- Keep your mailing lists and
contacts up-to-date. Changes in station personnel occur fairly often.
Letters addressed to individuals who left the station months (or
years) ago often wind up in the trash.
- Make yourself known as a
spokesperson for an issue or organization. Because of the immediacy of
radio, newspeople have precious little time to hunt down information
sources when a story breaks.
- Contact radio stations or
individual broadcasters when you have nothing special to promote and
let them know you (or your client) have expertise in a particular area
and are available to provide a local angle whenever necessary.
- Ask stations about their
preferred style and length for public service announcements. And ask
who PSAs should be mailed to.
- Understand what news is.
Realize your company's new widget or service will not be discussed on
the news unless it has true news value. If there might be a human
interest angle in the product or service, find out who at the various
radio stations should be contacted with feature material.
- Don't waste money sending
radio stations photographs with your press releases. They will only
wind up in the garbage.
- Be a good guest. Know your
material, and answer the host's questions, keeping their audience in
mind. Keep your answers on the short side, but provide enough real
information so the audience comes away feeling they've learned
something.
- Thank the host for having you
as a guest.
About the author
Janet Attard is the founder of
the award-winning Business
Know-How small business web site and information resource. Janet is
also the author of The
Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business
Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with
Limited Budgets. Follow Janet on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/JanetAttard.
