Let's Talk Earned Media (Again)
- Tracy Scheckel
- Mar 28
- 2 min read
I can't say enough about earned media—it is invaluable for promoting your business and worth any investment you make to develop the materials. Here's a real-world story.
As some of you may know, I have been consulting with the Union River Center for Innovation to develop and promote the Entrepreneurial Exploration Workshop Series, which will be hosted at the Center.
By the end of February, I had established the topics, times, and dates of the workshops, as well as recruited the four lead presenters for the sessions. With that information in hand, I was able to draft a press release about the series and, with the assistance of the instructors, develop thumbnail bios with headshots for each of them and the organizations they represent.
Pulse Marketing manages the Union River website, social media, monthly newsletter, and marketing. In my role, I have been working closely with the team there to showcase all that's happening at the Center. In our monthly touch-base at the end of February, I asked URCI's account manager, Jasmine, to coordinate a registration form on the website and to take the press release, bios, and other information I provided and turn them into a mini press kit. I asked that the kit also include graphics for social media posts, a sheet with instructor information, a poster, and a QR code linking to the registration form.
When the kit was complete, I asked Jasmine to distribute it to various media outlets serving the area. This was not a small project, time-wise, but totally worth the investment in the long run.
Within a couple of days of sending out the kit, Jasmine received an email from Emma Smith, one of the anchors of Good Morning Maine. Emma wanted to interview one of the course instructors on GMM.
Ali Lane, from the Maine Small Business Development Center, graciously agreed to participate in the interview, which happened this past week.
Even with the cost of my contracted time and that of Jasmine and the Pulse team, this five-minute interview reached a large, engaged morning audience for a fraction of the cost of production and ad placement for even a 30-second spot— let alone a five-minute infomercial. And thanks to the digital world we live in, that five-minute interview can be shared and re-shared.
By the way, there is still time to register for and learn more about the workshops.
You can also download the press kit here:
