Does your business need a Media Kit?

I was talking to a client a couple of days ago & coming up with ideas for getting her business to be more profitable when I realised she didn’t have a media kit… sometimes called an EPK or electronic press kit

Why do we need them?  A media kit is a digital solution showcasing the services or products of a business or individual.    It is a document that includes information about your business together with a selection of  brand resources which are put together in one place for reporters and media contacts who might want to write about your company.

A media kit ready in one place…

makes it easy for the media to write about you & greater media coverage is what we all want!

Creating a media or public relations campaign that can grow and develop your brand is tricky but you can put up a media kits easily.   You can put together a media kit that shows the benefits of your service in a concise and eye-catching way & you don’t need any technical programming or design skills.

Are you an influencer?

If you are serious about building a career on social media, you definitely need to have an awesome kit to share with the brands and businesses you want to work with.  It really is one of the best ways to show off how serious you are about your work, the future partnerships you’d like to forge & what you can offer brands online.

Whether a brand approaches you about a project they’d like to collaborate on, or whether you’re pitching to a business you would like to work with, having a media kit ready made will make you stand out.

Your media kit can be your business card, your CV, and your portfolio.  You need a document that showcases all the work you’ve done & your achievements whatever your business.  If you’re a blogger, vlogger, photographer, or videographer, you need a media kit that truly represents you and your brand.

What you need to include…

Your bio ~ It’s worth spending some time drafting & editing your bio until it’s perfect – it needs to be somewhere between a positive introduction & a business pitch.   Make sure it include your own images, the fonts you use & your brand color palette.   Make it fully represent you and your brand!

Headshot ~ You need a photo of yourself and your blog’s logo.   I urge you to use a professional headshot; your brand need to have your face & your name!

Social media – if you are an influencer the stats are especially important.  You need to highlight the analytics for your best performing social platform, & work out your engagement rate

Engagement rate = [likes + comments] / followers x 100

Make sure you include all your social media handles & your email address.  Please be professional & use your company name e.g. Jane@janebloggs.com not a freebie hotmail/yahoo/gmail address

Blog or website ~ Be proud of your shop window, your bit of internet real estate.   If you’ve used a free site builder make sure to disguise it as well as you can – ‘powered by ****’ just looks cheap

Testimonials, collaborations, previous works & partnerships ~ This is where you can list all the ways a brand can collaborate with you!

Here are some options & ideas to choose from:

• Guest post
• Sponsored Posts
• Free Giveaways
• Sidebar Adverts
• Social Media Promotion
• Product Reviews

I am sure you can come up with more… you could also list prices next to each service

Here is an article which makes good additional reading on creating a media kit but you don’t need to buy anything as there are plenty of creatives & free templates on Canva

Brand resources & Press Releases

You can have a tab on your website where visitors & collaborators can download your press releases, approved images, logo, quotes & guidelines

Writing an effective press release is an essential skill if you’re looking to get media coverage for your business.  But what information ought it to include & how long should a press release be?  You can outsource this to copywriters…

Here are a some tips:

• Be newsworthy
• Have ‘killer’ headlines
• 1st sentence ~ attention grabber
• Be concise
• Provide quotes
• Image examples

Imagine you are the journalist

Before you even attempt to start writing think about what you like to read, watch and listen to in the media. Most people want their problems solved or they want to go from ‘pain to gain’.  Everyone is driven by the ‘what’s in it for me’  so make sure you include stuff worth reading.   Great example of a media kit here

Journalists get hundreds of emails every day, so emails containing press releases need a great subject line too! Don’t try to be too clever: a journalist will decide in a couple of seconds if something looks interesting. If they don’t immediately understand what your story is about, they’ll just move on to the next thing.

Imagine you are the journalist – make your subject line compelling –  make him/her want to open your email.

If your first sentence doesn’t grab them, they may not read any further.  You need to get the the most important bit of your story or “top line” right at the beginning.   Your first line needs to be a summary of the story in 15-20 words.  It must read like the opening of a news story.

Look at a newspaper & see how many of the “five Ws” (who, what, where, why, when) are in the opening line of news stories, & copy the structure.

Then imagine you are presenter on TV or radio & you have 5-6 seconds to introduce each item eg “And coming up next … why a local shop owner is giving a rose to anyone called Rose today”

The ideal length of a press release is about about 300 to 400 words on one size of an A4 sheet.   That’s probably three or four paragraphs & a couple of of quotes.   Any longer & you’ve wafffled on & it needs editing down.

Sub-headings and bullet points can be useful if you’re including figures or statistics.

Including quotes from people can be helpful but make sure they provide insight & sound like a real person said them. Do not quote jargon or technical language.

A few tips …

• To maximise your chances of getting press coverage, you will have to tweak your idea / your release, for different publications or programmes. You can’t send the same thing to vastly different publications.   Great article on all this here  & a PDF version here.
• Include a short outline of your idea; one paragraph, in the email & paste your press release underneath.  A busy journalist may not bother to an open an attachment. Photos can be helpful but don’t send large files that will hold up inboxes.
• Be realistic in your expectations but aim high.   It may take you a few attempts & lots of chasing to get press coverage for your business but don’t give up
• Ask… “if you don’t ask you don’t get”.  Who do you know ?  Who do your social media followers know?  There just might be someone in your network able to help you.