So You Want to Be a TV Star? – How to Get TV Coverage for Your Brand
3 Straightforward Steps to Achieving Positive TV Coverage for Your Brand, Product or Service.
In this post we’ll guide you through the 3 steps that have helped us generate consistent, positive TV coverage for our clients over several years. Before we go any further, we should emphasize that:
- We’re not PR specialists
- We don’t have any friends or contacts in the media business
- We don’t subscribe to expensive newswire services
If we can do it, you can too. It’s also worth noting that steps 1 and 3 are usually pretty good for achieving radio coverage.
First a few basic don’ts.
Media companies are inundated with emails from people trying to pitch their story. To have any chance of getting your story on air you first need to be noticed.
Apologies if we seem to be teaching egg-sucking techniques to grannies, but to stand out from the crowd, initial pitch emails need to avoid a few basic mistakes:
- Subject bar waffle. You’ve got about 2 seconds to get noticed. So the content in your subject bar needs to be concise and to the point.
- Adverts in disguise. Advertising is a key revenue stream for most media businesses, they won’t give it away for nothing. Media people can spot adverts dressed up as press releases a mile away. Don’t do it.
- Download links and large files. Apart from the fact that they trigger firewall blocking, no-one’s got the time to download them or look at them.
STEP 1 – TOPICAL ISSUE
Media businesses need to generate good viewing/listening/readership figures to attract advertisers (or in the case of the BBC, justify their fee). This involves providing the type of quality content that the audience wants. For news departments, the story has to be topical and relevant to what’s happening in the world at that moment. For marketing purposes, it’s important that your story has a positive twist that presents your brand in a good light. Some of the topics we have successfully used (e.g. fighting plastic pollution), have an ongoing shelf life whilst other stories, like Covid restrictions being lifted, are relevant to a specific date. Timing of the pitch is always important and you need to give news teams enough time to evaluate your story and see if they want to cover it.
Here are two examples of how we achieved positive TV coverage for our clients by linking to topical issues:
1 Retail Reopening Post Lockdown, June 2020
Following the first Covid Lockdown in Spring 2020, the Government announced a timeline for retail reopening, commencing in June. Our client, representing businesses in Richmond town centre was keen to demonstrate to potential shoppers and visitors that Richmond was a safe well-managed environment where people could shop with confidence. To this end, a range of safety measures were introduced.
The story was pitched to news teams a few days in advance of reopening (when the topic would be high on their agenda). Coverage was achieved on both BBC TV and radio.
2 Paddle Board Event – Plastic River Clean Up September 2021
Since 2018, we have organised and run several paddle board events in which volunteers from businesses and the community clear plastic from the Thames and the surrounding towpaths. The events have all received good media coverage including TV, radio, print and online.
In September 2021, participation in live events was still a fairly new experience following long periods of Covid restrictions.
After 18 months of wall-to-wall Coronavirus coverage, news teams were desperate for positive, non-Covid related stories that audiences could identify with. A mass paddle board event linked to clearing plastic from the waterways ticked lots of boxes.
STEP 2 – GOOD OPTICS
Obviously, TV is a visual medium, so potential news stories need good optics to create good viewing.
The case studies above provide good examples of what is needed.
For the retail reopening pitch, we had excellent video footage of anti-viral spray being applied to consumer touch-points around Richmond town centre. Even better for the client, the operatives were wearing subtly-branded but legible tabards. In addition, a retailer in the town with impressive safety measures in place made his store available to film crews.
The paddle board event also provided great optics. Because we had run the event in previous years, we had footage and photos available showing hundreds of paddle boarders in matching hi-viz tops clearing plastic from the river. It looked very impressive and news teams could see what they were getting.
STEP 3 – STATISTICS
Good, reliable up-to-date statistics are an essential requirement for any medium and TV is no exception. Statistics support and legitimise the story and give media owners the confidence to run with it.
For the retail reopening story, we collated stats from recent published studies including Kings College, London. We also had data from a survey of local businesses.
The paddle-board plastic clearing event was supported by stats from several studies including environmental charity Thames 21 and the Port of London Authority.
SEE THE TV COVERAGE ACHIEVED
Retail Reopening June 2020
Paddle Board Event September 2021