Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Press/Media Pages 101

Press Media pagesPart of the magic of getting folks (both old and new media alike) to write about your company is to make it as easy as possible to pull together a story.  It helps if you have everything a blogger or reporter might need all together in one place on your web site so that folks don’t have to go hunting around for it or worse, make it up themselves.

Last week the folks at appstorm wrote a great post for web app developers outlining the 10 marketing resources every app company should provide to make it easy for sites like them to do reviews.  My generic list for any startup would be a little different.  Here’s what a startup media or press page should contain:

1.  A 100 word and a 300 word description of what you do – this needs to clearly describe the market that the company is going after and the key value that the solution brings to that market

2.  Media “sparklers” – this is a list of show-off stats for your company – sometimes you can work this into the description but if not, then list them out.  Some examples of these include:

  • number of customers/downloads/other traffic-related stats (but only if they look impressive)
  • names of brand-name customers that use your software/service
  • amount of money raised and sources (IF these are brag-worthy)
  • customer quotes about your product/service, your company or your founders
  • press/blog quotes about your product/service, your company or your founders

3. The best shareable content you’ve got – You’ll provide links to the places where you share content (that’s the next point) but you’ll want to put your best content front and center for those that are looking to leverage it for a story/post.  This could include:

  • customer testimonial videos
  • video/podcast/other interview with the founders
  • Link to your most important/relevant blog posts related to the company/product/service
  • Other video – such as an introduction to your product, footage of a founder at a speaking engagement, etc.

3.   Links to places where you share content including:

  • YouTube
  • flickr
  • Facebook fan page
  • Twitter account
  • Blog – a direct link to this is helpful if it isn’t part of your main navigation
  • Link to where you keep your latest news releases

3.  Logos – both low resolution and high resolution both light background and dark background (if you do that).  Many blogs use a standard square format for logos so it helps to have one formatted square as well.

4.  Screenshots and/or Photos – both high resolution and low resolution for web and print.  Make sure that you get something that looks good and is visible every when it is quite small.

5. Package it up (but leave it separate too) – You can take the basics of your media resources and package them together into a zip file to make them easy to download but I like to leave them listed separately on the media page as well so that if someone if just looking for a logo for example, they can get at it quickly.

6.  Contact Info. – Don’t forget to leave a contact email and phone number for folks that don’t see what they are looking for.  In particular, if you give press and/or reviewers access to your product for free, say so and tell them who they have to talk to to get set up.

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43 COMMENTS

  1. Great blog post April.

    Not sure if this crossed your mind, but when I worked PR for a consumer packaged goods company, I found it VERY important to research each and every blog/blogger before pitching them a story angle.

    If it was a cold pitch, my intro was short, relevant and it listed up to 5 of the product’s “benefeatures” to capture their interest.

    If there was interest, I tended to send them the information directly. (In addition to providing relevant links to websites.)

    But enough about me.

    (Did I mention this was a great blog post? Drafted with an even greater pen, no doubht!)

    • Hi Sam,
      Thanks so much for the comment!
      I totally agree with you on that. When it comes to pitching folks there are a different set of considerations. Understanding what the person is interested in is a big one and that requires some research. Also, like you say, it’s important to have a story angle that works for the particular press person or blogger you are pitching.
      That said, you might not get a chance to talk to every person that writes about you ahead of time and even if you do, you might not be available at midnight when they are looking for you logo for their blog post. I’ve written about loads of startups on this blog and with the exception of foursquare (see their press page here), not one had a logo on a press page that I could easily download. In every case I also made up my own 100 word description when I would have gladly lifted that copy from them.
      Thanks
      April
      P.S. Don’t get me going on pens!! 🙂

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