For tour operators trying to stand out and market themselves, there is still no substitute for public relations. Good press and media coverage can put your tour on the map, literally, and amplify your other marketing efforts.
Even as PR and marketing become increasingly reliant on digital tools, the foundation of an effective PR strategy is still based on cultivating relationships with journalists.
But that’s easier said than done. Journalists are busy and often overwhelmed. For your pitch to cut through the noise, you have to think like a journalist and communicate your story in a way that makes their job easier. In this concise guide, we’ll show you how to think like a journalist and craft an irresistible press kit.
Note: this article focuses on earned media and PR. We’ll cover paid advertising in a separate post.
PR goals
The first step in developing an effective PR strategy is defining your goals.You need to decide what kind of publicity you want, why you want it, and how to get it. Here are a few PR goals to get you thinking:
Awareness
Awareness tends to be the main goal of a PR campaign, and it’s something that you get from press coverage, even if your main goal is something else.
The kind of awareness you generate matters more than the amount. It’s not about reaching the biggest audience. It’s connecting with the right audience. For example, a popular walking tour blog with a loyal, engaged readership will likely generate more qualified awareness for a walking tour operator than an article in a bigger outlet that’s less specialized.
Publicity for events, deals, and new products
When you have an event coming up or a new product or partnership to announce, it’s nice to be able to get some media coverage. The time to start preparing to take your announcement to the press is well before the launch date. You should start preparing a press kit (more on that later) and a press release well in advance with media contacts already lined up. The main thing is to think about what makes your announcement newsworthy. This is where most press releases fall flat. They focus too much on the event or product and fail to communicate the newsworthy angle that would make a reporter want to write about it. We’ll get into that in the section on thinking like a journalist.
Validation & social proof
Press coverage is impressive, whether you get written up in your local paper or mentioned in national media.
Your PR goal might be to deliberately seek validation and social proof.
Tour operators hoping to position themselves as “the best” or “the only” or “the original” in a category can benefit from media coverage that defines them as such. Unbiased press coverage is still the best way to let people know you’re “kind of a big deal,” to quote Anchorman.
To get the most social proof from your media appearances, be sure to add links to press coverage and the logos of outlets that cover you to your website. If you have a brick and mortar location, consider hanging framed press clippings. (More on this later, in the section on “building your book.”)
SEO (search engine optimization) and web traffic
Search engines consider news sites and niche, expert blogs to have high domain authority. This means that links from their sight pointing to your sight (backlinks) are ranked higher than links on other sites. Seeking out publicity from high-authority sites is a great link-building tactic and a way to significantly improve your SEO.
This will increase your website traffic and make it easier for people to find you online.
If SEO and backlink-building are your goals, it helps to learn some technical SEO skills and research the domain authority of blogs and news sites you plan to pitch.
Something to keep in mind, it’s almost impossible to get backlinks from major news outlets, even if they run a story on you. The mention of your business on their page will help with SEO, but not in the same way a link would. You’re better off pursuing backlinking opportunities with special interest blogs with high authority in your niche.
Broadly speaking, we can divide media into three main tiers: Local, national, and niche/ alternative. Each has its pros and cons from a PR perspective.
Local
Local coverage might be more important than global reach if you work with a mainly local customer base. An axe-throwing venue popular for after-work drinks is going to have more to gain from positive press in a local paper or blog than from coverage in a national outlet.
It tends to be much easier to get local press coverage. Small-town papers and community blogs are hungry for content, and you’re doing them a favour by giving them something to write about.
It’s possible to seek local coverage in other places if you have a local angle that’s relevant to them. Something to consider if you tend to attract visitors from a specific area or your tour has a connection to their community. For example, an Irish immigration tour in Dublin, popular with Irish-American tourists, might seek press in local papers in American communities with Irish herritage.
National and world media
It’s extremely difficult to get a big paper like The New York Times or a Network like The BBC to cover your tour operation. But it’s not impossible if you find yourself in the midst of a national story, like a food tour adjusting to social distancing rules or a historic walking tour in the American South covering the legacy of civil rights that’s still making national headlines.
If you’re doing your local paper a favour by giving them a story, national media is doing you a favour by covering you. It’s tough out there.
Working with destination management companies and tourism boards can help you get on the radar of bigger outlets writing about tourism in your area.
Niche & alternative
Awareness isn’t about connecting with everybody. It’s about connecting with the right people. Niche blogs and podcast can provide a hyper-focused outlet to reach your target audience directly.
