Marketing Irony

While watching the "Today" show last weekend, I noticed a trend. The guests who had been invited on for the lighter news segments all had one thing in common -- they had something unexpected to market. One was a therapist/author who had written a book advocating that married people pursue their own separate interests rather than feel like they always have to vacation together or do other mutual activities. The point was that separate activities can actually strengthen a relationship.

There's a lesson in that (the irony, not the separate activity thing) for those of us who want to market our stories to the news media. I was once asked by a friend of my wife's to help her get the media to cover a second grade play at the local elementary school. I told her that was not likely to be successful, despite the fact that there were lots of cute kids in costume as petunias, cumulus clouds and dragonflies.

In the course of our conversation, though, she mentioned that the kids would be learning early principles of science as part of this play that could help them in their Standards of Learning testing. So I helped her write a media alert that, instead of the costumes, stressed the fact that preparing for SOL tests did not have to be limited to rote memorization. As a result, two local stations had news crews on hand for the big play.

If your goal is to get coverage, give the media something out of the ordinary. Something they're not getting from every other person knocking on their door.

And if you can write a book about it, all the better!

Your comments are welcome! Questions? Leave those behind as well and we'll answer them!