Cheap Tricks—media kit for beginners
You’ve published a book, launched a new product or started a new company. You want to snag some free publicity from the media but you don’t know how to get their attention. What you need is a media kit, and you don’t have to spend a lot to develop a package that will help put your business in the media spotlight. A basic media kit starts with the following 4 important components, packaged nicely in a presentation folder:
1. Backgrounder: this is a fact sheet of general information about your business.
2. A news release announcing the accomplishment or product you want to highlight.
3. A sheet of testimonials from customers, if applicable.
4. Contact information: name, phone number, email address and Web site.
Some companies include samples of their product or a CD or DVD of photographs to help tell their story. The aim of your media kit is to get the attention of the media, so be creative. For a press announcement about a new waterfront development, for example, we packaged all our media materials into a child’s sand pail with a sticker of the project’s logo on the front. For a very minimal cost, we were able to set our media kit apart from the rest, and the project received wide-spread regional coverage.
