# How to get free publicity in the press



## bananastees (Nov 5, 2010)

Wouldn't it be great if you could see your tees in the pages of a glossy magazine or newspaper? 
Think of the extra traffic to your website that could generate and how many sales you could potentially make.
The question is, how exactly do you get your t-shirt featured in the press?
The answer is that although it can be tricky, if you go about it in the correct way it is certainly possible.
Before I became an illustrator and designer I worked for a number of years as a PR and Marketing executive for some top brands and in this article I would like to pass on my tips and tricks for an effective PR campaign. I am now in the business of designing and selling t-shirts and have just launched a t-shirt brand www.bananastees.com so I am basically following this exact same process right now

So read on if you would like an insight into the mysterious world of public relations........


*WHAT IS PR?*


Public Relations (PR) is an area that is often misunderstood. It is also often confused with advertising, but it is something altogether different. Simply put, PR is fancy way to say "getting your product into the press (magazines, newspapers, TV) for free". When you read an article in which the journalist is discussing a product they have bought, that will almost certainly be the result of PR. The advert for a similar product on the page next to the article is obviously the result of advertising. The simple difference between the two is that one is free while the other probably cost thousands of pounds.


*WHY DO I WANT MY T-SHIRT IN THE PRESS?*


Today's marketplace is saturated with millions of products, each vying for attention. The most obvious benefit of being featured in a magazine or newspaper is that it affords your brand the opportunity of increased visibility. You could have the best t-shirt in the world but if nobody knows it exists then nobody is going to buy it. Basically this is a great opportunity for free publicity - to have your product seen by an audience of thousands of potential customers. If you make sure that your store url is featured with the product then that is an awesome potential source of traffic to your site. 
Over and above the increased visibility, there is something special about being featured in an editorial in contrast to running an advert. I have struggled for the best way to describe it to potential clients in the past and this has always been the best way:

If I'm trying to seduce a woman in a bar and walk over to tell her that I am great in bed - that's advertising
If my ex-girlfriend walks over to the same woman and tells her that I really am great in bed - that's PR

Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy and skeptical about advertising. Having a journalist write about your product adds a legitimacy and appeal that advertising never could. The journalist is seen as being without agenda so if they promote a product it's appeal is amplified - "it must be cool if this journalist is writing about it". This has long been recognised in the PR world, and consequently the 'value' attributed to column inches in the press vs the same space in advertising is the advertising rate multiplied by 3.

So all in all, if you want to increase your brand's visibility, appeal and 'purchaseability' then you probably want to get cracking on a PR campaign. But where to start?


*THE PRESS*


The best place to start is to isolate your target audience, which in this case is journalists. You basically need to make a list of the magazines, newspapers, trade journals etc that you would ideally like to appear in - and there are literally thousands, from the big glossies down to freebies. The question of which you would like to target depends pretty much on your product, and the amount of coverage you are looking for. If you have a brand/product that you would like to keep slightly 'niche' then you would potentially only target the publications dedicated to that niche. If on the other hand you want as much publicity as possible then targeting the mainstream magazines/newspapers will obviously result in mainstream, widespread coverage. It really depends on the brand message that you want to portray for your product. 

The next thing to do is to get the contact details (email address, phone number) of the relevant journalists at those publications. There are directories used by PR professionals that list all of that information. They can be bought but are pretty expensive and due to the fast turn-over of journalists they tend to become outdated rather quickly. The best way to get journalist's details is to physically look through the publications and note down the journalists' names and contact details if are listed. The best place to look through magazines is in newsagents situated within airports or train stations where the shop staff expect a large amount of browsing and won't try and pressure you to 'buy or leave'!

The journalists that are going to be interested in receiving info on t-shirts are obviously going to be the one's responsible for fashion, style, shopping etc. At the bigger publications there is likely to be a whole bunch of people responsible for fashion, from the fashion director to fashion editor, deputy fashion editor, junior fashion editor and fashion assistant. It doesn't hurt to make a note of all of them but you will probably only be interested in the fashion editor downwards.

If the journalists' email addresses aren't listed then phone up the publication and ask the switchboard or receptionist for their details - now is a good time to see if they have a direct line phone number.

