10. Include generic facts about your product/service (where relevant)
11. Avoid overt self-praise and don’t mention your company name more than twice
12. If there is any time-sensitive material, if there is issue it under an ‘embargo’ until a specified date
13. Write END when the release is complete. After this, write any information you wish to include about yourself or your business under “EDITORS NOTES”, including your name and your contact number, website/blog/Twitter/Facebook and email addresses, so that you can easily be contacted for any further information.
14. Put any supporting/optional background information in an Appendix (within the same document)
15. Don’t use attachments unless they are photographs (be careful here because some editors don’t like email attachments to be sent uninvited).
Top Tips for conducting a media interview:
Before agreeing to any appearance on radio or television, you must check the following:
- Is the interview live or recorded?
- How long will it be on air?
- Will the interview be heard in isolation or as part of a package?
- If the interview will be part of a package, what is that package?
- Will the interview be for local, national or syndicated audiences?
- What will the first question be?
Then, consider the following:
- If it is a radio interview and the reporter is coming to you, make sure there is suitable background noise
- If it is a TV interview, make sure there is action happening behind you over one shoulder
- Pick out and thoroughly rehearse the two most important points you feel you must make, irrespective of the questions asked
- Prepare counter arguments to any likely line and demonstrate that you can understand any opposite points of view, and be competent at being able to turn these back to your two key points
- Use your normal voice and avoid jargon or specialist words
- Remember the attention span of viewers is very short so make your answers as interesting and succinct as you can
Useful contacts:
Advertising – www.adassoc.org.uk – Useful links to sites for all aspects of advertising (for example a link providing information on advertising in consumer magazines)
BBC – www.bbc.co.uk – Information on BBC radio programmes
Direct Marketing – www.dma.org.uk – Standards/Codes of Practice for non-broadcast advertising, sales promotion and direct marketing (eg Guide on Successful Business to Business Direct Marketing, for SME’s, with do’s and don’ts of direct marketing activities like e-mailing etc.)
Local information – www.zoopla.com – Facts about your local area
Local Radio – www.rab.co.uk – Radio stations and listenership figures of commercial radio, Programme types and information, Case studies, Sponsorship and Promotions Best Practice
Local Press – www.newspapersoc.org.uk – Regional and Local Press – Readership Figures (AIR) as total numbers within individual locations and as expressed as a percentage of households and population. Plus links to the various free and paid for papers (including supplements)
Royal Mail – www.consignia-online.com – Postcode finder and various Business Reports
Sales Promotion – www.isp.org.uk – Guidance on best practice for any kind of sales promotion activity – competitions, prize draws etc
See my separate article on pub websites and on line marketing.