What Should Be In Your Media Kit?

Your media kit (sometimes called a “press kit”) may include:

• An advance news release. This is used to announce a time-oriented event or activity, such as announcing a seminar you are sponsoring. 

• A backgrounder. This document provides detailed or in-depth information about an issue, a product or service, or your business. 

– For example: You reach a significant anniversary — this news release provides the history of the business up to this point. 

– Or: You issue a quarterly or annual report about local economic or labor conditions to coincide with national employment projections. 

• Feature news releases. These news releases often result in “profiles” in the local media. Take a key topic and provide your perspective. 

– “Unemployment numbers are misleading,” resume writer says. Then explain why you believe this is so, backing up your opinion with facts. 

• The follow-up. Sent out after an event to report results. 

— If you had a contest for “the worst resume ever,” issue a news release that you’ve selected a “winner” and include a copy of the winning entry and also the made-over resume.

• Your picture. Get a professional head-and-shoulders photo of yourself taken. 

• Information about you. Your brochure or a written description of your current business, the services you offer, and your biography (or your resume or vitae). 

• History of business. How you got to be where you are — when you started, what you’ve accomplished, how it’s changed. 

• Previous media coverage. Reprints of articles about you that have appeared in other publications. Remember, publicity begets publicity.

For more information on publicity, attend my free "Feed the Media" call on Wednesday, Nov. 9.