A Favorite Tactic to Consider
Have you ever been on a Media Tour? The Media Tour is one of SPRYTE’s favorite earned media tools. Why? Because Media Tours can be incredibly results-oriented, especially for healthcare and social service providers.
So, what exactly is a Media Tour? A Media Tour is one or more informal meetings with relevant media. Media Tours can be targeted to hyperlocal grassroots outlets, regional broadcast news stations, trade publications and/or national consumer and business media targets. SPRYTE has conducted Media Tours to all types of media.
We suggest and implement Media Tours on behalf of our clients because SPRYTE is engaged to deliver meaningful earned media results. It’s our job!
Here are examples of three Media Tours SPRYTE recommended and conducted recently on behalf of healthcare and social service providers:
CEO Consumer Media Tour to 11 Site Markets
In a series of two-day Media Tours with up to seven meetings per Tour, SPRYTE introduced the Founder and CEO of an entrepreneurial healthcare provider to consumer and business reporters and television news producers in 11 major cities. Many of the meetings immediately led to consumer stories. Best of all, open lines of communications were established for future story pitches and event coverage.
Social Service Agency Executive Director Visits the Business Journal
After introducing the “Head Coach” and Executive Director of a large social service agency to the Executive Editor of the Philadelphia Business Journal, a productive partnership was born. Both were extremely interested in how businesses can help individuals step up and out of poverty. The Journal became a media sponsor of the charity’s annual social justice thought leadership day and a commitment by the Journal to run four op-eds per year by the charity’s Executive Director was made.
Building Interest in an International Conference Coming to Town
To build interest in a global association’s international conference taking place in Philadelphia, its CEO, who had once been a local Congressman, came to town six weeks in advance of the Conference for a Media Tour. All major business and consumer media outlets in the Region agreed to meet with the CEO as part of the Media Tour. Detailed feature stories about his industry in advance of the Conference resulted and that was the goal. Mission accomplished!
Here are some reasons you may want to consider a Media Tour for your organization:
- Face-to-Face Meetings are always better than pitch letters and phone calls when you’re establishing relationships and open lines of communication with the media.
- Media Tours provide an opportunity for a spokesperson to relay key messages to the media to see which ones resonate and are considered newsworthy.
- Reporters and producers have a chance to share with you what angles they’re interested in immediately and in the future.
It’s always a challenge scheduling large blocks of time outside of the office. And meeting with reporters and producers can be intimidating, especially for the inexperienced. But, in our realm as earned media experts, there’s no more productive tried and true tactic than the Media Tour. SPRYTE welcomes the opportunity to help you with your Media Tour, whether your “news” is evergreen or breaking. It could be well worth your while.