I’ve booked, staffed and supported media desk sides, also known as press tours throughout my PR career which has included many big, well known brands such as Williams Sonoma and west elm and many small companies who enjoy a national market presence and have a distribution strategy in place but they lack broad based, national consumer awareness as a brand.
So, for the larger, well known brands, media desk provide an ongoing platform for them to tell they’re seasonal and product story with the goal of maintaining a presence, relevance among top consumer media. For the smaller, lesser known companies, media desk side tours provide an opportunity to introduce an unknown company, to tell their story and to show their most interesting and newsworthy products and services in the hopes of garnering awareness, influencers among the top tier media leading to coveted third party media endorsements.
In this first video blog post of what I hope to be a series of ongoing video shorts, I am going to share with you my top insights and key tips to help you maximize your investment of time and money when considering a NYC media desk side tour!
Video Blog Post:
Press Tour Secrets (video transcript)
- Book meetings in clusters by publisher. Most of the top publishers, Conde Nast, Time, Inc. Hearst, Meredith Corporation, have their world Headquarters in New York City where the majority of their media titles editorial staff sit under one roof. Knowing this and booking accordingly will save you time and stress. Trust me.
- Two words: Car Service. Build this into the budget when building out costs. Your stiletto loving feet will thank you.
- Desk side does not have to be at a desk. Lunch and HH meetings are a great way to meet with the many freelance writers and bloggers that do not work in a traditional office. Everyone needs to eat and seriously who doesn’t like happy hour?
- This is your 15 minutes. These folks are popular. Against many odds, you won this meeting against hundreds, possibly thousands of other companies. You have 15 minutes (actually more like 12, to tell your story). Be prepared and go for it. But keep it short and to the point.
- Designate a note taker. Not super sexy but this is key. During your 15 minutes, there should be a lot of engagement, information, ideas, and opportunities happening. Have one person who is clearly not the spokesperson or CEO, take copious notes at each and every meeting. That way when you get back to your hotel you can review and priorities all the next steps. This is what you came here for. Do not miss out because you forgot an important detail or failed to follow-up on a key question or deliverable.
PR is not rocket science but the results can be magical. Thanks for watching.
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