How to Get Publicity for Your Local Business Part 3 of 3

Transcript

Hi, I’m Carmen Sognonvi.

This is part 3 of a 3-part video series on how to get publicity for your local business.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to ensure that no matter which quote of yours a journalist chooses to include in their final story, it’ll be one that makes you sound smart, interesting, and compelling.

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1. Prepare three talking points

Once you know what kind of story the journalist is working on, come up with the three main points you want to get across in your interview.

Each of these three points should relate to the action that you ultimately want people to take.

Let me show you how this works.

We’ll go back to the example of the health food store owner.

She’s being interviewed about how parents can help their kids lose weight.

The main action she wants is for more families to buy natural foods and prepare healthy meals at home.

But she can’t just repeat that over and over again, so she comes up with these three talking points:

1. Cooking helps maintain weight
Research shows that people who cook their own meals are less likely to gain weight than people who eat out all the time.

2. Fad diets don’t work
If you want sustainable weight loss, you have to make an overall lifestyle change.

3. Parents are the best role models
Parents need to model the behavior they want from their kids. So if parents don’t eat healthy themselves, neither will the kids.

Each of these points brings a richness to the discussion, but they also allow her to easily transition back to the importance of buying natural foods and preparing healthy meals at home.

2. Always bridge back to your talking points

Let’s say you spent an hour on the phone with a journalist.

There’s a good chance that only a one-sentence quote from you will end up in the final story.

Now, if you allowed yourself to get sidetracked and go off onto different tangents, that one quote might have absolutely nothing to do with what you originally wanted to say.

That’s why it’s so crucial to take control of the interview process.

The most important technique to master here is that no matter what question the journalist asks you, you need to bridge it back to one of your three talking points.

How? Just answer the question very briefly, then link it back to your message.

For example, the journalist asks the health food store owner what she thinks of a certain celebrity’s campaign to end childhood obesity.

The health food store owner would answer like this:

“I think it’s a great effort. But I also think that if you want to change how kids behave, you have to start by changing the way their parents behave…”

And then she would get into talking point 2, which is about how parents are role models for their kids, and from there she can transition to talking about the importance of preparing healthy meals at home.

If every single answer you give includes one of your talking points, you pretty much guarantee that whatever quote ends up in the story will convey the message you wanted to get across.

3. Talk in soundbites

Journalists have to pack a lot of information into each story.

Let’s say that you give a long, meandering answer.

Meanwhile, the other expert they interviewed gives a short, punchy answer that makes the exact same point you made.

Which quote do you think will make it into the final story?

Right! The short, punchy one.

That’s why it’s really important to learn how to speak in soundbites.

Soundbites are short, memorable phrases that communicate your message in a compelling way.

But what makes for a good soundbite?

Cliches can be really effective.

Phrases like “it’s not rocket science,” or “that’s like comparing apples and oranges.”

Bold, absolute statements work well too.

Statements like, “The Master Cleanse diet is the worst thing to happen to America’s health since the Big Mac was invented.”

Using visual language is another good technique.

You could say something like, “Believing that banning Happy Meals will end childhood obesity is like believing you can empty the ocean one thimble at a time.”

You paint a picture in the reader’s mind and that really brings your message to life.

If you enjoyed this video, I’d like to encourage you to sign up to get free email updates from me!

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If you missed the first two videos in this series, be sure to check them out.

In part 1, I show you how to get media coverage without having to pitch any journalists.

In part 2, I show you how to avoid the biggest mistake you could make when you first get a call from a journalist.

Thanks for watching, and I’d love to hear your tips for how to get publicity for your local business, so please share them below!

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