Does your business have a media kit? Is it doing everything it can to share your brand story?
Whether you’re looking to create your first media kit or revamp what you already have, you’re in the right place.
A media kit (also known as a press kit) is a promotional tool that highlights your company’s products, services, milestones and any relevant past work. Targeting media outlets, possible investors or even other businesses, your media kit should share everything you would want those groups to know.
Commonly, media kits are used when your business is:
- Launching a new product or service
- Attracting investors
- Promoting an event
- Opening a new location
Of course, the format of your media kit can depend on the purpose behind it. Beyond that, keep in mind that your media kit can be digital (which gives you a little more flexibility in the assets and linking you can incorporate in it) or printed.
The following are seven tips to create an effective media kit for your business.
Gather all your resources
Before you can even begin creating your media kit, you should begin gathering all your resources. Media kits can be filled with a number of different assets:
- Documents
- Work samples
- Images
- Relevant links (if creating a digital version of your media kit)
- Testimonials
- Statistics
- Press releases
- Any additional media assets
Images
When it comes to images, you want to focus on high-resolution photographs. These often are taken by a professional photographer. You’ll also want to collect professional headshots of all relevant team members who will be featured in any way in the media kit.
Testimonials
Testimonials are an excellent form of social proof. They can come from customers, other brands you’ve worked with or anyone else who can speak to the value of your brand. You’ll want to collect at least five strong testimonials.
Past work
Depending on the type of business you have, you could feature past work (such as online influencers sharing past collaborations and what posts from that generated the most traffic) or statistics that reflect your business and are up to date and detailed.
Statistics
Statistics are particularly important to potential investors. Types of statistics you can consider including:
- Website traffic
- Social media traffic
- Audience demographics
- Growth statistics
You can use various data analytics tools to pull these numbers and confirm that they are correct and up to date. Check out our nine tips to get the most out of Google Analytics.
Press releases
For the inclusion of any press releases, you can include up to three (in chronological order) in your media kit that really highlight your company’s milestones. Make sure they cover different angles and are not repetitive. Remember that press releases are ranked as the most trustworthy channel for media. Of course, if your business has any prominent media mentions, you can include that as well.
Media assets
When deciding which media assets to include in your media kit, consider what a journalist would need to write an accurate article about your business. This can include photographs, samples, infographics and more. Then, those assets should be listed in your resources section.
Optimize your introduction
First impressions are everything. You want to write a concise yet informative summary of your business as an introduction. This could include elements of your mission statement, but it doesn’t have to.
Regardless of whether your media kit is about your business as a whole or reflects a newly launched product (or something else), your introduction should still focus on what your business is about.
Keep your introduction to just one paragraph. In addition to referring to your mission statement for inspiration, you can also consider:
- The history of the business
- Your personal story
- The “why” behind your business
Whatever angle you choose to take should not double up on the information you’re planning on including elsewhere in your media kit.
Of course, your logo and any relevant headshot images of founders or other team members should be paired with your introduction.
Include contact information
Your contact information might be a given in your media kit, considering its purpose. But a great place for your contact information is immediately following your introduction.
The contact information should be for whoever can be interviewed by the media. This can be the founder, a public relations representative or any relevant individual with the company.
Remember to include the contact’s:
- Phone number
- Email address
- Website URL
- Social media handles
- Mailing address
Include a ‘backgrounder’
A “backgrounder” is an informative document typically attached to media kits and even press releases and media advisories. It’s an opportunity to offer more information about your company or the product you’re making (or service you’re offering).
Make sure that when you’re writing your backgrounder, you stay focused. Don’t go off-topic. It can include:
- A brief description of your business
- The history of your business
- Any milestones and awards
- A description of your highlighted product, service or event (if relevant)
- You vision and mission statement
Highlight your founders and employees
If you focused on your business in your introduction, now is the time for a brief one-page section that’s about your founder(s) and other employees.
It’s a personal touch that can help your media kit stand out. You can mention your founder’s history, your employees’ work ethic and more. You want to humanize your business. Just make sure that you’re concise and straightforward.
Of course, you’ll want to include an image of your founder(s) and a group photo of your employees.
Proof your media kit
Once you finish your media kit, proofing is incredibly important. Ideally, you can have other team members proof and review the media kit for you.
But at the very least, you should give a couple read-throughs with some time in between. You also can read out loud, proofread for one type of error at a time and/or print out a hard copy and mark edits in red pen.
Distribution is subtle
Once all the edits are made, make sure that you convert your media kit to PDF format for digital distribution. That way, readers cannot make any edits of their own.
But what you might not know is that distribution isn’t about bombarding various journalists with your media kit upfront. Instead, send an initial press release to media outlets that could help you reach your target audience. Then, if an outlet is interested in covering your story, you can send your full media kit.
Many businesses have their media kits available for viewing and downloading on their websites as well.
While digital media kits are popular, you might have a need for a hard copy version. Make sure that you have it professionally printed. If you cut any corners in the printing, it will show.
In conclusion
At the heart of a great, effective media kit are honesty and brevity. But before you dive in, take the time to research the media kits that other businesses have. What do you like or not like about them? You can learn a lot simply from looking at your favorite businesses. Use your takeaways to help construct your own media kit.
While you’re creating your media kit, think about your digital marketing process. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automation, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.
