 Get Publicity for You and Your Hospital During the Holidays
Jim Humphries, BS, DVM, CVJ
President, Veterinary News Network
Founder, American Society of Veterinary Journalists
Adjunct Professor, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
If you can tie your business, profession, service, or product into a holiday or season of the year, you almost certainly have a winning story with the media. On every
holiday and in every season, the media runs all the standard stories. On how many Thanksgivings have you seen a chef on a morning show teach us how to cook a turkey for the big family feast; every year, right?
The media will do stories they have done year after year, not because there is any news in the story, but because the time of the year is news itself. You can plan on seeing stories about Christmas gift ideas, hot weather concerns, winter weather dangers, fall allergies, Trick-or-Treat dangers, back to school fashions, and summer travel. The list goes on and on.
Plus, holidays are generally slow news times, with many newsrooms operated by a skeleton staff. With many politicians and companies on vacation, there are no sound bites from city hall, so reporters are looking for someone to help them fill the noon and 5 o'clock News. This is a perfect opportunity for you! Think of a clever seasonal tie-in with your business and you may very well attract a reporter or producer and end up on the evening news with several minutes of valuable publicity.
While the media does run similar stories every year on particular holidays, anniversaries, or seasons, that doesn't mean they will run the same footage or script word-for-word. They do look for new and unique angles to take with stories. That's where you come in. Be creative and find the tie-in (obvious or contrived) and you may have a story. Reporters look for unusual, funny, heartwarming, weird, unique, eye-catching, and even fantastical ways to look at a subject.
Knowing a holiday is coming up, conduct a survey or poll of your clients and customers about their ideas, travels, buying habits, or favorite holiday item, and use the results as a story for the media.
For example, a pet store surveyed customers and found that 76% of all customers bought their dog or cat a Christmas gift. Written up in good press release format, the media bit on the story and both print and TV reports
were done on all the possible gift ideas for dogs and cats. It was basically a commercial for the pet store generated by clever thinking and a simple customer survey done around a holiday.
With Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's all fast approaching, this is a great time to sit down and make a plan for how you are going to catch the eyes and ears of your local media this year!
'Til next time...
Dr. Jim
This column is an excerpt from Dr. Humphries' media training article, "Get Free Publicity During the Holidays and Seasons" which can be found in its entirety in the Media Training Library at MyVNN.com.
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