My News

Dec 21, 2021

| Membership (fee-based) getty Your financial institution is ready to celebrate a significant historical milestone — reaching a specific size, a special anniversary or a key employee hire — and you want everyone who is anyone to know all about it. Yet, most media outlets you have contacted were hesitant to join the celebration. I recently participated in a planning session for a Southeastern community bank that had just hired a new CEO and was eager to tout the fact. The bank wanted to know the best way to convince reporters to go beyond a short and sweet brief. Their objective was to obtain as much coverage for the move as possible. I shared a few viewpoints with the bankers, leaning on my more than two decades of journalism experience — initially as a reporter and later as an editor who was tasked with determining what events merited a few paragraphs versus a lengthy article. Here are some of my thoughts when it comes to maximizing coverage: • Know your audience. I often received press releases and interview offers that had absolutely nothing to do with my publication’s readership. That could range from something tangential like insurance to something completely out of left field like a self-help book. Take the time to research a publication before you pitch to one of its reporters. MORE FOR YOU • A simple email will suffice. Sending an email to a reporter will get their attention — as long as the information is relevant. Calling a journalist to “see if they received the email” is often counterintuitive. They are working on deadlines, frantically trying to contact hard-to-reach sources and fact-checking. Odds are they will let the call go to voicemail, and there is a good chance they will not be in a hurry to call you back. • Sharpen your pitch. Most publications will not write a story about a bank’s 100th anniversary or reaching $1 billion of assets. It is also unlikely that a reporter will drop everything because an employee is celebrating 25 years. Think about strategic relevance and the big picture. Understand what the publication’s readers care about. Evaluate the underlying narrative and sharpen your pitch to a topic in a way that adds value and resonates with the readership. • Be flexible. Reporters will work with you on the right story, but you may need to collaborate on the timing. Embargoes can level the playing field and give reporters ample time to pitch stories to their editors and do thorough reporting. • Access matters. A reporter will be more interested in a pitch if the top executives are ready and willing to talk. They should be prepared to discuss the strategic importance of the company’s decision. Journalists love good stories. Keep that in mind as you pitch your next big announcement, understanding that sometimes what seems important internally needs to be explained in a way that makes it important to a broader audience. Following these suggestions and building relationships with reporters should increase your chances of getting more traction in the press. Forbes Finance Council is an invitation-only organization for executives in successful accounting, financial planning and wealth management firms. Do I qualify? Follow me on  Twitter  or  LinkedIn . Check out my  website .