Once you compiled a database of target publications with journalist email addresses (and ideally phone numbers) you are ready to move onto the next stage


*THE PRESS RELEASE*


The press release is perhaps the most important weapon in your armoury when it comes to promoting your t-shirts with the press. It is a way of telling the journalist everything you want them to know about your product - a tool to convince them that they should write about your product.

The most important overall piece of advice I can give when writing a press release is to THINK LIKE A JOURNALIST. By and large, journalists are a lazy bunch and would like nothing better than someone else writing their copy for them - and this is kind of what you have to do with a press release. You need to write it in such a way that it can easily be turned into copy - you are practically writing a mini-article. The first thing you need to figure out is the 'hook' - the 'thing' that makes your product worth writing about. It's no good saying 'this is my product and it's great so you should write about it' because there are millions of people out there with great products. What you need to say is "this is my great product and you need to write about it BECAUSE....". The 'because' could be your product's USP, the connection between your product and the publication's readers (a fish t-shirt for the readers of Fishing Monthly for example) or it could be a connection between your product and an event, season or time of year. The bottom line is that you need to persuade the journalist that your product will be of interest to their readers - if they are not convinced of that then they will never write about your product. As such you want to make sure that rather than being super 'salesy' it has a more editorial feel - tell a story where your product is the hero or describe a problem where it's the solution.

The second most important thing to remember is to keep the press release SHORT and to the point. Journalists get literally hundreds of press releases everyday and they simply aren't going to read much more than 3 or 4 paragraphs. So think short story rather than Dostoevsky. 

Make the title succinct and attention grabbing, with a snappy sub-title that explains a little more about your product. 

The first paragraph is your chance to persuade the journalist of the newsworthiness of your product and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th can be used to give additional information. It is always a good idea to include a quotation from you about the product - a short, succinct soundbite that the journalist can slot nicely into their copy if they chose, as if they had actually spoken to you about it.

Remember to include prices, url and contact details somewhere in the release ( I usually put them at the end) and make it clear which details you would like used if the journalist were to publish something.

And lastly, always paste your press release into an email - never attach it as a word document because journalists simply won't open it.



*IMAGES*


As far as images are concerned make sure to keep them to a minimum and LO-RES - there is nothing that annoys journalists more than having their email accounts jammed with 10MB images. The best idea is to sign off the press release by saying that you can be contacted for hi-res images, samples and further information if necessary.


*SAMPLES*


You should always be prepared to send samples to publications for photography - even if you think your hi-resolution images are perfectly good enough for them to print. You should also be prepared to probably never see them again. Samples have an uncanny knack of going 'missing' from magazine's samples cupboards - think of the journalist wearing your t-shirt to the pub as free publicity and move on!


*THE INITIAL CONTACT*


There are two schools of thought on this. There are some that cold call a journalist first to introduce themselves/the product and warn them to keep an eye out for the press release they are about to send. Others simply send the release without calling first. It really is a question of what you are comfortable with. In either case you must never send group emails - always send emails individually, addressed to the journalist with a short message - something along the lines of 

Hi Steve

I thought this might be of interest
Let me know if you would like any further details

followed by the pasted release.


*THE FOLLOW-UP*


The sending of the email is unfortunately the easy part. Once a few days has elapsed, and assuming you haven't had any response, you should summon some courage and prepare to phone the journalist. Now, in my time I have spoken to some really nice journalists. I've also spoken to some really unpleasant ones. On the whole they can be generally characterised as being quite aggressive, grumpy and impatient on the telephone. If you imagine being phoned by hundreds of PR people every day you can understand why. When you call them I would say that around 90% will say that they don't remember seeing your press release - this is a good opportunity to run through it briefly on the phone and answer any questions they may have. You can also send them the release again and this time, having spoken to you, they will perhaps keep an eye out for it. If a journalist asks for hi-res images or samples then there is a better chance that they are going to run something but it is still not a guarantee. 

From this point it really is in the lap of the gods and all you can do it cross your fingers and keep your eyes on the magazines to see if you feature (journalists sometimes call you to let you know that have featured your product but more often than not they simply forget)


*CONCLUSIONS*


And that in a nutshell is how it is possible to get your t-shirts into the press for free. PR is by no means a silver bullet but it can be a great way of generating free publicity and as part of a wider program of marketing and promotion it can prove extremely effective

Dale Edwin Murray
Illustrator, designer and owner of www.bananastees.com


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