There are many different reasons why a company might find itself in a media outlet, and it’s best for companies looking to get that kind of exposure to do it for positive reasons.
With the right marketing and public relations strategies, any company can promote itself better and generate some positive media coverage.
Sales
Companies that have experienced significant financial success over a short period of time can let the rest of the world know through trade media outlets.
All it takes is looking at the sales figures that the company has generated in the last quarter, for example. Talking about sales numbers sends out a very powerful message to both investors and the target audience of a company, that the business is on the road to success.
The electric car manufacturers in Norway decided to do exactly that back in 2018 and reveal the sales figures that they achieved. The results were quite incredible, which made them incredibly newsworthy and a great example of this public relations strategy in use.
Awareness Days
There are a number of awareness days all throughout the year that are relevant to various industries and solutions, and they’re all available with a quick Google search. All that a company needs to do to utilize the strategy is pick an awareness day date, and think of a solution, or even an event that the company can launch to mark the special day.
Then, it’s important to let media outlets know, especially media outlets and journalists that could potentially be interested in talking about the news story.
This strategy was utilized by Pizza Express, as the company wanted to join in on the vegan market which has been rapidly growing in the last few years. The company decided to seize the opportunity that was presented by an awareness day called World Vegan Day a few years ago, by launching a free vegan starter in its chain of restaurants. A number of media outlets that cover stories about veganism decided to talk about this event, which earned Pizza Express a lot of positive media coverage, and more brand awareness and even improved the company’s SEO efforts as it managed to generate a lot of backlinks. At the end of the day, with the simple initiative, the company also managed to reach a target audience that it couldn’t before.
PR Stunt
Creating a shocking public relations stunt is a great way for companies to generate a lot of brand awareness, attention, and media coverage.
This is a public relations strategy that requires companies to think creatively when it comes to planning their public relations tones. Most stunts need to be followed with powerful pictures that will accompany the main message of the PR campaign.
This is exactly what the marine charity Surfers Against Sewage decided to do, by building a replica ship out of all the waste plastic that the charity managed to find in the sea. The stunt was used with the goal of urging the politicians in the UK to cut down on single-use plastic. To generate a lot of media coverage, companies need to do something that’s going to be truly shocking to the rest of the world, which means unleashing a lot of creativity for a stunt.