What’s it take to achieve a media story in the news?
One of our goals at HMC is to make the hard stuff look easy.
From a client’s point of view, a media story can seem pretty straightforward. We talk to a journalist. An article appears. A key message gets quoted. Great result.
And, honestly, if it looks ‘easy’ to a client, that means we’ve done our job well!
Doing the heavy lifting
A big part of our role is doing all the heavy lifting, so our clients don’t have to. We do the thinking, strategy, research, writing, pitching, follow-up, coordination and media liaison behind the scenes. So, while the end result might look simple, it’s taken our team a lot of hard work and grunt to get there.
It all starts with a client brief
A strong media story usually starts with a good client conversation.
What do you want to achieve? Build credibility? Raise awareness? Support business growth? Help shape discussion in your sector?
What’s your wider business goal? How do you want this media story to support your goals?
We’re always conscious any story needs to support a wider business goal, not just generate attention for attention’s sake.
Our background work begins
After that initial client discussion, we put in the real mahi (work).
We test the angle.
We assess what’s happening in the media and public conversations.
We research facts, statistics and supporting detail.
We work out which outlet is the right fit, which journalist is most likely to be interested, and how to frame the story in a way that will resonate.
Pitching and liaison follows
Once we’ve completed our research, then we write the pitch. And sometimes we also write a media release.
Once a journalist has been contacted, we follow up and answer journalist questions. We also:
coordinate interviews
prepare the client so they feel confident and clear
track the coverage
report on the results
(Whew, exhausted yet?)
It takes time
Depending on the story, one media hit might take our team two hours to achieve. Another meatier story might take 15 to 20 hours of work.
The visible outcome may be one media hit, one interview or one mention. But behind that is often a significant amount of work, care and persistence.
That is the mahi (work) behind a media hit. Done well, it feels seamless to our clients. And that’s exactly our aim at HMC.
Interested in getting your story in the media? Give us a call – we’d love to help.
