Regardless of the size of your business, a media kit is important. The purpose of the kit is to provide information to journalists who want information on the company quickly. This will enable them to learn about your business, accomplishments and campaigns of public interest. Your media kit should be easy to read, engaging and pithy – it must not be a tome as no one has time to read lengthy documents. Here are a few ideas of what to include in your kit, which in today’s digital age, is best supplied via a weblink (unless a journalists specifically requests a paper-kit):
Company background
A short company bio summarising the business, its mission and vision, innovations, growth, milestones, and a summary of key personnel, particularly the founder(s) who will most likely be the spokespeople. It is also worth listing the areas of expertise that the spokespeople can comment upon. If your business is online only, you could also include key social media statistics, website information and visitor figures (which you can pull from Google analytics).
Product and services
Information on your company’s products and/or services will enable journalists to see exactly what you do, sell or offer as a service. Include highlights and main selling points of what you do. This section of the media kit could include customer reviews and testimonials as proof of the impact/difference you make to your customers/society.
High-res images
Pictures sell stories. Include a selection of professionally-taken, high resolution images that tell your story – be creative with your images. Depending on the media you are targeting, you could consider providing a few copies of previously published high quality articles on the company by way of background reading for the journalist (don’t include articles from a publication that is a competitor of the title you’re approaching). Press coverage is not essential to a media kit as journalists do their own research, but it could save them time.
Press releases
Only the latest, most relevant press release should be included in the media kit. That release should be news driven; it must not be about something that the company did or launched some time ago. It should be the leading item in the kit, with the other material provided as background.
Broadcast clips
Audio and video clips will bring your story to life, showing what the people behind the brand do. Broadcast clips should be short – 30-60 seconds; you’re aiming to give a glimpse into your company not tell the whole story. To captivate audiences, be creative with your broadcast clips – I’d advise that you steer away from doing a dull ‘talking head’ piece. Think about all the different formats that you could use – work in action, graphics, animation, etc.
Other items to include (depending on the journalists you’re approaching) are a high-res version of your logo, details of major awards, and the contact for media enquiries.
Your media kit should be kept up-to-date. Produce the skeleton as early as possible and build on it over time. Keep an electronic media kit file where you can store everything so that all the elements in one place – you can then assemble the relevant items to meet the needs of different journalists. And, of course, a PR firm will be able to advise or handle this for you to ensure that your kit showcases your company at its very best!
(Photo: Silicon Prairie News)
