The Art of Building Relations With Media - 4 Actionable Strategies

People do not buy goods & services. They buy relations, stories and magic - Seth Godin

Media relations is an important aspect for a startup company. With millions of readers on their websites and thousands of followers on their social media, media is a good place for a startup to introduce their product or service to the public.

That's why big startup companies pour a lot of money to hire media relations agency to make sure they get much positive media coverage.

But how about the smaller companies? They one that still wants to prioritize the funding to develop their products and team? Is there any way these startups can also get positive media coverage? The answer is yes, they can.

In my current company, the content marketing team has proven that it is possible to get media coverage for free. In the past 12 months, we manage to get over 500 media coverage in Southeast Asia for free. We even got featured on Forbes Magazine for our extraordinary content marketing and media relations practices.

In this article, I want to share 4 actionable strategies about building a good and sustainable relationship with media.

Find the Right Person

The first step we need to do is to find the right person in each media.

When the first time I join this company as a content marketer, I didn't have PR background. I didn't know any of editors or journalist in Indonesia's media. So, it is a great challenge for me, but it's not impossible.

According to my interview with several editors in Indonesia, Ratna Dewi (Jalan Tikus) and Mehulika Sitepu (BBC Indonesia), contacting the right person will increase the chance of getting a publication from the media.

Here are several things you need to do to find the right person.

The first step is to create a list of top 50 media. To decide whether the media is big or not we can use several tools such as Similarweb to check their monthly visits and also MOZ to check their domain authority. The bigger the monthly visits and domain authority, the better the websites.

After you know the big media, the second thing you need to do is to find the best person in that media.

Based on my understanding, most of the big media are a generalist. It means they cover a lot of story from politics, economics, social, until technology. They have a different person responsible for the different news section. There is a politics editor, environment editor, and tech editor.

Since most of the readers here, including you, are working for a tech company so we might want to get in touch with the tech editors. But the more people you know, the better.

So, how to find that person?

1. Research-Research-Research-Research

We need to take your time to open the news websites one by one. Read the articles that have the same topic with us, in this case, technology. We can also look at their "editorial" or "contact" pages. Some media provide the contact of their editors there. If not, most of the time the author name is available in the news article.

By doing this you will get some insights. First, the name of the person who wrote the article. And second their writing style.

2. Social Media

Based on my observation, most of the editors or journalist of online media will have at least 2 social media. So, this is a good platform for us to find the right person in a particular media.

I used LinkedIn a lot to find editors and journalist in Indonesia media. If I already know their name, I can directly search their name on LinkedIn and check the results one by one until I find the right person.

If I don’t know their name, I search their media name. Once I find the company page, I check the person who works there.

3. Ask

The simplest way to find the right person in the media is to ask people. You can ask your friends, your colleague, your family, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your manager. You just need to ask. They might don't have a right person in that media, but they might have a friend that works in that media. So they can introduce you to that person and you can ask an intro to the right editors.

In my case, I asked a lot of people. Starting from my sisters that used to work as a journalist in Australian Media (The Australian), she introduced me to her friends in BBC Indonesia, Reuters and also Bloomberg. I asked my ex-colleagues that working at Tech in Asia Indonesia. He introduced me to the chief editor of TiA Indonesia. Last but not least, I also asked my editor friends. I often ask them to introduce me to their friend in other media.

Build a Good Relationships

After we find the right person, it’s time to start building trust and relationship with them.

According to Nurjafri Budi Nugroho, the former Deputy Chief Editor of MetroTVNews, building a good relationship is really important for a startup.

He said startup companies shouldn’t see the media only as a promotional platform. They should see media as their friend. This kind of healthy relations will help the startups to get more positive coverage and at the same time help the media to enrich their content.

There are several things you can do to build good relations

First, have a good introduction.

If you know the person from your friend, then you can ask your friend to introduce you to him or her, via email or other communications platform. If you know the person via their article or the media website, you can send him a connection request on LinkedIn or Facebook and write a short introduction message. Your name, where you are from, and why you want to connect with you.

This is the example of a short message I write when sending a connection request on LinkedIn.

“Hi Andrew. Glad to find u here. I write a lot of your article in Jakarta Post. Btw, I just want to say hi, and connect with you here! Cheers

Second, be patient and don't be pushy.

You know the person, you got their contact and now it’s time for you to pitch them with your story.

Most of the time, media person prefer email for communication-related to story or coverage. So, you need to send them a good email regarding your story (I’ll explain in separate point how to do it right).

If they don’t respond to your email it’s okay. After 3 or 4 days, you can send them a follow-up email. Maybe that day they have a lot of things to do and missed your email. To do this, you can ask something like:

“Hey Andrew, regarding the research I’ve sent you 3 days ago, is there any information you need from my side?”

If after that email you still didn’t get any replies from them, it’s okay. Maybe the story that you sent to them is not fit with their media.

The point is, we shouldn’t push the media to publish our story. Because most of the time they already have their editorial calendar and stories that they scheduled for that week. If the media didn’t pick up our story it doesn’t mean that the story is bad. It’s maybe they have other priorities.

