Mid-Coast Perspective

Since we’re running a campaign without a budget, our media objective should focus entirely on earned media. Earned media is when your campaign receives newspaper, radio, television, blog, social network, etc coverage without having to pay money for it. Earned media is the cheapest way to get our message out to the broadest group possible.

To earn media, we must Identify Media Outlets. I’ve begun that here with a list of Ohio Newspapers. A list of local television and radio stations is being compiled and will be out soon.

Your job is to find contacts at these news outlets. I intentionally left my contacts off because it is less productive for us all to shoot emails to the same list, than to find your own contacts and building your own contact list. This way, you can develop relationships and your odds of success will increase.

Once you’ve identified media outlets and you’ve developed contacts at these outlets, you must work these relationships. This begins by writing press releases to let them know what is going on. A sample press release is available here from Save Ohio Libraries. Use these to announce situation changes, gatherings, and other big stories. Additionally, make yourself or find a library representative available to participate in interviews, photo opportunities, etc.

Finally, make sure to use them to push your agenda. This is where you write letters to the editor, opinion articles, and suggest interesting facts, interviews, or occurrences that may provide writers good kindling for a story.

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions about earned media, email me at johnathon@midcoastperspective.com