your idea. Be interested and invested in your idea for the article, and provide quality content for the journalist. Create good-looking spreadsheets and so on.
one of the spreadsheets we provided bundled with our pitch for the article
Leverage the unique aspects of your business to stand out.
We at Ratepunk collect a ton of data that our users search and look for. We see what the lowest prices are on the internet for all the booking websites, and we realized that this data is unique and no one else is really tracking this; that's why we opted out to go with this angle when pursuing this particular journalist - she has written about cheapest hotels before so we swoop in and said
"Hey, you can write about this topic from this angle by using our data."
So yeah, don't forget to track data, and use it to improve your product and push your identity and authority forward through PR, marketing, and social media strategy.
Live contact.
One big part of our TV success was my quickly following up with a call with a journalist to have a conversation about the matter.
Do not be afraid of live calls and interviews - it's the best way to get your point and information across without any confusion while also making real contact with a person whom you can start to develop a professional relationship with, which will potentially bear even more fruit in the long run.
And that's it!
- Find the right journalist who writes about your niche.
- Provide value with your pitch, research what they write about, and what subjects are relevant to you.
- Leverage the unique aspects of your business to get yourself mentioned.
- Make real, live contact; know what you're talking about.