Third, be a good friend.

In order to have a good relationship with them, you need to be friends. You need to make sure they are comfortable enough to talk with you.

There are several things a good friend will do:

First, interact naturally with them in social media. You can do it by engaging with their social media posts such as asking questions, give comments, share their social media post and many others.

At iPrice, whenever I get a publication from a particular media, I always create a special Facebook post from my personal account and say thank you to the editor and the media by tagging them in the post.

Send A Good E-mail

After more than one year working as a content, marketer e-mail is still the most used communication platform with the editors. Poorly written, unclear, misleading or ineffective emails cause not only a loss of time and productivity, but they also harm one's reputation as it leaves a poor impression on the receiver.

Several months ago I interviewed Wisnu Nugroho, the chief editor of Kompas.com. One of the biggest and oldest News Media in Indonesia. He mentioned that there are still a lot of startups that have a problem when sending an email to media. The subject is not interesting and most of them also can’t explain it clear about their product or story in the email.

According to Asmara Wreksono, the managing editor of The Jakarta Post (JPlus Channel), good emails should be clear, it is concise, it tells about who and what is the company or products about, and last be not least why it is fit for the target audience of the media.

There are 4 things you can do to send a good email to media:

• First, send it to the right person. Based on my observation and interviewed with editors in Indonesia's top media, I found that sending a story to a personal email ([email protected]) have higher open-rate compare with general email ([email protected]).
• Second, make a subject line compelling. First, make it short and sweet. Most of the time they read your email via their mobile phone. Second, tell them up front what's inside your email. If it is a research you can write “A Research About…”.
• Third, personalize your email. If you really want to get a publication from the media, never put them in BCC. It’s a big NO-NO for us here. You need to take your time to send your email one by one.
• You can personalize your email by mentioning their media in your subject line "A Research About E-Commerce for Tech in Asia". Second, you can also mention the editor's name in the body email "Morning Terence". The last thing is to have a context of the email. You need briefly explain why the story is relevant and interesting for them.
• Fourth, craft a structured body email. You need have an opening, the main message, and a closing.

The opening consists of a very brief introduction of who you are, where you got their contact and why you are sending the email. The main message consists of the main thing you want to offer. It can be the details of the offer or ask, or the data you want to share, among other things. The closing you should have a clear call to action, what do you want them to do after reading your email.

Send a Good Content

Last but not least you should send media a good content. If you want to get a free publication from media, you can’t create a too promotional content that only focuses on your company. You need to make sure the content can give them additional insightful information.

It’s a boring thing for the media and for the readers if you only share something about how great the services and products you have.

You need to be able to create a unique story angle and use data to get the attention from big media.

As a price comparison website and coupon in Southeast Asia, we are helping people to easily compare products from e-commerce like Lazada, Tokopedia, Zalora, Bukalapak and many others. Instead of making a boring promotional content about this, we created a Map of E-Commerce in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines). It’s an interactive content where people can filter and sort e-commerce based on different parameters such as monthly visits, social media and also employees.

This research got published in 50+ top media in the region, including Tech in Asia, Business Insider, CNN Indonesia, The Star.

The other example of research we did here is the Popularity of iPhone X in Indonesia, the price war between Uber Grab and Taxis, the educational background of startup founders in Southeast Asia and many others.

To understand better about this point, I've interviewed 8 media and ask them "What is good content from the media point of view?"

Here are their answers:

Pradipta Nugrahanto – Tech in Asia Indonesia

Good content should have a specific issue, come with valid data (survey, research or quotes from an expert). It should be adjusted with the need of each media. Personalized it based on the characteristic of each media.

Muhammad Mamduh – MetroTVNews

First, research-based story. We are more interested with a company that can give their unique research about their market. Second, unique product. You can send us press-release about your product but make sure it has these 3 criteria, big name, used by a lot of people, and unique.

Ratna Dewi – Jalan Tikus

Trending related, come with factual data, rarely known tidbits, or interesting conclusion

Nurul Qomariyah – Tirto

Good content should be supported by strong data and analysis. It also should cover both sides so readers can get the complete perspective.

Amir Karimuddin – Dailysocial

Good content should use data, using reliable methodology and give new insights for our readers

Deni Yudiawan – Pikiran Rakyat

To make a good content you need to see the impact, prominence, proximity, bizarreness, conflict, and the timing. A simple concept of news values.

Aditya Gema Pratomo – Suara

First, you need to see the trends in Indonesia related to your industry. Second, use point of interest by making the title interesting for the readers. And third, make it concise and not hard-selling.

Siti Sarifah Aliah – Viva

Most of the time good content is something that will give a huge impact to our readers. It can include bombastic numbers, connecting pro and contra, or related to important actor (company, organization, or person)

To get a publication from top media for free is not easy, but it's possible. You just need to invest a lot of time and energy to make it happen.

This article was featured first in Tech in Asia.

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