Every marketer dreams of front-page coverage in a national publication, but when it comes to generating earned media for your contest or sweepstakes, the reality is usually a little different. “A promotion itself might not be newsworthy, but newsworthiness today is determined by your audience and what they’re interested in,” said Sarah Skerik, vice president of content marketing at PR Newswire and author of Driving Content Discovery.

“If you’re a fashion or beauty brand, for example, you might have a promotion around what you’re doing with your bangs this fall, and this can absolutely create interest-worthy content. A smart organization doesn’t miss an opportunity to earn media,” Skerik continued. “You might think your contest isn’t newsworthy, but if it’s a popular or meaningful topic and you’re hooking audiences, then there’s also possibly a good news hook.”

Skerik offers 6 tips for generating earned media coverage in your vertical no matter what kind of promotion you’re running.

Tell a Story

Find stories that resonate with your target audience. Create an emotional connection with a topic they care about—whether it’s fashion, travel, food, a seasonal holiday or a social justice issue. “Niche stories are more important than ever,” Skerik said. “Google’s new Hummingbird algorithm is built around conversational searches. Twenty percent of search traffic is unique searches that Google has never seen before. So people are searching for unique content.”

Don’t Discount Social Media Coverage

Finding stories that resonate with your target audience will also help you generate positive attention from an engaged audience on social media. And this is just as important as traditional earned media. “The nature of earned media has changed. It may start in newsrooms, but what they’re doing today is entirely different,” Skerik said. “Journalists covering a beat are also charged with fuelling digital presences. You may have a journalist on your list whose deadline has passed, but that person could still blog about your story or tweet it out. This is measurable pickup that has a better chance of spreading than an analogue story.”

Craft a Great Pitch

Whether you’re pitching traditional media or social media, a good pitch is still a good pitch. It comes down to having an interesting story, a great hook, relevance and solid information to back it up. “The best advice I ever heard is to write a great headline for your story and make it the subject line of your pitch,” Skerik said. “It’s like writing a great tweet or a pithy post.”

Make Use of Multimedia

With digital media outlets and social media users hungry for quality content of all kinds, make sure you give them a full complement of formats to work with. “One important change in earned media coverage is the opportunity to earn digital visibility,” Skerik said. In other words, don’t use only text in your pitch, add multimedia whenever possible. “Obviously a video doesn’t translate in print, but the sites you’re pitching are probably starving for videos, infographics and images, so include links to related media.”

Include Links

It may sound obvious but it bears repeating: make sure you include a link to your promotion. “I kid you not, we hear reporters complain all the time that they would tweet a pitch immediately if the marketer had just made it easy for them.”

Identify Your Influencers

You may be tempted to hit up the industry influencers with the most followers or highest Klout scores, but it’s usually better to take a more granular approach to pitching influencers. Approach those with a specific passion for your niche, and you’ll find more connection and more interest that way. “Rather than going with people whose attention is hard to get, try B list or C list influencers; they’ll be more likely to interact. Do media monitoring to find out who is writing about the topics you’re writing about.” Skerik also recommends using Little Bird, an influencer discovery and engagement tool that lets you connect with the right people.

Tap Your Entrants

Entrants to your promotion may be your best ambassadors when it comes to sharing your story. Encourage them to tell their friends and share it on their social media channels. Strutta’s social promotions platform lets you reward sharing behaviour with additional entries. You can also identify your top influencers and reach out to them directly.

We can help you set up your social promotion for maximum shareability. Get in touch to find out more.

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