Business Inspiration: Could Your Company Be in a Headline?

Yesterday’s newspaper headline read “Former Yankee Chamberlain takes hill against Chiefs.” It caught my attention because my father was a loyal Yankee fan who passed away 9 years ago on a beautiful July summer day. One year later Joba Chamberlain was introduced as a young Yankee pitcher. My siblings and I couldn’t believe we were watching a Yankee play with our family name of “Chamberlain” on the back of a jersey. We all got one. We thought it must be my father reaching out to us from beyond.

The other headline that caught my attention in the paper was, “Arizona Cardinals hire Jen Welter as first female coach in the NFL.” I love when women start sharing the news spotlight in traditionally male arenas. Jen, a Boston College graduate, will be the first woman to hold a coaching position of any kind in the NFL. Kudos to the Cardinals for recognizing talent is found in any race, sex or age. The Cardinals may become my new favorite NFL team just for that move alone.

The point in sharing these headlines is not to update you the latest sporting news but rather to remind you that every news source needs content to fill their papers and online sites. Both of these articles were printed in the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper and online at Syracuse.com. The online articles can be shared through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and Reddit. An opportunity to have a story created about yourself or your business in the print media today means an online story to accompany it and the ability for sharing the article via social media. My question for you is, “Are you sending your news to the media to benefit from this kind of exposure?”

The only way I have received hundreds of press stories over the past 2 decades as an entrepreneur is because I took time to learn how to write and send press releases. My first press release was sent via fax, not email. I had to drive to newsstands to see if I could find different papers with my story in it. Today’s online marketing system makes sharing our stories so much easier. In fact, a story I wrote about my son’s lacrosse community service project ended up on ESPN.com because I easily submitted the article and they picked it up.

Today’s blog post is to encourage you to start learning how to use press releases to give your company some exposure. It is also to inspire you to focus on promoting news worthy information about your own accomplishments, new corporate developments, milestones or national interest stories to the media. If there is anything I believe can help you and your business this summer, it is learning how to market your company with more press.