How I got my start up covered in Forbes because of quarantine
Quarantine did wonders in my case — I took advantage of the fact that everyone is online, prepared, pitched and got published. Read how can you do it too!
First off, I am not a marketing ‘guru’ that will tell you what to do with your life so you can be happy, rich and successful.
I am a 24-year-old founder of my own company in the fashion industry, called Mess Magazine, which is a creative online and print platform, distributed in 14 countries.
Recently, I have been featured in Forbes and other publications such as WWD, with the magazine and our focus on sustainability, as per reference, here’s the link to the original articles magazine being featured in Forbes as top 5 must-reads during the quarantine
I am aware that not everyone is good in marketing so I’d like to make this a guideline, which anyone can work around and BE PUBLISHED in your dream publication (dreaming starts now).
- Make yourself relevant aka establish your vision.
I know you might wonder — hey what does that mean?
Basically, you need a story that will be captivating enough so others can relate to it.
Editors are always on the hunt for unique, interesting people, products, events and sometimes, personal stories, that will resonate with a bigger audience.
If you cannot think of what you can share with the world that will ultimately bring value to many, here are a couple of things you need to ask yourself, to evaluate whether your story is RELEVANT ENOUGH, before approaching big publications to feature you:
- How do you want to present yourself to the world? (your mission, goals, vision)
- What’s your specific niche?
- How you are different from others?
- Who’s your targeted audience?
- If you try to sell, who’s your customer, and how you can solve their problem? (helping is bringing value to people)
- Your growth plan — how do you envision taking over the world or keeping it local?
Building a strong image that people will be attracted to is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART that you cannot skip, to create online establishment, buzz, and eventually help you with sales.
Example below — we have attached in our press release really good, professional photos from the issue and marketed it as SUSTAINABLE X CONSCIOUS related photoshoot and entire issue, which helped to find its audience — journalists picked it up by themselves later on.
Based on some of the answers to those questions, you’ll be able to form a UNIQUE story of what you do, who you are, and what your plans look like.
2. Show others how great you are already
Bring some past examples of your work to the table (finished collaborations, projects, partnerships, accomplishments), and create a website or Instagram account so people can see it all in one place.
Generally working with influencers (either micro or macro, depending on what you’re looking for), experts or celebrities always helps to build trust with your audience and potential partners.
You need to convince people to believe in what you do, your talents and skills and, build their opinion about you (aka first impression matters) so they can start talking about you and be genuinely interested in what you are sharing.
Lean on your community to help to share your online portfolio with their partners, friends, and family — the more shares and likes it gets, the more established and trustworthy you’ll look, plus, it might generate extra leads for you.
3. Perfect the pitch.
I had 3 people writing my pitch for me, and then, I felt like it’s not good enough, it needed changes, it needed to tell others about what I am going through personally, and in business.
Trust me, you can pay a publicist, you can pitch to many journalists, but if you don’t have a good story, all that effort will go to waste.
I rewrote it and sent it directly by myself to the journalist. He loved it and literally in the next two days he published it in Forbes!
In the press release we highlighted what we believe in will happen and what we represent, as well as added names for extra credibility.
Make your pitch about you. Don’t try to hide the flaws, imperfections, or difficulties — journalists are usually looking for the real deal type of stories!
4. Follow the journalists online.
You need to do your research and look for writers that write about your niche, your competition, and have common share interests with you (let’s say sustainability or mental health).
If you can’t afford or simply you don’t prefer (like me), working with publicists or buying online tools that have all the data of journalists in one place, you can simply create a spreadsheet in excel of all the contacts you think can be relevant to you.
After you perfected the pitch, it will be easy to simply copy-paste it in your email and send it individually to all journalists (don’t send one email and attach others in bcc, this will definitely ruin it).
5. Last but not least — follow the contacts of contacts
You might find out that both of you have mutual contacts, which tremendously helps in building relationships and mutual trust.
Go ahead and mention these contacts in your pitch — it might be worth giving a shot.
If you don’t have any mutual contacts, you can always follow or reach out to relevant people and make new relationships in the industry (pro tip — journalists usually follow the most interesting people so little stalking online won’t hurt anybody).
To sum up:
In general, it’s important to not waste other people’s time and make sure that you do have a strong story and/or presence, target the right journalists, do your research and send emails.
Then, all you can do is wait — sometimes they come back to you in the most unexpected time so be patient and do not give up.
