PR Hack: How to Get Featured in Top Tier Publications by Hiring a Ghostwriter
The Credibility of Being Published
For business owners, one of the most highly sought-after forms of marketing is earned media attention through PR.
Top consumer and trade publications have a relatively high barrier of entry. This exclusivity influences the way we perceive the opinions and products presented to us by regular guests or contributors.
When a subject-matter expert is published in a top newspaper, magazine, or blog, we tend to give more weight and attention to that person's ideas. They've been vetted by a source we trust and deemed worthy to publish. They've become someone worth talking about because publications are talking about them.
As PR expert Janet Murray puts it,
“Not everyone gets the chance to be interviewed for the BBC or quoted in a top-selling magazine… So if journalists from those kinds of publications or programmes think it’s worth talking to you – or featuring your products – you must be brilliant at what you do.”
Being published gives you a trustworthiness that only compounds upon itself. When other media outlets see you’ve been featured by their competitors, they’re more likely to request your input for their own blog or magazine.
That's why "As Featured In" sections on websites are so popular. Those features can set your products and ideas in a different league. Not to mention, large online publications provide great backlinks for boosting SEO and can easily drive a lot of immediate traffic to your website.
The opportunities just keep on coming.
The Truth About Media Features
The easiest way to earn this coverage is by offering your professional opinion to journalists who are writing about topics in your industry. These quotes can be as brief as one to two sentences, and the response may be as simple as answering questions in an email.
The bad news is, being quoted by mainstream journalists is a very competitive PR strategy. A lot of entrepreneurs know the shortcuts, which means there are fewer and fewer actual shortcuts.
Muck Rack, a service website that specializes in connecting subject-matter experts with expert-seeking journalists, recently reported that there are now more than 6 PR pros for every journalist. In other words, there are way more people trying to offer soundbites for articles than there are opportunities for experts to comment on stories.
So how do you become the exception who actually gets some media attention for your business?
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