By: Kevin Winfield, Managing Director
Media interviews are an incredibly valuable tool in enabling your brand to boost its visibility, build long-term media relationships and leveraging your spokespeople as thought leaders within their space. However, the true impact of media interviews extends far beyond the initial time spent with a journalist and in order to maximise media opportunities secured, businesses must think about why media interviews are a key tactic within their communications strategy.
Establish a strong brand spokesperson
Before you begin engaging with the media to set up interviews, a company must first establish who within the business will be the spokesperson/spokespeople. Typically, companies will foster more credibility by utilising its C-suite team such as the CEO or CTO and it’s important to note that audiences respond better to someone who comes across as genuine, knowledgeable and relatable.
Regardless of who is chosen to be the brand spokesperson, they will ultimately serve as the face and voice of the company and therefore it's essential they have the ability to communicate effectively.
For spokespeople with little media exposure, brands should consider investing in professional media training whereby key messaging can be curated and refined, improve the delivery and quality of responses and overall improve the confidence of the person being interviewed. Effective media training will also provide ample opportunities to practice the interview process through mock meetings and performance reviews.
Maximising post-interview coverage
Beyond the initial media interview, once coverage has been secured, businesses should be actively sharing and repurposing interview content to extend the life of the coverage. Posting content across your company website, blog and social channels ensures that the interview will extend its overall reach especially once you have tagged the author of the article and encouraged active participation in the comments section to discuss the subject of the interview.
While media interviews may be brief exchanges with a journalist, the long-term benefits can be expansive in driving credibility and brand authority. Making the most out of the media coverage secured, those exchanges can become essential assets in extending a business’ influence.
Building long-term relationships
It’s important that brands realise that media interviews are not just a one-time transaction but are instead valuable opportunities to establish lasting relationships with key journalists and industry influencers. Staying in touch and keeping the media regularly updated with industry insights, exclusive news and relevant story ideas will enable you to build meaningful relationships. As with any relationship, the more you invest, the more likely the journalist is likely to reach out with future stories and comment opportunities. Once the media begin reaching out to you for future stories, you can consider a successful relationship has been established.
Is your brand struggling to secure the media interviews that land? Get in touch with The Jargon Group to hear how we can support your media relation efforts from messaging, to media training, to outreach.