Prestige to Profit - Leveraging National Media Attention



Teresa Berg being interviewed by CBS
corespondent Steve Hartman.

Gaining national media attention is a coup for any company, but leveraging the coverage can make the event more than prestigious - it can become profitable. Jamie Brown Public Relations client Teresa Berg Photography was featured on CBS News This Morning. The upscale Dallas photography studio features portraits of homeless pups looking posh. The pictures of canines in bows and pearls capture the hearts of would-be owners and get the dogs adopted faster.

The story had tremendous impact on Berg's business. The phone rang constantly, she gained 300 more Facebook fans and for about a week she averaged more than 90 inquiries a day on her website. Additionally, she nearly sold all of the copies of her book on how to photograph dogs.

The response from people wanting to learn how to help rescue animals through photography was rapid, but responding to each individually was impossible. Our solution was to develop a webinar series. Information was placed on her website, outgoing voicemail message, blog, and Facebook page. For a small fee, those interested could attend a two hour webinar. We scheduled a day time session and an evening session. Sixty attendees signed up making the event a success!

No Visuals? No Problem - How to Save a Video Poor Pitch

Pitches that are short on visuals might just be better suited for newspaper or radio. However, there are ways to salvage your story and land a successful pitch. Here are a few ways to get ready for primetime.

- Tie into something topical. - The Greenovation Contest didn't offer many visuals, but the story tied into one of the top stories of the summer - the drought!

- Provide tips that solve a common problem.  - Four ways to save on college tuition didn't have a visual punch, but it did provide great information on practical ways to save money.

- Be compelling. Pitching a sponsor for a marathon that hasn't happened yet isn't easy, but this story of how a diabetic runner manages her disease to do more than most makes you want to watch!

Handling Negative Press In Your Industry

A client of mine called concerned that his competitor was featured on the evening news for all the wrong reasons. The investigative story focused on the competition’s alleged poor customer service and bad business practices. My client had two immediate questions– does one bad apple spoil the whole cart and what does this mean for our pending coverage scheduled for the next day? My answer to both questions – this is an opportunity.


We tackled the latter first. We reviewed the coverage and determined the story focused primarily on the competition and not the industry. The reporter who did the story was a member of the investigative station’s team. The reporter who was scheduled to cover my client was a feature reporter. He’s not known for gotcha stories. I contacted him to see if the angle I pitched him was still the one that interested him. He confirmed it was.

Now back to the cart and apples. We used the story as an opportunity to share advice about how to spot scams, and offered to answer questions about the industry to anyone – free of charge. We shared the information on our social media channels and via email. We developed talking points for staff and fielded a few questions from clients and the public.

Utilizing some key public relations tactics we leveraged the situation to work in our favor. An event like this can happen in any industry. Be prepared and think things through before you react. Had we buried our head in the sand on this one, we would have missed out on some great press and goodwill.