Who reads the local paper? Everybody in your area, including a lot of people who have zero interest in what you do. On the other hand, the audience of a hop-on-hop-off review site or a blog devoted to the world’s most interesting walking tours is going to attract a smaller but more qualified audience. Like local media, niche outlets are often hungry for content and much easier to approach.
Think like a journalist
If you want to get your story out there, you have to be able to get the attention of journalists. It helps to understand what they’re looking for in a story and how they go about finding a good one. By thinking like a journalist, you can present your story as a helpful solution to their constant need to find good content rather than a ploy for attention.
Journalists are busy and stressed out
Even at the smallest weekly paper or local TV station, journalists work under extreme time pressure and tight deadlines. When pitching stories and making yourself available for interviews, you must be able to work on their schedule and respond immediately to emails and texts.
Reporter. Taking notes. Media interview.
Think of how you can present your story as the solution to their need for a good story. Try to make their life easier.
Master your sound bites, have your materials ready
Again, journalists don’t have time to figure out what’s compelling about your story. You have to hand them a story that’s ready to tell. Get your “sound bites” perfected and have any images, links, and press kits ready to go before you reach out to journalists.
By sound bites, we mean concise talking points that connect your tour to newsworthy storytelling.
What makes a good story
In the age of social media, news is driven by clicks, likes, and shares. Great storytelling has to be able to connect with readers through the noise, and there are a few reliable ways to do that. Generally speaking, the following emotional elements tend to make stories go viral:
- Unexpected elements – this is why so many clickbait articles contain phrases like “you’ll never guess what happens next”
- Anger & outrage – FOX News and other partisan outlets have built brands around stoking this engaging but toxic emotion.
- Aspirational content—Anything that makes the sharer look good, smart, or funny is very likely to be shared.
- Heartwarming/feel-good content – This is why roughly ⅓ of the internet is kittens being cute
Marketing Guru ‘Shadow’ helping our Marketing VP with her work
While most of these categories are self-explanatory, “anger & outrage” is often misunderstood. Your business doesn’t have to be the source of outrage to benefit from the virality of this emotion. For example, your hop-on-hop-off tours might cover a period of history that’s related to a controversy in current-events. Maybe there’s a new local ordinance that’s going to hurt local walking tours. By understanding how these emotions drive clicks, you can better understand how to talk about your business in a way that pushes these buttons, so to speak.
It is much easier to join a conversation than start one
Hop-on-hop-off tours aren’t usually the stuff of breaking news. Rather than try to get people to talk about your tours business or latest offer, you’ll have an easier time finding a way to connect what you’re doing to an ongoing story.
Craft your press outreach around timely, relevant stories that are already out there. It’s much easier to join those conversations than to get people talking about you. It helps to follow the outlets you want to pitch, and keep an eye on developing stories.
Pitching, press releases, and outreach
As we mentioned in the section on thinking like a journalist, it’s vital to have all your materials ready before you start pitching. Journalists won’t chase you for photos and links, they’ll just move on and work with someone who’s more prepared.
When you’ve done all that behind the scenes work, here are a few suggestions on pitching and outreach.
Look for low-effort, high return methods of engagement. Remember, journalists are pressed for time (no pun intended) and are desperate for good stories. You’re doing them a favor by reaching out with a well-crafted, organized pitch.
Direct outreach
You can find journalists through the masthead of magazines or in the contact section on a blog or newspaper’s website. These sections often include instructions for pitching stories. Follow these carefully. Editors and news desks are inundated with emails, and they often filter the pile by deleting everything with the wrong subject line.
Journalism communities
For years, PR professionals and business owners can connect with journalists on community websites like Connectively, the rebranded version of the original site in this space, Help a Reporter Out (HARO). These sites are great for finding journalists in search of niche expertise.
For more local stories, you may find Facebook groups and other social pages where local journalists hang out.
Build long-term relationships with journalists
Since journalists are always busy and always looking for an easy story, it helps to stay on their radar as a go-to contact for future stories. There’s really no substitute for building relationships at the outlets where you want your business to get coverage. It’s worth putting in the effort to develop these connections that can lead to more frequent stories and collaboration on longer features and series.
Moving forward: build your book
As soon as you start getting media coverage, collect those press clips and links and to build out your press kit for future pitches.
This should all be easy to find on your website. You want to make it as simple as possible for someone doing a story that mentions your business to find the information and links they need.
You can’t guarantee publicity and media attention. But you can set yourself up to make the most of it when you get it.
Want to read more? Check out our social media strategies for hop-on-hop-off operators.