Leveraging Media Coverage to Grow Your Business
There’s no question you aspire to take your business to the next level. But where the doubt lies is in how to do it. You may have tried networking, Internet marketing or advertising only to come out in the end with fewer clients than you expected and more expenses than you anticipated. You want to attract loyal customers and increase your profits — that’s part of the equation — but you long for some magical solution.It’s no secret that media coverage is by far the best means out there to take you and your business to the next level. But scoring media coverage alone won’t necessarily translate into record sales or a huge spike in your website’s traffic. Like most things, media coverage is a means to an end, not an end in itself. You have to leverage your newfound exposure to reach your goals, using it in a way to attract potential clients who won’t wait for you to open the door because they’ll be knocking it down themselves.
Being able to put your best foot forward to show the public and your target market you’re the person they should be paying attention to, is what will happen when you successfully leverage your media coverage. Once you start scoring media coverage, you have to keep taking action, nurturing your relationship with the media to keep it strong and fruitful. You'll also want to use your newfound media exposure to build your credibility and leverage it to find more potential clients and customers. But how will you do this?
Just as you're using this media coverage to promote your business, product or service, you should also promote that media coverage to your current and prospective clients to really maximize your exposure. Social networking is great for this! Land a segment on CNN then tell the world about it via Twitter. Give an interview on a local radio station; post a link to it on your Facebook profile. You get the picture. Just as the media promoted you, you'll want to promote the media.
More and more people are using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to search for their information. If they land on your Twitter profile and find links to your recent media coverage that's an instant boost to your credibility and an incentive for this new potential customer to learn more about you and visit your website.
You can also promote your media coverage in your newsletters and email blasts. Media coverage is a great way to give credibility to the information you’re providing, while creating another avenue to re-engage past clients and followers. And make your website a resource for people. If you’ve scored a television interview where you discussed 5 tips that will aid people in their job search, make your website a place where they can visit to learn 5 more tips.
Like any technique you employ to grow your business, leveraging media coverage takes a commitment, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any other strategy that will give you such a large return on your investment.