If you offer key journalists and bloggers – those who cover your area of expertise – quick and reliable information, they will return to you in the future. You will become a source for them. The information you provide should not only come from you, and it should benefit only you.
As you read articles by or about your competitors, even their books, be enough of a team player to pass along what you learn to your key journalists and bloggers (yes, eventually you will have some sources of your own within the media community). If you know of someone who is more knowledgeable than you on a certain subject, you shouldn’t hesitate to recommend that person to journalist or blogger.
What’s the benefit of this apparently selfless help you’re offering? Well, when the time comes to promote your book, or to announce a new product or service, your mentioning the book, product or service will feel like a natural part of your relationship with the journalist and bloggers whom you’ve courted, and for whom you’ve become a reliable source of information and a good perspective on events in the field they’re covering.
After all, you’ve been giving them valuable information all along, and your new book discusses subjects that interest them. Your book will be as helpful and informative as the author who has given the journalist so much valuable information over the last few months or years. It’s human nature: We want to assist the people who have helped us in the past. But it isn’t all about selling books. By working with key journalists, you will have developed important, useful relationships that will continue long after your current marketing campaign for your book.
In our next few blogs, we’ll look at several approaches to public relations.